#and made friends with some of the best and most precious beings on the planet
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LITTLE SIBLING.
⟡﹒yandere! older brother x fem! reader
summary : your older brother thinks that your boyfriend wasn't good enough for you.
during his childhood, yohan davis really wanted a little sister. a sweet little sister that he can protect and adore forever. but, that dream was shattered when his dad died and he had already accepted the fact that no matter what happened, he won't be able to have a little sister. because he can't force his mom to remarry just because of his selfish desire after all.
and let's be honest here. with yohan's handsome face and those captivating (e/c) eyes of his. even when he was a child, everyone adored him. and maybe that was the main reason why he became like— this. uh, a spoiled son who was able to get whatever he wanted? aside from little sister, of course.
but then, when he reached the age of 15, his mom got remarried. he was excited, for his mom and for the chance that he can achieve his dream through his new dad. yep, he knew how obsessed he was with having a little sibling. everyone, except his mom (since she thinks that it was a cute thing but clearly it's not) has pointed it out to him. but he didn't care since in his eyes, it was unfair for him that his friends had little siblings that they could adore and spoil.
and yohan fucking celebrated when he got the news of his mom being pregnant a year later. he basically ran to his new dad and hugged him tightly and started to thank him and his ehem, let's forget about the last part. anyway, after that sudden revelation, yohan had started looking for good names that he could give to his younger sibling. he also looked for some cute toys and clothes but let's forget about it.
yohan, during his little sibling's birth stayed at the hospital. he didn't give a fuck about what other people were saying when he did all of his homework at the hospital while waiting for his parents and his new little sibling. and boy, oh, boy. yohan teared up when he saw you for the first time. you were so cute, so precious, so adorable and the most innocent thing on this planet.
“ so, how about you give her a name, son? ”
that was what he was waiting for. with a smile, he kissed your forehead as he told them the name that he had come up with after the 9 months that he spent thinking a name that suits you. (first name), his little sister. don't worry, your big brother will give you everything that you want and he will do everything for you.
expect that this guy will be quite overprotective when it comes to you. don't complain if you aren't able to play with your peers or if he doesn't let you go out and lock you at home. he was just worried! you're too innocent! what if you got kidnapped when he wasn't looking?! oh, and when he realized that you're allergic to (insert food here)? that day, you weren't able to see that thing inside your house again since yohan really threw a fit in front of your parents exclaiming that if they served you that kind of food again, he would run away and he will bring you with him.
but aside from his obsession, overprotectiveness and overbearing personality. yohan was a good older brother for you. he was much better than your classmates' older brothers. when the truth is he just engraved the 'he's the best older brother in the world' idea on your mind during your early childhood so that you will stay with him forever
anyways, much to his disappointment, when you became a teenager you found yourself a boyfriend. and that angers yohan. i mean, why do you think that boy deserves you? gosh, he was the one who raised you and he knew that boy wasn't deserving of you! he did his best to make you dependent on him. he cooked for you, washed your clothes and even made sure that you didn't know how to do housework! do you think that boy will do that for you? yeah, no.
expect that yohan will always roll his eyes when you mention your boyfriend whenever you are with him. this guy shamelessly stalks you when you are on a date, and when he sees that your boyfriend is about to kiss you? he will immediately call you to cut off that dirty romantic atmosphere that disgusting guy created. that guy bought you a gift? don't worry, your brother will give you a more extravagant the next day.
he will do anything to make you see that you made a wrong choice of getting into a relationship with someone. look, he knew that his obsession with his little sister was because his friends and bandmates always pointing out to him. there was some point when they asked him if he romantically saw you but that only disgusts him. the hell are they talking about? why would he romantically see his little sister? do they think that he's a sick freak? that's disgusting.
sure he stalks his little sister, sure he makes her dependent on him, sure he manipulates his younger sister that he's the kindest soul alive, sure there are some points that he commits crime for you. but anyways— he only did that because you were his little sister. his innocent and fragile little sister that he needs to protect!
and when the news about your boyfriend cheating on you reached his ears. he was fucking happy! see? he told you, that guy wasn't good enough for you! oh, his poor little sister. the only thing that he did when he saw you go home crying was to hug and comfort you but of course, while he manipulates you thinking that other guy aside from him and your dad was like that. a fucking freak that will only hurt your feelings.
ah, of course! do you think that he'll forget about that ex-boyfriend of yours? of course, he won't! because yohan, with a 'little talk' made sure that guy won't be able to approach you again. oh? you're worried when he came home bloodied and had a bruise on his cheek? this guy will tell you that your ex suddenly punched him out of nowhere when he talked to him when the truth is he beat that guy half to death. hehehe, and seeing you believed him made him smile widely. ah, it seems like you're really stuck with him from now on. and yohan was willing to sell his soul to a demon just to make sure this would last forever.
“ big brother's doing this for your sake so listen to me, okay? ”
#yandere#yandere x reader#yandere x y/n#yandere headcanons#platonic yandere#platonic yandere x reader#yandere imagines#male yandere#platonic x reader#platonic yandere headcannons#imagines#tw. obsession#tw. manipulation#tw. mention of blood#tw. violence#tw. stalking
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What does becoming a furry in Homestuck mean? (In reference to your recent Nepeta post)
Okay so the thing is the way that Homestuck treats furries is honestly kind of equivalent to how it treats queerness. As in, Homestuck initially treats it like a joke or a thing to mostly sneer at. Homestuck was very much part of the wave of disaffected ironic assholes of the Newgrounds and Something Awful type, especially to start with, and that sort of relied on shitting on demographics that were seen as weird and permissible to find cringe and make fun of.
