#which it turns out was a better system!!!

[hees-mine]

Always - L. HS

Pairing: heeseung X fem reader

Warnings: smut, unprotected sex, dirty talk, cursing, angst.

Genre: brothers best friend.

WC: 4k+

Posting this here because i want to get it out of my drafts since it’s been there forever it’s old so it’s not good but oh well lowkey want to make another story with this trope though 👀 a better one

-

“Sure you don’t want to come with?” Your brother Jake cracks open your bedroom door, checking with you one last time.

“I’m sure I’m not feeling well today, so I think I’ll just stay home,” you told him a little white lie, pulling your blankets up to your chest.

“Alright I’ll be back in an hour or so do you need anything?” He asks like the caring brother he is.

“Sleep,” you reply with a chuckle.

“Alright,” he laughs softly and turns off the light in your room.

As soon as you heard the door close from downstairs, you texted heeseung, your brother’s best friend and the guy you’ve been hooking up with for the past couple of months.

Ever since Jake introduced you to heeseung, there was definitely undeniable tension between the two of you, but you both ignored it cause he didn’t want to break the bro code, and you didn’t want to disappoint your brother, so both of you kept your hands to yourselves.

That seemed to be working until you both entered college together, and to celebrate everyone’s success of getting into college, one of your mutuals threw a house party you had to attend cause you were one of the people being celebrated, and obviously, so was heeseung.

That night, neither of you could keep your eyes off the other. It started out with flirty glances and winks from across the room; then, after a few shots, it progressed into you both dancing together, him behind you, holding your waist while you sway your hips to the beat, feeling the unmistakable hardness in his jeans.

The alcohol in your system and the way his hot breath fanned across your face whenever he complimented your figure had you melting into him, and what made you give in completely was the subtle but very effective rolls of his hips, his hard-on brushing against your ass had you pulsing and dripping with need, and evidently, he was just as needy cause the words finally rolled off his tongue. “Let’s go upstairs.” With one last glance around the party, your brother was nowhere in sight, and you both snuck off to a vacant bedroom where he gave you the best night of your life.

He fucked you so good after years of being pent up he released all of his want for you in one night, giving you round after round till you both were numb and shaking with unspeakable pleasure.

That night led you both to hooking up behind your brother’s back you both felt guilty that’s for sure but now that you had a taste of each other there was no way you’d be stopping anytime soon.

Which is why your fingers are excitedly moving across your keypad to set up another hookup.

“My brother just went to the mall. Do you want to come over?”

“Finally, I’ll be over in ten. Be ready when I arrive ;)”

You smile at his text and pull the blankets back, going downstairs to unlock the door for his arrival. You quickly go back upstairs, slipping off every article of clothing before getting back onto the bed and waiting for heeseung.

He seems to arrive earlier than ten minutes he may or may not have sped on the way there he parked a few blocks away to hide his car just in case and made his way to the door not bothering to knock cause he knew you always kept it unlocked for him and besides this was like his second home with as much time as he spent here with Jake he opened the door and headed upstairs straight to your bedroom.

He knocked gently his eyebrows raising with amusement cause the door was already cracked all he had to do was push it open and there you were sitting there looking all pretty underneath the covers. “Hey” he says quietly and steps inside shutting the door behind him.

“Hey,” you reply flirtatiously and peel back the covers, showing off your body.

He bites his bottom lip and tosses his jacket to the side of the room, easily slipping off his shoes, which he didn’t even bother to untie.

You watch him undress, your body already heating up with anticipation.

His shirt comes off next, and he walks to the edge of the bed and climbs on top, crawling over to you until he’s hovering over your naked body. “Always look so fucking pretty for me” he kissed your shoulder, and you wrapped your arms around his neck spreading your legs so he could get in between them.

“I try” You chuckle softly, and he captures your lips in a kiss slotting himself between your legs and pressing his semi-hard cock right against your pussy, causing you to moan of course, he uses the opportunity to slip his tongue inside of your mouth, exploring every last inch of you.

Tangling your hands in his hair, you bring him as close to you as possible, kissing him with just as much desire as he does with you.

When it becomes difficult to breathe, he pulls away the string of saliva between the two of you, getting lost as he starts to kiss down your neck. “Hmm, hee,” his hands trail down your sides, softly tickling your flesh before gripping your waist tightly and rutting himself against your naked pussy your wetness surely staining his sweats.

He nips at the skin of your neck, his hot breath sending a shiver down your spine as you buck your hips up into him. “Fuck baby, I can’t wait anymore” he pulls back, staring into your eyes, his eyes full of lust.

“That’s good cause we only have an hour,” you chuckle, running your hands down his chest til you reach the waistband of his sweats, pulling them down along with his underwear till his cock falls out he, ’s rock-hard precum leaking at the tip of his shaft twitching as he catches the way you stare at his length between your legs.

Once you pull his clothing down his thighs, he takes the reins, slipping the two articles down to his ankles, too impatient to get fully undressed. “Turn over. Wanna fuck that pretty little pussy from behind.”

Not one ounce of shame runs through your veins as you turn over on your stomach at record speed, presenting your holes to him.

“That’s it” he bites his lip spanking your ass, and watching it jiggle, he places both of his palms on your ass, kneading softly as he slots his length between your round ass cheeks. “Shit,” he whispers to himself, loving the way his precum stains your beautiful skin. “Ass up for me” You arch your back, burying your face into your pillows as you feel his tip prodding at your pussy lips. “Look at that pussy so wet for me” he slips his first finger in you, groaning at the feeling of your warm cunt clenching around his finger. He added another alongside his index one, and your walls welcomed him with ease. Your sticky wetness aids the process of stretching you out. “Fuck you’re taking my fingers so well could probably just slip my cock in you right now.”

“Yes please I can take it” you laid your cheek on the pillow heart pounding with anticipation as your breath quickens.

“Yeah? Want me to put it in you?” he curled his fingers inside you, causing your walls to clench yet again.

“Fuck yes, please stick it inside me, hee” Your breath gets sucked out of you the moment you feel his bulbous tip enter you.

You’ve been wanting this for the past few weeks and finally you were able to get what you’ve been craving for.

He lets out a sharp breath sinking his hard cock all the way inside you till he bottoms out. “So tight and warm,” he moans softly, his head rolling back as he holds your waist, adjusting to the wet sensation encasing his cock.

Your mouth parts in a gasp, legs going numb as you feel him stretch you out so good.

You grip the sheets, your walls clenching and unclenching around his thick pulsing cock.

He withdrew himself, pulling out until nothing but the tip was left inside and then thrusting forward, filling you up to the brim. “God damn, you always feel so fucking good,” he grunts, creating a steady rhythm sliding in and out of your wet pussy.

“Fuck” you breathe out, eyes tightly closing shut as you focus on the pleasure of his thick length rubbing against your walls so deliciously.

“Yeah? Feel good, baby?” He grabs hold of your shoulders for leverage, stroking your walls perfectly. “Taking it so deep for me,” he smirks, watching the way your pussy lips welcome his cock so warmly. “You like it deep, huh?” His eyes are lidded as he witnesses the sight of your juices, creating a creamy white ring of arousal around his base.

“Yes, love feeling your cock d-deep inside m-me fuck heeseung,” you whimper, unable to contain the way your walls squeeze around him.

“Fuck you’re so tight I’m not gonna last long,” he huffs, speeding up the movement of his hips. It felt too good to slow down the sound of his skin slapping against yours, making him even more feral. “Fuck fuck fuck” he lowers his hands to your waist, holding you still, but the force of his thrusts has you sliding up the bed, his cock head kissing your cervix with every thrust.

“Yes, please don’t stop right there,” you whine, toes curling as you gush around his cock, creating the wettest sounds you ever heard.

“Hear that baby? Your little pussy is talking to me. You must really be enjoying my dick, huh?” He asks, knowing full well you love how he fucks every single time.

“Hmm, yes,” you whine, feeling your high approaching.

“You close? I can feel you clenching on my dick so hard” he lets out a laugh, fingertips pressing into your sides, his balls loudly smacking your ass as his thrusts turn erratic.

“So close,” you mewl.

“M-me too gonna fill this pussy up make it even more creamy baby,” he grunts, thrusting like an animal in heat. Both of you are so close the familiar warm tingling sensation spreads throughout both your bodies.

You could feel it just a second away, but the sound of his phone ringing made you lose focus.

“Fuck” he grunts in frustration. His hand leaves your waist messily, reaching for his phone so he can shut it off and focus back on what’s really important, except when he reads the caller ID, his heart races. “Shit, it’s your brother,” he sighs, slowing the pace of his hips but still fucking his cock deep into you.

“Just ignore it,” you complain, wiggling your ass against him, trying to get him to speed up again.

“I can’t just keep quiet yeah” he takes a deep breath before answering. “Hello?”

“Hey, I was wondering if you wanted to come over I was just at GameStop, and I bought a few new games” heeseung presses your lower back down, arching you further so he can reach even deeper, and you use every last ounce of strength not to moan out loud from the feeling of his thick cock reaching the depths of your pussy.

“S-sure, what time are you fuck-“ he hisses as another gush of wetness releases around his cock. “What time are you thinking?” He swallows thickly, his breathing becoming heavier with each stroke. He’s too close right now. As soon as the call ends, he’s gonna release his load deep inside your sweet juicy pussy and give you what you deserve.

