#Junior's mother is a pirate captain here too and she's in a friendly rivalry with Chai | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

snickerdoodlles · 2 years

Note

stardust au for the wip ask game!! its one of my favourite movies and i love your writing, so im very curious to your spin of it

can you believe i tried to scroll back nearly two months of DMs while also messaging jemmo to find this AU's convo before i remembered that i copied it all into the doc sitting in my drive folder?? brilliant, i am not

but okie dokie so!! stardust AU! it's a bit of a hot mess rn ngl--i have a lot of the story's start figured out, but im still working out where it's going to go. as a quick note, my current name claim for Pat and Paa's mother is Nam. anyways, we begin here:

Many would say this story begins in the far past, quite possibly all the way back to when their country’s ancestors decided blood should not be the only consideration when choosing a ruler. They’d tell you all the ways the rules to choosing a new king were refined, the ways people have always tried to lie and cheat their way to the throne. Maybe they’d even tell you how fallen stars are a blessing or a curse, depending on a point of view, for even things as grand as the night heavens are relevant to this tale.

But for Pat, everything began here: his childhood, coloured gold and warm, his sister in their father’s lap and him tucked against his side as he set aside his crown and tells them a story.

we're playing hot and fast with worldbuilding atm, but in this version, the rival prince thing is not between the sons of one king, but rather the ruler chooses a successor that they think will suit the country best from a group of candidates. a lot of candidates do mostly come from noble houses because resources and biases and other such annoyances, but there was that one time the mad king sent out burnt seeds and chose the person who made it grow best

and in Ming's case, he became king because when a star fell almost twenty-five years ago, he was the one who found the star and consumed its heart. the king was impressed by his decisiveness and given that Ming was already a favourable candidate for the throne, a king with a star's protection against harm pushed him to the top

well. one little problem.

Ming never ate a star's heart.

in fact, Paa's been secretly living as his daughter and Pat's little sister ever since she fell and Ming and Nam scooped her up. so when, at the start of this whole story, the assassination attempt against him works, suddenly everyone's questioning just what the hell this guy's been playing at for all these years. if he didn't eat the star's heart over twenty years ago, did someone else take it, or is the star still out there?

the main story begins with Nam waking up Pat and Paa in the middle of the night with the dire warning "your father is dead, you need to leave, now." Pat's already pretty worried, but then his mother also hugs him, fresh tears in her eyes, and says "I'm so sorry, my son, i've failed you. i never should have let your father become king, or let him die like this." Pat tries to ask her what the fuck that's supposed to mean, but then Nam's back to business sneaking him and Paa out of the castle (“who do you, completely and absolutely, would stake your sisters life on it, trust?” “Ink” “good, you have someone. convince her to go with you, Paa’s life depends on it”). she and Korn get the two siblings out of the castle within the hour, Pat and Paa scoop up Ink on their way out, and two days later Pran pops up to smack Pat upside the head because "you need to cover your tracks better idiot!!"

so the four of them are gallivanting across the countryside, where they eventually get scooped up by Chai (Chai's the Captain Shakespeare equivalent in this AU btws). and in amongst their various adventures there, Chai's accidentally going to say that he's glad Ming never killed the star like he planned to in Pat's hearing vicinity, and Pat's "wait, what" startles about 20 years off of Chai's life because fucking shit, he did not ever want Pat to know this

Chai: ah, sorry. I shouldn’t say more Pat: no, please tell me Chai: the man is dead Pat, what good will me telling you things now do? Pat: it’s precisely because he’s dead that I’m asking you. Chai, please. all I ever hear now is how my father was a liar and a cheater. that’s all I ever will hear about him now, I won’t get any truth from listening to rumours from strangers who didn’t know him. but I’ll be dishonouring his memory if what I know is a lie. please (and what goes unsaid by both of them is that Nam is the one he should truly be talking to, but he doesn’t even know if he’ll ever see her alive again)

see, for Pat, he's always known his father had lied about consuming the heart of a star. he and Paa's favourite stories as children always revolved around a trickster lying to protect something smaller and more precious than them, just like their Papa does for Paa. for weeks, Pat's been living with people whispering vile things about his dead father, someone who he dearly loves and respects even when he's gone, and the knowledge that his father was only what the rumours say he was to protect his sister from someone else's greed has been a huge source of strength for him.

but then he learns that that's not the case at all. that Ming could have very well scooped up Paa with the full intention of killing her. Nam was the one who planned to save Paa, the one to come up with the plans to hide Paa's identity. the ruse where Ming claimed to have eaten the star's heart started with Ming, but it's unclear if that was a compromise or him working angles. either way though, it was never the selfless, caring act Pat believed it was. when his mother said she failed him, she meant this--not recognising that Ming's genuine offer to help was also a power grab until it was too late, not until after she and her children were trapped in it. Ming loved his family, all three of them, and he did try to protect and provide for his wife and children. but he never truly considered all possible options, or what might be best for them, not if it meant that he'd have to sacrifice. Ming tried to keep his family safe, but he could’ve done so much more had he given up his pride

it hurts, but it hurts more when he goes to tell Paa. Paa's emotions on their father is a lot more tricky--there's a lot more cognitive dissonance. she was so young and confused when she fell. she recognized that Ming was using her in some capacity, but he was also one of the kind people that helped her and cared for her and swung her up on his shoulders when they walked through the gardens and made her laugh until her belly ached

When Pat tells her, Paa mostly just curls in on herself. "I think, on some level, I always knew that I was a tool for him," she says quietly. "Just like how you were a tool for him as well."

"I wasn't--" Pat begins to protest.

"He loved us," Paa interrupts, not in disagreement. "But I was his way to succeed in this lifetime, then you were there to carry on his legacy." Paa hugs her knees closer. "Even when he thought of us, he was thinking of himself. We couldn't ever be just his kids.

"I knew this Hia. I think I always did." Paa curls in on herself smaller.

"So why does it hurt so much?"

tbd on how this growing monster ends, but there's a loooooot of Jindapat (not you Ming) love in it. i think the only thing i have jotted down for the end is that Pat gets a chance to go to Ming's grave and let out a lot of his feelings about everything. he loves his father, he's so grief stricken that he's dead, and the most selfish thing the man ever did was die and leave the mess to his family to clean up, and Pat deserves to yell at him for that

[[ WIP ask game ]] | [ 1, 2, 3 ]

#bad buddy #ask game #WIP shenanigans #i think this now also counts as:#ask game: fics im not writing #whoops #bbs stardust au #SORRY FOR THE WAIT i was trying to organize my notes into smth semi-coherent hjgfhjgjhghj #outtakes include: Nam's POV points bc Pat and Paa's mother is literally a queen and i have so much love for her #Junior's mother is a pirate captain here too and she's in a friendly rivalry with Chai #which mostly amounts to her calling Chai an upstart scamp bc he's younger than her #and the two of them aggressively comparing photos of their kids and dueling over who's is cuter #and more but this is getting too long hjjhghjg SHUSHING NOW #thanks for asking about this sorry i cant give a concise answer to save my life 😂#mine: bad buddy

20 notes · View notes