Jade comes onto the scene, and a lot of people sort of groan at her whole furry shtick. Jade is largely, however, just a pretty sincere character, and even though she feels some embarassment over the idea of BEING a furry (i.e. her distaste for the idea of actually wearing a fursuit) she nonetheless begins the admirable refrain of combining the finest qualities of humanity with the elegance and nobility of the animal kingdom.
Her earnest affection for all things anthropomorphic sets up more than just her excellent taste. And as much as she is a bit of a pattern-breaker, one pattern she doesn't break is that of having a Signature Animal.
The four beta kids have a bunch of different things associated with them: the four elements, four items, four musical instruments. But the animals are practically integral to who they are as people and characters.
John's attachment to the bunny is obvious, and helps to spur on one of the most emotional scenes in the comic. (For him. Him specifically.)
It's also something deeply precious to him, as it's a gift from every single one of his friends in a very roundabout fashion!
For Rose, Jaspers is half the reason she decided to play the game in the first place. She missed her dead cat so dearly she was willing to play a game that might end the world for it.
(Pictured above, Rose lying about her feelings, water is wet.)
Dave seems to at least feel some affection for crows, or at least shame when he kills them.
And his fusing to become Davesprite is what allows him to survive as a "copy" of the original Dave. Once again, Dave's disaffected irony giving way to the necessity of becoming a furry to save the world.
And for Jade, of course, Bec.
And it's notable that, by the end of the comic, at least THREE of our main beta kids have merged with their animals, and, in a way, become the best versions of themselves.
Jade obviously gets to achieve her dream of becoming a furry, and in doing so gaining power and agency that she was always denied due to her position in the story.
Davepeta, as I stated in a previous post, is the true Final Form of Dave, the pawn that made it to the end of the board, the only surviving character from Homestuck's "original" timeline, and is truly happy with themselves.
And Jasprose appears to have fully hurled herself through the walls Rose put up around herself to protect her image, and thus absolutely mortifies Rose. She just seems to be having a great time.
Homestuck evolved from a story that was deeply cynical and mean-spirited about furrydom, to a story where three of our four starting protagonists, in their truest most powerful forms, combine the qualities of man and beast to achieve self-actualization. And to bring this back around to queerness, these three characters also happen to be canonically queer. So there's that.
This isn't even to get into how this might relate to Troll Lusii and the concept of "growing up" to be more like one's parent on a planet raised by animals, but that's for another day.
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Nothing has ever hit Lena like this.
She’s been abducted by aliens. She was almost shotgun married to an alien. Her ex was eaten by nanobots in front of her. She’s been tried to a chair while her brother tried to murder the world’s most beloved hero, and nearly vaporized by a man with a radioactive chunk of another planet for a heart.
Not to mention the mundane stuff. The L-Corp logo in the lobby almost crushing her. Bombs, bullets, blades, being thrown off a balcony, thrown off a roof, left to die in a plane crash.
Almost killed when her brother sent drones to shoot down her helicopter and a golden vision of inhuman beauty came from the sky to save her life.
Of course, that golden vision had tarnished, turned brass. She could be bossy, sanctimonious, paranoid, prone to snapping at Lena one moment… then making her knees weak the next.
Because sometimes, Supergirl wasn’t bossy, sanctimonious, or paranoid. Sometimes she was all dashing grace, with a profoundly frustrating tendency to scoop Lena into her arms and carry her there with surpassing tenderness, as though she were the most precious treasure the alien had ever seen.
Poor Lena’s heart had suffered terribly through all that, yet never skipped a beat.
It skipped now.
Kara looked up from her burger, apropos of nothing. Or, that’s what Lena would have thought a moment ago, before she recognized that scar.
The world spun crazily. Lena grasped the sides of her seat for dear life while alarms and sirens blared in every direction. Smoke coughed noisily from the remains of the turbines that had powered her chopper’s rotor blades. As the world seemed to grow weightless, Lena finally accepted what was happening- the chopper was going to crash. She was going to die.
And then there was a wind.
No, not a wind. A blur of motion, a red and blue streak cutting through the brilliant afternoon light and then a stomach-churning lurch as the falling aircraft just stopped, gently floating to a safe landing on the roof.
With a squeak of tearing metal, she was there. A goddess in primary colors, soft waves of golden hair framing her devastatingly lovely face as she checked the pilot and then turned those arresting blue eyes to Lena and then asked-
“Are you okay? Lena?”
With trembling hands, Lena reached up. Kara froze, a thousand emotions flashing on her face, fear flickering in the oceans of her eyes. They both paused, testing the moment. This was it. They had their choices: Lena could stop, make some excuse. Kara could flinch and offer some gee golly shucks reason to move out of reach and dissemble her way out of it. They could decide not to do this.
Lena did not stop, and Kara did not move. The frames of Kara’s glasses were surprisingly heavy in her grasp as she softly tugged them free and set them aside. Lena raises a hand to Kara’s cheek, ever hesitant quiver of her palm a question. She closed the gap between them on the couch and brought her other arm back up, circling Kara in something that was somehow more intimate than a hug. He best friend sat stone still as Lena worked loose the band that held her hair.
Golden locks spilled about her shoulders, and Lena gasped. She caressed her hand up Kara’s shockingly soft cheek and touched the scar lightly with her thumb.