“I’m on my way home in about fifteen. I’ll probably take a shower too, so in about half an hour,” heeseung tries his best to focus on what his best friend is saying, but it’s hard when your pussy squeezes his cock so tight.

“S-sounds good. I’ll come over in about 45 minutes,” he groans softly, but it could still be picked up over the line.

“You okay? You sound weird,” Jake says on the other line.

Heeseung panic’s initially but then comes up with the most feasible answer he can think of. “I’m good just out of energy getting in a really really good workout” he bites his lip to hold in a moan.

“Alright, well, enjoy your workout. See you tonight,”

“See you tonight” heeseung hits the end call button at lightning speed, and as soon as his phone hits the mattress, he’s gripping your hip and fucking into you like a wild beast, his thick cock fucking your walls to no end. You’re screaming mess nonstop, moans and cries of his name spilling from your pretty lips. “Fuck yeah, baby, scream my fucking name”

“Heeseung!” You cry even louder as he snakes his hand under your waist and starts rubbing your clit. “Oh fuck I’m coming. I’m coming, heeseung!” You shriek, your eyes rolling back as you shake violently on the bed, your pussy pulsating around him.

“Yeah, let go for me, cum all over this dick,” he hums. “Gonna pump you full of my cum, baby. Want that?”

“Yes,” you whimper breathlessly.

“Oh fuck I’m gonna give it to you” After one last thrust, he’s emptying his huge load in your hole. “Shit baby, I’m cumming, I’m cumming” he grunts, hips wildly bucking into you, riding out his high, drilling into your heat, and filling you up to the brim with his cum. “Shit baby,” he throws his head back, panting heavily.

“Hmm,” you moan in satisfaction, his hands running all over your body, helping you come back down from the earth-shattering orgasm. You sink into the mattress, and he lays on top of you, panting as he leaves stray kisses all over your cheek, lips, and shoulders.

You both lay like that for a while, regaining your strength and being able to move again.

Everything is silent save for the short breaths you both let out. “Shit baby, I want you again already,” he chuckles against your ear biting your lobe softly as he rolls his hips sensually, pushing his cum deeper in you.

“Hee,” you whine at the feeling of his cock inside you. “I wish we could, but my brothers gonna be home soon,” you whisper.

“Fuck I wish he would leave more often. Going weeks without feeling your pussy is torture,” he laughs and rests his cheek on yours, relishing in the aftermath before he gets ready to leave.

Just before he begins to part from your body, you both hear the front door shut. “Shit,” heeseung slowly pulls out of your hole, both of you hissing at the loss of contact as all his cum streams from your hole.

You popped up out of bed, searching for his clothes so he could get dressed and leave a thick trail of white dripping down your thighs. “I thought he said half an hour!” You whisper yelled

“Me too,” he says, hopping on one foot to put his shoes back on.

“You have to go now,” you tell him urgently and open your window.

“Really?!” He whispers, knowing the window isn’t exactly close to the ground.

“Yes, now hurry.” he walks past you and doesn’t miss the mess he made between your legs. “Fuck” he shakes his head in disbelief. He can’t believe he had to leave you like that. If he had it his way, he’d fill you up all night long, but sadly, your brother and his best friend had to ruin it. “Kiss me,” he quickly whispered, and you gave him a little peck on the lips.

He goes out the window doing his best not to make a lot of noise and trying to grab anything for some type of leverage so he wouldn’t slip and fall.

After he got about half way he let go dropping to the ground softly and scurrying to his car to wait inside for another half hour and pretend like he had just arrived.

With a sigh of relief, you went to the bathroom to shower before bed.

That was close, almost too close.

-

As close of a call as that was, that still wasn’t gonna stop you from seeing heeseung again.

You were quite literally addicted to him.

But he was having other thoughts.

“Are you coming over tonight my brother is out again” this time you’d called him instead of texting.

“Nah, last time was close enough, and to be honest, I don’t think we should push our luck. Let’s just call this off.”

“Call it off?” You’re a bit surprised by that you weren’t expecting that would be his response but you understood where he was coming from.

Not to say you liked it, though.

“Yeah it’s not worth it anymore id like to live and if your brother catches me balls deep inside his sister I doubt he’d let me live” he chuckles but you don’t really find it to be that funny especially how he said it wasn’t worth it anymore.

“Well… okay I guess I’ll see you next time you and my brother hangout” you mumble a bit disappointed but you understood it was risky and you can’t really blame him for calling it quits.

“You will, dollface. It was fun while it lasted,” you smile faintly.

“Yeah…. Bye,” he ended the call first, and you tossed your phone to the side, sighing. Who were you going to get sex from now?

That question would be answered within just a few hours. Apparently, not just heeseung was hanging out with Jake today, but his friend Jay as well. You knew him well. He hadn’t been around much lately, but you did have a good relationship with him.

And now that you think about it, he was attractive, nice, and a good friend.

You’re sure he’s probably good in bed, too.

“Hi, Jay!” You cheered as he entered, already putting your plan in motion.

“Hey y/n! It’s been a while.” he walks over to you, ready to give you a side hug, but you pull him in a full hug, pressing yourself against his body. “Did you miss me or something?” he laughs awkwardly, wrapping his arms around you and hugging you just as warmly.

“Yeah plus I didn’t know you’d be coming over” you pull away from the hug hands still resting on his shoulders.

“Yeah, it was heeseung’s idea.” you both looked at heeseung, and he was just standing there already, staring at the two of you and your hands on Jay's shoulders.

“Good idea, heeseung. It’s nice seeing you after so long, Jay,” you smile, taking a seat.

“You too, y/n.” he offers you a warm smile, greeting everyone else as he takes off his jacket and shoes.

“Well, we were gonna play games, but since y/n seems excited to hang out with us, how about a movie instead so she can join us?” Jake suggested that since you weren’t into video games that much,

“Sounds good to me,” Jay agrees.

“No, id rath-“Heeseung got shut down immediately by Jake.

“Three against one, you lose; besides, we game all the time anyways,” Jake concluded and sat on the couch searching for a movie.

Once the movie was picked, you all went to the kitchen to prepare snacks and drinks for the movie night once you got all settled in, you took a seat on the couch when heeseung saw where you were sitting, he moved over to you, but since the conversation you both had last time you didn’t want to sit next to him you couldn’t be that close to him not when you were literally thirsting for him how could someone look so good in a baggy shirt and pants you had no idea, but your panties definitely did as they were already damp just feeling him so close was doing things to you.

The fact you couldn’t act on those things was torture.

So you got up and sat next to Jay, who was on the bigger couch, leaving heeseung to sit all alone. He watched you sitting next to Jay, laughing together at some scene in the movie that he couldn’t even pay attention to cause he was too upset seeing you both that close together.

Since when did you have so much fun with Jay?

Heeseung was unknowingly sulking each time you laughed or pushed Jay on the shoulder even the way you both ate out of the same bowl made him feel weird.

He folded his arms across his chest, jaw tightly clenched. After he saw you both feeding popcorn to each other, he had to stop watching you two before he lost it. “You got any alcohol?” He asked Jake cause he’d definitely need something to numb whatever dumb aching feeling that was in his chest.

“Top cabinet.” he nodded and stood up.

“The popcorn needs a refill,” you announced and went to the kitchen a few moments after heeseung.

“Woah, slow down,” you said and giggled when you saw him downing a bottle of liquor.

“I should say the same to you.” he chuckled and threw his head back, taking another shot.

“Come again? I’m not the one drowning in booze,” you laugh, opening another bag of popcorn.

“Yeah, 'cause you wanna drown in something else,” he mumbles to himself.

“What?”

“You heard me. I saw you all over, Jay. Wouldn’t it be better to fuck someone that isn’t friends with your brother?” He laughs while shaking his head.

“Ehh, I was with you, and it didn’t bother me,” you shrug. “Besides, I need to get it from somewhere,” you add in a joking manner, but he doesn’t take it that way.

“Not surprised”

“Excuse me?!” You say, feeling slightly offended you had no idea where this was coming from.

“Don’t act shocked. How the fuck do think that’s supposed to make me feel? When you’re all fucking over him after we just- just fuck it, whatever, I don’t care.”

“Heeseung, you’re drunk,” you replied, brushing his nonsense off.

“And you’re nothing but a fucking slut that can’t go one minute without a dick stuffed inside you before you go fucking running off to someone else” he raises his voice slightly, feeling his agitation grow.

“Shush!” You whisper. “What is it to you? You said it wasn’t worth it anymore. What do you think? I’m just gonna stop having sex because we’re not doing it anymore?” You say, confused.

“Cause I didn’t want to fucking get caught. I didn’t know you’d go out searching the very next day. We broke it off,” he sighs.

“What am I supposed to do? You’re obviously not an option anymore,” you say, getting defensive.

“I don’t know, maybe try a little harder to make something work between us,” he lowers his voice, picking at the label on the liquor bottle.

“Something like what? this was just casual sex”

“Casual?” He laughs softly.

“Yes, that’s what we agreed on,” you remind him.

“So all this time we’ve been screwing, you still just feel it's casual?”

“Yes, and so do you, 'cause you even said I wasn’t worth it,” you replied.

“Well, I fucking take it back, okay, I like you. It was never casual for me, and it’s only been a few days, but I fucking miss you already, and to see how quickly you moved on makes me upset, especially cause it’s right in front of me.”

“So why did you say it?” You ask.

