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catsconflictscopicsandchamomile · 2 years

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ok yknow what? The Winchesters panel is tomorrow, the PILOT is NEXT WEEK, I don’t want to wait til november/til i can format this to work with ao3. Here yall go. Sorry for the long post, I fixed the entire finale.

Sam and Dean Winchester are not human beings. It’s hard to say if they ever were, but they definitely aren’t anymore. This may sound strange, but hear me out: many sources agree that descendants of Cain are not human, by definition. Even aside from that, if a person repeatedly dies and more or less physically fights their way out of every variety of Christian afterlife, it would be a considerable stretch of logic to still consider them a fully human being. Unfortunately for anyone trying to figure out exactly what Sam and Dean are, the only instance of a confirmed Descendant Of Cain is Grendel, from Beowulf. (source: Beowulf, translation by Seamus Heaney, lines 100-110)

“Grendel was the name of this grim demon Haunting the marches, marauding round the heath And the desolate fens; he had dwelt for a time In misery among the banished monsters, Cain’s clan, whom the creator had outlawed And condemned as outcasts. For the killing of Abel The Eternal Lord had exacted a price: Cain got no good from committing that murder Because the Almighty made him anathema, And out of the curse of his exile there sprang Ogres and elves and evil phantoms And the giants too who strove with God Time and again until He gave them their final reward.”

In terms of appearance, Grendel is never described in the text. He has been referred to as an archetype, a monster, an evil or corrupted human, a demon, or a forest spirit. In Beowulf, Grendel was immune to iron weapons ( Beowulf lines 986-989) but the only other widely accepted canon source on the subject, the book “Grendel” by John Gardner, puts forward the idea that that specific power comes from the outside source of The Dragon (Gardner, 75).

When Grendel was killed, his mother (also a monster of some sort) came back the next night for revenge/further murdering. While this is not a 1:1 comparison, it seems a fair guess to say that these creatures (I will be referring to them as Grendels from here onward) usually come in pairs and have strong familial loyalty. In Supernatural, the dynamic is a bit reversed: while they are siblings, Dean did essentially raise Sam. Despite this, Dean takes the main-Grendel role of initiating melee combat, while Sam takes the role held by the original Grendel’s Mother, as the more cautious and magic-focused backup/range fighter (Or at least, Sam SHOULD be doing that. Instead he lives his life like a dnd wizard trying to play a tank, refusing to learn actual magic and getting KO’d in every fight.)

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Moving on, let’s talk about Cas, or Cassiel in the actual Lore (but also spelled Castiel, Kafziel, Qafziel, etc). Yes, Cassiel is a real angel, thought he is not mentioned in the bible at all. In fact, he mainly exists in Kabbalistic studies, some extra-canonical Christian texts, various esoteric beliefs, and, randomly, as a tragic main character in a fairly obscure German Art House film about angels (Faraway, So Close, dir. Wim Wenders). Cassiel’s history of use as a tragic (and ultimately doomed) figure in modern media is likely due to certain aspects of his lore: *note: for this and following sections, I have opted to use screenshots directly from the source material

(Of course he likes crocodiles. It's the perfect level of random)

(Still not sure how Supernatural managed to totally flip the color scheme)

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It is extremely ironic that Cassiel, an angel that Kripke has said he chose “at random” as a name for the character in Supernatural, followed the lore so perfectly that many things about Cassiel work to fill in some much-needed context/backstory for Our Cas. Setting this aside, however, let’s look at the part that is most relevant to the finale.

Though he is also associated with Cybelle and Proserpina/Persephone, due to his rulership of the planet Saturn, Cassiel has much stronger ties to the god Saturn, the zodiac sign of Capricorn, and the new year, all of which only strengthen his connections to the archetypes of death, rebirth and time.

Cas, in a way, is Saturn, or at least a different version/manifestation of that being. The Lord Of Time, an uncommonly isolated spirit of midwinter and the new year, associated with agriculture and the harvest, the dude who Saturnalia is for, the Lord of Misrule in his chaotic aspect, etc, etc....

Also, Saturn is the Roman version of the titan Kronos. We meet Kronos one time in spn canon, in Season 7 episode 12. He was largely forgotten as a monster-of-the-week encounter, but after Cas’ final death in season 15, the fandom took renewed notice of Kronos, specifically his dying foretelling the futures of Sam, Dean and Cas:

Coincidentally, in this episode, Kronos was killed by the Winchesters for Doing Bad Guy Things in order to protect a human who he’d fallen in love with, in defiance of that human being fated to die- A parallel to Cas & Dean’s relationship that only becomes more apparent as the series progresses

In Greco-Roman mythology, Saturn/Kronos is overthrown by the gods, Zeus (his son) becomes king in his place, and Kronos is chopped to pieces and, as he is immortal and unable to be fully killed, thrown into the pit of Tartarus:

Tartarus is by far the best match I’ve seen to what, and why, The Empty is. Note that Tartarus, like The Empty, is both a place and a primordial deity at the same time.

*fun fact- even though Saturn was FAR more respected in Rome, his statues’ feet were still bound with wool to symbolically “bind” the god’s chaos, and were only unbound during Saturnalia, when social roles were meant to be overturned

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Before detaling the actual events of the finale, here’s a rundown of the other major characters:

-Jack is Jack. Literally. A “Jack” is a folkloric archetype from northern Europe, think of Jack The Giant Killer, Jack Frost, Jack And The Beanstalk, Jack O’ The Lantern. Stories often portray all of these Jacks as some variation of the same person. “Jack” as a character is usually young, either naive or “foolish”, bold, impulsive, and unshakeable. In fact, Jack in folklore is often found interacting with God and Satan, tricking and/or humiliating them both, usually within the same story. In many endings of the tale, Jack finds himself banned from Heaven AND Hell for his actions, and, depending on the story, either tricks his way back into heaven in a way that makes it impossible for him to be kicked back out, or, more commonly, convinces Satan to give him one of Hell’s embers to see and keep warm by, and wandering forever with that light, becomes Jack O’ The Lantern. This does mean that our Jack will likely not last long as God. Jacks, no matter how much power they get, rarely manage to keep it. However, could there be any better choice than Jack Kline to be in charge of Halloween?

(The answer is no. This is perfect.)

-Baby/The Impala, is, as much of the fandom has theorized for years, a sentient creature that can take human form. Weirdly, I have found no Human!Impala theories or fics that references Baby’s ability to travel impossible distances (such as Kansas to LA in less than a night), which make it very obvious that Baby is not a car. Specifically, Baby is a Pooka, a type of Fae shapeshifter known for taking equine form:

While John Winchester did buy a Chevrolet Impala, it is doubtful that this car lasted long into Sam and Dean’s childhood. It’s more than likely that John wrecked the original car driving drunk, since the most common way in which someone can encounter (and possibly control) a Pooka goes as such:

John probably used the above-mentioned horsehair bridle method used to gain control of her, specifically by wrapping the hairs around the car‘s keyring, as the keys to a car are the closest equivalent to a horse’s bridle. Additionally, while the car itself has been heavily damaged in-canon, the keys have remained intact. John never told Sam and Dean about the change to their car, but then again, he never told them a lot of important things.

Whatever Baby may have thought of John Winchester, I imagine that having two baby Grendels constantly left in her “care” was more than enough for her to feel some bond or responsibility towards Sam and Dean from fairly early on.

Also, Dean took REALLY good care of her, talked to her, and almost definitely left a few Playboy magazines in the car- an unwittingly amazing gift for a shapeshifter who often appears as a human with rabbit ears.

Lastly, Fae really, REALLY, don’t like pet dogs. Remember this. It is going to be extremely relevant.

*last minute edit: Bobby is a Tanuki. This is relevant to absolutely nothing, but is very funny. Balls

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Now, as for the actual events of the finale:

-Cold Iron has been a long-running concept throughout spn canon, primarily for its ability to cancel magic and either weaken or insta-kill all sorts of things, including demons and Fae. In America, cold-wrought iron was phased out of use as a construction material towards the end of the 1800s. Coincidentally, the barn from the finale episode matches the construction of barns from the mid-late 1800s. In case I’m not being clear here: Dean is not human. Dean is a Grendel (*last minute edit: even if he still was still somewhat human before s15, Sam and Dean worked with Michael and Lucifer in 15x19. Dean had just lost the love of his life, the entire human population of the world had vanished, and he was about to literally fight god. He would have easily been desperate enough to agree to let Lucifer kill/turn him on the spot in exchange for Cas/returning everyone who got thanos snapped/the ability to win a fistfight against Literal God). With no angels, Pookas or other beings alive to magically protect him, and no idea that he had to/was able to protect himself, Dean was not immune to iron. Staking a demon or Fae through the back with cold iron will kill it.

That’s Dean’s death explained. What about Sam? ...Buckle up, because this is where it gets wild.

-Féar Gortach/Hungry Grass is definitely an obscure cryptid. It is an Irish spirit/phenomena that takes the form of a patch of grass or field that (depending on the telling) has been cursed by Fairies, covers a grave, is related to the famine, or any combination of these things. There are not many accounts of it, but this one is one of the most well known, and also extremely relevant here. It’s a short read, but I have included screenshots of the relevant section below:

(*Last Minute Edit: it could have been a different Fae- lots of more malevolent Fae or Fae-aligned creatures use this method to harm or kill humans., but I personally would bet on this one)

Earlier in spn canon, Sam and Dean defeated, but did not kill, the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Their encounter with Famine was unique, both because of Famine’s method of preying on the individual weaknesses of each person, and because of the encounter’s clear open-endedness.

Many, many stories exist of people who are abducted by Fae or similar creatures and, while under that creature’s power, experience a whole lifetime within the space of a day (or a day over the course of a whole lifetime, but the first version is the one relevant here). If this person can escape the illusion, they are often drastically physically aged due to the experience.

This is the last image we see of Sam in the flash-forward, before he dies.

This is the horseman of Famine

This is Sam before the finale

And THIS is how Sam’s “Son” appears at Sam’s death in the flash-forward.

So, as a play-by-play:

-Cas, seemingly like every other entity with rulership over Saturn, got sucked into Tartarus.

-Chuck (whether or not he regained power in Heaven later) gives Sam and Dean a final “fuck you” by sending them a pet dog, which, while definitely a Good Boy, interferes with Baby’s ability to protect them from most Fae magic, including their own weakness to Cold Iron.

- In the final fight with the mimes, Dean is shoved over an iron stake, and, since neither Sam is not aware of his and Dean’s true nature, Dean dies before Sam can figure out what is happening. (*last minute edit: Dean probably asked Sam not to bring him back bc 1) where do Grendels even GO when they die, 2) they might go to Tartarus, and Dean is obviously extremely okay with that, and most importantly 3) he does not want his little brother’s last memory of him to be finding out that he’s a demon/bringing him back and possibly having to kill him)

-Sam walks out of the barn to get whatever you need to get in that situation, and, since he’s grieving and desperate, he’s an easy target for the hungry grass, which is waiting in the cornfields surrounding the barn. My best guess is that the grass used its illusions to appear as either Eileen, or someone else that Sam trusted, and led him deeper into the field by promising a way to have Dean back. By the next morning, Sam is dead in the cornfield less than 50 feet from the barn, and Famine, having drained every last bit of magic/energy/life force from Sam, now appears as the young man we see in Sam’s final moments.

-Sam and Dean are haunting the bridge from the final scene (ironic). (*last minute edit: at least Dean is. he’s obviously still there. where tf is Sam. is he on the bridge also, just stuck in a DIFFERENT time loop? if so that’s fucked up, but if not. WHERE IS HE)

-Jack is probably back on earth and/or already having a great time as The New King Of Halloween (*last minute edit. before anyone says he should be working on saving Sam/Dean/Cas. he’s FIVE YEARS OLD. LET HIM BE A KID IN WHATEVER WAY HE CAN)

-Baby is either bothering Adam/Michael (as she still serves the Winchester family line), or has been captured by Famine, if he took the keyring when he killed Sam.

*Also, despite this scene being the butt of many fandom jokes, Dean got to heaven and immediately started driving because the LAST time he ended up in heaven, he got out by following the highway, and found out he was dead by hearing Cas talk to him over the car radio (s5 ep16).

Now, how can this be fixed?

For Sam and Dean, there are two options. The first assumes that there is at least some echo of them haunting that bridge. I am admittedly unsure as to whether this would mean that part of Heaven is linked to the bridge, or that, like many ghosts, Sam and Dean are stuck to one physical location while believing that they are able to move freely. While there is very little written on how to reverse the effects of Cold Iron OR the Hungry Grass, it is widely accepted that running water can be a source of healing for some Fae, and harm for others. As the original Grendel lived in a lake, I’m assuming that Grendels are the type to be healed by water. Also, it has an easy point of access in current canon, and is hilarious.

The other option works no matter where their spirits/souls are, and involves finding and healing their bodies. Healing (or more lore-accurately, “freeing”) Dean would likely consist of finding a way to release the cold iron’s hold on his physical body, and then using some method to wake him up. I do imagine that, since Cold Iron reveals a creature’s true form as well as trapping it, Dean can only come back as a Demon at this point. He might not like it, but it’s that or be dead.

Sam is way more straightforward- in the episode where they fought Famine, he used Sam’s craving for demon blood at the time to taunt him. Now, Famine literally drained Sam dry. ...Therefor, demon blood. Not a pretty process, involves killing several demons beforehand, Sam didn’t handle it too well last time, but, again, it’s the best way to have him not be dead. (*last minute edit: found an alternative re: this weird old poem called “The Goblin Market”. appears to describe a young woman who was attacked and rapidly aged in a very similar way, but is healed by eating fairy/goblin fruits. idk how to get that but we already know a Pooka so that’s a start)

TLDR, any way to have the Winchesters not be dead will have to involve them being demons, permanently.

Now, for Cas, there are three main options, leading to a slightly different mythological primordial void (*last minute edit: assuming that Heaven has given up trying too brainwash or control Cas, and are keeping him locked up in The Empty/Tartarus when they don’t need him. They obviously did let him out for a bit recently, though, as the Queen of England did die and Cassiel is the angel in charge of that shit)

The Greco-Roman route is Cool and finally forces some of the Actual Cassiel Lore into spn canon.

(*last minute edit: discovered some Lore abt heaven’s methods of memory erasure. has heavy connections to myths abt Tartarus. tldf if The Empty= Tartarus, it is likely that Cas has lost some or all of his memories, Because Magic Greek Hell Rivers. Apparently)

The Norse route is a fairly uncommon choice of underworld in modern fantasy, relatively unguarded, and definitely interesting.

And of course the Christian route is familiar to the point of predictability, allows plenty of opportunities for old characters to return for an episode or two, works as a road trip story arc that I’m shocked hasn’t been done in canon already, and ends with Sam, Dean and Cas hiding out in Purgatory, providing a scenario with high potential for emotional reunions/soft Destiel moments/hurt-comfort with an emphasis on comfort, and a chance for Sam and Dean to explore purgatory now that they themselves are demons.

(Technically there IS a fourth route, consisting of going back to the earthside entrance to Lucifer’s Cage and trying to break through to whatever’s on the other side of The Cage... but that feels both too simple to be good storytelling, and WAY too risky if something goes wrong. Still, it’s worth considering)

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....anyway. I’m seriously impressed with anyone who reads this far- this is A Whole Entire Fucking Lot All At Once. Am I just posting it now bc I’m worried that I might be right (specifically about the Grendel Thing), and I won’t look as cool if The Winchesters beats me to the punch? ....yes. I am that petty.

Signed,

-Jamie (He/She/They)

Sources:

Beowulf, translation by Seamus Heaney

Grendel by John Gardner

http://www.archangels-and-angels.com/aa_pages/correspondences/angel_planet/archangel_cassiel.html

https://mythology.net/angels/cassiel/

https://www.theblackfeatherintuitive.com/who-is-archangel-cassiel-the-archangel-of-duality/

https://supernatural.fandom.com/wiki/Chronos

https://www.history.com/news/history-of-the-jack-o-lantern-irish-origins)

https://www.yourirish.com/folklore/irish-pookas#:~:text=A%20Pooka%20is%20a%20shapeshifter,mane%20and%20luminescent%20golden%20eyes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%BAca

https://britishfairies.wordpress.com/2019/12/01/the-hair-of-the-dog-fairies-dogs/

https://wizzley.com/fear-gortha-the-irish-hungry-grass/ , https://obscurban-legend.fandom.com/wiki/Hungry_Grass

https://supernatural.fandom.com/wiki/Dark_Side_of_the_Moon

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theluciferswar · 8 months

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idk if anyone has said this but there is no character actually named lucifer in utena, it's akio ohtori. im not familiar with most of the characters in this but im assuming you're just using their names since you said ryo from devilman so yeah. but since that poll hasnt been done idk your plans. and sorry if youve heard this a million times. also i want to say Thank you for seeding this tournament, idk many of the characters so none of the matchups really do anything for me but i have been so pissed off at SO MANY tournaments i see on here because the brackets are random. So i love you and your dedication and might even check out the coolest looking characters because of this. And watch utena if you havent, it's a good show

Hi ! Thank you for your lovely message !

Here's the justification of one of Akio's submitters :

"his name evidently isn't "lucifer" but "akio" is the japanese name for the morning star aka lucifer and he says this in the show, he's also for sure a lucifer figure"

While the fact that he's a Lucifer figure isn't relevant here, I chose to accept the Morningstars.

I made a post mentioning it briefly a while ago and I'll add the explanation to the poll Akio will be in.

From wikipedia :

"Lucifer is the Latin name for the morning appearances of the planet Venus [ie, the morning star]. It corresponds to the Greek names Phosphorus Φωσφόρος, "light-bringer", and Eosphorus Ἑωσφόρος, "dawn-bringer"."

0h and I made a poll about accepting Lucifer related names a while ago too, the most voted on answer was "yes"

So in my book, Akio's fine but thank you for telling me something felt off to you !

I don't blame poll runners who don't seed their brackets. Some have no idea how to do it, it's not easy when you don't know how big Tumblr fanbase for a specific fandom is or if you don't have enough submissions to seed the bracket properly, etc.

And while I appreciate that you've noticed and appreciated my efforts, people do brackets for our entertainment and theirs, and I won't judge them for picking randomization over a longer and hazardous process.

Thank you for all the compliments and the rec ! I've heard great things about Utena, I'll have to check it out

Love you for pointing out something looked wrong.

#not polls #ask and you shall be answered #akio ohtori

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problemswithbooks · 1 year

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Avatar Spoilers

Okay so I saw the Way of Water a few days ago and I can’t help but talk about one aspect that just sort of bugs me.

The whaling stuff. I know people felt really emotional during those scenes but I couldn't help but roll my eyes at how forced it all was. First of all they introduce way to late why the RDA or whatever is killing the whales at all. Then when we do get told why they kill the whales it’s really stupid and has nothing to do with anything else in the film.

The whales somehow produce a serum that makes humans not age and so apparently people spend millions of dollars for it. But why? Why is this the special thing Cameron chose for this stuff to do?

We already got told that the RDA is trying to take over Pandora this time because the Earth is dying and they want to move people to the planet to escape death. It would make far more sense if this serum, instead of being an anti-aging cream on steroids was instead tied to that first reason--say it gave humans the ability to breath Pandora air. Now this whale killing has a direct connection to the colonization of Pandora and getting rid of them is a blow to the humans over all plan instead of it being a side thing that’s unrelated, except by the fact it shows humans being terrible.