Lena felt the tears trembling in her own eyes as Kara’s welled with her own. The moment had come; the river was crossed, the decision made.
And yet in this moment there was another one, at once simpler and more profound. Lena’s lip trembled. Anger welled in her chest, burning hot and bright.
It’s not a great question for a Luthor to ask someone in my family.
It twisted in her like venom, burning at her insides, trying to eat through her from the inside out. The fury rose until she thought she’d be sick, and then…
Kara Danvers believes in you.
Take me instead!
I can’t hold both! You have to jump!
I will always protect you.
“It’s you,” Lena whispered. “It’s always been you.”
Before she knew what was happening, Kara drew her forward with surpassing tenderness. Hands that could crack marble gently guided Lena’s weight into Kara’s lap. What had not been meant as an embrace became one, and Lena made her choice.
It was her.
It had always been her.
Noticing small details about them (physically)
#Supercorp#supergirl fanfiction#supercorp fanfic#supergirl#lena luthor#kara danvers#kara x lena#karlena#supergirl fanfic#ficlet#Lena Luthor figures out Supergirl’s identity#seriously she flew here on a bus?#Kara Danvers loves Lena Luthor#Supercorp from a prompt
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BEST of BL's in 2023 [Thai edition]
(more accurately my favourites from 2023, so that i have something to show for the 100s of hours i spent watching them lmao)
I Feel You Linger In The Air - Head & Shoulders above (almost) every single piece of queer media i've ever watched. Khun Yai and Jom will be forever icons. That drunk poem confession will NEVER be topped. Also LESBIANS AHHHHHH also the way the show explored intimacy AHHH just end meeee
2. Moonlight Chicken - Aof strikes again. Gave me Uncle Jim, Heart, Li Ming and my baby boy Gaipa- the music, the cinematography, the writing, the found fckin family - i will recommend it to EVERY one on the planet if i could.
3. Be My Favourite- I did not expect to enjoy this show as much as i did. I loved what they were tryna say. I LOVED the queer undertones in EVERYTHING. if not for the asexual erasure and Not being an absolute asshole this would have been quite the perfect show. And man is Gawin so darn sculpted perfection, LOOK AT THAT FACE, how to not admire!? Also Pearmai my beloved. AND THAT POEM in episode 11 ARGHHH
4. Bed Friend - I know this was a polarizing series in a lot of ways and I agree to some of the complaints raised BUTTTTTT NET MY FRENZ NET! How am i supposed to not melt into a complete puddle watching King pretend to not be absolutely in love with Uea, and treating him like the babygirl he is, when he looks like THAT. I'm but a mere mortal.
5. La Pluie - I kinda liked the show and disliked it in equal amounts. Saengtai annoyed me quite a LOT towards the end BUT his brother Sangtien - Suar Kritsanaphong had me in the palm of his hand. Him and his kiss with Lomfon is etched firmly in my brain. It HAD to be on this list.
6. Only Friends - Gawd. The Promise. The Promise of it all. Thats what maddens me THE MOST. There was just SO MUCH that they could have done. Even if they stuck with a lot of their similar choices i would have still put it higher up on the list if they hadn't undone all the good work they did in the final episode. I couldnt even bring myself to rewatch anything from this one cos of how disappointingly it ended. That being said - FirstKhao KILLED it as usual, i CANNOT wait for their next one, BOSTON deserved better and my MVP- Mark Pakin AHHH i NEED him on EVERY SHOW EVER but also in ways concerning to me GAWD WHAT A TALENT AND WHAT A FACE.
7. Laws of Attraction - Charn you guys. Charn and his utterly deranged expressions and his even more deranged ex. And ofc everything else the show offered. The drama. The mystery. The family. The romance. THE LESBIANS!!!!? Few things not to love. Especially the finale with all the domestic husbanding going on. Precious af.
8. Hidden Agenda - Far too much nonsensical plotlessness going on here for this to claim this position BUT i'm just a girl watching Joong swoon over his man and losing it in the corridor and proceeding to do that myself cos man he's so damn good in these kinda scenes. I think he'd be good in more serious ones too but I would much prefer it if it was with somebody who could offer more than Dunk (no shade he very cute himself)
POTENTIAL FAVS
The following is a list of shows i loved/liked it a LOT but still watching/running so I can't fully judge
(in no particular order except the first one cos who am i to put an aof show not at the top of any list)
Last Twilight [BEST THING EVER I AM WHOLLY AND IRRETRIEVABLY IN LOVE IM GONNA REWATCH IT LIKE ITS MY JOB PLS I NEED IT TO STICK THE LANDING SO BAD]
Love in Translation - episode 4 what a beauty, one of my fav episodes of any BL in 2023 ever- just LOVED the whole fake date thing - it was EVERYTHING
Wedding Plan - Leads are cute. Lesbians are cuter. Made me laugh. Also CUTENESS hello
Night Dream - Who doesn't love a long unrequited but actually totally requited love story?
The Sign - nothing i can ever say is gonna be enough to encompass just how mind-blowing this series is from concept to execution to CGI to costumes to the gorgeous leads with fckin electric chemistry AND the PINING and the will they won't they arhhhh- TOP TIER STUFF
Cooking Crush - i went into this with minimal expectations, the trailer didnt do much for me BUT oh my gawd i had SO MUCH FUN with each episode, i laughed SO much and i am very much looking forward to the rest of it
Cherry Magic - TayNew back again together. Karan and his gorgeous existence. Loved the og. The trope where one believes they are hard to love & someone who loves them like it’s breathing- its literally made for this show and i am SUPER excited where it goes. PLS PLS PLS let them keep the aroace character aroace PLEASE!?!?!?