“Cause I didn’t want to get hurt. I knew we couldn’t be public, and I thought maybe just ending things would lighten the blow, but it made it worse cause to see you all over Jay made me feel like shit hence why,” he holds up the bottle of liquor.

“Hee, I feel the same way, too, but when you said it wasn’t worth it anymore, I didn’t think you really cared about us that much, and Jay, I don’t even know. I think I was just trying to take my mind off of you, but I want you and you only.”

“Yeah?” He stands up walking over to you and resting his hands on your hips. “You really mean that?” He cups your cheeks his left hand caressing your face gently.

“Yes, I’m sorry I didn’t say something sooner,” you breathe out, getting lost in his eyes.

“Me too, but I understand, sweetheart. It was complicated, and I’m sorry for what I said earlier and for raising my voice and for cursing,” he rambles, and you laugh softly, wrapping your arms around him.

“I know I forgive you, hee.” You kissed the tip of his nose.

“Thank you, baby,” he smiles, pulling you into his arms. “I know it’s still complicated, but I’m gonna try my best to navigate through this with you. I don’t know what telling Jake will mean for us, but I think we should.”

“I’m scared,” you mumbled into his chest, fearing the disappointment your brother might feel if he found out about you and heeseung.

“Me too,” he chuckled. “But I know no matter the outcome, I want to be with you always.”

Leaning back, you looked up at him. “You mean that?”

“I do.” he smiles down at you, kissing your forehead and swaying you in his arms.

Only time would tell what the outcome would be of telling your brother you’ve been seeing his best friend, but you found comfort in knowing that heeseung would be there for you always.

-

Link to all my other works

[mediumcutsteak]

Its really really sad. I'm in English Education and the amount of people using AI to write papers or summarize the texts that theyre supposed to read is like full blown nihilism. I'm admittedly not the most well-read person and I will fully admit that, and life is hard and time is low, but at least I'm out here making an effort to READ like the English Major I'm supposed to be.

Meanwhile, My professors have been sort of... Mixed about ai i guess? Because we're being trained to like, grade papers and shit theyve had us use GenAI to like, compare output to our own work so we can recognize it better, which I think is fair game considering the field even if it still sucks. Then some of them will be like "use magic school ai to throw together quick layouts for worksheets and stuff" which is like... I mean I dont want to make or purchase the worksheets either but i dont know that its worth using the 'kill earth button' to generate a bunch of boxes on a document. They try to be hawkish about AI use to generate a whole paper but kids still use it to outline and shit. It really sucks.

We just did a whole unit in my Teaching Shakespeare class about AI output in relation to our reading of Hamlet, everyone agreed that the AI output was substandard and shallow (its better than I thought it would be I'll admit, but it still wrote like a D grade paper, which is really fuckin unimpressive considering its writing about a massively influential, thoroughly discussed text thats like 400 years old or whatever and it still couldnt outpace the handwritten essays we had to throw together in 40 minutes by hand with no computers or books or anything to cite from so we could compare them, in OKLAHOMA of all education systems). Despite this, theres at LEAST one guy in my class who STILL insists on using AI at every available turn despite LITERALLY BEING MADE TO SEE THAT ITS QUALITY IS SUBSTANDARD.

And this is in the education field. Sorry ya'll but if we can't get some major legislation on this shit yesterday, or if the AI doesn't reach a noticeable slop singularity soon, this planet is cooked. Not nation, planet. Literally and intellectually.

ur future nurse is using chapgpt to glide thru school u better take care of urself

[llamagirl28]

Llama's devlog

Hi folks! I decided to start making at least one monthly developer's blog for all followers, whether they are subscribed to Patreon/ko-fi or not, to let people know what I'm planning for the month, and where the demo is in term of progress.

For the past few months, I've been focusing on adding content the existing chapters, taking a pause from continuing chapter 5. The major change done is that the one-personality-trait choice that defined Mordred's dragon friend has been turned into a system of four archetypes, which have allowed me to better flesh out the character.

I've been working on editing the existing scenes with them to reflect the changes, as well as extending those scenes, and adding altogether new content which I'm very happy about. They are also a romance option now!

I'm working my way through chapter 3 now; I've made changes up to the secret meeting between Mordred and Arthur, and the subsequent confrontation between him and Morgana, in her POV. The dragon friend related changes aren't the only ones I've made: I have also sprinkled in some more dragon lore, and the dragons themselves are overall more present. There's also just general portions where I've upgraded the prose, or even added new tidbits. And we now have a quick character creator to jump directly into chapter 3.

This is all added in the private beta of the demo, available to all tiers on Patreon.

As for the Patreon extra content I'm working on this month, we have:

-Knight tier: A short story from Galahad's perspective; set soon after chapter 3 on the route in which Mordred has been trying to befriend him. The young squire, now returned to Camelot, is grappling with his doubts and trying to squash them down.

-Champion Knight tier: This month, Patreons have voted for a short story featuring Mordred and Gareth! The polls that will define their relationship is still ongoing - there's about twenty hours left! - and soon after I'll be posting the poll to choose Mordred's personality. 

Ko-fi has all of the perks above, except for the fact that the Champion Knight tier doesn't participate in the polls.

That is all for now! 🖤

[stevishabitat]

"The thieved partner is likely focused on maintaining functionality, so they may not even get the space or time to figure out a new system which might serve everyone better or reduce the task requirements."

"The Babcock, et al, and Mangino books I’ve cited above have recommendations and ideas, though sadly, I will point out that in a follow up to the No Club, the authors found that when they turned something down, another woman — usually one with less power — was asked. Systems were not disrupted."

I think this is just a trend everywhere but I've been very frustrated this week by how much admin work is being outsourced to me as the patient/customer.

My orthodontist tells me I can make an appointment with the surgeon. I call the surgeon. They tell me I need a new referral. I call the orthodontist. They do a referral. I call the surgeon. Referral didn't come through. They tell me about their special unique system we have to use. I call the ortho again and walk them through the referral. I call the surgeon. They say the referral was missing some details so they have to do it again. I call the ortho.

The insurance company calls me about repair shops. I give them the name of the repair shop which I already gave them yesterday. They say they're not in their system but I can use them, but I have to call the repair shop to ask them to contact the insurance company. I call the repair shop and they say the insurance company is supposed to email them.

I feel like at a certain point these constant fetch quests become unreasonable?? Is it too much to expect these groups to communicate with each other instead of making me run back and forth between them???

[tls12lessthan3]

So I’ve talked before about how the star stream systemically dehumanizes the incarnations and strips them of autonomy and how this represents the similar forms of dehumanization and losses of autonomy people (and particularly women) go through under capitalism. I wanna zoom in on one particular scene as a demonstration of that representation - the scene where Yoo Sangah and Kim Dokja almost kiss under Dionysus’s influence. 

Under the star stream it is repeatedly demonstrated again and again that people become products. Not only this, but your survival then becomes dependent on selling yourself - on becoming an entertaining enough story to keep people watching, or an attractive enough product to be worth investing in. Take the scene where Kim Dokja, surrounded by the stories of his fellow incarnations turned into literal consumable products, has to try to convince Persephone to invest in his own story by promising that devouring him will be satisfying enough to justify it. Metaphorically selling himself as a cut of meat (although of course he fully intends to smash the table before she can partake). A very evident form of dehumanization and loss of autonomy prompted by a money-oriented system..

So, how does this come back to the capitalistic hellscape we currently live in? 

When Yoo Sangah is drinking, Kim Dokja observes that she has a very high tolerance. This is because when out at drinking parties for work, many of her coworkers sought to take advantage of her, and so she did her best to stay aware by building up a high tolerance. From this we know that Yoo Sangah faced a vicious type of dehumanization in the workplace. To them she was a body to be consumed, rather than an individual whose autonomy was deserving of respect. And yet Yoo Sangah could not simply avoid these coworkers or these parties - not without fear of losing her job (especially considering one of such men was her boss Han Myungoh) and thus damaging her economic prospects. A terrifying loss of autonomy.

And then, almost immediately following this revelation, Yoo Sangah is made to almost kiss Kim Dokja by Dionysus. Here she faces the dehumanization inherent to being an incarnation, a dehumanization that parallels both types she faces in the above paragraph - that of a woman who is only seen for her potential as a sexual ‘’’’’’partner’’’’’’ (however unwilling she may be) for the men around her AND that of an employee who is reliant on her betters to keep her alive. Dionysus makes her lean in towards Kim Dokja because she’s a pretty girl, and because he, as one of her constellations, views her as a fun toy to play with. Kim Dokja can also be seen to represent an economic lesser put into an uncomfortable situation by an economic better who dehumanizes him here. 

Kim Dokja and Yoo Sangah have lost their autonomy in this scene, turned into dehumanized dolls who the constellations can mess with for an entertainment that incarnations need to sell to survive. Am I reading into it somewhat? Yeah, probably. Do I hold that this scene is a good representation of how the dehumanization and loss of autonomy, influenced by gender/misogyny, that the incarnations face under the star stream is not something new but rather a continuation of that which occurs under capitalism - also yes. As shown by Yoo Sangah ending up in the same place no matter what - drunk, uncomfortable, being pressured into something she doesn’t want and unable to simply leave considering who exactly is (literally or metaphorically) keeping her fed.