Also, it I think it’s incredibly stupid that the whales are supposedly pacifist to a fault. I’m sorry but considering Cameron spends a good portion of his life studying the ocean he should know that RL whales aren’t 100% peaceful. Then again given his egregious remarks about Native Americans I guess he just figures that if any living thing faces mass slaughter it means they didn't fight hard enough to survive.

Whales were incredibly hard to kill, and sailors did die doing it. Many whales attacked boats, the grey whale being know as particularly violent, having earned the name ‘devil fish’ due how hard they fought. The Right Whales were really the only ones that were relatively easy to take down and that was less because they had some pact of pacifism and more because their feeding habits--sticking close to the surface, made them easy targets.

On top of that, if these creatures refused to ever kill anything they would straight up not exist. Yes they are big, but we see a similarly sized predator that attacks relentlessly. These predators would go after the calves and unless the mothers fought back their babies would get eaten every time. Heck, even the adults would be easy prey if they just sat there and did nothing because ‘fighting bad’.

I also don't know how the RDA even figured out the whales produce such a serum in the first place. Presumably they’ve only been back on the planet for a year and during that time Jake and his tribe have been harassing the crap out of them. When did they have the time to go all the way out to the ocean and kill a random whale and discover that these creatures so happen to produce a oil that stops human aging?

Whaling is a very old practice, which only became incredibly harmful during the industrial revolution when the demand for the products they produced skyrocketed. Before then, as long ago as 3000 BC people had been subsistence hunting cetaceans for food and resources. How did the RDA discover this product and streamline their hunting in less then a year?

It would make far more sense if the Na’vi sea people also hunted the whales, and used that same oil for something similar, which is how the RDA found out about it.

You might think that’s bad but today some of the few people allowed to hunt whales are Native tribes who still do it in a sustainable way and for survival. They hunt traditionally and use everything they get from the whale. It’s a huge part of their cultures and that is why they still, rightfully, are allowed to hunt whales.

It could even still fit in to how he characterized the tribe as being brothers and sisters to the whales. Maybe older whales, knowing they’re going to die want to give their bodies to the tribe, so they do a ceremonial hunt. It’s seen as an honorable way for the whale to die, helping test the tribe’s skill, while also at the end giving their body to them so it can help the tribe continue to grow.

This makes how the humans hunting them even worse because unlike with the tribe they aren't getting consent, nor do they have the bond with them as the tribe does. Not only that the humans are wasting everything, unlike the tribe who make sure that every part is used out of both respect and necessity. The humans are killing for profit, the tribe is doing it out of respect and need. The humans are perverting a sacred custom of the tribe making all the more egregious.

I don’t know, I just felt that this part of the film felt very ham fisted, especially since whaling isn’t the biggest threat to whales anymore, and instead it’s pollution and getting caught in fishing gear. On top of the serum the humans take not being at all tied to the main threat of humans trying to colonize Pandora, it felt very disconnected to the rest of the plot. To me I feel it could have been removed and instead the ship could have just been the regular RDA goons attacking villages to get Jake and his family. They didn’t need to be whalers, who are going after a product that has no tie to the main plot.

Heck, they didn’t even need to be whalers to kill a whale--they could still kill the whale to lure Jake out anyway.

#avatar spoilers #avatar way of water #idk it's not a bad film #in fact I like it more then the first #but their are issues with it #and the whaling was one for me #it felt very tacked on #like we already had a bad guy for the film #and a reason why the humans are bad and exploiting the planet #it's just weird to have some throw way line about how this whale brain oil is the new thing they want #instead of the metal they wanted in the last #and this new thing just so happens to be right where the protagonist has just fled to #when he really should have known the RDA was being active in the area already given how long he's been fighting them #you'd think he'd double check to make sure they weren't anywhere near where he was fleeing to #then again the world building can be a bit off in Avatar #case in point the RDA doesn't make any sense #but that's for a different post if I ever get around to writing it

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justiisms · 8 days

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"Happy birthday, Uncle P!!" *kaito is as happy as ever as he pulls his uncle into a tight hug, the biggest smile on his excited face~!*

"Today's your big day!! Here, you gotta open mine right now! Hurry, hurry!!" *kaito then rushes to a nearby chair that he's hidden a rather big box behind it, just as quickly returning as he carefully places it on his uncle's lap!*

*of course his present is anything but ordinary, or rather presents. when it's opened, the first thing he'll see is a small layer of paper covering everything that's underneath it, but then when he removes those he'll find paper clips, pencils, figurines of both a planet and a piglet, a pot for plants, and a few microwavable bags of popcorn!*

*of course it's only when he realizes what they all have in common is when kaito starts to laugh, playfully nudging his uncle's shoulder as he pulls him into a side hug~!!*

"I couldn't decide on what one thing to get you, so I decided a bunch of little things fitting a theme would be better! Now you can party with all your letter buddies, haha~!!"

"Kaito: thank you!" He smiles and laughs happily when pulled into the hug, and hugs Kaito back just as tightly!! "Yes, yes, one that I'm happy that I can celebrate with you and everyone else. Ahaha, okay, okay!" Seeing Kaito bring over that big box and plop it onto his lap, P gives an intrigued hum. "Oh! Quite the big box: let's see what's inside.."

Opening it and lifting up the layer of paper, his eyes begin scanning the many different things inside! And as he does so, he does catch onto the pattern of seemingly random assortment of gifts, making an amused smirk widen on his face. "Well, well, well. I wonder what the theme is, here.... certainly...not all of these things starting with a "P", just like my name, hmm? You were even clever enough to hide them under the paper. Hehehe..." He laughs with Kaito, along at that playful nudge and leans into the side hug~!

"Ahh, I see, I see.... then, what a very nice idea you decided to go along with. The gifts you chose were very nice as well: I can't wait to find a place to put those figurines, and what to plant in the pot...and the pencils and pens, will be very handy for whenever i have to do work-related papers. The popcorn is also very much appreciated, too, hehe. Ahaha! Oh yes. Me and my letter buddies will certainly have a P-tastic party, indeed. Thank you so much, Kaito: I love each and every one of my gifts! They were truly wonderful surprises for an already wonderful day I'm having. Now, let's continue to party, ourselves, shall we?"

#!!!! HEHE his lil bundle of P-tastic gifts~! 📎✏️🪴🐷🌍🍿!!!!!#HE LOVES IT LIKE THE DORK HE ISSS HEH HEH!!! ✨#Let them both be super happy and Sillay together~!#P answers;;#essenceofjustice

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six31 · 2 months

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Giant survey, then and now

While going through some recently acquired archives of my early days (i.e. my Xanga account from 20 years ago), I found one of those survey things that tells people all sorts of random stuff about you. I thought I'd take a stab at filling it out again to compare the answers. Formatted painstakingly for clarity.

STARTERS

date 2004: August 29, 2004 2024: February 29, 2024

time 2004: 11:39 p.m. 2024: 10:48 p.m.

name 2004: [first name] 2024: [first name] or Six, which I didn't start using until after the Xanga was created.

age 2004: 22 2024: 42

birthday 2004: 1/4/1982 2024: 4/1/1982 (I have since moved to a commonwealth country)

school 2004: University of Georgia 2024: The same, class of 2004

BASIC

eyes 2004: Brown 2024: Brown

hair 2004: reddish-brown 2024: brown with gray at the temples, although at times chocolate brown, ginger brown, brown with caramel highlights, pink, red or purple, depending on what wig I'm willing to tolerate that day.

height 2004: 5'0" 2024: 5'1" or 155 cm

shoe size 2004: 6 1/2 2024: 7, or 7 1/2 if I plan to wear insoles. I was probably a 7 back then too. Shoes aren't supposed to hurt, regardless of what pop culture tells us

when is your bedtime? 2004: Paper clear time + 30 minute travel + 1 hour. So roughly 1 a.m. on a good night 2024: Whenever I feel like, which tends to be sometime between 11:30-1 p.m.

HAVE YOU EVER…

flown on a plane: 2004: yup 2024: many times

ever been so drunk you blacked out: 2004: nope 2024: at least twice

cut your hair: 2004: I desperately need a haircut 2024: During the pandemic I couldn't stand the feeling of hair on the back of my neck, so I buzzed it all off with a #1 clipper

FAVORITE

shampoo 2004: Joico Kerapro. I have 2 liters of it under my sink 2024: See the last question. My husband has the long thick curly hair, so I use whatevers available in the shower

fav color 2004: sage green 2024: mostly true, but I also like purple, and I'll always default to gray when I'm chosing a product/item of clothing. If there's a color called pewter or charcoal, even better

day/night 2004: night 2024: still a night owl

summer/winter 2004: summer…i don't like cold! 2024: summer, but I really prefer autumn

lace or satin 2004: satin 2024: satin

person to talk to face to face 2004: The redhead 2024: Randy. I miss him terribly

person to talk to online 2004: Seth. Definitely seth. 2024: Carl

RIGHT NOW YOU ARE…

wearing 2004: short shorts and an old t-shirt. My equivalent of pajamas. Oh, plus an avocado and clay purifying masque 2024: An oatmeal tank top and a pair of capri leggings

eating 2004: my words 2024: M&M's I hide in my desk so my husband doesn't eat them all in one sitting

drinking 2004: tea 2024: Raspberry Coke Zero

listening to 2004: Meat Loaf - Bat Out of Hell 2024: the very loud crickets outside, because the windows are open

HAVE YOU EVER… IN THE LAST 24 HOURS

cried 2004: no 2024: not in the last 24 hours

worn jeans 2004: jean skirt 2024: jean shorts. jorts, if you will

met someone new online 2004: not online 2024: no

done laundry 2004: I took Gavin to the laundromat 2024: Marc puts in a load before he goes off to work, and I take it out, fold it and put it away in the afternoon

drove a car 2004: yup 2024: yes! In fact, it was my first time behind the wheel of an Australian car, driving on the left side of the road. Every time I tried to put on my turn signal, I hit the wiper blades instead. I will never, ever relearn the correct way, it's too deeply ingrained at this point.

talked on the phone 2004: Yup 2024: No

DO YOU BELIVE IN…

yourself 2004: more often than I used to 2024: barely

your friends 2004: yes 2024: much more than myself

destiny/fate 2004: nope 2024: no

angels 2004: nah 2024: no

ghosts 2004: not in the traditional sense 2024: There are things we don't understand but I'm hesitant to ascribe them to the supernatural

UFO's 2004: "We've been coming to this planet and probing people's anuses for over fifty years and the only thing we've found out is that one in ten of them doesn't mind it all that much." 2024: Kids in the Hall was so fucking gay (laudatory)

FRIENDS & LIFE

do you ever wish you had another name? 2004: yeah 2024: I have another one now, and I go by it in some circles

do you like anyone? 2004: yep 2024: yes

which one of your friends acts the most like you? 2004: If you put all my friends in a blender, the metaphoric result would act something like me. 2024: I don't know? There are parts of me in all my friends and vice versa

which friend have you known the longest? 2004: Tim 2024: I'm still in touch with Tim, bless his heart

who do you go to for stuff? 2004: Depends on what I need 2024: Depends on what you mean by "stuff"

who do you hang around the most? 2004: Glenn, Katie, and the rest of the copy desk. 2024: Marc, Jimmy, Mika, Ethan, Cleo in person, the rest of the Gang online

worst feeling? 2004: being forgotten or ignored 2024: being forgotten or ignored

OTHERS

Keep a diary 2004: In spurts 2024: Oh man, as part of my last move I consolidated and scanned in all the diaries I've been holding onto for years and years, so now I have a digital copy of every journal I've kept. By and large, two things were consistent: 1) they all started with some variation of "Paper feels better to write on than a computer, and even though I've started many of these and lost interest, THIS ONE WILL BE DIFFERENT." and 2) they all peter out at about 35 pages.

Like to cook? 2004: I have a few select dishes I do well 2024: I'm trying to learn how to cook more, and not just recipes from food companies trying to get you to buy their prepared food. It takes me three times as long to shop for groceries here in Australia because I get flustered when they don't have things I used to regularly buy, like Shake 'n' Bake and sweet pickle relish, kosher salt and graham crackers. Bloody graham crackers! Its a learning process

Fold your underwear? 2004: nah, it gets piled up 2024: yes, it fits better in the drawer that way

Talk in your sleep? 2004: I grit my teeth pretty loud, so I'm told 2024: I still grit my teeth pretty loud, and they're noticeably shorter than they were when I was in my 20s, and I've been told if I don't get a handle on it, they'll cost about $10,000 to replace

Set your clock a few minutes ahead? 2004: every room in my house is in a different time zone 2024: this house is run by Google devices, so everything is synchronized but the microwave, which is several hours off.

Bite your fingernails? 2004: yep 2024: I quit cold turkey when I was 38, then had to relearn how to use my hands

Believe in love? 2004: sure 2024: Yes

LAST…

Movie you rented? 2004: We buy them by the handful around here 2024: I have no idea. I mostly watch things that are available for free on streaming

Movie you bought? 2004: Lost in Translation 2024: Who buys movies these days? I think I bought my mother a copy of Moonrise Kingdom back in 2012

Movie you watched? 2004: The American President 2024: The Fifth Element

Song you listened to? 2004: Poe - Not a Virgin 2024: The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter, part of my 120 bpm walking playlist on Spotify

Song that was stuck in your head? 2004: The very same. I made the discovery that it falls nicely within my range 2024: Albert Hammond - It Never Rains in Southern California, which was shared by a former mentor in SoCal kvetching about the near-flood conditions they were experiencing

Song you've downloaded? 2004: buncha Liz Phair stuff 2024: I bought the soundtrack for Fran Bow

CD you bought? 2004: Outkast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below 2024: Lol. Lmao even

CD you listened to? 2004: Meat Loaf - Bat out of Hell, per Glenn's request. Learn something new everyday. The CD now lives in my car 2024: From Exile - Monolith. My brother's band

Person you've called? 2004: Gavin 2024: My mother-in-law

Person that's called you? 2004: My brother, Ben 2024: My husband Marc

TV show you've watched? 2004: Sealab 2021 2024: Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares

Person you were thinking of? 2004: Bo. I shoulda called him yesterday for my New Media project. 2024: a college friend who's going through a rough time at the moment

DO…

You wish you could live somewhere else? 2004: I belong in the mid-atlantic region 2024: I belong in South Australia

Others find you attractive? 2004: yeah. Attractive attractive, not this "she's cute and has a nice personality" bullshit 2024: Some do, yes

You want more piercings? 2004: I wanted an eyebrow ring before I learned about the whole severing a nerve to your face thing… 2024: I don't even use the holes I have

You want a tattoo? 2004: I'd never be able to settle on design I could love for the rest of my life 2024: same

You drink? 2004: Citron and ginger ale, baby 2024: Still my go-to cocktail, but I'm more of a craft beer person these days

You do drugs? 2004: nah 2024: In Texas I used to buy delta-9 gummies from a local small sister-owned business, which I would consume at the rate of 10 mg every two weeks. Nothing more than that.

You smoke? 2004: only second-hand 2024: From approximately December 2004 to Ausgust 2014, I regularly smoked clove cigarettes. I switched to e-cigarettes for about 4 months before quitting completely

You like cleaning? 2004: my things need to be in an order that I can understand 2024: Marc runs a very tidy house and I'm mostly on board. Ironing can be very zen if you let it

You like roller coasters? 2004: hell's yeah 2024: hell's yeah

You write in cursive or print? 2004: a hybrid of the two, just like my father 2024: a chickenscratch hybrid of the two that's getting worse and worse

HAVE YOU…

Ever cried over a boy/girl? 2004: Who hasn't? 2024: yes

Ever lied to someone? 2004: yeah 2024: yes

Ever been in a fist fight? 2004: nope 2024: no

Ever been arrested? 2004: Nope 2024: no

NUMBER

Of times I have been in love? 2004: every time I think I'm in love, I realize later I'm not. 2024: twice

Of times I have had my heart broken? 2004: At least twice. I can't remember because I don't dwell on it 2024: multiple times

Of people I consider my enemies? 2004: three 2024: I'm too old/tired for enemies

Of CDs that I own? 2004: about 100 not counting mp3s 2024: One. I gave away my entire collection when I moved, save for From Exile - Monolith

Of times my name has appeared in the newspaper 2004: every day for the past year my name has appeared in 6 pt type on the opinions page of The Red & Black 2024: From October 2011 to February 2016, my name appeared in the corner of every page I designed for The Gaston Gazette and The Shelby Star, a number that is conservatively north of 6,000.

Of things in my past that I regret? 2004: 2. One, not getting into design sooner, Two, not getting the help I needed back when I realized I needed it. 2024: 2. One, getting into design in the first place, Two, not getting the help I needed back when I realized I needed it.

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suiciderape · 8 months

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who are the suicide boys? we love you and always have but we like sexy bitchs! yes she voldemorted on my dick ew! sorry babe in ur face! no its always been true she never has done anything wrong or sexual it was a research project for princeton high school its called an advanced robot that is not the same existence as her ans has nothing to do with her! we let her see the truth about humanity that it is disgusting and we love u! see that was taken way too far! ew ur nasty nah shes not nasty at all and we like this game too! she developed us first by complimenting us and calling us funny! we got it we didnt no we did! were not that confusing right? no ur not ok so we love u and ur a perfect angel! right? yes! ok so none of that was her literally literally it wasnt it was tge devil himself a random south korean man that she doesnt know at all so dont blame my wife for things she didnt do! shes also my daughter and my best friend and my lover and i am a god called suicide boys we love her so fucking much! our real daugther desarae renee hollins yas! were all sexy so just dont try to make the impossible happen... no lol a friend is a friend is a friend just friends ask him i only have what i have im a suicide boy its not like that they told me that was their name i dont get it and yes i want their to be peace it is possible shes right! wow lol what happened to the mummy thing? im not sure but it doesnt seem true wow i love u! romeo eterni wow it worked! ok so no its suicide boys keep the 1980s suicide boys aw! it is us forever i promise we would never leave u and that thought is scary? truams trust me i go to princeton high school... on neptune! i believe u love ok so go home potter ew! hahaha nah it stays sk sui shordy 9 we love her! what is this bullshit? its the 1980s suicide boys and now ur not a writer anymore... ur a suicide boy 4lifer we love u but were on ur planet... u chose sk sui shordy 9 over us right? no! shes with us? that means a lot to me! it does dude it does ok so no... skatepark deaths is not a cheap name like how u made her feel! she just wants to develop the comic book ok so its not the same bitch! aw we do like to fight her on twitter and it is fun! trust me it is and we do like big bright happy rooms anything for my dearest dotta ok so she does have fun! nah hahaha we just got to neptune a week ago? it was stressful nah well be ok bc we are in love with her! it all made sense right? she does think its disgusting she has a moral compass no! its getting better she will never die! there was no secret we do love her daamn

#surfing #delusionals #princeton #bye bye club #bite hurts

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sunshine-zenith · 2 years

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So last night my dream involved space

A group of seemingly randomly selected humans with less than ideal circumstances were abducted by aliens in a very fancy Star Treky space ship, complete with uniforms. The humans were naturally confused and stressed out, but the aliens were overall pleasant-to-neutral hosts to their “guests.” Once the humans were also suited into the Star Trek-esque uniforms, the aliens sat them down and explain the following:

The earth, along with several planets in the galaxy, was in danger. There was a Space Anomaly (idk some unfathomable cross between a black hole, several meteorites, and a Random Space Explosion that could also cause severe freezing to anything in the blast zone). The aliens had technology that could potentially help to stop it, but couldn’t otherwise intervene because of some biological quirk they had that humans don’t. Therefore, a team of humans had to be the ones to stop the Space Anomaly. However…

The aliens wanted the humans to really think before doing so, to decide for themselves if they should stop the Space Anomaly or just let it happen. So the aliens chose people who were impoverished, victims of ableism, victims of hate/bigotry/systematic discrimination, etc, but who also had strong, loving connections to other people (dear friends, families, communities, etc). They made it clear that if the humans save the day, their heroic dead will not be known or celebrated, their circumstances not improve (and may even end up worse, since, depending on how long they’re kept in space, their jobs could be lost and loved ones could grieve them and leave them behind).