#2023 bl wrapped#thai bl wrapped#i feel you linger in the air#moonlight chicken#be my favorite#bed friend#la pluie#laws of attraction#hidden agenda#only friends#last twilight#love in translation#cooking crush#the sign#cherry magic thai#night dream#wedding plan#if i missed any i'd be devastated okay byeee#thai bl
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A Chance Taken
Obi-Wan Kenobi/Reader (they/them pronouns)
Words: 1,772
Summary: It took a long time to get over the boy that you used to spend time with in the Senate building, but your lives took you in separate directions. But when he shows up during the Clone Wars with a dire warning for your planet, you don’t want to let him go without telling him how you feel.
flower and meaning: baby's breath || reconnecting with a lost love
Requested by: @mayo-advance
Note: this is my july work for the @yearofcreation2023, because i thought this request fit perfectly for one of my flowers :)
Year of Flowers Masterlist • Obi-Wan Kenobi Masterlist
You were fifteen years old the first time you met Obi-Wan Kenobi, and you immediately liked him. Being the child of a senator meant that you spent a lot of time on Coruscant, and that you had much more contact with the Jedi than other citizens of the Republic. Spending your days wandering the Senate building had long since lost its appeal, and you were grateful any time he was around because his master was sent on behalf of the Jedi to attend business at the Senate. Barely a year older than you, he would always have exciting stories about the adventures he had been on with his master, and the Jedi way of life was always fascinating.
The Force was never kind enough to make its mark on you, but you were content enough with your connection to the boy you considered one of your best friends from the moment you crossed paths. What you offered him was a momentary escape, just as much as he offered the same to you. The hidden alcoves and secret rooms of the Senate Building were no mystery to you, and often the two of you would spend time just sitting around in these spaces. Every second of his time was valuable, and it made you happy knowing that he chose to spend some of that precious freedom with you.
Sometimes you wondered whether he felt the same affinity for you that you did for him, but that query was always answered when he would arrive at the Senate building, full of things he wanted to tell you. You had asked him if there were other padawans that he spent time with, but the answer was no. Most of the other young Jedi were much younger than him and had not yet been assigned a permanent master yet, and the ones that had were never back at the Temple at the same time he was. You shared his experiences, noting that you were often the youngest person in the Senate building at any given time.
The two of you promised each other that you would remain in touch, and you believed that it would always be the case, but as time went on, you saw him less and less. Growing older meant that Qui-Gon could take him to new places and didn’t have to spend as much time on Coruscant between travels, which meant that the only time you really saw Obi-Wan was in passing.
And the Trade Federation made things even worse, which you were not happy about. Tensions between them and the Senate, along with your growth into adulthood, was what ultimately led to the decision that it would be best for you return to your home planet rather than stay in the Senate district. You didn’t see the danger, but it didn’t matter. Soon the chance of seeing Obi-Wan Kenobi again fell to zero, and you had to move on with your life.
A feat that you soon learned to be nothing short of impossible.
You had always harbored feelings for him, as much as you tried to push those down. He was a Jedi, there was no way he could ever return the affections you held. Delusions of a future with Obi-Wan Kenobi chased you no matter how hard you tried to forget, and it took years for you to even begin to move on.
You just never expected that all of your progress would go down the drain a year into the Clone Wars, when a Republic transport ship touched down outside your parents’ home.
You had parted ways for the last time when you were twenty, and now, over fifteen years later, your life was very different. You had taken on a public policy role after finishing your education, and most of your days were spent in meetings with various councils and leaders as you tried to solve the issues that your people were facing. It was leaving one of those meetings that you saw him again, walking through the hallways of the building with another Jedi.
“Obi-Wan?” you couldn’t help the shock that escaped your mouth as you approached him. “What are you doing here?”
“That’s Master Kenobi to you,” the other Jedi cut in, a scowl on his face. He looked younger than your friend, but their eyes were equally as tired.
“It’s okay Anakin,” Obi-Wan said. “They can call me by my first name.”
After official introductions were made, you led the two Jedi into a conference room and asked if they wanted anything to drink (which they refused, as you expected). “Now, what can we do for you here?” you asked, hoping that you would finally be afforded some answers as to why a figure from your past has reappeared without warning.
“There’s rumors that this planet is going to be next on the list for a calculated Separatist attack, and we wanted to warn you that this could mean violence against your people.”
“I don’t know what we can do to stop them,” you said softly. “Military power was never something we had in abundance, and I know that we have no intention or desire to join their cause.”
“We may be able to help with that,” Anakin said. He seemed to have warmed up to you after he learned that you and Obi-Wan had known each other for a long time. “The Republic can provide a team of soldiers to protect you and other government officials, as well as some form of protection around the planet as a whole, to hopefully keep any attacks from reaching you on the surface.”
You nodded. It had always been the goal of your government to keep the war as far away from your people as possible (even though you were not technically neutral and donated whatever you could to the Republic’s war fund). If this warning were true, it meant that now your people would be move involved (against their wishes) should the war come to your doorsteps. But at the same time, if the Separatists were to attack and you did not have any kind of protection, it would mean the damage would be so much worse.
“Thank you for letting us know,” you said. “If the Republic is willing, we would gladly accept your help.”