[whencyclopedia]

The gods and goddesses of Ancient Egypt were an integral part of the people's everyday lives for over 3,000 years. There were over 2,000 deities in the Egyptian pantheon, many whose names are well known - Isis, Osiris, Horus, Amun, Ra, Hathor, Bastet, Thoth, Anubis, and Ptah among others - but many more less so who were also important. The more famous gods became state deities while others were associated with a specific region or, in some cases, a ritual or role. The goddess Qebhet, for example, is a little known deity who offered cool water to the souls of the dead as they awaited judgment in the afterlife, and Seshat was the goddess of written words and specific measurements overshadowed by Thoth, the better known god of writing and patron of scribes. Ancient Egyptian culture grew out of an understanding of these deities and the vital role they played in the immortal journey of every human being. Historian Margaret Bunson writes: The numerous gods of Egypt were the focal points of the nation's cultic rites and personal religious practices. They also played a part in the great mortuary rituals and in the Egyptian belief in posthumous eternal bliss. (98) The gods evolved from an animistic belief system to one which was highly anthropomorphic and imbued with magic. Heka was the god of magic and medicine but was also the primordial force, pre-dating all the other gods, who enabled the act of creation and sustained both mortal and divine life. The central value of the Egyptian culture was ma'at - harmony and balance - represented by the goddess of the same name and her white ostrich feather, and it was Heka who empowered Ma'at just as he did all the other deities. Heka was the manifestation of heka (magic) which should be understood to be natural laws which today would be considered supernatural but, to the Egyptians, were simply how the world and the universe functioned. The gods provided people with all good gifts but it was heka which allowed them to do so. These gods all had names, individual personalities and characteristics, wore different kinds of clothing, held different objects as sacred, presided over their own domains of influence, and reacted in highly individualistic ways to events. Each deity had their own area of expertise but were often associated with several spheres of human life. Hathor, for example, was a goddess of music, dancing, and drunkenness but was also understood as an ancient Mother Goddess, also associated with the Milky Way as a divine reflection of the Nile River, and, in her earlier incarnation as Sekhmet, as a destroyer. The goddess Neith was originally a war goddess who became the epitome of the Mother Goddess, a nurturing figure, to whom the gods would turn to settle their disputes. Many gods and goddesses, such as Set or Serket, transformed through time to take on other roles and responsibilities. These transformations were sometimes dramatic, as in the case of Set who went from a hero protector-god to a villain and the world's first murderer. Serket was almost certainly an early Mother Goddess, and her later role as protector against venomous creatures (especially scorpions) and guardian of women and children reflects those characteristics. Bunson writes: The Egyptians had no problem with a multitude of gods and they seldom shelved old deities in favor of new ones. Characteristics and roles of various gods were syncretized to reconcile differing religious beliefs, customs, or ideals. For political and religious reasons, for example, the Theban god Amun, who was considered the most powerful deity in the New Kingdom, was united with Ra, a sun god whose cult dated to the beginnings of Egypt. Worship of the gods of Egypt evolved over time as large cults developed on a local and then on a national scale. (99) The following list of the gods and goddesses of ancient Egypt is derived from numerous works on the subject which follow below in the bibliography. Every attempt has been made to create a comprehensive listing but minor regional deities have been omitted if their role seems uncertain or they were transformed into major gods. When a major god evolved from an earlier minor deity, it is noted. Included also are concepts, such as The Field of Reeds or Lily Lake, which were regions in the afterlife associated with the gods. The definitions of the god's characteristics and the roles they played are synthesized for clarity but it should be noted that not every deity listed was understood in the same way throughout Egypt's long history. Osiris, for example, was most likely a fertility god in the Predynastic Period of Egypt (c. 6000-3150 BCE) but was already understood as the First King by the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3150-2613 BCE) and was the most popular god in Egypt during the time of the New Kingdom (1570-1069 BCE) at the same time that Amun was considered King of the Gods. Although these developments are sometimes noted below, the gods are generally described in the roles they were best known for at the peak of their popularity.

[out-there-tmblr]

Young zaundads wip (47)

***

It's not the sort of thing Vander's ever done before. Sure, he picked a few topsider pockets when he was a kid, bored and waiting around the laundry his ma worked at. He took a few coins from Pilties that could clearly afford it, but those were quick, unseen thefts. Not this. Not using his size and strength to grab someone off the street, to yank them into a dark riverside alley and shove them against the wall.

But Silco says it's worth doing. Worth keeping Babette onside, a favour that won't cost them anything as long as they keep their faces covered and do it fast.

"Besides," Silco says, "somebody needs to do it. Somebody needs to show those Pilties that they can't treat us like trash."

So they figure out a simple plan. Vander will grab him, rough him up, deal with however he tries to fight back. When he's got that desperation out of his system, Silco will step in with a knife and demand the coin.

They won't use each other's names and they'll keep kerchiefs tied over their faces. If they're lucky, the topsider will be too embarrassed to report it; if not, he's hardly going to be able to recognise two undercity thugs by voice alone.

It should be easy. One of Babette's workers sketched out a picture of the man, some minor cousin of some grand house, and they know which nights he visits Babette's. There aren't too many topsiders coming across the bridge at night, and the man stands out in his deep red coat and silver tipped boots.

They wait along the main path to Babette's, Vander on one of the narrow alleys between houses and Silco across the road, standing in the shadows and watching their mark get closer. Silco nods, and Vander reaches out of the dark, pulling the man in by his expensive clothes.

Vander shoves him up against the wall, one hand leaning hard on his breastbone, pinning him like a bug. He pulls back his arm and lands a punch on the man's jaw. "Hand over your money."

Vander braces for the man to fight back, to flail and kick and claw for freedom, but he doesn't. He stands there panting and shaking, blinking like he's about to cry. "You– you can't do this!"

Vander wants to look over at Silco but he forces himself to keep staring at the Piltie trapped against the wall, one hand clasped over the bruise quickly forming on his face.

He only landed one punch and the guy isn't even bleeding, but he's panicking and breathing so hard he might pass out. "Do you know who I am?"

He does. This is a man who cracked a girl's ribs, left her face bruised and dropped a few bronze coins at her feet. This is a man who agreed when Babette warned him and then came back the next week and did it again.

This is a man who thinks he can buy anyone in the undercity for a pittance, that their lives are worth less than the fancy shoes on his feet.

It's easy to hit him again. Satisfying to hear the crack of his nose breaking under Vander's fist, the blood dripping down his tanned skin. Even as Vander punches him again, he still doesn't raise a hand to defend himself, thinks he's so far above them he shouldn't need to bloody his own hands.

Vander lets his righteous anger take over, punches until the guy's head hangs limp, his whole body only upright because Vander's holding him against the wall. When he lets go, the man crumples to the ground, face bloody and bruised.

Vander stares at him. The fancy clothes smeared with the silt and muck of riverside. The limbs splayed awkwardly. The slight gurgle of his breath.

He could snap the man's neck and throw him in the Pilt, let him sink into the depths like so many before him. It's maybe not the smartest idea but… they had a smart plan. Vander just didn't follow it.

Vander knows that he starts fighting and he stops thinking. He's been told he's no better than an animal, just mindless violence once he starts swinging. He knows it but Silco doesn't. Silco hasn't seen him lose his temper… well, he hadn't.

There's movement in the shadows beside him and Vander turns his head to watch Silco's scuffed boots step closer. Careful steps, quiet, the way you'd approach a rabid dog.

Vander can't look up, can't make himself face Silco's expression. He steps aside to give Silco room, keeps his hands by his side. Silco has a strong survival instinct, as sharp as that little knife he carries. If he feels threatened, he'll probably lash out at Vander before Vander sees it coming.

"We were going to rough him up," Silco says calmly, nudging the body with his toe.

"Yeah," Vander says cautiously, looking down at the sprawled body at their feet. He wonders if the shiny fabric of his jacket tore when he fell.

"Looks pretty roughed up to me." There's a cruel satisfaction in Silco's tone that catches Vander by surprise. Silco doesn't look scared or upset, or any of the other things Vander feared. "What?"

"Aren't you…? We had a plan, and I didn't follow it."

"I'm not going to lose sleep over a Piltie. He did worse to Chari," Silco says, kneeling down and pulling the man's jacket open. "Keep an eye out."

Vander moves towards the mouth of the alley, watching for enforcers. They know Babette's is up here so they don't usually patrol – probably too much chance of running into topsiders they'll be expected to forget seeing – but it's still better to have a lookout.

While he watches the street, Silun unclips the silver pocket watch that was pinned to his waistcoat. Quick and methodical, Silco keeps searching the body, finding a second pocket hidden in the lining of the coat, with a smaller pouch of bronze coins. He takes the man's cigarette case and his rings, and then starts untying the man's black and silver boots.

"He still has to cross the bridge," Vander points out. "He'll need shoes."

"Hmm."

"And those would be terrible to work in."

Silco pulls one free and then feels inside it. "I'm not stealing his shoes," he says and then removes the other one. He feels around inside it, and then holds up another purse with a grin of triumph. "Knew it."

Silco tips it out into his palm, a small pile of gold. It's a fortune down here but it was just an emergency fund to this man. Silco gets to his feet, leaving the man's shoes laying beside him. He bends down and unclasps the silver chain at the man's shirt collar, and the clasps at the man's cuffs.

Silco stands up straight and then he kicks him. A good solid kick to his ribs that's bound to leave an ugly bruise.