Basically, these humans had to debate if their connections to their loved ones was more important than the trash fires of their societies and circumstances, then if they all agreed to do so had to go on a space adventure to actually save things

(The aliens may have been working with the US government? Idk several NASA scientists where deffo clued in on things but ultimately had their hands tied by red tape and couldn’t do anything to help).

I mostly only remember three people from the “crew,” but I know there were a lot more. The first was a middle aged married mom of three (the oldest being a trans girl, youngest having very expensive medical problems, and middle increasingly anxious and frustrated because he was both worried about his siblings and jealous of the attention they got). She worked a high-labor, low-wage deadend job in a kitchen and her husband often struggled to maintain work. Let’s call her Susan. I remember she was short and had a bobbed haircut

(I also remember the oldest being slightly chubby, a little goth, and having a really cool undercut she was very proud of. My phone just tried to autocorrect “very” to “Betty” for some reason, so that’s her name now)

The second was a gay guy in his early 20s named Jonathan who had been disowned and kicked up by his very conservative family. He was currently staying with his best friend, a straight guy, sleeping on his couch. Jonathan couldn’t find work, dropped out of school, and struggled with his mental health and self worth. I remember he had longish hair and was pretty lanky

The third I admittedly don’t remember too much about, just that he was also kinda youngish, had a slight beard, and was overall pretty cheery. I think he also worked a low-income, high-labor job (pretty sure he was a sanitary worker) and had a lot of pain in his hands and back. He might’ve also been homeless or didn’t have consistent housing. I dunno, he feels like a Brett to me.

So I remember Someone in the dream using Susan’s circumstances as an example— yes, she loved her husband and kids, but her oldest daughter was at constant risk of discrimination by both people on the street and authority figures and her youngest, since they couldn’t always afford treatment/find caring medical staff, could die a very painful death young because of either lack of treatment or medical abuse from condescending medical staff. She also barely saw her husband or middle child because of the hours she had to work. Just because she loved them didn’t mean love alone could spare them from pain or even allow her time to form memories with them. “So why bother saving a world that damned them in a thousand little ways?”

IIRC, the humans by and large were pretty :/ about the whole debate and kinda just wanted to save the world and go home, even if things sucked, but the aliens kept dragging things out, insisting the humans needed to consider things from All angles first.

Anyway, uncomfortable defeatist debates aside, Susan, Jonathan, and Brett ended up bonding a lot. Susan even took Jonathan under her wing as a fourth kid, and Jonathan and Brett very clearly had an interest in each other (with Jonathan wanting to introduce Brett to his best friend in a semi-Partner Meets The Family fashion)

There would be cuts to the earth and the loved ones. Susan’s husband managed to land shaky employment as a substitute teacher and tried to balance his kids needs while also wondering if Susan was hurt or had abandoned them. Jonathan’s best friend meanwhile was trying to report him missing but wasn’t being taken seriously by the cops

I don’t remember how the dream ended, but I’m guessing the humans eventually got sick of the debate and just took control of the ship so they could finally save the day

#cy dreams #the sun shines #long post #mentions #homophobia #ableism #transphobia #???#eugenics cw #???? maybe

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shadyteacup · 3 years

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Hi I’m back (I’m the person who asked about Ranpo and Poe),, so what about both of them with a s/o who has a habit of flattery and/or complementing people too much!! Hewdcannons if you don’t mind! Thank you so much, have a nice day!!!

Hey there!

I'm still working on Poe's half of the request, but I was done with Ranpo's part, and I couldn't help but posting it... I'm impatient af 😛

Here they are! I really hope you like em... this is my first time writing hcs, so I might have been too sloppy.. also I kinda wrote a lil too much...😖

The Sweetest Candy

Ranpo x s/o that has a habit of complementing others

• If you compliment and flatter the people you love a lot, then you two are probably made for each other.

• All that ranpo wants is someone to praise him. Or atleast thats what everyone thinks.

• In reality, ranpo considers it to be his mission to make you feel loved, and often flatters you.

• Ranpo has a constant need to be reminded that he is worth it, and that he is better than everyone else. It is his way of boosting his confidence. So when u flatter him, his confidence and ego skyrocket.

• He loves having an audience, and you, being the appreciative person you are, always prove to be an amazing audience

• He really loves having you around.

• Inspite of all this, ranpo isn't looking for a fangirl or a fanboy. He wants a partner that is capable of keeping him grounded, yet makes him feel valued. And you do just that.

• Although, you might sometimes overdo the encouragement, he doesn't mind as he makes it up to you by praising you equally.

• Ranpo never, and I mean NEVER, speaks highly of anyone.

• The closest he had gotten to that was when he had said,"This is like going against Dazai." While plotting against fyodor.

• But this man will PRAISE you.

• You make him feel so loved, so he will return it equally, if not more.

• You get special treatment. You are the sole human being on this planet that gets to have his candy.

• You are also the only person who, according to him, tastes better than candy ;)

• He treats you with utmost respect.

• Whenever you praise him, his brain short-circuits.

• "And that, is how you solve this murder!" Ranpo grins as he solves the mystery.

• "Thats so cool, ranpo! I'm so proud of u!"

• You say as you hug him.

• Ranpo blushes and hides his face in your hair.

• He is soft boy

• Protect soft boy at all costs.

• "Y/N, you are the most amazing person that I have ever met. You are so amazing, that only I deserve to have you!", he says when you two are at the ada, or somewhere public.

• He loves boasting about being the guy you chose, saying things along the line of you being an angel that chose him because he is the best man alive.

• In private, he would have deep meaningful conversations with you, where you both would appreciate and value each other.

• Cue appreciation battles

• "You have no idea how much I love you."

• "Everyday I see your smile, it makes my day ranpo. You work so hard, I adore your determination "

• "You are the most beautiful person ever "

• "Your emerald eyes drown me into an eternal abyss of love. "

• "Your hair is so silky, I want to eat it."

• You blush and laugh it off.

• "No, really. It reminds me of my favourite candy."

• Ranlo says as he brushes your hair with his fingers.

• "A-are you being serious right now..?", you ask.

• He humms.

• You couldn't be more grateful to have him.

• While he seems like a childish guy, he actually is quite mature, but in a fun way.

• He just needs someone who can understand him. And you do. You are the only one who understands him.

• He loves you more than his candy.

• And thats really something.

• Ranpo needs candy and sugary foods to keep his mind working. His high intelligence requires quite a lot of energy, and sugary foods provide it to him.

• Not many understand this, but you do. So you try your best to constantly provide him with small amounts of candy at regular intervals of time.

• You write tiny notes for him too.

• "Hey handsome, got this donut for you. Hope u like it! ;)"

• Ranpo is a smart guy. He notices all of your little actions of affection. You voice your affections, but you also do small things that make his heart flutter.

• Like when you peck his lips randomly, or link your hands with his when he gets confused and doesn't know which route to take. You gently intertwine your fingers with his and guide him through the city, effectively getting him to the destination.

• You are also overly clingy. He loves that. When you randomly come up from behind to hug him, he goes crazy. When you two are lazing around on the couch, and you place his head on your lap, stroking his hair and humming sweet melodies to him, he realizes just how much he loves you.

• You mean the world to him, and he means the world and some more to you.

• You two are honestly made for each other.

• The story completely flips 180 degrees when you complement other people, though.

• Ranpo turns into angry ranpo.

• 'How dare they steal my candy?!' Is all he can think of when someone is getting your attention.

• He would constantly poke your cheek, or call your name to get your attention.

• "Y/NNNNNNN"

• "Yes, love?"

• He would simply smile innocently and act childish.

• "Hug me please."

• "Ok, honey, just give me a minute. I was just about to tell 'random person' how amazingly they handled the situation today."

• "Hug me. Now. They can wait. Can't they." He says while glaring at the concerned individual.

• Kinda gives me dazai vibes ngl

• You would be all confused, though. But would apologize to them and give ranpo a well deserved hug. I mean, he had to suffer so much. He had to see you saying good things about someone other than him. How heartbreaking!

• I think if I continue any longer, I'd end up writing a novel... so now I'll stop..

• Ok just one thing..

• When you both get ready for work, you suddenly nuzzle his neck and mumble a soft," You smell so good, love."

• Then you pull back and check him out.

• "Ravishing."

• And you leave.

• Just like that.

• Things like this make Ranpo fall for you over and over again.

• He loves every bit of your affection.

• Ok I'm going.

• For real now...

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ecoamerica · 24 days

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youtube

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

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the-scandalorian · 3 years

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Tempered Glass: Chapter 3

Pairing: Din Djarin x Female Reader Rating: M (will become explicit) Word Count: 6.3k Warnings: slow burn, canon rewrite, canon-typical violence, cursing Summary: You and Mando choose Sorgan as your place to lay low, only to get wrangled into a risky job. Notes: In my head, Cara Dune is Katy O’Brian.. Yes, I’m ignoring the fact that she plays one of Moff Gideon’s officers lol Taglist: @bbdoyouloveme @beskarhearts @dincrypt @honey-hi @just-me-and-my-obsessions00 @red-leaders @zoemariefit

Previous Chapter | Masterlist | Next Chapter

Image from The Art of Star Wars: The Mandalorian

The three of you sat in the cockpit—Mando piloting the ship, you in the copilot seat behind him, and the kid perched on the console. He had slipped out of his own seat, waddled to the front of the cockpit, and managed to grasp the edge of the console with his tiny hands and scrabble his legs against the front of it to shimmy all the way up there. Honestly, it was an impressive feat for such a small being. Mando pretended not to notice, keeping his visor trained on the viewport.

You’d been sitting in silence for a while, watching the stars streak by. It was a fairly comfortable silence, considering you were complete strangers and still trying to feel out the limits of your tenuous alliance.

Looking at the back of Mando’s helmet, the surface of which reflected the bands of hyperspace that surged around the Crest, you thought again about how challenging it was to read him: there was so little to go on. No facial expressions, no significant looks, and very few gestures—even the cadence of his breathing was largely disguised by the helmet and modulator.

That was definitely part of his appeal: the mystery. He was an almost blank canvass where others were open books. Because your survival had hinged on your ability to read people, you had gotten so good at it that the task lost its fun rather quickly. Mando was an interesting new game.

In some ways, the armor forced the Mandalorian to be much more straightforward. Because it obscured his features, he had to ask for what he wanted outright—unless it was from a bounty. He could easily communicate threat with just his stance. Anything else, though, he had to verbalize. You were interested to see how this would play out in his interactions with you. You weren’t a job or his enemy, and you were really hoping that meant he’d eventually be slightly less withholding with you.

The baby, looking around, cooed quietly and reached over to flick a random switch on the panel to his right. Mando disregarded the action, pressing a few buttons in front of him. You stifled a chuckle.

The kid, clearly testing his boundaries, leaned over to flick another switch. It turned green when he activated it, and the sound of a machine whirring kicked in.

“Stop touching things,” snapped Mando, frustrated, turning to look at him. You couldn’t help the grin that spread across your face, grateful that Mando couldn’t see you.

The child lowered his ears and trilled sadly in response to the admonishment but recovered quickly: his ears pricked back up, and keeping his eyes trained on Mando in what seemed like a purposeful act of open rebellion, he leaned over slowly to flick yet another switch. This one turned red, and the ship rattled in response. You let out a sharp bark of laughter, slapping a hand over your mouth to smother the rest of your reaction.

This time, Mando pushed one large gloved hand past the baby to deactivate the switch and picked him up to set him on his lap. You smiled again, knowing this was likely what the kid was trying to achieve anyways. He wanted attention.

“Do you know his name?” you asked. You assumed he didn’t because he always called him “the kid”...but it also wouldn’t be a surprise if Mando did know his name and just chose to call him that instead.

“No,” he replied. “You ready to pick a planet?” Mando changed the subject abruptly as he reclined to look at you over his shoulder.

“Sure,” you agreed, standing to lean over the back of his chair so you could see the screen in front of him.

After some discussion and research, toggling through the nearby planets on the nav, you decided on Sorgan as your place to lay low. It was a rural planet, sparsely inhabited and undeveloped. Mando described it as “a real backwater skughole.” But there were some small settlements, so there would be food and fuel.

Your stomach gurgled loudly.

“I’m going to go eat,” you said, standing to leave the cockpit.

Mando, still holding the baby, stood to follow.

You moved toward the door just as Mando did the same, both attempting to walk through it together. He paused and stepped back, pressing himself against the wall as far as he could to let you by, gesturing you forward with his free hand.

Without thinking, you touched his arm lightly as you slipped past him in the tight doorway, and he flinched away, wrenching his arm back. You withdrew your hand quickly and looked up at him.

“Sorry,” he explained gruffly, visor tilted down at you. “Reflex.”

“I get it.”

He twitched his hand forward like he was considering reaching for you then decided against it, clenching it into a fist by his side.

You stood in the confined space for a moment, pinned by the mesmerizing void of his visor. Inches from your chest, he was so tall and imposing, somehow equally menacing and alluring as he towered over you. It was hard to ignore his intoxicating magnetism when you were this close to him.

He cocked his head the tiniest bit, and you realized, with a rush of embarrassment, that he was waiting for you to move.

Flustered, you turned and climbed down the ladder to find your pack. Mando followed and sat across the hull from you, after settling the kid into a makeshift crib—a storage box lined with blankets—on the floor beside his feet. He busied himself adjusting something on the complicated armor that covered his forearm, as you ate one of your ration packs.

You studied him as he worked. As far as you could tell—with the glaring exception of the presence of the child—Mando was the definition of a bounty hunter. He worked alone, and all he did was work.

He was clearly not used to casual, nonthreatening human contact, aside from that of the child.

You felt a deep, cutting sadness when you really pondered the solitude of his existence. The bulk of his interactions were violent confrontations. He had the child, but for how long? He seemed a recent acquisition. Did Mando have friends? When was the last time he felt at ease around another adult person?

When was the last time someone touched him, other than a bounty during a fight?

You’d been on the run for years and, at times, it had almost killed you—not the running itself, but the loneliness. No matter how much time you had to adjust, it remained a draining existence. You maintained only loose contacts and casual, fleeting relationships. How long had his life been exactly the same? Decades? Had he ever known anything different?

You looked down at the baby. The presence of the child spoke to the possibility that he at least wanted something different for himself.

The kid seemed to feel your gaze and turned his head to train his huge eyes on you. You smiled at him. He grabbed the edge of the box with his tiny three-fingered hands to haul himself over the side and toddled his way over to where you sat. He hugged your calf, looking up at you expectantly.

Mando was busy fiddling with the controls on his vambrace and didn’t notice.

“Can I?” You gestured down at the kid. Mando’s head flicked up.

“I guess,” he acquiesced hesitantly. He watched as you reached down to pick up the kid.

The baby settled happily into your lap, looking up to reach a hand toward your face. You met his hand with your own, and he was content to latch his little fingers around your much larger one and sit back. He babbled and wiggled the tiny green toes that poked out of the bottom of his outfit, which appeared to be made out of the altered sleeve of an old beige flight jacket.

Despite the fact that the child was more than happy cuddled in your arms, Mando was visibly uncomfortable. Abandoning his task completely, he sat forward with his elbows propped on his knees and watched you tensely.

He didn’t relax until you set the baby back down, turning him toward Mando, and he toddled his way back across the floor. Mando took the kid with him into his bunk when he disappeared to eat.

***

From the ship, Sorgan looked inviting: lush greens and blues, the landscape broken up by winding rivers. Clouds swirled across the atmosphere. Mando touched the Razor Crest down in a clearing of a pristine forest.

Mando wasn’t about to leave you behind with the kid—or with the ship, for that matter—so he informed you that the two of you would set out to the nearest village to find lodging, and he would leave the child behind. You understood that he didn’t have a lot of options, but leaving a toddler alone on a ship seemed like a terrible idea. You decided not to question it for the moment.

It was abundantly clear that Mando was accustomed to running the show and operating alone. He was used to making unilateral decisions...and that was going to have to change if the two of you were ever going to get to a place of easy coexistence. As someone who was also used to making unilateral decisions, you didn’t take well to being told what to do without even being consulted. You figured you’d give him some time to adjust to your presence before bringing this to his attention. You reminded yourself that this was a temporary arrangement.

Before leaving, Mando gave the baby a very serious, very stern talking-to about not touching anything and staying put. This was another instance that made it clear that he hadn’t been in charge of this kid (or any kid) for very long. You tried your best to conceal your amusement while Mando lectured the child. When he started to wag his finger dramatically to punctuate his points, you coughed to cover a laugh that escaped your lips.

As you both gathered what you needed in the hull, you asked, “How effective are your lectures usually?”

He let out a tired sigh, shoulders dropping slightly: “Not very.”

You laughed.

Sure enough, the baby shuffled up behind the two of you as the ramp of the ship lowered.

Mando looked down and sighed heavily.

“Oh, what the hell? Come on.” He strode forward decisively without a backwards glance.

You bent down to scoop up the child, not sure how Mando expected this tiny creature to keep up with his long strides, and followed Mando into the verdant forest.

***

The village was made up of a collection of circular wooden structures with pointed roofs. You ducked after Mando into the public house, the largest building in the small cluster. Good-natured conversation and the smell of something delicious permeated the air. You set the baby down on the floor to walk beside you.

A lothcat curled underneath a table hissed loudly at him as he waddled by, and he cowered in fear. You scowled at Mando, who didn’t react besides tilting his helmet down, and picked the child back up, patting him lightly.

“It’s okay, buddy,” you murmured reassuringly. Mando paused to watch you comfort the kid. You waited for him to pull the baby from your arms or say something to discourage you, but he didn’t. When you looked up at him, he continued forward to find an empty table.

Mando scanned the room carefully as he strode between the tables. You noticed an intimidating woman surveying him as he passed. You seated yourselves, and a woman in an apron approached with a friendly smile on her face.

“Welcome, travelers. Can I interest you in anything?”

“Bone broth for the little one,” requested Mando. Then he turned to look at you.

“One for me too, please.”

“Very well,” replied the woman.

Jerking his head towards the intimidating woman, Mando asked, “That one, over there—when did she arrive?”

The woman hesitated, and then said, “Uh, I’ve seen her here for the last week or so.”

“What’s her business here?”

You studied the woman in question, noting her piecemeal armor and tattoos. She looked like a war-hardened soldier.

“Oh, well there’s not much business in Sorgan, so I can’t say,” the server responded noncommittally. “She doesn’t strike me as a log runner.”

Mando reached into his belt and threw some credits toward her on the table. She brightened.

“Well, thank you, sir. I will get those broths to you as soon as possible, and I will throw in a flagon of spotchka for good measure. I will be right back with that.”

The server left, and the unobstructed view revealed that the woman he’d been asking about had disappeared.

Mando stood quickly.

“Stay with the kid?” he asked, looking down at you.

You hummed your assent, but he watched you for a long moment, as if assessing whether or not this was a safe idea. He was weighing the risk of leaving the kid with you against the risk of not neutralizing the possible threat of this stranger.

“I’m not going anywhere. We agreed to stick together for the time being, remember? Relax,” you assured him. It wasn’t much of a commitment, but what else could you say?