Both men nodded, and the two Jedi got up from where they were sitting. “If you need anything else, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us,” Obi-Wan said, a smile on his face.
It then dawned on you that this meant they would be leaving, and you did not want to give up this chance to reconnect with your long lost friend. “Wait!” you said, getting up and walking towards them. “I can’t let you leave without first offering that you stay here longer. For a meal, perhaps?”
Anakin began to shake his head. “I don’t-”
“Please, I insist,” you countered, not even waiting for him to finish his thought. You needed a chance to talk to Obi-Wan and you couldn’t just let him leave, especially when there was a significant chance that you would never see him again.
“As much as I wish we could stay, I’m afraid that we are needed elsewhere,” Obi-Wan said, and your heart dropped to the ground so quickly that you missed the clear regret in his voice.
You forced a tight smile, trying not to let your disappointment show. “I understand.”
But apparently the galaxy had decided to afford you this favor, because Anakin’s comm device began to beep as they were walking towards the door. He stepped out of the room, and suddenly you were alone with Obi-Wan.
And maybe that was a bad thing, because you decided to do something so bold you wouldn’t have believed it if your future self had recounted the story to you three months prior.
“I’ve always loved you, you know that?” you said, a soft smile on your face as you looked at him. Despite the fact that the two of you were no longer the fresh-faced children that used to hide away in the Senate building, you still saw that version of him every time you looked into his eyes. “And I’ve finally accepted that you can never say it back to me, but I couldn’t let this chance slip by without telling you, because every time I look at you I feel like you’re the solution to every problem I’ve ever had.”
Your confession was clearly a shock, and you waited for the disgust to flash across his face. It was inevitable, or at least you thought it was.
Because you were certainly not expecting him to reach out and take your hand. “I know you think I could never return your affections, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. When I found out that you were no longer living in the Senate district on Coruscant, it broke my heart because I thought for some reason you didn’t want to see me anymore,” he said. “And I’ve always kept my feelings bottled up inside me because I thought that’s what I had to do, but after seeing you again, I don’t think I could do that anymore even if I tried.”
“But-” you stammered, not sure if you were dreaming at this point. “You-”
“Surely you remember the Jedi Master I trained under?” he asked, a smile on his face. “If there’s one thing I learned from Qui-Gon other than how to wield a lightsaber, it’s that the Jedi Code can sometimes be overlooked.”
“So what does this mean?” you asked. “You can’t just leave the Order.”
“I would leave the Order in a heartbeat for you,” he said. “And I have every intention to, when the war is over.”
You smiled as a tear formed in your eye. You had always admired his sense of duty, and you still did, even if it was costing you precious moments with him. “So I’ll see you again?”
He laughed quietly as he leaned in and placed the softest of kisses on your lips, and it was over way too quickly for you liking. “I’ll come find you the moment this is all over, how about that?”
You nodded, stealing another quick kiss before Anakin stepped back into the room. As you discreetly wiping a tear from your face, the two of you pulled away from each other before the other Jedi could suspect anything.
And as you watched their transport ship take off, you couldn’t help but hope that Obi-Wan would be making good on his promise sooner rather than later.
- the end -
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#year of themed creation#obi wan kenobi#obi wan kenobi x reader#obi wan kenobi fanfiction#obi wan kenobi x gender neutral reader#obi wan kenobi x you#star wars x reader
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Just a Little Ghost Story
By: @clonemedickix
The derelict Venator was a gold mine for scavenging electronics and old supplies. What ammunition hadn’t cooked off in the fires following the crash were still locked within their cushioned bays, precious metals such as copper and gold were still peeking out of walls undisturbed by time or touch. Icy wind whipped at the edges of the broken and shattered hull, sometimes catching an object well enough to disturb its rest, but for the most part, the once proud ship sat in silence, waiting to be discovered, or hoping to rest in peace.
The young woman crawled carefully through the old hull, harvesting the rich finds as she went, placing items in her bag to carry home. She might be here picking through this wreckage for days; she had more than one container to store her bounty in, and a sturdy freighter to fly back to her home planet. The girl was never bothered by being alone. She lived in solitude when she worked, and enjoyed the quiet as she explored old crash sites for recoverable items. The credits made off this haul would help her little sister get the starship and education she was hoping to one day attain. The creaking and groaning of the settling hulks she worked in were like the sighs and grumbles of an old friend; she tuned them out for the most part, but was ever on alert for warning signs that the area she worked on was unstable. She’d heard things that were unexplainable sometimes. Often the source was made clear after probing and careful progress, but there were times that a reason for the whispers, the softly spoken words, were never clarified. The young scavenger always did her best to show proper respect for the sites she visited; many of them were crash sites where lives had been lost. It would not do to insult the memory of the dead.
The girl’s name was Rhaella, and she moved from wreck to wreck, following the signature of copper deposits, which was a rare enough metal in their galaxy to bear notice on a scanner. She’d come across this old Venator on her way home, thinking her trip was going to be a bust. It appeared the ship had never been discovered by other scavengers, so this was a truly lucky find - she had first dibs. She’d come to the surface of the unnamed moon cautiously, not knowing what the atmosphere would be like, whether there were inhabitants or other important details. This was an unknown place, as far as the maps knew. The onboard ship sensors reported the air was breathable, though cold. She would need her snow gear for this salvage.