"We should go," Vander says. "Before we're spotted."

It's easy to cut between the houses, to climb down to their land, to their tiny little building and find the lantern left there. It's the middle of the night but they have a few hours before the Grey starts rolling in. They climb upstairs to the storeroom and find a bottle of whisky to share.

Silco counts out the coins carefully. It's nearly sixty gold. More than a week's pay. Plus whatever they can get for the jewellery. Silco bundles it all together and tucks it into Vander's jacket. Then he takes the bottle from Vander and swallows deeply. They drink like that for a while, passing the bottle back and forth, not saying a thing.

"We should find glasses for here," Vander says, sprawled back on the wooden floorboards. He lifts his head to take a sip from the bottle and then lies back down.

"Yeah? You're going to turn it into a tavern?"

"I could." Vander hands over the bottle to Silco's waiting hand. "I'd make a good barkeep."

"You would," Silco agrees. He takes one more mouthful and then seals up the bottle, pushing it out of easy reach. "How's your hand?"

"Fine." He holds it out to Silco to show him. Vander's punched harder things than a sheltered Piltie. "See?"

Silco doesn't take his word for it. He rolls closer and takes Vander's meaty hand between his, turning it over and checking it for himself. Vander's already washed the blood off his skin. By tomorrow, there'll be no sign Vander threw a punch.

Silco presses a soft kiss to the back of Vander's hand, lips lingering against the skin. His thumb whispers over Vander's knuckles, tender and sweet.

"Don't you have something to say about tonight?" Vander prompts.

"You should be careful. If an enforcer had come along, he would have heard that beating."

"That's it?"

"That's it." Silco shuffles over and pulls Vander's arm around him, setting his head on Vander's chest and hooking a leg over Vander's hip. He's warm and comfortable, and the adrenaline and alcohol are making Vander sleepy.

They should get up and go home, but the door downstairs is safely locked and they have spare gas masks here if they have to cross the Grey in the morning. They haven't tested if the building is well made enough to keep out the Grey, but even if it leaks, they'd be safe a floor up.

"I don't scare easy," Silco says, voice low and soft. He sounds half asleep already, despite seeing Vander best a man unconscious an hour ago.

It doesn't make sense. "Look, Silco, tonight–"

"Go to sleep," Silco says through him in a cranky whine.

"But–"

Silco sighs and pushes himself up on an elbow. The lantern is turned down to its lowest glow, enough to catch the outline of Silco's features, his strong nose, his fine mouth pinched in annoyance. "What will make you stop talking and go to sleep?"

"Fine," Vander snaps back. "I'll be quiet."

Silco gets comfortable again, head on Vander's chest and hand hooked around Vander's shoulder. Vander lies there, too awake, waiting for Silco's slow breaths to settle into slumber. He feels like he should apologise for tonight except he's not sorry and he'd do it again. He just wishes Silco hadn't been there, hadn't seen the kind of man Vander truly is, the kind he's been trying not to be.

"It's not the first time I've seen someone beaten unconscious," Silco says quietly, holding Vander tighter. "Usually it's enforcers dragging someone off to Stillwater."

That feels cruel. Vander's better than an enforcer.

"They treat us like we're dirt," Silco says, voice low and intense, "like we're nothing. Like we should be sorry for existing. And everyone says be grateful, appreciate what we've got, like we should thank them for their scraps."

Vander curls a hand around Silco's back. He's heard this complaint before; he agrees with it. "We deserve more."

"It makes me so angry. All the time. Sometimes I can barely breathe past it. Yeah, you lost your temper tonight and ignored the plan. Yes, it was stupid because it increased the risk of an enforcer finding us, and he's definitely going to report it now."

Vander hadn't thought of that. He hadn't considered he was putting them both in more danger.

"Do you know how good it felt to see that?" Silco whispers like a secret. "To know that someone else is angry about this, that it's not just me?"

"It's not just you," Vander promises, pressing a kiss to Silco's hair.

"Now, will you go to sleep? Or do I have to wear you out?"

"If it's a choice…" Vander says hopefully and Silco reaches down to cup him through his pants. The same confident, certain way Silco always touches him. A firm rub of his palm and Vander's already getting hard.

Silco opens Vander's pants by touch alone, by habit and muscle memory. Vander buries his nose in Silco's hair as Silco wraps a hand around his cock.

It's not complicated, not fancy, but it's good the way it always is: Silco warm and solid against him, those talented fingers making him feel good. A little slower and firmer than Vander would use on himself, but it doesn't take long for Vander's breath to catch in his throat, for his whole body to tighten up and spill over Silco's fist.

Silco uses Vander kerchief to clean his hand and then wipe down Vander, to tuck him back into his pants.

"Now we're both getting some sleep," Silco says, and there's a world of affection in his voice.

***

[unoriginalcontent]

Been thinking a bit about this post; I do believe that to empathize with Trump voters, at least on an intellectual level, is important for purely pragmatic reasons. The idea there is that the right wing propaganda machine is a menace that no one knows how to deal with, and so if we can understand the concerns and anxieties of the conservative voter, we might have an opportunity to demonstrate how Trump is tangibly not addressing their problems and turn them against him. And hell, even if they did vote for him out of bigotry, maybe they'll still be willing to turn on him out of self-interest. However much it sucks, many of these people will not care if you simply point out that his policies harm other people. They've already set the human cost aside as acceptable losses, or else they outright support harming these people, which is why a different strategy is necessary for them. If we can get conservatives to turn on Trump, then even if it's not for the right and morally-correct reasons, that's still a win.

Of course that's all in reference to conservatives who were probably already predisposed towards whoever has an R next to their name on the ballot. When it comes to leftists who refuse to associate with democrats out of protest, I just don't know. I can understand that someone might want to vote out of self-interest and also believe that a Trump presidency is beneficial to them. Obviously they're likely to be wrong, but it's not hypocritical to have believed a lie and acted accordingly. Conversely, I think most leftists are people who will claim that government and voting shouldn't just be about self-interest, and that helping other people is a worthy end unto itself. And yeah, they should have known better.

If you're educated enough on the issues to have known all of Harris's shortcomings, how the hell do you not also know Trump's? If you know them both, how the hell can you conflate the two as equally bad?

We have this idea in the left that our systems are bad, and therefore we can never make progress until we destroy the systems entirely and build something new from the ashes. If you believe that, then please get your head out of the clouds because that's what Trump and Musk are trying to give us, and it turns out to be bad. We live in the system, we depend on the system, if we didn't then it wouldn't matter how many federal programs Trump is trying to abolish. Even if you specifically will be fine, you're writing everyone else off as an acceptable loss. It's not wrong to imagine and strive for a better world than this one, but unless you have viable alternatives ready and waiting, you won't get there by breaking things.

Maybe it's unfair to blame the current situation on people on the left who didn't vote for Harris. I don't even know how much blame matters at this point. And yet I think this is an important thing for all of us to keep in mind. Your moral clarity can be used against you. No matter how good and pure your ideals are, the real world has to come first. And right now that means acknowledging that a huge portion of our democracy chose Trump. And they don't care if you're hurt from his policies, or if I'm hurt, for a lot of these voters your suffering is probably just sugar on top. OP is absolutely right, they probably don't regret wishing leopards onto other people, but that doesn't mean it's not worth convincing them that we should stop the leopards before their faces are eaten. People are going to be poisoned by food which they voted to deregulate, and a part of me wants to think of that as justice. I feel angry. I feel spiteful. These people are taking human rights violations and touting them as victories, fuck them. But anger and spite won't fix anything, even from our side. And no matter how awful some of these people might be, together they're a hell of a voting block. I wish that I could force people to care about the suffering of others, but I can't. And so I hope that it's possible to at least get them to care about themselves.

And if you do think of yourself as progressive, and you still refused to vote for Harris, then I think OP is right, and you really do take a look at yourself. It is true that many of our problems are created and perpetuated by larger institutions beyond our control, but when it comes to democracy, it's not enough blame the system. You're a part of the system. If you don't want to participate, you need to have an alternative that is—crucially—viable, actionable, and realistic in the immediate short term. If you don't have that, which I guarantee you don't, then high-stakes elections are not the time for moral grandstanding.

Sorry for rambling here on your post, I'm probably a bit scattered. I've been having a lot of discussions with people about this sort of thing lately. Whatever strategy the left has for winning hearts and minds, it clearly hasn't worked if someone like that can still win the popular vote. I don't know how to fix that. But I think we all need to be a lot more comfortable ceding the moral high ground if it means making progress in the trenches.

Trump voters owe me financial compensation.

[badbatchposts]

Not Dead Yet

Read on ao3

Author's Note: This fic covers the events of the first four chapters of my longfic, Quiet Corners of the Galaxy, from Dara's point of view. If you haven't read the fic, be aware that this contains spoilers for Dara's backstory, which otherwise remains a mystery until chapter 19. The longfic is NSFW/Explicit, but this fic is not and only contains a brief, non-explicit reference to sex.

Summary: Dara's mission is falling apart, and she thinks this might finally be the one she doesn't make it out of alive--until she's unexpectedly rescued by a mysterious sniper...

Commissiond art by @imrowanartist

Get up.

Dara groaned, her eyelids fluttering. Her brain was foggy, like the jungle in early morning as all the dew began to boil off into steam, and there was too much happening at the edges of her awareness. She wanted to keep her eyes closed, to settle back into her chair and sleep it all off.