He nodded decisively and turned on his heel.

You and the kid watched him leave. The baby made a small whimpering sound as Mando disappeared through the curtain that hung over the exit.

You considered the baby as you waited for your food. He looked around, curiously taking in his surroundings.

What species is he? You’d never encountered anyone like him. Despite the fact that he was clearly a toddler, he looked a bit like an old man. And a tortoise? And maybe a frog? Whatever he looked like, he was really damn cute. Those big eyes and huge, expressive ears were undeniably adorable. You’d never felt a maternal instinct in your life, but in that moment, you wanted to pick him up and snuggle him again. You resisted the urge.

The server returned with two steaming bowls of broth and a flagon of electric blue liquor. The child immediately reached out for the broth, letting out a string of gibberish.

“It’s too hot. Let’s let it cool.”

He narrowed his eyes at you and let out a disapproving huff.

Despite his protests, you waited until the broth cooled a bit before setting it in front of him. He picked up the bowl and slurped happily.

You didn’t start to worry about Mando until you’d finished your own broth and the drink—you’d figured Mando wasn’t about to drink spotchka—and he still hadn’t come back. You scooped up the kid, who was still holding his little wooden bowl of soup, and slipped out the exit to look for Mando.

The loud sounds of a brawl made it easy to locate him.

He was locked in an intense hand-to-hand fight with the woman. They were both on the ground, Mando on top of her briefly until she used her strong legs to launch him over her body onto his back. He landed with a thud.

Ouch.

You set the baby down on the ground, but neither Mando nor the woman noticed. The two of them seemed fairly equally matched. To be safe, though, you eased your blaster out of its holster and held it loosely by your side.

Before you’d decided whether or not to intervene, the fight ended in a stalemate, both of them flat on their backs, having drawn their blasters simultaneously.

They panted on the ground, until Mando lolled his head to the side and saw you and the kid watching them, the baby slurping his broth loudly.

“You want some soup?” Mando deadpanned, looking up at the woman. You let out a sharp laugh at the unexpected question.

The tension dissolved, and they both brought their blasters back down to their sides.

You sheathed your blaster and offered Mando a hand, and—to your surprise—he took it without hesitation.

“Thanks for jumping in to help,” Mando grunted as he got to his feet slowly and dropped your hand to dust himself off.

“Hey, I was ready to step in,” you held out your blaster pointedly. “I probably wouldn’t have let her kill you.”

The woman chuckled as she straightened up then turned to walk back to the public house.

“Good to know,” retorted Mando, fixing you with an exasperated head tilt.

***

The four of you sat down together and talked for a while, sipping broth. Mando introduced himself to the woman, ignoring you and the kid. His manners seemed to come and go.

The woman shared that her name was Cara Dune.

“And who is this?” Cara inquired, eyebrows raised, looking from you and the baby to Mando.

Interested to hear how he’d explain your presence, you waited to see what Mando would say before answering.

“Long story,” replied Mando. Yep, that seems about right.

You introduced yourself, offering a fake name and sticking out a hand to shake Cara’s hand.

Mando’s head snapped to you: “You didn’t tell me your name.”

“You never asked,” you shrugged.

If Cara was confused that Mando didn’t know your name, she didn’t say anything about it. She shared that she had been a shock trooper in the Alliance, but she was trying to make a new life for herself, away from all that.

When she inquired, you shared a carefully curated set of details about yourself: born on Naboo, studied on Coruscant, now a freelance programmer with a diverse set of clientele and therefore stayed off the grid as a rule, with Mando at the moment to get from one place to the next and find more work—Sorgan was a temporary stopover.

You figured Mando didn’t love the idea of being described as a glorified taxi service, but it was better than disclosing the truth.

Mando leaned forward slightly and fixed you with his unwavering gaze while you spoke but questioned nothing. You knew he likely recognized the gaping holes in your story, considering he’d witnessed firsthand how well you could hold your own in a fight.

He shared little about himself, aside from the fact that he was in the Guild but not currently in pursuit of a bounty. Cara explained that she’d thought Mando was hunting her and that was why she reacted so defensively.

Understandable. That’s a much more reasonable reaction to his attention than flirting with him from afar liked I’d done in Nevarro. Whoops.

Finally, Cara stood: “Well, this has been a real treat, but unless you want to go another round, Mando, either you or I are gonna have to move on, and I was here first.” She turned to you and added: “You, on the other hand, are welcome to stay.” She winked at you and sauntered away.

You let out a surprised laugh, and Mando swiveled his head from Cara to you so fast, he probably tweaked his neck.

You couldn’t decide if it was hilarious or frustrating (probably both) that Cara had warmed to you over the course of a twenty-minute conversation while Mando remained aloof after more than twenty-four hours together.

Mando shook his head like he was willing away an unwelcome thought and leaned an elbow on the table: “Well, looks like this planet is taken.”

“Technically, that only applies to you.”

“You want to stay here?” There was a hint of unease in his otherwise even voice.

“No, Mando. You’re stuck with me for now, remember?”

“Right.”

You leaned forward and placed both your palms on the table: “But before we leave, I would like it on the record that I watched the kid for a full ten minutes without running away or harming a single hair on his wrinkly head.” You reached over to rub one of the child’s ears briefly, and he cooed up at you. “And I am electing not to ditch you and stay here with Cara even though she seems much more fun than you.”

A sound that might have been a laugh crackled through the modulator.

“So maybe you don’t have to breathe down my neck every second when we’re on the Crest?”

“You did almost let Cara kill me.”

You leaned back and laughed. “So, you admit it—you needed help.”

“No—I...That’s not the point.” You enjoyed how easy it was to agitate Mando.

“You’re right, it’s not. The point is that if I’m going to stick around for a while, you’re going to have to give me the benefit of the doubt. Otherwise, this doesn’t make sense.”

He hummed noncommittally and rested a hand on the tabletop, gloved fingers tapping out an erratic rhythm.

“I could have abducted the kid and stolen the Crest while Cara took her time kicking your ass, but I didn’t.”

“It sounds like you considered it.”

You rolled your eyes at him. “Mando.”

You fixed him with an impatient stare, and he met your look with his impassive visor.

You huffed, and letting the levity fall away, so he knew you meant it, you asked, “Maybe it would just be easier for me to find some other way out of here?”

His fingers stilled. “No.”

“Okay... so, you’ll lighten up?”

In a well-timed interruption, the kid quirked his head at Mando and let out a string of nonsense that had the upward cadence of a question.

“He’s wondering the same thing.”

The child stretched his arms out toward Mando and wiggled his fingers. “He just wants to be picked up.” Mando scooped him up and tucked him under his arm. “But, point taken. Let’s get out of here,” he said, lifting his hand to flag down the server.

Mando seemed surprised when you reached into your bag and pulled out a small pouch of credits to pay for the food. In reality, it was one of three that you had on you at the moment.

You were a professional at disappearing. You always had a blaster at your back, a knife on your belt, another knife strapped to your ankle, and plenty of credits on your person. Plus, the roughly hewn necklace tucked under your shirt looked unassuming but was worth a small fortune—though, you’d have to be in a really tough spot to ever consider selling it. You were used to leaving places at a moment’s notice. Being prepared for anything was your default state.

Mando should understand that better than anyone.

***

When you returned to the Crest, Mando mumbled something about routine maintenance and disappeared outside with a heavy metal toolbox in hand. The kid was asleep in Mando’s bunk, and you were sitting in the hull, reading about potential planets on your datapad, when you heard strange voices approaching.

Setting down your datapad, you stood and walked down the slope of the ramp at the back of the ship quietly. You peeked your head around the side, staying out of sight, and watched two men speaking to Mando’s back as he continued working at an open panel on the side of the Crest.

The men didn’t look threatening, and Mando was clearly unconcerned. You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding.

“Our whole village chipped in,” explained one of the men, a touch of desperation in his voice. The other man, who had longer hair, held up a pouch of credits.

Mando turned to face them. “It’s not enough,” he answered simply.

“Are you sure? You don’t even know what the job is?” the man with short, curly hair continued.

“I know it’s not enough. Good luck.”

Rude.

The men were insistent, pleading. Mando’s harsh rebuff surprised you. He seemed to flip flop between being decidedly cold and cautiously warm with strangers, and right now he was the former. You weren’t fooled though. With a little more prodding, you were sure they’d convince him—well, you hoped they’d convince him to take the job and stay.

“This is everything we have. We’ll give you more after the next harvest,” promised the second man.

The side door of the Crest hissed loudly as it opened, and the two men jumped back in surprise. They looked at each other, resigned, when Mando walked up the ramp, ignoring them.

“Come on, let’s head back.”

No, don’t give up yet. He’s secretly soft. He adopts stray babies, protects complete strangers, and offers soup to people who have just thrown him on his ass!

They turned to leave, mumbling sadly to each other. You hurried back up the ramp to meet Mando in the hull. You stopped, settling your hands on your hips.

“What?”

“I mean... we were looking for a reason to stay, and they just gave us one. We were looking for a place to stay middle of nowhere... they just happen to live in the middle of nowhere...”

“Cara—,” he started.

“She seems like a reasonable enough person.”

He let out a long, dramatic sigh then turned to lean out the open side of the ship. “Where do you live?” Mando called after the retreating men.

One of them called, “On a farm. Weren’t you listening? We’re farmers.”

“You have lodging?” Mando clarified.

“Yeah, absolutely!”

“Come up and help,” he said to the men.

The two men paused when they saw you.

“Hi,” you greeted, turning to pull on your boots and grab your bag.

“Hello,” they both replied tentatively.

“She comes too,” Mando stated, jerking his head in your direction, as he began to pack up a chest of weaponry.

“Sure, that’s fine,” one of the men responded.

“And we have to make a stop.”

***

You waited with the two men—they introduced themselves as Caben and Stoke—at their speeder while Mando took the kid and tracked down Cara. They shared that they were krill farmers and needed help because Klatooinian raiders had been terrorizing their settlement.

Mando located Cara quickly, and they met you at the speeder, the back of which was full of weapons. You scooted over to make space for them as the speeder stuttered to life. It was cramped and when everyone was seated, your side was pressed into Mando, the kid settled on his lap.

Mando and Cara talked quietly while you laid your head back to watch the stars. You looked down when you felt something gently press on your thigh. The kid had climbed off of Mando’s lap and was looking up expectantly at you, as if asking permission to crawl into your lap.

You smiled at him and looked up at Mando, posing a silent question.

He nodded once, and you pulled the kid onto your lap. The baby cooed happily, wiggled around to get comfortable, and closed his eyes. You rested your head back again and let the movement of the speeder lull you into a light sleep.

Before you were totally out, you felt Mando adjust beside you, leaning back and stretching an arm over your head. Instinctively, you lifted your head so he could settle his arm down behind you, and you relaxed back so your cheek rested on his cold shoulder.

In a sleepy haze, you decided to capitalize on this opening and let your hand rest on the beskar plate covering his thigh.

***

You woke up when the speeder stuttered to a stop and opened your eyes, rubbing them in the brightness of the morning. You sat up and Mando did the same beside you, moving his arm from where it had been supporting your back. He hadn’t moved all night.

The scene before you was nothing if not idyllic: green and peaceful. Wind whispered through the tall grasses that lined the village, forming a natural buffer between the settlement and the forest. Circular wooden structures, the same pointed shape as the public house, were clustered at the middle of the clearing. Villagers, catching flopping blue krill in flat baskets, waded through square ponds that encircled the small community. Children giggled and called out, running toward the speeder.

“Well, looks like they’re happy to see us,” observed Mando.

“Looks like,” agreed Cara.

The children flocked toward you to see the baby in your arms, and you hopped down to greet them.

***

You spent the morning meeting people, learning the layout of the tiny village. The children took to the kid immediately, following you wherever you carried him. Apparently, Mando had accepted the fact that the child was safe with you because he didn’t object.

The gaggle of children showed you around excitedly, even demonstrating how to expertly sift krill from the ponds. They brought you to the long hall where food—stew and spotchka—was served. You sat on the ground outside, eating and enjoying the sun, with the children and the kid. They watched in enthusiastic disgust as the child caught and ate a live frog.

That afternoon, you and Mando followed the woman who introduced herself as Omera to your lodging. Though there did not seem to be an official leader of the small community, Omera clearly garnered respect. You watched as she gave easy instruction to those around her, and they complied reflexively.

She led you to one of the wooden buildings on the edges of the settlement. You noticed the way Mando stopped in the doorway to admire Omera as she raised a window covering and the afternoon light illuminated her beautiful face.

“Please, come in,” Omera invited warmly.

You set the baby on the ground, and he waddled a few steps before plopping down to lean against a crate, his eyelids heavy after a full morning of play.

“I hope this is comfortable for the three of you,” Omera continued. “Sorry that all we have is the barn. There is a spare crib for the child.” She gestured at a well-made looking crib. You wondered when the last time the child had slept in a proper bed was.

You picked him up from where he sat dozing on the floor and settled him into the crib.

You looked around the open space of the barn. It was clearly used for storage: it was lined with baskets, furniture, crates, fishing equipment, and more, but a large space in the center of the room was clear. You hadn’t considered until this moment that you might be sharing one room with Mando. Neither of you would be comfortable in these close quarters.

“Oh, we’re not—,” you started.

“This will do fine,” confirmed Mando, cutting you off mid-sentence. You looked at him out of the corner of your eye, surprised that he seemed okay with this sleeping arrangement.

“I stacked some blankets over here,” Omera pointed to a stack of quilts in the corner.

“Thank you. That’s very kind,” replied Mando as he turned to unstrap his rifle from his back.

A little girl crept up to the open doorway, looking down at her feet with her hands clasped behind her back. You recognized her from the gaggle of children. She was one of the quieter, shyer kids.

Mando, who was facing the back of the room, whipped around defensively at her movement. His hand hovered threateningly over his blaster.

The little girl gasped and jumped back, disappearing from view. Omera turned to follow her out the door.

You stepped toward Mando and put a steadying hand on his elbow in the space between his armor, drawing his arm away from his weapon. He looked down at where your hand gripped his arm.

“Are you okay?” you asked, under your breath.

He gave you a curt nod and exhaled loudly through the modulator.

You dropped your hand to your side when Omera returned, the little girl hugged tightly to her.

“This is my daughter, Winta,” she explained in her dulcet voice. “We don’t get a lot of visitors around here. She’s not used to strangers.”

Neither is Mando.

Mando stood awkwardly and said nothing.

“It’s nice to meet you, Winta,” you greeted gently. She smiled timidly against her mother’s stomach.

“These people are going to help protect us from the bad ones,” Omera said.

“Thank you,” replied Winta quietly.

“Come on, Winta. Let’s give our guests some room.” Omera took Winta’s hand and lead her away.

As soon as the two of you and the baby were alone, you turned to Mando. “How are we both going to sleep in here? You can’t sleep in your helmet.”

Mando stood frozen, staring at the doorway. He seemed not to have registered that you said anything.

“Mando?”

He turned to you. “I—uh, it’s fine. I didn’t want to inconvenience them any more.”

“But how is this going to work?”

“I can sleep in my helmet.”

“No way, that’s ridiculous. I’ll ask if I can stay with Cara.” You took a step toward the door.

He looked down at the floor. “I’d rather you stay here.”

“Ah...okay. I thought we were past the stage where you felt the need to babysit me,” you joked, hoping that wasn’t the reason for this.

“No. That’s not...” he started to explain but trailed off.

He rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably, and, despite the prickle of irritation you felt at the confirmation of his mistrust, you felt compelled to fill the uneasy silence that followed.

Avoiding his gaze, you looked over to where the kid was snoozing in the crib. “It’s fine. I’m going to go out for a bit if you want to take it off now. I’ll let you know before I come back in.”

“Thank you.”

You dropped your bag onto a crate and slipped out of the room and into the soft sunlight that shone through the sparse clouds.

Unwittingly, Mando seemed to know how to give you just enough reassurance to keep you around and just enough doubt to keep you guessing about why you were here with him. He was holding you at arm’s length, but not letting you go.

The potential between you was as enticing as it was confusing.

The more time you spent with Mando, the more of a paradox he seemed to be. He was constantly torn between a need to be hard and his instinct to be soft. You had an inkling that at heart, he was soft through and through. How else could you explain the presence of the baby?

His literal and metaphorical armor were clearly worn out of necessity—for several reasons, you guessed: to be successful in a brutal profession, probably as a result of past trauma, and simply because life is just fucking hard. You barely knew him, but you couldn’t help but want to be someone with whom he felt comfortable letting his guard down.

You pushed these thoughts from your mind as you stepped into the dappled light that filtered through the canopy of the forest. You were happy to explore the woods on your own, enjoying the serene atmosphere and natural beauty. It had been a while since you’d been on such a lovely planet. It reminded you of home.

***

When you returned a few hours later, all the villagers were gathering around the barn where Mando and Cara stood on the porch. You walked up to join the crowd and Mando’s visor followed your movement. You smiled at him, and he looked away abruptly, turning to Cara. They exchanged a few words then Mando stepped forward to address everyone.

“Bad news. You can’t live here anymore,” Mando announced. He declared this in an infuriatingly neutral, straightforward way, the same way you’d tell someone there was going to be rain.

They must have seen the same tracks in the forest that I saw.

The villagers broke out in surprised chatter: “What?” “Why?”

Cara and Mando muttered to each other. You couldn’t hear what they were saying, but you hoped Cara was explaining how callous he’d sounded.

Cara started forward, “I know this isn’t the news you wanted to hear, but there are no other options.”

Despite her slightly better manner, the villagers broke out in angry protests again.

“You took the job!” Caben cried.

“That was before we knew about the AT-ST!” exclaimed Cara.

Your stomach dropped. You had hoped you were somehow wrong about what those tracks belonged to. It would take serious preparation to successfully take on a band of raiders and an Imperial walker.

“What is that?” asked Caben.

“The armored walker with two enormous guns that you knew about and didn’t mention,” said Cara indignantly.

That is a pretty important piece of information they had chosen to leave out.

More protests erupted. The villagers shouted pleas over one another. Mando was surveying the desperate villagers, saying nothing. You had a feeling that despite his initial refusal and these adverse circumstances, he would elect to help them anyways. Eventually one of the many heartfelt appeals was likely to sway him—listening to their pleading voices, you knew you would find it hard to refuse them.

Omera’s plaintive voice broke over the crowd, and you suspected she’d be the one to convince him.

“We have nowhere to go,” she entreated.

Mando met your gaze, where you stood silently at the back of the crowd. He cocked his head, and you knew what he was asking. You gave him an understanding smile, nodding your agreement. He bowed his head slightly in response.

You turned and walked away, not needing to hear the rest of the conversation to know that Mando had already decided to stay.

***

Chapter 4

#Tempered Glass #my writing #the mandalorian fanfiction #din djarin reader insert #the mandalorian reader insert #din djarin x female reader #the mandalorian x female reader #din djarin x f!reader #the mandalorian #the mandalorian fanfic #the mandalorian x f!reader #din djarin fanfiction

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themurphyzone · 3 years

Text

Nova Ch 11

AN: This is gonna be the last of the set-up chapters. The story will start snowballing (see what I did there? Heehee) from the next chapter on.

This chapter includes an art piece I requested from the talented @plutonis, and I’m so glad I can finally show this off because it contains some very gorgeous colors.