Landing her ship near the crushed hull of the old Jedi cruiser, she surveyed the damage quietly. It had taken quite a beating, one of the command superstructures completely gone, large holes blown out of the sides and rear of the ship as if the engine plant had exploded. Atmospheric re-entry had devastated the hull; none aboard would have survived the crash. The ship had plowed a long trail of wreckage and refuse behind in its wake; she would inspect that later.
As she walked around the prow of the ship, she saw it’s name painted in faded Aurebesh on the side. The Tribunal. They’d had some strong, powerful names for their ships, she remembered. Bold monikers that would inspire awe and respect in the masses. Continuing on, she noticed something poking out of the snow, placed in regular rows in the shadow of the broken hull. Coming closer, Rhaella stopped with a small gasp. Helmets. Clone trooper helmets, placed on makeshift pikes and stuck into the earth in neat rows. Someone had taken the time to recover the bodies from the wreckage and bury them with respect. Rhaella paused, listening to the wind whip snow around, passing through the eaves and halls of the old, crushed ship with low moans and whistles. So she wasn’t the first visitor, after all, unless someone had survived the crash and buried these troopers as friends. Whichever it was, the girl stood for a moment, taking in the solemnity and obvious care given to the departed.
She wondered what kind of men they were in life. Rhaella had never met a clone trooper before; she’d heard they were all very handsome super soldiers, cloned from a Mandalorian bounty hunter and bred solely to fight for the Republic. The helmet she stood before had an impressive, carefully done paint job with the old Republic rondel proudly on the center brow. The clones were gone now; the Republic was gone now. But clearly this clone had been proud of the people he had served.
The Empire had been in place for a handful of months, and so far no one she knew was impressed. People seemed more afraid than happy; inflation ran rampant as people hoarded necessities and families went hungry. Rhaella had heard that the clones had been the very instrument of the fall of the Jedi; they’d turned on them to a man to execute them for treason. The girl sighed. They didn’t sound very loyal, if they could so suddenly turn on the very generals they’d been fighting alongside for three years. Giving the small graveyard a respectful nod, she whispered a soft prayer that her friend had taught her to thank the dead for their sacrifice, then she moved on, feeling that she’d shown proper regard for the souls lost on this site.
Rhaella carefully picked her way into the interior of the old star destroyer, glancing up at the high walls and realizing she would need her rappelling equipment. She set her bag down on the floor and dug through it to unload her harness, rope and clips that would help her climb the walls and stay secure as she investigated what parts were salvageable. After tugging the final strap of the harness tight, she reached into a pocket and removed a small ear bud that would let her listen to music and any comms that came from the ship. Rhaella never wanted to be out of pocket if her family called for her; they would worry. She clicked on some music and then set about to find a stable route to the top of the hull.
A few hours later, she had a full bag of valuable wiring and electronics parts that she could sell. She would have to make her way down and back to her ship, the Tecova. Her satchel was too heavy and full to keep working, and she was hungry and cold. She could use a break. As she grabbed her rope release at her hip, she heard a voice over her music say, “Have you seen the Captain?”
The voice was clear and present enough to startle Rhaella, and she squeezed the release harder than she should have, dropping herself nearly thirty feet in seconds and almost crashing to her feet. Her heart plummeted to her stomach at both the rush of her mistake and how real the voice had sounded. Stopping her descent a mere ten feet off the ground, she took a few gasping breaths, steadying herself before reaching for the hull and stable footing. Rhaella quickly disconnected herself from her rappelling line and glanced around the empty space, wondering if she’d missed the presence of a person while she’d been hanging above the floor working. She saw no one; she was alone. She took a few more breaths, telling herself it was just the wind playing tricks with her mind, and then turned to walk back to her ship.
The girl had to admit, she was unnerved by how close that voice had sounded. There was no possibility of it being an actual human; she’d been hanging above the old fighter hanger with no floor beneath her for at least one hundred feet. No one could have been up there with her without a rope, or some type of magic she’d never heard of. After eating and resting, she emptied her bag and geared up to start working again, trudging back through the snow and following her path from earlier. The memory of the unnerving voice still made her skin crawl a little, but she shook it off and got back to her rope. She climbed back up to near where she’d been working earlier, her music pumping through her small ear bud while she hummed softly to herself, pushing the nervous butterflies from her mind.
She found stable footing on an old gantry that had once run along the wall of the massive hangar, and sat for a while, though she remained secured to her rope for safety. Rhaella always carried small snacks and water for energy replenishment, and while she took her short break, she nibbled at the bar of food, picturing what the ship must have looked like before she came to this sad end. She imagined it had been bustling with activity, loud with the noise of mechanics and clone soldiers shouting to each other, messages barking over the loudspeakers with updates and orders. She’d seen pictures of the clone troopers in their armor before, and in her mind she watched as they crossed the deck proudly, laughing at stories they told each other, encouraging each other for their next mission.
She was dreamily humming along with a song while seeing the activity in her mind, when she heard, “Did Commander Tano get away?” Rhaella instinctively turned to the speaker and screamed when she saw the face of a man with a strange tattoo sitting next to her, his face earnest with the question he’d just asked. She scrambled to her feet and made to jump from the gantry, but when she looked back, there was no one there. Her action had made the small platform groan and screech at the sudden shift of her weight, and she worked to calm herself so she didn’t cause it to collapse. Rhaella gulped at the air, trying to lower her heart and respiratory rate; the panic she felt was threatening to suffocate her. Voices were one thing in her line of work, but seeing things was not; she’d never come up against what must be a spirit before. She felt some semblance of control return, and she carefully moved back to where she’d been sitting, her hand running over the gridded deck like it might burn her.