Get up!

Everything was pain and alarms blaring, the smell of smoke and an angry voice inside her head. Something had gone wrong… What had she been doing? Whatever it was, it was pointless. Lost in all the fog.

Get the kriff up!!!!

Dara shot to awareness with a jolt, straining against the straps that held her bound to the pilot’s chair. Adrenaline kicked in as she frantically observed her surroundings. Gentle sunlight filtered in through the viewport of the cockpit, catching on a haze in the air. Everything was in disarray, anything that hadn’t been bolted down or strapped in thrown about by the impact. The electronics of the dash in front of her sparked and sputtered for a few more moments until they finally died altogether.

Assessment: the situation was less than optimal.

She was kriffed three ways to Taungsday.

Still, besides a few additional cuts and bruises and the throbbing in her head, she could thank the stars that she wasn’t much worse off than she’d been before the crash.

Unluckily, she was quickly reminded that she’d already been doing badly enough. The moment she released the straps and tried to haul herself to her feet, a burning pain shot up from her leg, nearly causing her to buckle back over. The simultaneous protesting from her ribs showed she wasn’t doing much better there, although she didn’t have the time to figure out if anything was broken.

You’re not dead yet, the voice in her head hissed.

She had to make a plan, figure out where she was and see if the ship was salvageable.

Dara managed to haul herself painfully out of the cockpit and toward the exit hatch of the Imperial shuttle, carefully dodging a few small fires and piles of debris. When she’d been in hyperspace, she’d—just barely—managed to calculate a few possible trajectories for where she’d end up as her systems started failing. Two were systems with no Imperial presence, at least according to her last intel. The third…

She emerged into a pleasant, shady forest and turned to view the utter wreckage of the Imperial shuttle with dismay, rage boiling at her terrible luck.

“Karking—!”

Dara swore, punched the cold durasteel of the hull, and immediately regretted adding bruised knuckles to her catalogue of injuries.

You’re not dead yet, her own voice reminded her again, cold and determined. Get it the kriff together.

Dara dragged herself back into the shuttle, moving as quickly as she could. This planet—why she couldn’t land on the one with no Empire and black-sand beaches, or even the swamp if she had to take it, only the Force knew—had a large enough Imperial presence that she could expect stormtroopers to be converging on her location within a matter of minutes. There would be no repairing the ship—she didn’t even have time to search it for medical supplies to treat her injuries. She grabbed her pack, retrieved her blaster, settled her poncho on her shoulders, and set out.

If only she could put enough distance between herself and the crash site, the Imps might miss her altogether. At the very least, she’d have plausible deniability and the chance at a cover story. But she could already tell she was limping too badly to make it far on her own two feet. Her best bet would be to find a good place to hide and hope that—

“Stop right there!”

Too late.

Dara smiled charmingly, slowly raising both her hands. “Oh, thank the Maker! I was out hiking when that ship just fell out of the sky! Do you think everyone is alright?”

She didn’t have to see behind the blank faceplates of their helmets to know the stormtroopers would never believe that act. As good a liar as she could be, there was no explaining away the soot smudged on her cheeks or the blood trickling down her forehead.

But all she needed was the opening as both troopers leaned back, releasing their grips on the handles of their speeder bikes—and their thumbs off the triggers—to switch to their hand blasters.

She’d practiced quick-drawing her concealed blaster from over her shoulder hundreds upon hundreds of times. She was nearly as deadly with her hands behind her head as with them at her side.

As the first trooper fell, Dara was already diving behind the closest tree. She hissed in a breath when the pain in her leg flared up hard again, her hand shaking a little as she tried to line up a shot that would take the remaining Imp down. It took precious minutes, but finally she sent the trooper flying off his bike with the force of the blast that struck his right shoulder.

Dara swallowed the pain. Just one final push, and she’d be on a speeder bike making her way far from here to find a safe place to hide out.

For the second time that day, her hopes vanished in a flash of blaster fire, screeching metal, and fire.

Not dead yet, the voice insisted again, but it was getting quieter as her hold-out blaster slipped through her fingers and she barely managed to throw herself clear of the explosion. Her body was reverting to the muscle memory of her training, her larger blaster in hand and cover already reobtained before she consciously willed it. Six hostiles, her foggy brain vaguely registered. Her trigger finger squeezed again and again in their direction, but her hands were shaking even worse now, and her leg burned as she tried to retreat further up the hillside behind her.

It happened in a second. Somewhere between looking for her way out and aiming for her next target, she extended too far from behind the tree that she was using as a shield. A blaster shot clipped her at the hip and she felt herself fly with the force of it, landing on her backside hard. She probably screamed—her throat felt hoarse, anyway—but all she could focus on was the soft soil beneath her fingers, her blaster thrown who knows where, and the white helmet of the trooper slowly advancing on her.

You’re going to die. The whisper at the edges of her mind was no longer hostile, no longer chastising or aggressive or ready to take on anything and everything. It didn’t sound like her anymore. It was a comfort, a longing, a reassurance that there was nothing she could do. It wrapped around her, quieting whatever last curses she could have spat at the stormtrooper who was aiming for her end.

The voice sounded strangely like Steela’s.

She closed her eyes, and heard the blast ring out.

Then another.

She was still here.

Not dead yet, her own voice roared back to life, triumphant and rageful, and she snatched her blaster up from where it had landed a few meters away. Two more far-off blasts rang out near simultaneously with the ones she sent at the two troopers closest to her as the Imps flailed wildly in all directions, trying to locate the sniper and find cover, never to realize it was already too late.

Dara panted and fell to her knees in the dirt, feeling like the adrenaline was draining out of her all at once. Her head pounded harder than ever, and the pain from where she was shot—both times—came back with a vengeance. Her body felt like one big bruise, and all she wanted to do was lay down right there and then.

Get up!

Her inner voice had a point. Kriff knows where that sniper came from, but she sure didn’t want to meet whatever lifeform managed four clean headshots in no more than eight seconds. Glancing over at the bodies where each helmet was pierced in near precisely the same place, she shuddered—it was incredible, she had to admit, but scary—and hauled herself to her feet again. She was still limping toward the speeder bikes when the tall, lean figure emerged from among the trees on silent feet, like some feline predator.

Dara absorbed the sight of him in a fraction of a second—the well-used, gray and red armor, the impressively long rifle showing he was packing serious firepower—and knew no good could come of this encounter.

She aimed her blaster at his heart, warning him, “Stay back.”

He didn’t flinch, didn’t even move to point his own weapon back at her. His voice, when it came, was a lazy, sarcastic drawl that instantly got her hackles up.

“Are you even sure you could ride one of those things by yourself right now?” he scoffed.

There was nothing Dara hated more than a smug man who dared to doubt her.

“Of course I can,” she snapped back.

She kept her blaster trained on him, calling on her final reserves of energy to keep herself steady, and grasped the handle of the closest speeder bike with the other hand. Staying focused on the sniper and alert for any sudden movements, she swung her leg and mounted the bike.

Starting in her leg then spreading through her hip, ribs, and head, every injury seemed to finally flare up at once, shrieking, burning, stabbing, throbbing, aching, and the inner voice was silent as everything went black.

Dara groaned, her mind limping toward the vague shape of consciousness for the second time that day. For a moment she couldn’t recall what had happened—too much to drink again, maybe, she had to be better about that. She felt vibrations below her and the wind against her face, a pleasant warmth at her back that made her want to sink back into darkness again.

Behind her, a masculine voice rasped out words she couldn’t quite internalize. Did she take someone home from the cantina last night? If so, she was going to have to find a way to get rid of him as quickly as possible so she could nurse her hangover in silence.

In fact, there was a lot she was going to be nursing, she realized as she became more aware of the aches plaguing every centimeter of her body. Too many aches for even the roughest sex, and—

Oh. Right. Mission, crash landing, certain death, mysterious sniper.

She was having trouble focusing through what was almost certainly a concussion. She needed—what did she need to do next?

Ship—get back to my ship.

“That shuttle’s not going anywhere anymore,” the voice drawled in reply to her accidentally murmured words. Dara felt the speeder bike come to a stop, the warmth behind her shifting and carefully helping her to stand.

The sniper—where was he taking her? Dara managed to flutter her eyes open, squinting through her blurry vision to find that they were approaching a sleek black-and-gray attack shuttle, its sharp, mynock-like wings folded up vertically. At the top of the open ramp was another helmeted individual in similar armor, though his was painted turquoise and orange.

She didn’t have much time to reflect on that before the sniper’s fingers grazed the blaster burn at her hip, sending a painful shock to her system and reminding her that she was at the mercy of at least two unknown, well-outfitted fighters.

Dara struggled, trying to push the sniper away. “Hands off,” she attempted to growl threateningly, though it came out more as a pained wheeze.

“Fine.” The sniper dropped her unexpectedly, and she landed in a heap on the ground as he strode away toward the ship. “Stay here, for all I care.”

He wasn’t—wasn’t he kidnapping her? She hadn’t expected it to be that easy. Of course, she was struggling enough to simply drag herself back upright, so it’s not like she could have fought him off. Dara heard the two men talking and tried to listen, but her head was still foggy, and she only managed to make out their tones, the sniper’s hoarse complaint being met with obvious frustration by his comrade.

Then she was suddenly lifted up into the arms of the biggest human she’d ever seen.