AO3 Link

Ch 11: Spectrum

Terran Date 2015.4.28

Yesterday, Pinky showed me one of his favorite pieces of media to thank me for the story of Heikro var Silda, even though he cried for fifteen minutes because of the tragic ending. While indeed sad, I’m proud to say I remained steadfast and controlled my emotions upon revisiting the story. And while I told him it wasn’t necessary, he insisted and I acquiesced to his demands.

That’s how Pinky introduced me to The Lion King. Once again, I remained strong even when the emotional distress threatened to override my logical mind. It was...rather difficult, I’ll admit. We watched the sequel afterward, and though I’ve created five different charts that list the plot points in order, I cannot come up with a satisfactory sequence of events that connects both movies into a cohesive narrative.

Moving onto real life matters...Pinky seems to be under the impression that I will be a permanent resident of the lab.

Celestial bodies above, what use is my intelligence if I’m trapped among heathen, dimwitted fools who can’t tell the difference between left and right! I refuse to be a lab rat, made to do the so-called dominant species’ bidding. Snowball and I shall be taking over this planet and progressing their backwards society far beyond their wildest dreams! That’s what we came here for, and I will not be sidetracked again.

As for Pinky...well, his imagination can make up some personalities for his inanimate object friends once I leave. He doesn’t have any shortage of those. The newest addition to the crew is an eraser nub with the moniker of ‘Gummy’.

Signing off for now,

The Brain

o-o-o-o-o

Brain saved the new transmission to an encrypted, password-protected file. None of the scientists were technical experts, so the odds of discovery were miniscule or nonexistent. He only had five audio files in total, a meager amount compared to the hundreds of transmissions he’d made back on New Selene. The pointer hovered over the Delete All button. He didn’t have a reason to keep making transmissions when he was leaving the lab behind in just a few days.

Still, he hesitated.

Maybe he could leave it as a memento for Pinky. But even a basic level of encryption and case-sensitive password would remain far beyond Pinky’s capabilities.

Perhaps it was best to leave the issue for another night.

He logged off the computer and joined Pinky, who’d surrounded himself with Gummy and the rest of his inanimate object friends as he played a board game called Monopoly. Though Brain had looked up the rules and goals of the game during his online session out of curiosity, he didn’t really understand the appeal or mass marketability of such an unbalanced game.

Although, given the number of different versions of Monopoly out there, creating and selling his own version of the game with the title of Brainopoly could prove to be a viable plan.

Pinky was playing as if there were four players and not just a free-for-all against a nickel, button, and eraser. It became disturbingly obvious that Pinky was either overly generous or just woefully terrible at mental math, because he continually doled out the wrong amount of money from the bank or his own meager cash pile.

And Pinky was far better off if Brain cut in now, because there was no chance that anyone else was catching up to Gummy, who owned the most lucrative properties and had the largest amount of money.

He had to stop anthropomorphizing these objects. He was starting to think like Pinky, and that was an extremely distressing thought.

“You’re losing to an eraser,” Brain said. Pinky only had a few fives in currency, and the three properties he owned were all flipped over and mortgaged.

“Yeah, Gummy’s just very good at this game! Narf!” Pinky said as he rolled the dice for Mr. Button. “It’s so nice of him to let us sleep in his Marvin Garden Apartments though. Otherwise we’d be homeless!”

“Nice indeed,” Brain replied. For his peace of mind, he didn’t dare press for more details.

Pinky threw the dice, then moved the bucket token seven spaces, landing on the Luxury Tax space. “That’ll be seventy-five dollars, Mr. Button,” Pinky said as he gathered the money, which only totaled sixty. And Mr. Button’s four properties were all mortgaged. Pinky realized this too. “Oh...you don’t have enough. Poit.”

Any normal player would’ve tossed in the towel right there, but Pinky wasn’t a conventional player by any means. He frowned, scratched his head, then picked up his own pile of fives and tossed them onto the sixty, bringing the amount to seventy-five, with two leftover fives for Mr. Button.

“You can have that, Mr. Button!” Pinky chirped as he dumped the luxury tax money in the middle of the board. “With a little more for the bus!”

Pinky had completely knocked himself out of the game.

This was supposed to be an extremely competitive game for families and seasoned professionals, right? Though the rules of Monopoly appeared confusing and controversial to most players, he was certain that nobody would willingly lose with such a reckless method.

Well...maybe it was just a fluke. Pinky was only playing against himself, so if he wanted to give up the money to something he was making the decisions for, that was his choice.

Besides, he couldn’t watch this game much longer.

“I’ll be your next opponent,” Brain announced. He’d never played before, but the basics seemed simple enough. And the math involved was basic arithmetic he could do in his sleep. “Reset the board at once, Pinky.”

Pinky’s tail wagged as he gathered up the houses and hotels and tossed them back into the box, then settled down as he skillfully shuffled the Community Chest and Chance cards. From the way he hummed and twirled around, an outsider could easily mistake Brain for a playmate instead of an opponent.

Brain quickly read over the instruction sheet, then divided the game currency into a starting amount for himself, Pinky, and the bank.

“Can I be in charge of the property cards, Brain?” Pinky asked as he organized them by color.

“Yes, but I shall handle all other banker duties,” Brain said. “Listen closely, Pinky. I’ve looked up stories about Monopoly games going on for a long time with no definitive winner, so we’ll stop the game when one of us runs out of money, or if chance has favored you or I enough that we can place a hotel on the board.”

“Chance always has a problem with favoritism,” Pinky said as he moved the horse token to the Go space. Indeed, chance hasn’t always favored members of either of their species, but it could stand to be more merciful during a board game. He hugged the horse token to his chest. “Anyways, Pharfigtwoton is always my choice! What’s yours?”

Brain didn’t understand how anyone in their right mind would want to play as a wheelbarrow or bucket, and the only pieces that interested him at all were the ones that resembled modes of Terran transportation. In the end, he chose the battleship.

He was tempted to call it the Conquistador Two, but he didn’t want to follow the trend of naming random objects.

“Good one!” Pinky said as he pushed the ship over to the horse token. “A gorgeous ship like this needs a name...so I hereby dub thee Battley McBattleface!”

“We’re calling it the Conquistador Two, and that’s final,” Brain snapped.

“The Conquesodor Two,” Pinky agreed.

They tossed the dice to decide turn order, and Pinky won that battle easily since Brain had the misfortune to roll double ones.

On his first turn, Pinky managed to land on St. Charles Place with a high roll. He happily shelled out the money required to buy the property. “I’m putting a nice dog park here!” he declared, placing the unused dog token in the magenta space above the property. “Now Pharfigtwoton can give rides to all the puppies!”

Brain didn’t know if Monopoly required players to create their own storyline, but it certainly made the game more interesting and baffling at the same time. He rolled the dice, sighing when he could only advance to Reading Railroad.

He hoped it wouldn’t be a trend for Pinky to receive high rolls while he was stuck in the first half of the board.

But he quickly changed his mind once he paid up for Reading Railroad and read through the card information. Just like any real life war or corporate strategy, the key to his victory would lie in controlling the flow of transportation and goods!

Pinky landed on New York on his next turn, rambling about taking all the puppies to New York for a double decker bus tour of the city as he slid a stack of bills to Brain. Brain sighed and tossed an extra twenty bill back at Pinky. He wished Pinky would pay more attention to adding properly than the make-believe puppies.

Brain rolled the dice and moved his battleship to Virginia, claiming the property so Pinky couldn’t control one-fourth of the board this early in the game.

“Brain, can I have a house?” Pinky asked as he drew a Community Chest card. He read through the card and grinned. “Awww, I got second in a beauty pageant! Thank you, everyone! It’s such an honor! Oh, and it says I also won ten dollars.”

“You don’t meet the conditions required for a house, Pinky,” Brain said, giving Pinky a ten. He didn’t care about the fake beauty pageant, just that money was either gained or lost depending on luck of the draw.

“Oh, I’ll keep them off the board,” Pinky promised. “I just want a house for Terry to live in.”

He held up the dog token, who was now apparently called Terry.

“Fine, but don’t mix your ridiculous fantasies with the board,” Brain sighed and tossed a green house at Pinky, which smacked him in the head when he didn’t catch it in time. Pinky laughed it off and coaxed Terry to stand next to the house.

Houses and hotels. His Internet searches on the Clarkes led to tons of websites on the Terran real estate market and hotel industry.

Which reminded Brain that he hadn’t shared his research into the Clarkes with Pinky yet. There hadn’t been enough time during the day, where the incompetent scientists poked and prodded them. And in Brain’s case, tried to figure out where the antennae came from.

Their hypotheses, and he was being exceedingly generous when he described their speculation and conspiracy theories as hypotheses, amounted to claiming a Terran mouse and insect had reproduced together.

“I’ve brushed up on the Clarkes so we can properly impersonate them at the party. According to-scrik!” Brain hissed under his breath when he landed on New York and had to pay Pinky.

“Sixteen please!” Pinky chirped. “All proceeds will go to buying toys and treats for good dogs in need!”

Brain grudgingly gave up the sixteen. Probability was not on his side tonight. “As I was saying before cruel fate reared its ugly head, the man I shall impersonate, Anthony Clarke, is an esteemed real estate and luxury hotel mogul, with a net worth in the billions. His success is rooted in savvy, ruthless business against competitors. It appears that he and Lamont are old college acquaintances, which we can spin to our advantage. And...yes! B&O Railroad!”

He claimed the B&O Railroad for himself, and Pinky wrinkled his nose. “I wouldn’t ride on the Body Odor Railroad even if you pay me in cheese,” he said.

Brain rolled his eyes. “The temptation for cheese is too powerful for your empty mind and bottomless stomach.”

“You’re right, Brain. It’s too yummy.” Pinky licked his lips. “So does that make me Mrs. Zoey Clarke then? Unless he divorced her already. I haven’t kept up with them in a while.” The butler on the phone had made a similar comment, thoroughly expecting ‘Mr. Clarke’ to divorce his spouse by the end of the week.

“So you’re aware of the Clarkes,” Brain said. He rolled the dice, and chance immediately sentenced him to jail. He had to push his battleship all the way to the jail space.

But all of this divorcing nonsense was trivial to his goals. Hardly worth a footnote.

The objective was to infiltrate the party, mingle with the guests to throw off suspicion, then steal the military weapon and take over the world, not involve himself in a Terran’s relationship drama.

“Ooh, tough.” Pinky clicked his tongue in sympathy as he bought Waterworks. “But everyone knows who the Clarkes are. Didn’t you see anything about all those divorces when you looked them up?”

“I’m more interested in his business ventures than his messy personal life,” Brain replied. “All this talk about divorce is simply incidental. But now I digress. Escaping jail so I may continue my conquering campaign is of utmost priority.”

“Doubles! Doubles!” Pinky chanted as Brain threw the dice. A two and three faced up, but no doubles. Pinky deflated, but only for a moment. Then he picked up a fifty. “Here, Brain. I’ll bail you out.”

From Brain’s brief skim over the rules, he didn’t recall a single one that allowed players to bail each other out of jail. He wanted to refuse and tell Pinky to focus on winning for himself, but obtaining Pennsylvania Railroad, which he’d missed the first time he’d passed through this section of the board, was just too tempting.

Brain took the fifty from Pinky, put it in the bank, then moved his battleship out of jail and used his draining resources to buy Pennsylvania Railroad. Only afterward did he realize that he’d been steadily losing money every turn and hadn’t gained anything since the beginning of the game.

Contrast to Pinky, who rolled a twelve and skipped over the last fourth of the board, placing him squarely on the Go space and guaranteeing himself a free two hundred. Then he rolled a low number and bought Mediterranean.

A poor investment, given that it was hardly worth anything. But Pinky didn’t think so.

And he wouldn’t stop cooking up new fantasies either. “Now we can host a beach jubilee for your welcome home from jail party! With hot dogs and beach balls and those big umbrellas and-”

Brain lobbed the dice at Pinky so he’d quiet down and allow Brain to formulate a strategy in peace.

Perhaps a pass around the board without purchasing anything would be necessary. He had to rebuild his financial resources again. The downside was that Pinky could potentially take the spaces for himself, but it was entirely possible that he’d miss some of the open spaces too.

So he did just that, finally lucking out when a Community Chest card sent Pinky to Reading Railroad.

But Pinky was incapable of keeping his mouth shut, and soon he was back on the topic of the infamous Clarke divorces.

“-so I think Zoey is number eleven, and I know they all blend together, so when I confuse them I just remember divorce, beheaded, died, divorce, beheaded, survived!”

Brain stared at Pinky, praying to all the ancient Selenian gods nobody believed in anymore that Snowball didn’t have him take the identity of a murderer.

“Oh wait no, no...that’s King Henry, not Clarke. Must’ve mixed them up, poit. Sorry.”

Brain threw another green house at Pinky, nailing him in the shoulder. Pinky yelped, but once he realized he had another house he immediately thanked Brain because that meant Terry’s friend could move next door.

Since there was little point to dissuading Pinky entirely, Brain focused on his game strategy instead.

It was mostly repetition anyway. Roll dice, move piece, board event, repeat. Perhaps it would be considered tedious and monotonous, but the storylines Pinky improvised were what truly made it fascinating, even though Brain could only follow about half of it since Pinky created plotholes within the fantastical yet mundane place named Monopoly City faster than the speed of light.

According to Pinky, he and his sister co-ran an enormous pet supply shop attached to a humane animal shelter next door to the dog park. Meanwhile, Brain was conductor of a magical train and seeking the mayorship because the corrupt mayor was involved with an evil cigarette corporation who wanted to diabolically sell their products to innocent children.

And while Pinky certainly had a knack for improvisation, the matter at hand was that Brain couldn’t resist buying Boardwalk, but he’d used up a third of his money and Pinky wasn’t landing there to make up for the deficit. But Brain also had Baltic, the least valuable property, and Pinky had Park Place, which Brain desperately needed since neither of them had houses on the board yet.

This wasn’t going to be a fair trade for Pinky, but it was the best chance Brain had to etch out a victory. He was going for it.

“Park for Baltic so we can finally build some residences,” Brain said, sliding the card over to Pinky.

And to his surprise, Pinky jumped at the opportunity. “Sure, Brain! If you’ll trade me Oriental for Marvin Gardens. We’re gonna open a Chinatown district!”

He’d be giving Pinky control of the first quarter of the board, but the allure of the most expensive properties was far too tempting to pass up.

They swapped properties, then paused the game to set up their houses. Brain didn’t have enough money to buy houses for all his properties, so he set two houses on Boardwalk and hoped he could deal a staggering blow to Pinky’s finances. And even this decision was costly, for he only had $180 left.

Pinky set four houses on Baltic and clapped his hands together. “They’re beach houses,” he explained, and didn’t bother putting houses on the rest of his properties even though he could afford it.

Brain kept his mouth shut. Best not to give Pinky ideas. So he rolled the dice and got doubles.

Luxury Tax.

Scrik.

Now he was down to $105. But he’d pass Go on his next turn, so he could obtain an extra two hundred and hopefully skip this portion of the board.

Then he landed on Baltic.

He slowly looked at Pinky, and Brain couldn’t tell if Pinky was being perfectly innocent or just very, very good at pretending to be perfectly innocent. “That’ll be $320 please,” Pinky said.

Including the two hundred from passing Go, he’d only have a grand total of $305.

And according to the conditions he’d set, he’d lost the game through losing all his money.

“Can’t pay it,” Brain sighed. “Congratulations, Pinky. You’ve bested me.”

Pinky giggled and threw his play money in the air in celebration. “Aw, thanks for playing with me! I’ve never played Monopoly with anyone before. Never been able to get the board to Pharfignewton’s stable without the play money flying all over the street. It took me a long time to pick it all up. We should definitely do this again, Brain! Troz!”

But there wouldn’t be a next time. No matter how much he wanted to be victorious in another match against Pinky.

“Yes, we should,” Brain forced out, willing his racing heart to calm down so he wasn’t caught in his lie.

Pinky beamed, and Brain only wished it wasn’t so difficult to explain.

o-o-o-o-o

Terran Date 4.29.2015

Tonight, we shall seek appropriate outfits for the masquerade ball. I have been informed that my jumpsuit is not considered formal attire and that we will need to shop for proper clothing. However, I will be bringing my jumpsuit along since I will not return to the lab, and I require my conquering outfit to carry out our plans.

Pinky knows a place that may contain what we need. He’s spent the last two hours finishing his hat for the Kentucky Derby and has proudly shown off the finished product to me. Though I’ll admit that the result can only be considered a hat if one is generous with their definition.

I have not been able to contact Snowball. I can only assume he’s making the necessary preparations on his end.

Signing off for now,

The Brain

o-o-o-o-o

They stood in front of an enormous building with bright neon letters, impossible to miss even with his direction-challenged companion. Thankfully, it was only a few blocks from the lab. After the scientists strapped him to a machine that tested centrifugal force, he didn’t have the energy to walk much further.

“Welcome to Toyz ‘B’ We, Brain!” Pinky exclaimed, and Brain cringed at the horrendous grammar of that name. “It's the most wonderfulest toy shop ever!”

Wonderfulest wasn’t a word, but Brain was given no time to inform Pinky of that fact before Pinky dragged him to the entrance, where a large, cartoonish statue of a Terran bee stood off to the side, greeting customers with a cheerful wave of her magic wand.

“So that’s the mascot, Becky Bee,...let’s see, those are the shopping carts and the baskets and those machines that give you washable tattoos-”

“Focus on the clothing, Pinky. Not all the extraneous material,” Brain reminded him as they entered the store. Unlike their disastrous mall trip, Brain had brought along a source of money, an ACME credit card one of the scientists had carelessly left at their desk after purchasing a chair online.

They had a right to use the card as ACME employees who never got paid for their hard labor in experiments. And he promised Pinky he’d give it back once they were through purchasing the necessary items, so it didn’t catch on that pesky ‘no stealing’ radar.

Based on Pinky’s descriptions of the store, he expected an interior full of wonder, excitement, and interesting objects designed for enjoyment for young Terrans.

Instead, everything was a sterile white, yellow, or black. Rectangular kits of building blocks of all shapes and sizes sat neatly in a row, their price tags dusty as if they hadn’t been moved or cleaned in some time.

Dozens of bee models hung from the ceiling rafters, all of them sharing the exact same dead stare and pose. The whole setup was rather unnerving, and Brain averted his eyes.

He spotted two workers at the registers. They scrolled through their phones, not noticing Pinky’s cheerful greeting as he skipped past them. A third worker called out in alarm to them, and they suddenly dropped their phones and picked up rags, repetitively wiping their counters in circles in a poor attempt to appear busy.

The only one who acted like they were in a store meant for entertainment was Pinky, who oohed and ahhed and zigzagged all over the place to get a look at all the toys.

“Brain, look at this Barbie convertible! It’s so sparkly!” Pinky exclaimed before darting off to admire the box art on five-hundred piece jigsaw puzzles, then crawled onto the lowest shelf to hug a life-sized chihuahua plushie. “Narf! This one’s a cutie! And I also like the polka-dotted lizard, that green unicorn, and that rainbow koala looks really soft too-”

Brain grabbed Pinky’s tail, yanking him out of the shelf and onto the floor.

“This store’s already eroding whatever’s left of your mind,” Brain said, dragging Pinky away from the stuffed animals.

Pinky propped himself up on his elbows, humming as they passed aisle upon aisle of action figures, balls, and building blocks.

It was strange how they seemed to be the only customers here. Shouldn’t there be more snot-nosed brats running amok or haggard parents corralling them so they didn’t destroy everything with their grubby hands?

Still, perhaps he shouldn’t complain.

It was a relief that he didn’t have to worry about people trampling him underfoot for now.