Feeling a little braver, Rhaella laughed at herself, and said out loud, “Okay, ghosties… I can’t work with you scaring me like that, or I’ll end up one of you. How about you tone down the fear factor?” There was no reply but the howling of the wind outside, as it blew past the damaged structure of the ship. Rhaella shrugged and went back to sitting quietly, listening for anything unnatural to make itself known. She waited for nearly half an hour, then got ready to resume working, pulling herself back to a standing position.
“I’m sorry for scaring you…,” she heard a soft voice say from the area behind her.
Rhaella held her breath. The voice was actually interacting with her, not the wind playing tricks on her ears. She steadied herself, closing her eyes and taking a few breaths before looking up to see who was speaking. Green eyes met a pair of beautiful, sad brown eyes that were almost solid, but somewhat transparent. It was a young man, a handsome young man, wearing blue and white armor that was scuffed and cracked in multiple places, burn marks marring the plates here and there. He’d most likely had pleasing tan brown skin once, but now was ghostly pale, his old Republic roundel tattoo a faded black. The man stared at her silently, his feet resting on a part of the gantry floor that wasn’t really safe for weight bearing, but seemed to not notice the obvious bulk of the soldier resting on it.
Rhaella was staring at a ghost. A karking, no joke ghost. And it had spoken to her - was in fact waiting for her to reply. The odds of that, the sheer astounding nature of this whole interaction both fascinated and terrified her.“I…um…,” she stammered. “I’m okay, I guess. Who are you?,” she blurted finally.
“I’m Jesse,” he said in his soft voice.
Rhaella was in uncharted territory. How was one supposed to speak to a ghost? Did he know he was a ghost? Did he remember how he died? He seemed to be looking for two different people, if his previous questions were any indication. The man seemed to be as lost as she was, reaching out for contact but unsure of how best to go about it.
“Do you have a name?,” he asked quietly.
“I, uh, yeah. Rhaella. It’s Rhaella.” She swallowed and realized her mouth had gone completely dry in shock at this interaction. Was she supposed to offer her hand to shake? How was one supposed to greet a ghost they’d only just met? She opted for making small talk, while her mind turned at a blistering pace, trying to decide if she should run, or stay. “How, um… how did you get here, Jesse?”
He was clearly a clone trooper, most likely belonging to one of the bodies planted in the cold soil outside. She vaguely remembered seeing a helmet that matched his facial tattoo. He must have been important to the person who’d buried him; they’d placed his grave in the center front of all the others.
“The ship crashed. We were fighting the Sith and the Jedi, and the hyperdrive failed…,” he paused, his forehead wrinkling slightly as he reached for the memory. “I think the ship started to break up when we entered the atmosphere. The men, my brothers… Have you seen Captain Rex? Did Commander Tano get away?”
She recognized the two names he’d already mentioned earlier in his repeated question. “I don’t know those names, Jesse. I, uh… I’m here to salvage what I can from this wreck, to take back for sale, for credits.” She hoped he didn’t feel she was robbing his grave, or that her actions hadn’t disturbed him from his sleep.
“You don’t know the Captain? What about the Jedi? Could you ask them?” He looked progressively more and more upset, and Rhaella’s heart broke for the handsome young man. He had no idea, clearly, that the Republic and the Jedi were as dead as he was.
“Jesse, the Jedi are gone. Their Order was destroyed by the clone troopers the day they tried to assassinate Emperor Palpatine. The Republic is gone too - we live in the Galactic Empire now. There are no Jedi…” She felt awful, having to explain this to the clone.
“They’re gone? No! They can’t be. It was all a horrible mistake! They can’t be gone.” He broke off, staring off into the distance and murmuring about Captain Rex and Commander Tano again. Rhaella felt almost like she was watching something private, embarrassed at his distress.
After a few moments, she edged her way towards the wall, wanting to get back down from her perch. While the ghost was pleasant and even nice to look at, she was deeply uncomfortable with his presence and still afraid of the possibilities. What if he turned on her? What if her answers or lack thereof upset him further and he used some ghostly power on her to hurt her? She didn’t know; she’d never encountered a real ghost before. She had no idea what to expect. Rhaella had just gotten her foot set and was ready to push off, letting the rope take her weight when she heard Jesse call out behind her, “Wait!”
Turning her head back to look at him, she found him startlingly close to her again. Personal space was evidently not a thing in the realm of ghosts. Rhaella gave a chuff of surprise and gripped her rope carefully; she didn’t want another slip up like the previous trip. The clone looked at her a little desperately, a hand out tentatively as if he were thinking of touching her arm. Rhaella stared at his not quite solid hand, wondering curiously if she would be able to feel his touch.
“Please, don’t leave. I’ve been alone for so long…,” his soft baritone was heartbreaking with his plea. “I won’t hurt you. Maybe we could just…talk?”
Rhaella stared into his sad brown eyes, feeling he wasn’t trying to trick her. He seemed like any other person would be, that was tired of being alone. She stopped moving for a minute, thinking about whether it was safer to stay put a bit longer, or run for her life. Mentally a part of her screamed out a hysterical giggle that she was talking to a ghost, and contemplating sitting down and spending time with it, no less! Objectively, hurrying a person on a rappelling line wasn’t the safest thing she could do; she took a deep, steadying breath and decided to sit back down for a bit. See if this Jesse was even able to keep this appearance up for much longer. Rhaella thought she saw actual relief on his face as she relented. She settled back onto her perch carefully, her eyes speaking volumes about her readiness to just roll off the ledge and pray to the Maker she could catch herself with her safety before bouncing off some jagged piece of wreckage, while trying to get away.