This man was helmet-less, the scarred half of his face and milky-white eye contrasting terrifyingly with a mad, exuberant grin. “Not to worry, lil’ lady,” he declared, carrying her on board the ship. “We’ll take good care of ya.”

Oh—maybe she was being kidnapped. Not that she could do anything more than weakly paw at the giant’s chest plate in protest.

Dara felt herself laid down with unexpected gentleness on a bench. Her surroundings were a blur as the whir of the engines started up, everything going dark and distant, only a few vague sensations managing to penetrate her daze. More male voices, familiar and new; the beeping of a scanner; the pricking of a hypo; rough, efficient hands against her hip.

Finally, with a groan, she managed to pry open her eyelids as the meds kicked in fully, taking the edge off the pain and quieting the ache in her skull to a dull roar.

She was surrounded by five men, all dressed in similar armor. Nearest to her was one with thinning, brown hair and a thick set of goggles, his hands occupied with medical supplies and a datapad propped up at his side. The giant hovered nearby, evidently in the middle of arranging a group of crates. A few meters away in the cockpit, bathed in the lights of hyperspace, was a pale, bald man with three cybernetic limbs, a headpiece, and—was his arm replaced with a scomp link? The one who first met them at the ship had removed his helmet to reveal long brown hair and a half-skull tattoo shading the left side of his face. He was examining her with a furrowed brow and crossed arms.

Finally, the lanky sniper lounged on the bench opposite her, a toothpick dangling between his lips. His face was severe, all sharp angles and an impressive scowl. A tattoo of a circle crossed by intersecting lines surrounded one of his golden eyes as they met her with an overwhelming intensity.

Nice eyes, Dara thought stupidly. Handsome face.

There was a strong resemblance between the men, and, more than that, they all looked strangely familiar.

All armored and outfitted with serious weaponry. An attack shuttle with even more firepower. Mercenaries, no doubt, though who knew what they wanted with her—or whether she was compromised.

Dara knew what to do. Try to maintain her cover. Come up with a good story. Act frightened and uncertain. Let them underestimate her.

If only her brain were currently capable of cooperating. Instead, she bared her teeth in a snarl, her fight instinct overcoming her still-limited ability for rational thought.

“Who the kriff are you?” she demanded.

Face-Tattoo approached her cautiously, crouching down with his hands spread. The body language was clear: he wasn’t going for his weapons, although Dara had no doubt that he could have the nasty-looking knife sheathed in his vambrace in hand before she could blink.

“Hey, hey. Easy now,” the man cajoled.

Behind him, the sniper rolled his eyes. “I hardly think she needs consoling. She did take out four troopers on her own,” he noted irritably.

What was this guy’s problem? She didn’t ask him to bring her here.

“That you know of,” Dara couldn’t help herself from muttering, thinking of the stormtroopers she’d had to plow through to steal the shuttle in the first place. Speaking of which, she dragged herself up to sitting, wincing against the ongoing ache in her ribs. “Where’s my gear?”

The data she’d stolen was concealed in a hidden pocket in her pack. If it had been left behind—or if these mercenaries managed to find it—she would have spent weeks undercover for nothing.

“Careful there. Hang on just a minute,” Face-Tattoo continued. “You’re hurt pretty bad. Just rest up, and we can help you out. What’s your name?”

“Who’s asking?” Dara replied warily. She glanced over the bunch again. If they had no idea who she was, and they had killed the Imperials, then there was no motivation for them to hold her. Was this all just a coincidence? A sniper—a miserable, obnoxious, shiveringly intense one by the way he was looking her over—who just happened to be in the right place at the right time to save her neck?

Face-Tattoo smiled a little, gentling his features despite the frightening visage. “I’m Hunter. That’s Tech, Echo, Wrecker, and Crosshair. We’re not going to hurt you. Crosshair said Imperials were after you, so he took you back to our ship.”

Crosshair, hmm? A little on-the-nose. All their names were, in fact. Call signs, maybe? Still, Dara let herself relax a little, more conscious of the role she had to play as the fog in her head continued to lift a bit further in response to the medicine.

The one with goggles sitting next to her—Tech—adjusted his eyewear thoughtfully. “How did you find yourself out there?” he inquired.

Dara squinted. “I could ask you the same thing.”

 “We weren’t the ones crash-landing in a stolen shuttle,” the cyborg, Echo, observed, and, well—he had a point.

Dara stayed quiet instinctively. Better not to say anything than to trip up on a lie later. They knew she was suspicious of them, and certainly for an understandable reason. She would keep observing until she was ready to spin a solid cover story. Already, at the back of her mind, she was weaving the threads she would need to convince them.

Sure enough, the leader, Hunter, chuckled. “Not too chatty, eh?”

Dara analyzed his face cautiously, trying to read his expression through the tattoo. He seemed concerned for her, but not overly, relaxed enough to take her sudden appearance in stride.

Still, she knew that sort of attitude could change in a blink with mercenaries. They did what they needed when credits were potentially involved, and many of them were the scum of the galaxy.

Case in point—

“I’m sure I could find a way to get her to talk,” the sniper leered. Dara kept herself from rolling her eyes as Hunter glared at Crosshair almost scoldingly.

“Ignore him,” he insisted gently. “Look, we get it. We’re not exactly friends of the Empire, either, and you never know who to trust. We’re on our way to Ord Mantell. It’s going to be a few hours, but there’s a spaceport there. Take some time to recover, and then you can be on your way.” With that, the leader set off for the cockpit.

An interesting development. Maybe the best thing to happen to her all day. Although she’d never been there before, Ord Mantell was one of the dozens of seedy planets where she knew how to access a subspace communications transceiver. With any luck, she’d be able to contact Saw, transmit the data, and find a way off-planet before the rotation was out.

Dara startled out of her planning suddenly when Tech tried to reach for her leg.

“Your recovery will be significantly longer if you do not receive treatment,” he observed in a polite, but matter-of-fact tone.

The men had saved her life; they were giving her a ride; and now they were continuing to give her medical treatment, without asking for anything in return. What kind of mercenaries were these?

Still—and as much as she avoided medics like the plague—Dara’s various aches hadn’t faded nearly enough with the hypo to turn down further help.

“Fine,” she allowed. Tech treated her leg briskly and efficiently, and without any scolding commentary. Dara made a mental note to remind Ryndi that such a thing was possible whenever she managed to make it back to base.

She was still savoring the cool, refreshing feeling of the bacta against her calf when Tech sat back.

“Please remove the clothing over your torso. I need to examine and wrap your ribs,” he instructed. Dara carefully shucked off her poncho, holsters, and shirt, her ribs still twinging terribly. She sucked in a cautious breath against the pain as Tech began palpating them gently and administering the medicine.

Over Tech’s shoulder, she caught Crosshair’s golden eyes tracing their way down her figure with open hunger. He was a little slack-jawed, the toothpick in his mouth drooping precariously.

When he finally realized she was watching him, the sniper only raised an amused eyebrow and smirked.

That kriffing asshole.

If she had been in her right mind and maintaining her cover, she might have flirted. Sure, she would have felt bile in her throat the whole time, but she knew better than to be openly hostile in a situation where she was trapped like this. Being agreeable was safe. It got people talking, let them overlook you.

Instead, she snapped, “What’s your problem?”

“Just enjoying the show,” Crosshair purred, that slimy little—

“Please do not antagonize her, Crosshair,” Tech scolded, securing the bandages carefully as he finished wrapping her ribs. He was bent over still, focusing on his task, and his blaster was right there in reach—

It was probably the concussion that made her do it, Dara thought idly even as she leveled the blaster at the sniper in challenge.

“Say that again,” she growled.

Crosshair only smirked wider, apparently beyond pleased with himself. Around her, she felt and heard the rest of the men unholster their own weapons within an instant, no doubt pointing them right at her, although she didn’t shift her gaze from the sniper’s smug, smarmy, stupid face.

Finally, she tossed the blaster to the floor with contempt, and the others all relaxed back into their activities without a word while Tech retrieved it. Strange, but maybe they were used to this sort of thing, if this was how Crosshair always behaved. She wouldn’t be surprised.

Sure enough, she swore she could almost detect the ghost of a knowing smile on Tech’s unusually impassive face. Apparently satisfied with his medical efforts, the man simply gave her a final once-over, adjusted his goggles, retrieved his blaster, and got to his feet.

“Crosshair, she has a concussion. Keep her awake,” he instructed as he joined the others in the cockpit, nose already buried in his datapad.

The sniper was still smirking. “Oh, goody,” he drawled sarcastically, and Dara had the troubling suspicion that his ideas for doing so were going to be irksome.

The ache in her head was already coming back. She rubbed her forehead and ran her fingers through her dirty, sweat-matted hair, begging the Force to give her patience.

“Can I at least have my pack?” she pleaded wearily. A cup of jha-ay would help clear her head so she could focus on getting through the rest of the ride through hyperspace.

Crosshair examined her with idle suspicion, worrying his toothpick, as he pulled her pack from the shelf behind him. Dara carefully schooled her expression to keep from betraying her relief that the data was safe.

“Anything… dangerous… in here I should know about?” the sniper murmured.

Dara could have laughed at the irony. He didn’t know the half of it. Surely he was worried about any weapons, and the most dangerous thing she had was the tiny datachip hidden in the lining—if she excluded herself.

“Dangerous?” she questioned innocently. “Not me. I avoid danger. Just trying to make a life in a nice, quiet corner of the galaxy.”