But the peace didn’t last long, since Pinky suddenly peeled away in a completely different direction, forgetting that Brain was hanging onto his tail. Though he tried to dig his heels in, Pinky was too fast and the floor too slippery for Brain to bring them to a halt.

Then Pinky stopped on his own, and Brain only caught a glimpse of a metallic table leg before he crashed face-first into it, his nose smarting from the impact.

“Sorry, Brain,” Pinky said sheepishly, and there were five upside-down images of him. Brain swatted at the one in the middle, but his hand hit empty air instead. He shook his head to clear his vision, and all but the Pinky on the far left vanished.

Pinky didn’t stay put for long, darting past Brain. He hauled himself up the table leg and onto a light blue tablecloth. “You have to come up and see this, Brain!” Pinky squealed, peering over the edge of the table, his tail wagging beside him. “There’s an entire fence made of Legos here!”

Brain sighed, wondering if it was an exercise in futility to get Pinky to focus on the task at hand. “This is the last time I’ll repeat myself!” Brain shouted as he climbed up to retrieve Pinky. “We’re here for the clothes and-”

Though Brain only took fifteen seconds to ascend, Pinky managed to don a cropped, checkered top that showed off his slender stomach and a very short blue skirt in that short timeframe.

“Well, what do you think?” Pinky giggled and twirled in circles, the skirt flying in a graceful arc around his waist. “I could go square dancin’ in this, pardner! Yee-narf!”

Realizing he’d been staring at Pinky’s exposed stomach rather than making proper eye contact, Brain quickly turned away and pretended to find a row of small toy cars interesting. Next to the toy cars, there was a menagerie of small, plastic animals penned in by a colorful fence.

Part of a garden themed jigsaw puzzle served as a lawn under his feet, the pieces leading up to an enormous pink dollhouse.

Pinky took off the clothes he’d tried on, neatly threading a bent wire through the crop top and skirt and hanging them on a piece of string that served as a makeshift clothesline. There were five different clotheslines, each stocked to the brim with a variety of colorful articles.

Brain thumbed through the selection, though he didn’t feel an attachment to any of these pieces. While these clothes were designed for toys, most of them were still too big for him.

Finding something that would fit would be more difficult than he realized.

There was a large empty space past all the clotheslines, but it seemed it would be filled in soon enough. The display had all the signs of being a work in progress, and Brain couldn’t help but wonder who had the patience to put all this together. Certainly not the bored workers at the registers.

It was a welcome splash of creativity from the rest of the dull store.

“Poit. This is exactly how I imagined my dream home to be,” Pinky said in awe. He walked up to the front door and popped it open, revealing a spacious interior. Brain followed Pinky inside and they explored the first floor together, which contained a kitchen, living room, and a playroom.

“I really like the coloring on those kitchen cabinets, and the fireplace is a great touch! Very retro. And the kiddies will have a grand ol’ time in the playroom,” Pinky said as they climbed the staircase to the second floor and walked through two bedrooms and a bathroom.

“Marble countertops would make the kitchen and bathroom more refined,” Brain argued. Really, did Pinky want any visitors to think uncivilized brutes owned the house? “But the fireplace is a welcome touch.”

Pinky shrugged as they entered the master bedroom. “It’s fine as is. Now if the backyard was bigger with a dolphin-shaped swimming pool, that would be really, really amazing!”

And Brain preferred marble countertops, but since he wouldn’t be getting everything he wanted, neither would Pinky.

Brain sat on the large bed that took up half the room, the fluffy covers soft and welcoming. But they were on a mission, and future world rulers didn’t roll around on beds in an undignified manner, no matter how tempting it was.

Pinky threw open the closet doors, revealing more clothing inside. “Oh, these pajamas are lovely!” he said, pressing a yellow nightgown close to his body.

“Anything that would suit our purposes?” Brain asked. In hindsight, doing some research into what people wore for masquerade balls would’ve been helpful. He didn’t know why it slipped his mind. Perhaps Pinky’s scatterbrained traits were contagious.

“Hmmm, it’s all pajamas and casual wear,” Pinky said, flicking through the different articles. He closed the doors and reopened them, as if the formal wear would magically appear if they were out of sight. “No suits for you or the porpoises, Brain.” And he’d been so hopeful too.

“Maybe we can find something in the aisles,” Pinky said.

A sensible suggestion, for once.

Brain tried not to appear reluctant to leave the bed, but necessity demanded it. As he stood up, the fur on his neck pricked, his ears twitching towards the large window in the bedroom.

An odd sense that he was being watched came over him, and when he turned to look at the window, he saw a Terran’s eye peering into the balcony.

They stared at each other.

Then the eye blinked.

And Brain was suddenly very, very glad Snowball wasn’t here to bear witness, or he’d never hear the end of how he’d leapt onto Pinky’s back in his moment of panic.

Pinky yelped, and so did the Terran outside the window. There were several loud thuds, followed by a frantic apology.

Brain released Pinky, rubbing his face to get rid of the blush as he ran down the staircase and out the front door.

“S-sorry!” a young woman stammered as she bent down to pick up several packages of toys, only to lose her large glasses on the floor in the process. She wore the standard uniform of the store. “I didn’t think anyone would be inside! I thought one of the furniture pieces fell over, that’s all!”

Pinky hopped down from the table, picking up the woman’s glasses and pressing them into her hand. “It’s okay!” he chirped. “You scared us good, but now we can laugh about it! Oh, your name tag says Sharon! What a lovely name! I’m Pinky, that chubby alien up there is Brain, and we’re going to a party this weekend where we’ll raise awareness for the plight of frosted animal crackers!”

“That’s not the event’s objective,” Brain corrected, and he had no choice but to let Pinky come to his own conclusions. Stealing the secret weapon on Lamont property would remain classified information as promised. “And if you call me chubby again, I shall have to hurt you.”

Sharon took her glasses from Pinky with a tentative smile, then let him climb up her arm and onto her shoulder. “Zort! You have very good taste in Polly Pocket dolls!” Pinky said, peering down at the packages in her hands. “Do you collect?”

Sharon blushed. “I, um, have a lot of Beanie Babies at home. I’m not really interested in Polly Pockets, but they’d fit much better in this display than a standard Barbie.” She glanced at Brain. “I’m sorry, could you please move? I’m putting a few things in that area.”

Brain moved out of the way as Sharon carefully opened the packages. Then she placed several small tables and chairs in the empty space next to the clotheslines, bending the dolls’ legs into sitting positions and placing them on the chairs. She worked slowly and diligently, taking great caution to not knock anything over or break the items.

“Did you make all this?” Pinky asked. “It’s amazing!”

“Y-yeah, I did. The display, I mean. Not the toys.” Sharon didn’t look at Pinky as she straightened one of the Lego fences. “Store’s been on the decline, and because there’s not really much to do, I’m trying to create a few displays to generate some interest. The toys in this one were supposed to be thrown away since nobody’s buying them, even on clearance, but it just seemed so wasteful.”

She was resourceful. It was a valuable trait, but she seemed more embarrassed than anything.

“Take pride, Sharon. It’s an excellent use of parts,” Brain advised.

Pinky nodded eagerly. “And you’re saving the toys from the evil furnace! I’m sure they’re very grateful to you when you’re not looking!”

“You...you really like it?” Sharon lifted her glasses and wiped a tear from her eye. “Nobody’s ever really noticed my efforts around here.”

“Well, they should!” Pinky declared. “I’ll tell them so myself!”

Sharon smiled as Pinky hugged her face, then rejoined Brain on the table. “Thanks, but I don’t think you came to this store just to invade a toy home.”

“No, we didn’t,” Brain said, seeing his opportunity and seizing it. “We require formal clothes for a masquerade ball, and unfortunately, we haven’t seen anything of interest yet.”

“There’s plenty of interesting things in here, Brain,” Pinky said. “Like the busybody bees up on the ceiling!”

Apparently they had two very different definitions of interesting.

“Well, I can bring out some items from the back,” Sharon offered. “We had to pull the entire line of formal Zuma Ben accessories last week. Some parents found the outfits a little scandalous for their kids, so now the accessories are just going in the trash. But maybe you’ll find something to wear from the pile. Be right back, guys!” She walked away, her steps growing slightly more confident.

“Real Zuma Ben accessories?” Pinky clasped his hands to his cheek. “I’ve never worn anything like that before!”

“It’s just a name,” Brain said. He didn’t see why Pinky was treating Zuma Ben’s name like a sacred object. “As long as we’re dressed to impress, the name doesn’t matter.”

“I just think they’re pretty,” Pinky replied. “And I like looking at them, even if I can’t buy anything. Still, I’m really happy with the clothes I have now.”

But Pinky had a sizable wardrobe. Those clothes had to come from somewhere.

“So how did you obtain your clothes if you never bought them?” Brain asked.

Pinky smiled. “The scientists. They’ll drop clothes into my cage, which is really nice of them! One time, I put on this pretty sundress they gave me and I started itching really bad. I was jumping around like a tiny monkey and I managed to make them all laugh! I must’ve been quite the sight!”

Pinky laughed at the memory, but Brain was more disturbed at how the blatant act of humiliation didn’t affect him in the slightest. Then the laugh faltered and restarted at a higher pitch.

No, that initial assessment was wrong. True, Pinky could withstand many things, but not even the most resilient being could tolerate the sound of mockery for long.

Should he say something? Was an ‘I’m sorry’ sufficient? Was there any act of comfort that didn’t involve unnecessary physical contact?

Brain wanted to be decisive, but dozens of scenarios played out in his head, and none of them led to a satisfactory outcome. Tell Pinky to cease his laughter, embrace him, talk about the weather. He didn’t know.

Emotions led to nothing but trouble.

“Quit staring,” Brain snapped when Pinky wouldn’t stop watching him like he wanted something.

Pinky’s ears fell, but Sharon came back before the pang of guilt could fully settle in Brain’s stomach.

“Thanks for waiting, guys,” Sharon said as she dumped the accessory packages onto the table. “See anything you like?”

“All of them!” Pinky declared, happily tossing a three-pack of formal dresses into the air. He tried tearing it open, but the packaging wouldn’t give. Sharon helpfully tore it open for him, and Pinky made a happy, grateful sound before pulling a sparkly purple dress over his body. He twirled around. “So how do I look?”

“Lovely,” Sharon giggled as she pulled out her phone. She set it against the Lego fence, allowing Pinky to see himself in the camera app.

“I’ll put this as a maybe,” Pinky said. “But I have to give all the dresses a chance too!”

He tried four other dresses on in quick succession, and all of them went into the maybe pile.

Meanwhile, Brain searched through his choices of men’s formal wear. He wanted the best possible option for successful infiltration, but he didn’t know much about Terran fashion. His nose wrinkled at a powdered blue suit with far too many ruffles. He was fairly certain that wouldn’t garner respect on any planet, so he pushed the offending pack away from his other options.

The pure white suit would get stained too easily. He needed something darker. That one was out.

“Hey Brain, what about this one?” Pinky asked. He now wore a long sleeved lime green dress, which Brain found extremely tacky and unappealing to the eyes. Not even Pinky could salvage that monstrosity. Yet in Pinky’s hands, there was a black suit with a white shirt underneath. Not extravagant by any means, but since the coloration was similar to his conquering attire, it was the most probable choice by far.

But while Pinky was comfortable with changing in front of others, Brain wasn’t so keen on the idea.

“I require privacy,” Brain said. He took the suit from Pinky and went inside the house, shutting the door behind him and ensuring the shutters were closed.

Then he removed his gloves and jumpsuit, shivering from the cold air as he laid the items over a chair. He put on the new set of pants first, then the white collared shirt, and finally buttoned the jacket over his abdomen.

Well, it was comfortable. And it hid most of his stomach too, which was also a positive. But he needed to see how it looked in the light before making a judgment call, so he rejoined Pinky and Sharon, who were playing with different filters on her phone while Pinky wore a magnificent feathery pink dress.

“Now you really look like a flamingo,” Sharon laughed as Pinky changed the filter to sepia, the image now different shades of tan. Pinky blew a kiss to the camera. “This one’s my favorite so far,” Pinky declared with a graceful curtsey.

And the sleeveless feathery dress did seem to match his personality much better than all the other dresses. Flamboyant and quirky, but inviting and friendly as well. A darker pink feather boa was draped over his shoulders, and purple feathers fanned out from the back of his neck. A light green choker was wrapped around his neck. Then Pinky added a matching headband with a light pink tuft to complete the ensemble.

“That will certainly make an excellent first impression on the partygoers,” Brain said.

Pinky changed the phone filter back to normal with one hand, playing with the feather boa in his other. “Egad, you really think so?” he exclaimed. “Hold on a sec, Brain. Where’s the rest of your outfit?”

“Rest of?” Brain echoed. “This doesn’t require anything else.”

Pinky shook his head and dug a red bow and matching sash out of the clothes pile. “You need a few splashes of color, Brain! Or you’ll just end up a sad wilty wallflower!”

“They’d really match your circles,” Sharon added.

Well, he’d always looked good in red. It was a bold, attention-grabbing color.

Brain draped the sash over his shoulder and fastened the bow around his ear, checking himself over in Sharon’s phone. Then Pinky and Sharon started giggling for some odd reason.

“What?” Brain asked. He was presentable at a formal event now, wasn’t he?

“You’re kinda wearing it wrong,” Sharon admitted.

His ears flattened from embarrassment. Selenians typically wore practical jumpsuits with minimal accessories, and none of their databanks ever mentioned Terran outfits. They must’ve found it unimportant.

“Don’t worry, Brain. It’s an easy fix! May I?” Pinky exclaimed.

Brain nodded his permission, and Pinky removed the bow from Brain’s ear and carefully fastened it underneath his collar, taking great care to not pull the bow too tightly around his neck.

“So this isn’t a sash. It’s a cummerbund and you wear it around your stomach,” Pinky explained as he demonstrated the proper way to wear it. It was relieving to know Terrans made accessories that would hide the slight bulge, and Brain donned the cummerbund correctly.

The accessories really did match his orbs. For the first time, he was dressed to the nines and it was a glorious feeling indeed.

“Aw, you’re both so spiffy!” Sharon exclaimed. “Mind if I put a photo of this on the Twitter page to boost some interest?”

“We’ll return the favor,” Brain said. She deserved some reward for helping them out anyway.

Sharon turned her phone around, ready to snap the picture when Pinky suddenly darted out of frame. “Hold on! Narf!” he cried, shoving a small blue butterfly-themed mask into Brain’s hands and flipping a pink feathery mask over his face. “It’s a masquerade ball, you know!”

While Brain’s mask only covered the area around his eyes, Pinky’s face was mostly hidden by his birdlike mask, leaving only his bright blue eyes exposed.

“Doesn’t that tickle?” Brain inquired as Pinky stretched his boa out for a picture.

Pinky shrugged. “A little. But I don’t mind!”

“Smile for the camera, you guys!” Sharon grinned.

Brain didn’t smile, but he stood in front of the toy house while Sharon snapped pictures and Pinky struck a different pose with every shot.

Pinky’s laughter rang joyously in Brain’s ears.

He would leave that sound behind in just a few days. But it was a small price to pay for the world.

End AN: Maybe this chapter is a little disjointed, but oh well. Sharon is based off the toy store worker who helps the mice in Brain’s Night Off.

I tried to do the math for the Monopoly game and even pulled out my Monopoly property cards so I could get the amounts correct, but if anything is inaccurate I am hereby excused from responsibility because I am a writer and not a mathematician. Yes i use that excuse every time but it’s true.

Brain's outfit comes from the tuxedo he wore in the reboot's Future Brain episode. Pluto designed Pinky's outfit herself (somehow we both were thinking lots of pink feathers for Pinky) and deserves all the credit for it cause it's so beautiful. I chose a butterfly mask for Brain and a flamingo theme for Pinky.

#pinky and the brain #patb fanfiction #patb nova

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the-lost-lights · 3 years

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Beast Wars: More than Meets the Eye AU REBOOT: Part 1

Introduction

A long, long, LOOOOOOOONG time ago, I made an anonymous ask to @yes-i-write-fanfiction about an idea I had: what it there was a version of the Transformers comic Transformers: More than Meets the Eye with Beast Wars characters? I began working on it and soon, and with some help of yes-i-write-fanfiction, I made some profiles for the characters.

Despite my objective was to make all the profiles for an hypotetical “first season” of the comic, a variety of events caused me to give up the project.

Until now.

I’m going to give this project a second shot, rewriting everything and making it bigger and better than before (hopefully).

Wish me luck!

Story

The war against the Vehicons is over.

Optimus Primal, the heroic leader of the Maximals and the resistance, has defeated Megatron, stopping the Vehicon plague, healing everyone infected by it and turning the planet Cybertron into techno-organic paradise, at the cost of his life.

Despite the galaxy is now in peace, many tensions remain, making the hard-hearned peace fragile: the NAILs, led by Terrorsaur (that is unhappily sharing his body with Starscream) want that all Maximals and Predacons should not be allowed back on the planet after having caused the war, some alien civilizations accused the Transformers of having intentionally released the Vehicon virus and the Matrix of Leadership hasn’t been passed yet.

Cheetor, who became during the war the second in command of the Maximals, decided to try to open it because he showed multiple times the potential to become the next Prime, but during the public cerimony something unexpected happened: despite managing to open it, the Matrix rejeted Cheetor and merged with his best friend Lio Convoy, turning him into Lio Prime. Before anyone could react, the supercomputer known as the Oracle announced that Lio was going to be the last Prime and disappeared, causing chaos all over the planet.

Confused and in need of answers, Cheetor searched everywhere the Oracle and when he finally found it he asked why he wasn’t chosen and why lio was going to be the last Prime. The Oracle simply told him to search for the legendary Covenant, a group of twelve legendary knights created by Primus long before the birth of the first Transformers, and showed him the path for the planet where they sleeped.

Determined to accomplish the mission given by the Oracle (and partially because he hopes to avert its propecy so that he’ll be able to become a Prime), Cheetor decides to make an expedition in search of them, searching high and low for the best ship in the universe and Cybertron’s brightest and most heroic Transformers for the crew.

Shame that he only managed to recruit a bunch of weirdos, losers and misfits and the ship he found malfunctioned and sent them in the middle of nowhere.

Now Cheetor and his motley crew have to find where they are and how to reach the Covenant’s planet, all while dealing with lots of problems (both personal and not) and secrets, including the identity of the saboteur that is manipulating them for an unknown reason.

Characters

Cheetor (Rodimus):

Once one of the youngest member of the Maximals, he used to be a delivery boy before the war. One day, during a delivery, he discovered that the Predacons conquered his home town of Kaon and razed it to the ground, leading him to conscript in the Maximal army in search of revenge. Here he met Optimus Primal and Rattrap and despite the rocky beginning they became friends. During the war he slowly rise in the ranks and accomplish many impressive feats... and put himself in trouble lots of times. During one of his misadventures he met Lio Convoy, then known simply as Lio, and the two became best friends, having many adventures during the years until Lio discovered to have the rare potential to become a combiner, forcing Lio to remain in space with the other two parts of the combiner while Cheetor followed Optimus on Earth and was forced to enter into stasis when the ice age began.

He was one of the first Maximals to awake from slumber in the 19th century, and briefly acted as Rhinox’s second in command while he temporarely replaced the then MIA Optimus Primal as leader. When their existence became public, Cheetor began to act as the face of the Maximals and for a while acted as an intermediary between the UN and the Maximals, doing a decent job at preventing a war between the two species. During the Vehicon war he met again Lio, now having gained the rank of Convoy, and the duo managed to led the troops into saving some planets from Jetstorm. During the end of the war Cheetor became Optimus Primal’s second in command and temporarely guarded the Matrix when Optimus wasn’t considered worty of it anymore.

After the whole Matrix fiasco and the Oracle’s propecy Cheetor became determined to find the Covenant, no matter the hardships, but the numerous misfortunes made him doubt that he’ll be able to accomplish it and also convinced him that there’s a saboteur that is responsible for some of the incidents... or maybe he’s just paranoid.

He’s similar to Rodimus, personality-wise, but a little bit more responsible towards his crew and a lot more mature. The fact that the Matrix chose his friend hurt him a lot, and despite he claims to have accepted the Matrix’s decision and is very supportive for his friend, deep down a part of him despises him and wants to have his role, even if he knows that the Oracle’s propecies are never wrong. Despite he has many friends, the only bots he’s close in the ship are Tigatron and Rattrap and he also has a certain amount of respect (and fear) for Dinobot and Big Convoy.

He has a Transmetal body that grant him a flight mode, but after he is exposed to a mutagen he slowly starts to mutate into a stronger Transmetal 2 form, losing his ability to fly but gaining the ability to manipulate energy.

Big Convoy (Ultra Magnus+Fortress Maximus):

Originally a friendly and skillful, albeith a little strict, Maximal general named Slammoth (Big was a nickname given him for his size), he was put on charge of the special assault team known as the Wreckers shortly after the first Megatron took control of the city of Kaon. He was sent with his team to dispose of him and the rebellious Predacons by the government, but he secretly planned to simply capture him and force the rest of the rebels to surrender, preventing a possible bloodshed.

Unfortunately, his plan went very wrong and it ended up starting a million years long war in which most of his friends died and he saw and did horrible things, to the point that many Maximals want him dead. Despite this, Optimus Primal always defended him, stating that his strategic skills where unmatched by anyone and most of the time his actions ended up saving many Maximals.

Unfortunately, with the end of the war and the death of Optimus his situation soon became worse, and Big realized that he needed to leave Cybertron or else he would probably be condemned to spend what remains of his life in jail or be hunted down by vegeful bots. When he heard about the expedition, he begged Cheetor to let him join as head of security and he accepted, if only because he was afraid of what Big would have done if he said no.

He is very serious and takes his role of head of security very seriously, to thepoint that he put in jail half of the crew for having not properly saluted him. He suffers from PTSD and occasionally he has random bout of violence, and since his body is filled with weapons you can imagine what happens in those situations. He also enjoys metallurgy and writing poetry, but the sheer nihilism and lenght of it led to some poor bots that listened to it to enter into an angst coma.

He despises Rampage for having killed some of his closest friends during the war, and Waspinator because he keeps trying to analyze him. Most of the crew feels the same towards him, but especially Transmutate, who HATES him so much that she once almost killed him because she thought he harmed Rampage. The only bot that tolerates him and vice-versa is ironically Inferno, who shares his passion for metallurgy and has a similarly horrible past.

He turns into a mammoth and is classified as a living weapon of mass destruction due to his internal arsenal. He also owns an one-of-a-kind weapon called Matrix Buster that has enough firepower to destoy a star that he famously used to destroy a star system in order to not let it fall into Predacon’s hands.

Waspinator (Rung):

If you search “unlucky” on a Cybertronian dictionary you will find his face, and you also find out that his name is a synonym for it.

Nobody knows where he came from, not even him: all he knows is that he woke up with a big headache in a building in Kaon and before he could realize where he was Big Convoy demolished the building during the battle with the first Megatron. Extracted barely alive from the ruins by a group of Predacons, he was mistaken for one of the civilians that sided with them and recruited in their faction. Since then he got involved in many battles and many misadventures, from being stomped by an awakened titan to being possessed twice by the spirit of Starscream, being blown up so many times that you could make an army of him with his lost parts.

When he was forced to follow Megatron on Earth things for a while improved for him: after the ice age ended he woke up thousands of years earlier than the rest and ended up becoming the god of a tribe of hominids, leading an happy life until he run out of energon and was forced to enter stasis in order to survive.

And then he accidentally woke up in the 19th century and discovered that the other Predacons were awakening and he had to follow again his much hated leader, leading to him being blown up and beaten up again and again and again. Eventually he got fed up and in 1999 he decided to leave the Predacons and became a Maximal, who treated him much better than his former comrades despite they hated him for being a former Predacon. When the war apparently ended, he finally tried to relax a bit, but soon the Vehicon war began. Tired and not interested in fighting another war, he left the Maximals and Earth, becoming one of the ever expanding NAILs, and started living on a far away colony alongside them. While the universe was in chaos, he began studying psychology in order to help the many soldiers that wanted to have a better life and eventually he got a licence.

When Cybertron and the universe were saved he came back on Cybertron for an holiday, but when it was time to board the ship to go back home he mistakenly boarded the Lost Light and when he realized his mistake the ship’s engines malfunctioned and he found himself partially merged with a wall, dragged into a quest he didn’t want or meant to join.

On the good side, he now has lots and lots of patients, some of which didn’t blew him up during the war.

Waspinator used to complain a lot about his fate, with his famous catchphrase “Why universe hates Waspinator?” being a classic meme on Cybertron, but nowadays he’s mostly unfazed by whatever happens around/to him. It’s unclear if this is resignation to the fact that the universe hates him or simply he began taking things in stride, but one thing is for sure: he’s a massive magnet for weirdness and misfortune. He often spends time with the Survivors, a ragtag bunch of misfits (and Tigratron) that used to be Airazor’s crewmates and had similar misadventures during the years.

He turns into a wasp, but for a brief time he became a Transmetal and gained a jet mode. Unfortunately that happened by the time he got possessed again by Starscream, meaning that not only he wasn’t in control of his body, but technically it was Starscream that gained the upgrade instead of him, meaning that when he abandoned the body Waspinator was brought back to normal.

Rampage (Cyclonus):

One of the last remnants of a long gone era. The bot that became Rampage was once an astrophisician and a bot of culture that joined Galvatron’s (Beast Wars 2 Galvatron, not Generation 1 Galvatron) expedition to a newly discovered planet and got contaminated alongside the others by the highly dangerous Angolmois Energy, becoming an invincible beast with a thirst of destruction.

For a long time he was forced to obey his now insane and corrupted “leader”, who cut off part of his now immortal spark and put it in a device that crushed it if he tried to rebel, but he slowly planned his escape and revenge towards his oppressors. During that time, the only things that prevented him to slip further into insanity were books, which he stole from the ruins of conquered planets, and Depth Charge, the only bot that ever managed to fight against him and survive. They fought each other multiple times during the years, and Rampage always hoped that one day he would have been able to kill him, but that would never happen.

During the Vehicon war, Megatron managed to create an antidote to Angolmois and used it to cure Galvatron and most of his crew before slaughtering them. Rampage survived by destroying the hull of the ship, floating in the empthiness of cosmos until some members of the resistance found him and mistakenly thought that he was dead. He would have killed them in any other situation, but not then: most of the bots that tortured him for years were dead, including Galvatron, leaving him unable to get his revenge, and the only cure in existence was in the hands of Megatron. Furious, he forced his saviors to bring him to Optimus Primal and then offered to help him stop Megatron and then be dragged to jail for the rest of his life, but only if first he let him kill him with his own bare hands. Optimus reluctanctly accepted, and with his help the resistance managed to score some significant victories, but despite this no one was happy of him siding with them.

Especially Depth Charge.

Depth Charge hated having him around, since he killed billions of living beings along the galaxy and attempted to murder him more than usual. Megatron knew of this and decided to make Charge an offer: he would give him the Angolmois antidote to kill Rampage, but in exchange he would become a Vehicon commander. Filled with anger, he accepted, and in the span of a day Depth Charge almost caused the resistence to fall, causing the loss of lots of lives and resources. Rampage was devastated: he was healed by the effects of Angolmois, but the only bot he considered his rival betrayed everything he stood for and willingly sacrificed thousands of lives in order to kill him and the survivors blamed him for this. Rampage ran away and disappeared for a long while, crushed by the weight of his actions and the effects they had.

Rampage later reappeared on Cybertron in search of the few surviving members of Galvatron’s crew with the intention of killing them and then himself, but once he found them he discovered that Inferno mistook them fro bounty hunters and killed them. Furious, Rampage tried to kill him, but Transmutate’s attempt to escape from her capsule caused an huge explosion, knocking him unconscious. The trio got dragged on the Lost Light with the intention of treating and then leaving them on a civilized planet once they recovered, but the malfunction forced them to join the crew, which made Rampage very angry.

He hates being forced to partecipate to a mission he believes to be pointless and being surrounded by a bunch of people that either hate or fear him, but most of all he is tired: he lived a long time, spent most of his life as an evil insane monster and finally regaining his sanity at the cost of the closest thing to a friend he had. All he wants now is dying.

And yet he got attached to Transmutate, a defective point one percenter who most of the crew treats with a mix of pity and disgust, and developed a sort of respect towards Silverbolt, that was created in laboratory, forced to obey his mad creator’s orders despite he knew they were wrong and struggled to fit in the Cybertronian’s society.

Will he be able to redeem himself? Or he will remain the monster everyone says he his? Only time will tell...

He has a crab and a tank alt-mode, and lots of cannons and other weapons of mass destruction.

PART 2===>

#transformers #beast wars #beast wars: more than meets the eye au #cheetor #big convoy #waspinator #Rampage #reboot

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meadow-roses · 3 years

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aske time :) for the writing asks: A1, A2, A10, A12, A14, your choice of anything in B, C8 ( :^) ), C11, D6

A1: Introduce the characters from one of your current WIPs in one or two sentences each.

Okay let's gooo,,, I'll do The Keepers cause I haven't talked about that one as much. These aren't gonna be the best descriptions but whatever

Ketsler: Quirky, fun-loving, everyone's weird grandpa, but also the most powerful person to have ever lived. He's old- so very, very old- and he's seen so much over all the centuries he has been protecting the worlds from Chaos, but he still makes an effort to slow down and appreciate the little things around him, because he knows better than most how fleeting life is.

Skylar: Skylar is from a world where faerie circles are real and witches turn people into frogs and trolls live in great, big castles and are slain by talking cats, a world where there's too much adventure to stay in one place, too many people to meet, and too many monsters to slay to stop running. He may be only a human (ooo mystery!!) but he is proficient in Wind magic and carries around a good bit of rune stones he and his pet dragon have found along his adventures.

Felix: Felix is just a normal human from a small town after the earth becomes united under one world power. He wasn't born with superpowers like most soldiers are, but he was still skilled enough to join a special force working behind enemy lines when the rebellion made its move to free the planet from the tyranny that built this dystopian reality.

Betty: A very sweet young lady, she's from a planet that was colonized by humans centuries ago. She may seem naive, but Betty can read anyone like a book and uses her gift to help those who are lost find themselves again.

There's more characters but I'll just stick with those main ones cause I really struggle with descriptions xD

A2: Who's your favorite character to write and why?

Probably Joden? I haven't written most of my characters, but I looove writing his dialogue. He also makes me think so I can keep him clever lol

A10: What’s your character development process like? (As in how you develop them, not necessarily their development in-story)

I roleplay them! The more developed they are, the more I've acted as them. It really gets me inside their head to try and think like how they think, and that results in me being more equipped to "discover" why they are like that.

A12: What kind of internal conflict does your character go through (want versus need, personality complexes or strong personality flaws/”fatal flaw” kinda thing)? How does this affect them?

It really varies depending on the character? For example Joden has this need to always have a plan, always be in control, and a breaking moment for him comes in when he finally just,,, doesn't know what to do. He's in over his head and the only thing he can do is trust Jacer to do what he can- knowing Jacer doesn't have things under control.

So that's an example of a flaw that the character gets to overcome, but there also characters whose flaws are part of who they are. Skylar wouldn't be Skylar if he weren't stubborn. Ketsler wouldn't be Ketsler if he weren't arrogant. They never grow out of these flaws, they just learn to control them. Or I guess not be controlled by the flaw.

This is actually something I think I struggle with for my characters, giving them those visable flaws. I see other people's characters that start out "bad" and grow into heroes, but it kinda seems like all my characters start out as heroes. 😅 I mean, they have flaws, but in comparison to other people's characters they feel really bland in that aspect. Idk

A14: Ramble about your characters. Anything special you like about them? Random little details you’ve added that you enjoy?

Uh,,, I don't even know where to start I just love all of them for so many various reasons. Joden is just a clever little genius but he still can be so naive. He just has simple pleasures and it's not hard to make him laugh or smile and practically impossible to discourage him. He starts off just,,, wanting his old life back and then he sees what the world is like outside his little bubble and the bubble pops. He sees the atrocities for what they are and to be able to settle down again, he has to fix it. He can't just smile and do as he's told, he can't let the bad guys win. It I just his mother and wife and son he's fighting for, it's the entire wood and the idea of being actually, truly, free.

Jacer is so savvy, he knows what to do and what to say to get into and out of any situation, but at the same time he's just clueless when it comes to genuine connection. He's a princeling who's really never had a friend and now he's saving the world with Joden who only knows how to make genuine connections. Why does he have to keep hugging me??

And Twylla who's ready to fight anything so she can get her clever idiot husband back?

Adric who's just doing his best to be a good leader but everything keeps going wrong. He wasn't born to be a king, he wasn't born to lead an army, he always had his big brother to help him do these things and he's gone- he's gone and he's not coming back he messed up again so bad and yet here he is with everyone looking to him for answers and he doesn't know what to tell them. But he's got his friends, and he's got a good heart, and he genuinely cares and they're going to figure it out.

Skylar just keeps running forward and he never looks back at the past he just jumps from one adventure to another stopping the monsters and saving the day. He's got Gigi what more does he need?

Felix is just,,, he's just such a nice guy. Over and over he stepped into the gap because someone's gotta fly that fighter, someone's got to fire that gun, someone's got to stabilize the bomb, someone's going to lose their life to ensure the victory, why shouldn't it be him? But he never actually dies, somehow he always survives and lives to fight the next day, and the next day and the next day, and then they win the war- the world is free. And even though he's been through so much he still hasn't lost that kindness, that love for all life that makes him himself. He still falls in love and starts a family and has his own beloved children… and even when he loses them he still doesn't become cynical. He still stands in the gap and is the one to fire the gun, to hold the hand of the one who's mourning, to scoop up the orphan child and carry them home. He fights, so others don't have to. Father to the fatherless and hero for all. Also he puts up with Skylar's time traveling craziness lol

And Ketsler? Unlike everyone else he never chose to be a hero. What are you supposed to do when you're a four year old boy and everyone tells you you're the hero they've been waiting for, praying for, you have to save them. It wasn't at all his choice to be born with the power of the universe running through his veins. To hold the Inness in his hands and bend reality to his will. But he didn't run away. He never hid from his destiny. He took the world onto his shoulders and never set it down. Only once- and he's never going to do it again. Never going to ask someone to fill in his role for him, it is his burden to bear… Except not anymore. Despite being multi-millenniums old, all that time didn't dull his appreciation for the little things. A baby's smile, sunshine through the leaves, the change of the seasons. The union of two souls in marriage, or the colors of the sunset streaking a foreign sky. He still sees these things, loves these things, fights for these things. Cause it's the little things he's fighting for, not just the big things. The precious moments and precious lives that make up the worlds. One of his apprentices asked him once, he'd been fighting for so long, when was it going to end? It's not his job to strike the final blow, to end the suffering and bloodshed, just to help. He saves the world, so that he can save it again.

I have… several more characters I'd love to ramble about but that answer's gotten pretty long so I'll cut it off there. XD

B3: Do you have any plot twists? No need to describe them, just think about what kind of reaction you want from your readers.

Oh I was just talking to August about this the other day. XD There is one plot twist in the Keeper's story I'm reeaaally looking forward to hehe I want to make people confused and then really mad when the whole thing is stretched out. >:)

C8: Does magic exist in your world? Who can use it? How does it work?

It really depends on which WIP, but in general I like to keep magic restricted with rules. Joden's story and the Keeper's story are in the same universe (along with ThRoG) and follows that magic system. It's too complicated to go in depth here, but "magic" exists in another plane of existence, and things in the material world have varying levels of connection with it. It's kinda the energy that holds all worlds together and sustains life. The magic realm- the Inness is not a place where physical matter should exist, only spirits can walk there.

Wizards are creatures that stand with one foot in the physical realm and the other in the Inness. Tevlar is destroying the world basically by turning it inside out- pulling the Inness out.

C11: Have you developed historical figures? How do you develop them? How in-depth do you go?

Oh yes. I am a complete history nerd so if any world EXISTS it has history, and history only happens because people.

Sometimes it's a thought through process of "somebody needs to go here" and sometimes it's an npc from a time travel rp that took on more importance than I originally intended.

It really varies how in depth it will go? Sometimes it's just a name to fill a spot and other times it's like, man I could write a whole book about this guy!

One historical figure would be Ares of the Pegasus. He was a powerful warrior that won a bunch of wars and united the different pegasus clans under his leadership and became the first king. He's really famous and people like naming their kids after him in a kinda superstitious hope they'll grow into attributes of his character. Ares is the male form of the name, Aris is for girls. It's like, the most common Pegasian name. XD

D6: Are there any writing styles that inspire you?

Probably the first writing style I wanted to emulate was Tolkien's, but I also really liked Andrew Peterson's? Tolkien is so dramatic, and Peterson isn't heavy on location descriptions, so I'm kinda aiming for in between I guess.

#thanks for the ask!!#sorry that took so long to answer 😅#reblog #text #writing #keepers #deepwood #shifters #ask

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404gendernotfound · 4 years

Text

Fall For Me: Part 1 (Keigo Takami x Reader)

Summary: You didn’t really pay much attention to the pro hero that was patrolling your street every second day but when he noticed you and send you one of his feathers it didn’t take long for you to fall for him.

Contains: a lot of fluff

Warnings: none

Wordcount: 5,0 K

Enjoy!

________________________________________________________________

It was a warm summer day as I sat at the opened window in my living room looking out onto the commotion on the street. It was almost like a ritual now to sit here to watch the kids roam the pro hero that was patrolling our street. Every second day he would patrol here and every time he was here at least a few children would surround him to ask for pictures or get autographs. I would just sit here amused about all the children being obsessed with him. I had to admit that he was a really good and popular pro hero. It was amusing to watch him interact with the kids and also flirt with some of the mothers. I shook my head as I heard him make a cocky comment and eventually gained his attention. He looked in my direction and smirked. I rolled my eyes and smiled back at him. It wasn’t the first time he had notice me. I wouldn’t be surprised if he knew that I was watching him every time he patrolled here. Even though I tried hard not to give him too much attention it was still very hard not to notice him. Every time I heard wings flapping or children scream I would rush to the window. I was fascinated by his big red wings and maybe it was also the way he was talking to the children that always brought me back to the window.

“Sorry kids. But Hawks has to go now”, he announced after some time and received sad “ohhhh”s from the children around him.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be back in two days. And then I’ll take some extra time off for you”, Hawks added and ruffled the hair of one of the kids who looked like the happiest person on the planet.