And, well, at one time she had been.

“I’m sure the hijacked Imperial shuttle was all a misunderstanding, then,” he countered smoothly, rummaging through her pack and taking her utility knives before handing it over. Not that she cared as she threw herself into the familiar routine of preparing the tea, finally feeling some of the tension in her body loosen when she sat back and took a long, hot, comforting sip from the metal straw.

Crosshair was watching her.

“Habit I picked up on Endor,” she tossed out by way of explanation, which was true. Her easiest cover to pick up was the one nearest to her real identity: a former linguist, familiar with roughing it on mostly wild planets from her years of fieldwork, now a quiet nomad living out of her ship and going wherever the seasons and her whims took her.

Close enough to who she really had been—if you didn’t count the time spent helping liberate her home planet from Separatists. Or that she’d been back helping foment a galactic rebellion for nearly a year.

“There is no civilization on Endor,” Tech responded almost curiously from the cockpit. “It is inhabited only by hostile primitives.”

An unfair but, unfortunately, all-too-common perception of the Ewoks, who, Dara knew from experience, were strong warriors, clever engineers, and a deeply spiritual people. She would trade Endor for Coruscant any day.

“I’ve seen how civilization is defined in the Galactic Empire. I prefer to spend my time with the primitives,” Dara replied, a bit haughtily.

“Is that little… ideological disagreement… how you ended up shot?” Crosshair interrupted.

Dank farrik, Dara knew now that he was looking to trip her up in any way that he could. The sniper seemed to be naturally suspicious, and certainly her early mistakes under the concussion—not to mention what he must have seen during the firefight—had gotten her off to the wrong start with flying under his radar.

She sipped her jha-ay, savoring the bitter, grassy flavor, and held his gaze steadily. Dara had undergone far worse interrogation before, and she certainly wasn’t about to let this bastard get the best of her.

After a moment holding her under his intense scrutiny, Crosshair finally seemed to relent, turning his attention toward his rifle. Dara observed him through lidded eyes as he produced a rag from seemingly nowhere and set about cleaning it attentively.

She was drawn almost hypnotically to the careful, rhythmic motion of his long fingers even as she idly noted the make and model. 773 Firepuncher…it rang a distant bell in her memory, dredging up recollections of long, hot days in the jungle, Steela lecturing on the relative merits of the different options as she modified her own high-powered weapon…

Dara could almost feel herself drifting off on a long-gone, hazy afternoon, but pulled herself carefully back to the present. Crosshair was still focused elsewhere, and her time was better used to examine her surroundings more thoroughly.

There was something about these mercenaries that kept nagging at her. Familiar faces and voices, a familiar weapon, the impression that she’d seen them before, already knew them somehow…

It was a glimpse of a Republic cog on an old, tucked-away crate that finally made the pieces fall into place, striking her like lightning from a blue sky.

Clones. They were Republic clones.

Dara had no idea how she hadn’t realized it the moment she’d seen them. Well, admittedly, this bunch was a much larger variation on the standard than she’d ever come across, but now that she’d realized, it couldn’t be more obvious in that strong, broad nose, those deep, brown eyes.

She couldn’t believe what had landed in her lap. Her wounds, her concussion, the shit day she’d had—it was all forgotten as she schooled her face, solidified her cover story, and made her plans.

Anti-Imperial clones. Deserters.

They were exactly what she’d been looking for.

Tag list: @stardusthuntress @skellymom @megmegalodondon @somewhere-on-kamino @morerandombullshit @zahmaddog @flaming-dumpster @clonexocweek

[aturinfortheworse]

it may have taken me 15 years but i have finally learned to make sure each draft of a book contains a note right at the start saying "Here's when I started this draft and why and how it relates to the other twenty-seven-and-a-half drafts with titles like 'The Remaining Gods 2018 (Older) Unabridged Edited.'"

[pigeonentity]

i keep thinking about them in terms of for and against each other: thirteen's against, twelve's for, eleven i think would be against, ten's for, and i haven't watched anything before him (yeah ikk im getting to it soon. watched it w my parents the first time so its on them) so i can't speak beyond that. dhawan's against, missy's for, and simm's against. like they've all got at least a little of both but they have a general direction

twissy worked out because they both cared about each other. missy came to help the doctor when he thought he was going to die, the doctor... locked her up, but he did have good intentions. i dont think we can say spydoc worked out, but i think since they both hated each other it went smoother than it could have. and tensimm was fucking doomed (neither of them want the same thing. they want each other to be different people)

twelvesimm, which was overshadowed by twissy but still deserves a mention, i think is similar to tensimm but with time could have had a higher chance of success, since 12, i think, might have responded more to him rather than trying to push him into someone who wanted to be better. tbh it might depend on the doctor's mood that day, im a little uncertain about this one but at the very least its a vaguely more functional tensimm

thrissy would break me. thrissy would be the anti-tensimm. missy shows up, still an enemy but also always, willingly and knowingly, a friend, and this time it's the doctor who says no. who tells her to fuck off, less distrust than expected and more loathing. they fight until missy realises it's not their usual games, and the doctor's gone too far stopping her. i mean come on her master tried to have her and her companions killed but it's not like he actually did it-- but she turned him over to the fucking nazis before she even knew he destroyed gallifrey, and missy killed osgood just after the doctor offered to have her as a companion, how would 13 take that?

11missy (elmissy? elemissy? mileven? no.) would run similarly, but if we're going with her using her same plan that she used on 12... he would take the army. he would take the army, however little he trusted her. i can see it going a few ways-- she leaves or he kills her or he locks her up somewhere because he's the doctor and she's the master and that's what he does, she comes back and suggests conquering the universe together or something, he says no and they fight, he says yes because he excuses murder if it aligns with what he wants, or if he likes the person enough (look at who he married!!) and they murder across the universe and we have canon thoschei until a companion saves the universe from them or river gets jealous

11dhawan would be AMAZING they have VERY similar energy and it would be SO much fun but also-- parallels? you could do so many little parallels with that? we see them spin the same way at the same time and they hate each other but one comments on something walking down a hallway and the other comes by and says the same thing and ughhh who do i pay to make this happen??

12dhawan has a special place in my hearts and i cant completely say why i just need them to meet. i need to be there when the master shows the doctor the timeless child and he cant accept it. idk if he'd be able to go the "there's more of me!" way out that 13 did, but he might be able to half do it, in that he realises he can overload the system but they break out of there through spite. i need to be there when the doctor says that ofc burning gallifrey is wrong, but he sides with the master. they lied to us. they lied to both of us. i need to see the master's anger, because he's being forgiven again. but he's not forgiving him, it's more that he understands, or like what he said to clara-- do you really think i care for you so little that betraying me could make a difference?-- and the master doesn't know what to do with that. he is so close to being better. but he doesn't want to be. so he burns himself up

10missy would work BUT i think 10 might take the army and theyd be less functional than twissy

I FORGOT THE ONES AFTER 13 skipping 14 bc he blurs into 10 for me even though they're different, but 15 would be for and he and missy would both hurtle into "this is MY queer friends to enemies to whatever the fuck we are and i can be as weird and dramatic about it as i like" not only are they both for but they're both on the exact same level as to what their relationship is and they're so fucking weird about it it's brilliant. varies a bit depending on who missy kills but i think there's a lot of chaotic potential there

but also if the master starts being too dramatic he would just tell them to shut up. which would also be brilliant

ANYWAY if anybody writes about any of these versions PLEASE tag me i need to read about them. pigeonentity on here and ao3. please

to me thoschei is one of those dress up games where i get to mix and match different items of clothing (versions of the doctor and the master) to create stunning outfits (tragic relationship dynamics)

[st4rstudent]

bugthinker but I just did whatever to him

bonus slop

[ficandkaboodle]

The reason Copia sucks at video games so much is because when Primo told Terzo they had to share the Atari, Terzo gave Copia a controller that wasn’t even plugged in. And he never caught on.

[icewindandboringhorror]

"We can get through this by working together, reach out to your friends, community is all we have, a social network will be your security in the world, now is the time to lean on others!"

I do agree, and it's scientifically sound (pretty sure there is data about how people with better social networks live longer and etc) but also....augh..... what about the severe social issues, difficulty to leave the house, physical issues which lead to like zero socialization energy a majority of the time, etc. etc. Social support can be a replacement for structural support, but.. I guess I just wish it didn't have to be. Community is extremely difficult to build, even moreso if you're someone who has issues with social cues or group conversations or even just being around others in the first place. And blah, nuance, of course I'm just complaining or maybe being too negative or maybe misunderstanding, but, I hardly have the energy to brush my hair once every 2 months.. how am I supposed to maintain a wide social network and be active in a Community and Join Groups lol... sometimes it kind of feels like "er.. well if thats my only option then...... ruh roh". It's overwhelming

[thesmokinpossum]

Didn't felt like mentioning it immediately but shoutout to my sick and twisted brain for getting so triggered by an unexpected Christmas parade that I ended up havin the absolute worst panic attack of my entire life (potentially the only real one? I've had a couple other episodes I thought of as panic attacks but they were not even close to that so who knows) to the point where I spent the very last day of my 30th year on this earth in the ER, good times, good times 😊

[spiderwebbd]

Hello PHIGHTING fandom please accept this peace offering in exchange for letting me in your humble community

Alt version of boombox below :]