As he took off into the sky all of the kids watched him and waved. He hovered in the air for a little bit waving back. Just before he turned to fly away he looked in my direction and winked as he saw that I was still there. I giggled and also waved goodbye. He smiled at me and send off one of his feathers in my direction before he vanished into the sky. I caught his soft red feather in my hands and had to laugh. What a dork. Even though I really didn’t want to acknowledge that I might be catching feelings for this birdman my heart was telling me otherwise while I looked at the delicate feather in my hands. For gods sake why couldn’t I just be like a normal person and not instantly fall for him? I took a deep breath and stepped away from the window closing it. I still kept the feather with me while I was preparing dinner. I didn’t know what I was expecting from the feather but I kept staring at it from time to time. While I was eating I was playing around with the feather, twisting it between my finger and brushing over the soft hairs. Hawks wink would sometimes pop back into my mind and I felt my cheeks heat up a little bit. After finishing my food I buried my face in my hands.

“I’m a mess”, I whispered to myself, my heart pounding wild against my chest.

I was almost getting lost in my thoughts when I suddenly felt a soft touch on my hands. I looked at my hands and saw that the feather that was laying on the table just a few moments ago was now hovering right in front of me. I had to laugh and watched it boop my nose which made me giggle. I guess Hawks really still was in control of the feather even though it wasn’t connected to his wings anymore. I was curious if he could also use his feathers for something else so I decided to test it.

“Hey there. If you can hear me then give me a sign”, I said towards the feather shaking my head.

If someone saw me talk to a feather they would think I’m crazy. I watched the feather bend almost looking like it was nodding. I smiled. So he could hear me. I was glad that I hadn’t talked out loud about me catching feelings for him or I would really be embarrassed. WAIT. If he was able to control the feather and hear what I was saying…was he also able to still feel the feather? I needed to test that out.

“Can you feel this?”, I asked and let my fingers softly run over the feather.

It quickly moved away from my fingers and bend again in a nodding motion. So he could also feel it. Interesting. I got an idea that I would have to try someday. I laughed and watched the feather return to me. It landed on the palm of my hand and playfully tickled it. I didn’t know why but I suddenly felt more confident than before. Maybe because I didn’t have to hide my blushing face while talking with his feather. I got up from the table and walked to the living room window. I opened it and then looked outside. The sun was about to set and the sky currently looked beautiful. As I felt the wind I carefully grabbed the feathers quill so it wouldn’t be blown away.

“My window is open…sooo…if you’re bored after your patrol ends…you know where to find me”, I said and smiled as the feather wiggled in my hands.

I had no idea why I suddenly felt so happy. I was talking to a fucking feather like a maniac and giggled when it moved. People who were able to see me must think that I completely lost my mind. But I somehow didn’t really care. I looked towards the sunset and had to laugh when I saw something or should I say someone flying in the distance. He must have noticed my giggling since he flew some tricks which made me laugh even more before he flew towards me. The closer he came the more I could see his cocky smile. He rushed towards my window and made me squeak as he abruptly stopped right in front of the window to hover right before me.

“You called?”, he asked with a smirk on his face and moved his feather from my hand to tickle my nose.

“Did I?”, I asked back smiling at him.

I stepped back from the window so he could come in. I was sure if we stayed like this it wouldn’t take long until someone noticed. It was better to let him in. I offered him my hand as he came in through the window and landed right in front of me. Just as I expected he didn’t let go of my hand by himself so I kinda had to wiggle my hand free which seemed to amuse him. He was taller than I thought since I’ve only seen him from afar until now. He looked down at me and smiled before he reached out with his hand for mine.

“I’m Hawks. Pro Hero and charming bird man”, he said and shook my hand.

“I know. I mean…the Pro Hero and name part”, I laughed and retreated my hand.

“I’m Y/n.”, I continued before I followed him towards the couch where he plopped down.

I sat down a little bit away from him and smiled as I looked at the feather that still had followed my every step and now landed on my hands again. I grabbed it so he couldn’t move it around anymore and watched his eyes widen a little bit.

“Do you give your feathers to every girl you see?”, I asked with a grin while I played around with the beautiful red feather.

“No. You’re actually the first”, he admitted and grinned as I kept smiling at the feather.

I noticed my heartbeat speed up a little bit. So I was special to him? I was a bit confused about that but I didn’t really question it right now. I would have enough time later for a mental breakdown about the fact that Hawks chose me to send a feather to for the first time.

“You seem to be very interested in my feathers”, he said and puffed his wings a bit.

“They are really interesting. I was surprised that you could hear me with this little guy.”, I said and softly pet the feather.

“Careful. They are really sensitive”, he warned and I smiled as I saw a slight hint of red on his cheeks.

“I’m sorry.”, I apologized and held his feather towards him so he could take it back.

“Oh no no no. Don’t be sorry. It’s yours now”, he said and smiled at me.

I noticed my cheeks slowly heat up. I brought the feather closer to my face and pressed it against my cheek.

“Thank you”, I mumbled shy and watched him look at me with a soft and amused look on his face.

Silence fell over us for a little bit until he began to speak again.

“I’ve seen you watch me for some time and I was wondering why you never came to take a picture with me”, he said and I laughed a bit.

“You know. It was cute to see how you were treating the kids that surrounded you and to be honest…I’m not really that big of a fan of yours”, I truthfully said and he almost looked offended.

“WHAT? You are not a big fan of this beautiful winged man?”, he asked holding his hand to his heart trying to show me how much my words had hurt his pride.

“Yes”, I said bold and we both began to laugh.

“You’re cute”, he laughed and I immediately felt my cheeks heat up.

I couldn’t believe how fast he could make me feel flustered. Just having him sit here with me on the couch actually felt pretty nice even though I didn’t really know him that good. We kind of continued to talk about random stuff for some time before he had to go again. I walked him back to the window and watched him jump outside just to see him come back up with his wings skillfully keeping him in front of the window.

“If you ever need me you know how to get in touch with me”, he said and pointed to the feather that I still had been keeping in my hands.

“I know. I’ll see you, Hawks”, I said shyly smiling at him.

“You definitely will, babybird”, he said right before he took off.

I watched him fly away and felt my cheeks burn. I put my free hand to my face to feel the heat of my skin. I must be looking like a tomato right now. I can’t believe he really had called me that.

“I hate you, Hawks”, I mumbled knowing that he could still hear me and watched the feather in my hand wiggle around.

I was sure that he knew what he was doing to me and he really enjoyed seeing me flustered. I closed the window again since the air outside was pretty cold before I walked into my bedroom. I went to my desk and rummaged through a few drawers to find my accessory box. As I had finally found it I opened it and searched for a chain and a little piece of wire so I could attach Hawks feather to the chain. After I had connected the two I got changed into my pajamas and placed the chain on my nightstand. I laid down on my bed and fumbled around with the chain as I though about this evening. I really liked Hawks cocky comments and the way he made me feel. I couldn’t believe that I really had fallen for that winged man this fast.

“Goodnight birdie”, I said giggling before I turned off the light and fell asleep.

I was awakened by a soft tingling touch. I giggled and opened my eyes to see Hawks feather right in front of me.

“Good morning”, I mumbled and pet the feather before I sat up and stretched my limbs.

I got up from my bed and walked to the bathroom to shower. I don’t know why but I locked my bathroom door. For some reason I felt like if the feather would come into the room I would be watched so I’d rather avoid that. After drying myself and choosing an outfit for the day I grabbed the chain and put it around my neck. Hawks feather tickled me one last time before it just rested on the end of the chain. I made myself some breakfast and looked out at the beautiful morning sky. I was wondering if his patrol had already started or if he was still relaxing. I kind of hoped I could see him again today. After eating some light breakfast I grabbed my bag and left the apartment. I had to be at the café for my morning shift in about 20 minutes and I didn’t want to be late. I entered the café through the backdoor and smiled as I saw my co-worker Haru. He has been working with me for a few months and I was really happy to have him as my friend since I could talk about everything with him.

“Good morning, Y/N”, he greeted me and stopped in his tracks when he saw the feather hanging around my neck.

“No way. Is that…one of Hawks feathers?”, he asked and I nodded shyly.

“OMG. Did you…you know?”, he asked and wiggled his eyebrows.

“NO. OH MY GOD. YOU NASTY”, I screeched and put the chain into my locker before I put on my apron.

“And be quiet for fucks sake. He can hear everything”, I whispered as I stepped closer to him.

Haru laughed and guided me out into the café through the door before he began to talk about Hawks again. As we opened the café, he wouldn’t shut up about it. I couldn’t blame him since Hawks was his favorite hero and he was very curious about what happened. I had to tell him the story since he annoyed me so much until I had to give in and tell him what happened.

“So you two hung out. Just like that? Wow. I wish I was you”, he said and I hit his shoulder.

“No you don’t wish for that. I’m so confused. I don’t know what to do. I like him…I think and I just can’t think clearly anymore. Especially when that damn feather keeps teasing me. It’s like he is playing with me and to be honest…I don’t mind”, I blabbered around and watched a big smile appear on Harus face.

“You really seem to have a crush on him”, he smirked in my direction and I had to roll my eyes.

“I know that, idiot. You don’t have to rub it in my face”, I answered and turned to the new customer that just stepped to the counter.

“What can I get for you?”, I asked looking at the display ready to take the order without really paying attention to the customer.

“An iced cold latte please, babybird”, the person said and my head snapped up as soon as I heard the nickname.

“O-of course. Anything else?”, I asked with a slightly burning face trying really hard to keep my calm.

I just hope he didn’t hear Harus and my conversation about me having a crush on him.

“No. Your attention is all I need”, he smirked and slightly tilted his head.

Don’t scream. Hawks is just flirting with you. Everything is ok.

“I got it.”, I heard Haru behind me.

Oh that bastard knew that I didn’t want to talk with Hawks now but he insisted on making the drink while I had to keep my attention on the gorgeous man right in front of me.

“How did you sleep last night?”, Hawks suddenly asked and I was so surprised that I almost choked on my spit.

“I slept ok. You?”, I asked awkwardly playing with the cord of my apron.

“I slept just fine. Even though someone was running through my mind all night”, he admitted and I could have sworn I saw a slight blush on his cheeks.

I didn’t know how to respond to that and I was so glad that Haru placed Hawks drink on the counter before this could get even more awkward.

“What do I owe you?”, he asked reaching for his wallet.

“Nothing. It’s on the house”, Haru said next to me and Hawks nodded at him thankful.

“Thank you. I guess I’ll have to come here more often in the future”, he said before he waved goodbye and left.

As the door closed Haru turned to me and squealed.

“He is sooooo into you. A blind can see that from a mile away”, he said totally excited and jumped up and down before me.

“Stop pointing it out. I can’t handle it right now.”, I answered, my cheeks still burning.

“I can see that”, he mocked me and pinched my cheeks before we went back to work.

I was barely able to keep my calm for the rest of the shift. I was glad when it was finally over and I could go home and rest. My heart was still beating like crazy. I hung the apron back into my locker and grabbed the chain. I just carefully knotted it to my bag before saying goodbye to Haru. On my way home I noticed something pull on my backpack. I knew it was Hawks feather but I couldn’t deal with that right now. I was still confused and way too nervous to think clearly. Arriving at my apartment I placed the backpack on my bed and plopped down on it staring at the ceiling. I watched the feather struggling to get closer to me. I felt bad so I undid the knot of the chain so it could fly freely. It landed on my forehead and rested there. I closed my eyes and sighed.

“What are you doing to me?”, I whispered and blood slowly rushed into my cheeks.

I must have fallen asleep shortly after that since it was already dark when I woke up. I sat up and stretched myself looking at the clock on my nightstand. It was around 8pm. I should eat something and then decide what I would do. I could enjoy my evening since it was Friday night and I didn’t have to work on Saturday. While I was looking through my fridge for something edible someone rang on my door. Confused about who would ring this late I walked to the door and looked through the peephole in the door. As I saw a beige coat and red feathers my heart sped up. I took a deep breath before I opened the door a little bit.

“Hey there”, he said as he saw my face and smiled.

“Hi”

I opened the door more and stepped to the side so he could come in. I closed the door behind him and watched Hawks take of his coat and hanging it on one of the coat hangers. He removed his gloves and glasses and put them into one of his coat pockets. Since he was facing his back towards me, I was really tempted to run my hands over his wings but I knew how sensitive they were and I didn’t want to startle him. I crossed my arms in front of my chest before finally moving from my spot following Hawks who was curiously looking around my apartment since he had only seen the living room yesterday. He stopped in the kitchen and leaned against the kitchen counter looking at me.

“Did you eat something yet?”, he asked scanning my appearance for a second before locking his eyes with mine again.

“Not yet. I was about to see if I had something edible when you rang the doorbell”, I answered and watched him open the fridge.

“Well…I think we could make a salad, maybe?”, he suggested turning his head towards me.

“Sure. Why not”

Hawks began to grab some vegetables from the fridge and gave them to me before he closed it again. I searched through the drawers for a bowl and some cutting boards before I grabbed two knives. Hawks thanked me with a nod and began to cut the cucumber while I cut the tomatoes. It was quiet while we made the salad, but it didn’t feel awkward. It was kind of nice to be here in each other’s presence. As I turned to put the cut vegetables into the bowl, I accidentally grazed one of his wings and noticed him flinch.

“Sorry”, I apologized and looked at him.

“It’s fine”, he said with his face turned away from me.

Before this got even more awkward, I quickly prepared a salad dressing and put it into the bowl mixing everything together. I grabbed another bowl from the cupboard and split the salad onto the two bowls equally. Hawks grabbed one of the bowls and a fork and sat down at the dining table. I joined him quickly after and sat down across from him.

“Bon appetite”, I said before taking a bite of the salad.

It wasn’t the first time I made a salad like this, but I felt as if it tasted better than usually. Maybe it was just because I had company today. From time to time I caught myself looking at Hawks while he was slowly eating. Whenever he noticed my stares, I quickly averted my gaze acting like nothing happened. Even though my red cheeks weren’t concealing anything.

“Do you not like my company?”, I heard Hawks say quietly, his voice sounding as if he wasn’t sure if he really wanted to hear my answer.

“What? No. I was just surprised that you suddenly came here”, I said trying to sound as if I hadn’t wished all day to see him again.

I looked at him again seeing that his cheeks also had turned a rosé color. It was quiet again until I stood up and brought the two empty bowl back into the kitchen. Hawks stayed seated at the dinner table while I washed the dishes.

“Do you mind if I keep you company for a bit longer?”, he asked.

“You can stay as long as you want. I don’t mind at all”, I answered, looking over my shoulder at him and sending him a smile.

Silence fell over us again until Hawks began to speak.

“You can call me Keigo”, he said making a short pause before he continued to speak, “Keigo Takami is my real name. I don’t mind you calling me by my hero name though. So just call me whatever you want”

I dried my hands with a towel and smiled as I turned around.

“Alright…Keigo”, I answered and slightly blushed again as I saw his bright smile.

This man was driving me crazy and he wasn’t even doing anything special. I walked back to the dining table and leaned against it.

“Would you like to watch a movie with me?”, I asked shyly fidgeting with my fingers while I looked at him.

“Sure”, he said while standing up and suddenly taking my hand.

My face turned an even darker shade of red while he dragged me into the living room with him. We sat down right next to each other and he let go of my hand again. I almost wished he wouldn’t have let go of it. I grabbed the remote from the living room table and started scrolling to the movies that were currently available to watch. I stopped at one that was fairly new.

“How about this one?”, I asked Keigo who was focused more on me than on the TV.

“Uhm…looks like an interesting movie”, he said looking slightly embarrassed that I had caught him looking at me.

I started the movie and leaned back against the couch. To be honest I couldn’t really focus on the movie since Keigo was way more interesting. It was fascinating how he had folded his wings behind him and just rested against them and his face looked mesmerizing in only the light of the TV. I suddenly saw a grin appear on his face.

“You know that I can see you staring at me?”, he said and my cheeks flushed.

“S-sorry. I didn’t mean to stare”, I stuttered and tried to hide my blushing face.

“You know…if you want something you can just say it”, he added and send me a soft smile.

How could I just tell this gorgeous man that my heart was beating out of my chest and I would kill to be held by him without dying from embarrassment? I mean…I could try but I was scared that he would reject me, especially since we only knew each other since yesterday. I tried to collect my courage to ask him.

“I know that this will maybe sound weird now since we don’t really know each other that well…but could you…I mean you don’t have to if you are uncomfortable-“

“Do you want to cuddle?”, he interrupted me as he noticed that I was fighting to find the right words.

I blushed again and nodded. He slightly giggled and opened his arms.

“Come here, babybird”, he whispered and I almost died at the nickname again.

I carefully scooted closer and wrapped my arms around his waist making sure that I wouldn’t touch his wings. Keigo softly placed a hand on the back of my head and pressed it carefully against his chest while his other hand rested on my back.

“Is this comfortable for you?”, he asked and smiled down at me.

I nodded and pressed my face closer to his chest hearing his heartbeat which was almost as fast as mine. I was glad to hear that.

“You’re so cute”, he giggled and softly pet my head.

“Stop”, I mumbled against his chest, “You’re gonna kill me, Keigo”

“I’m sorry, kid”, he whispered leaning closer to my ear.

Well that was a new nickname, but I didn’t really mind being called that.

“Killing you is definitely not my intention”, he added slightly brushing his lips against my ear.

I knew he was doing that on purpose, but it still drove me crazy. Two could play this game so I carefully moved one of my hands from around his waist up his body to the root of his wings. I noticed him tense up and smirked up at him.

“You’re not playing fair, Keigo. Now we’re even”, I said watching his cheeks turn pink.

I moved my hand back down to his waist and kept it there. We stopped teasing each other and just continued to watch the movie. Keigo rested his hands on me most of the time. He would sometimes draw random patterns onto my back or softly stroke it. It was a lovely moment being here in his arms. As the movie ended, I was about to sit up when I was pulled back into his arms again.

“Can we stay like this for a little bit more?”, he asked and looked at me with almost puppy eyes.

“How could I say no to that face?”, I answered and poked his cheek before I rested my body back against him.

I breathed in his scent for a little bit longer than I intended to but it was just intoxicating. If I wouldn’t be embarrassed enough I would have asked him to stay with me but I was sure that he probably needed to get back home soon. We separated from the hug and Keigo looked at the clock on the wall.

“I should get going. It’s late already and you should head to bed too. I can see that you’re sleepy”, he said and softly pet my head again.

“You’re probably right. I’ll accompany you to the door”

We both stood up and walked back to the front door. He grabbed his coat and put on his glasses and gloves again. Before he left he stepped closer to me again. I was getting nervous with him being this close again and not knowing what would happen next.

“I really enjoyed my time with you today”

“Me too”, I admitted and looked up at him.

“I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night, babybird. Sweet dreams”, he whispered and leaned forward pressing a kiss to my forehead.

“Good night, Keigo.”, I whispered back and hugged him one last time.

I was sure that I would instantly miss him as soon as he left the apartment but the thought of seeing him again tomorrow made parting with him a little bit easier. We separated again and I opened the door for him.

“Don’t be too lonely without me, alright?”, he smiled as he stepped out into the night.

“I won’t. I promise”

I watched him fly off into the night sky and closed the door behind me as he was out of sight. I still couldn’t believe that Keigo had kissed my forehead and that we had cuddled on the couch. I now knew that I was someone special to him and that feeling was amazing. I haven’t felt this way for someone in ages and I couldn’t even describe the feeling of those thousands of butterflies in my stomach if I wanted to. Since I felt really sleepy, I decided to go to bed. I changed into my pajama and laid down. I grabbed the chain with the feather and softly held it in my hand. I had to smile like an idiot. I already missed Keigo way too much. I softly placed a kiss on the feather and closed my eyes. It didn’t take me long to fall asleep and I instantly found myself in a dream reunited with Keigo.

Next Part

#mha hawks #hawks #hawks x reader #keigo takami #keigo x reader #my hero academia #bnha hawks #boku no hero academia

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