Jesse seemed to sense her hesitation and fear, and he backed off, moving to the far edge of the little gantry. “Thank you, Rhaella,” he said in his soft, slightly accented tones.
“Don’t mention it,” Rhaella murmured a bit wryly. This whole situation was a bit ludicrous, but he was such a polite ghost.
“You said the Republic is gone. For how long?,” he asked carefully.
She was a little afraid to tell him he’d been here for nearly five months. “It’s been about 4-5 months since the day the Republic fell,” she answered him slowly, watching his reaction a little hesitantly.
Jesse said nothing for a long time, his face sad. Finally he moved, appearing to sit on the ledge, though he more or less floated on nothing. “So you’re saying the Jedi are all dead?” He looked a bit stricken, as if he felt partially responsible.
“Some escaped. There’s these Jedi hunters called Inquisitors that go around looking for them now. The Jedi are all considered enemies of the Empire though, and anybody that sees one is supposed to turn them in.” Rhaella watched the ghost warily; she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. Was he truly alone here, or were there more of his ghost brothers to keep him company? How awful if he was really all by himself. He didn’t speak for a long time, as if slowly digesting what she’d told him. “Who is the Captain you’re looking for, and… Tano? Commander Tano?” Jesse’s gaze met hers as she spoke.
“Captain Rex was my clone commander and friend.” His face was a picture of grief. “Commander Tano was the Jedi assigned to our mission. We went to Mandalore to free their world from the control of the crime boss, Darth Maul. I remember - we captured him… about tore the city of Sundari up to get him. He captured me, too, but let me go for some reason…” He paused, trying to pull the threads of memory back into some kind of readable tapestry. “We were on our way back to Coruscant with Maul when Order 66 went out.”
Rhaella was listening patiently, but she’d never heard of Order 66 before. “What was that?,” she asked curiously.
“What?,” he asked her back, unsure of what she meant.
“Order 66. What was Order 66?,” she clarified.
“Oh. Well, this guy called Darth Sidious sent out an encoded message to all the clone commanders to execute the Jedi for treason. Captain Rex got the order, and charged us to find Commander Tano and Darth Maul, and execute them. We tried to get Ahsoka early on, but she got away from us.” His voice trailed off, as he continued to search for the memories. “I think Captain Rex changed his mind about the order though… I think I remember him helping her, and us accusing him of treason.” Jesse looked stricken at the thought.
It made sense that the two leaders had survived somehow; after all, someone thoughtful and seemingly knowledgeable had buried all the bodies after the crash. Rhaella said nothing as Jesse brooded. She was starting to get cold sitting with him, high in the bowels of the old cruiser. She shifted her weight a bit, trying to stretch her legs as best as she could. He didn’t seem to notice; Jesse was worlds away reliving the last moments of his life. She wondered what he had been like as a living soul. He was definitely handsome; her mind wondered at what Coruscant must have looked like with thousands of these men wandering the streets. Nowadays, it was so rare to find a clone that it brought notice purely because of its rarity.
She had to stand; if she let her muscles cramp up she’d be in a real pickle trying to rappel back to the ground. Jesse’s head came up when she got to her feet, stiffly. Rhaella saw his look, and said, “I need to warm up. I’m cold and getting stiff, and hungry.” She saw his expression start to break at the fear of her leaving, and rushed to cut him off. “I’ll come back! I’m not done here. I just…can’t stay here as long as you.” How to politely discuss the dead’s lack of physical needs?
Jesse pursed his lips unhappily, but nodded to Rhaella. “I’m sorry I kept you so long. I forget it’s cold here…” His voice trailed off, as he looked away across the cavernous, destroyed hangar. “Please come back,” he begged her softly.
Rhaella looked at him flatly and got her rope taught, her feet positioned to step off the ledge. “I’ll come back, Jesse, I promise.” She saw him nod, and she hit the release at her hip, walking herself carefully down the wall back to the ground.
Maker, she was stiff from sitting up there all afternoon. She had two full bags of salvaged scrap; technically she could leave with what she had. It wouldn’t be as full a bounty as she had been planning on, but she didn’t have to stay. Reminiscing with ghosts wasn’t part of her job description. But. He seemed so sad, and compelling, like someone she might have liked in a different life. And she had promised him she would be back. Rhaella took a quick shower and settled in for the night to sleep; she would keep her word. Besides, this haul would most likely push her earnings over that which was needed for her sister’s tuition and ship, and she couldn’t pass that up.
Rhaella woke the next morning to a weak sun shining through the windscreen of the Tecova. It didn’t promise any increase in warmth, but she knew it was time to get moving. She put on her cold weather gear and rappelling harness, and tied her boots snugly, grabbing her satchel to head back to the ship. This time when she passed the little clone graveyard, she paused to look at the worn helmets more carefully. Sure enough - the helmet foremost in the center had the same Republic rondel as Jesse’s facial tattoo. It had to be his spot. She stared at it mutely for a minute, her mind deep in thought.
“Do you think if you stare at that long enough, I’ll climb out of that hole?,” a dry, softly muted voice asked right at her side.
Rhaella made a very undignified sound and jigged a dance that made Jesse’s pale face light with an attractive smirk. Very faintly, she could hear him laughing at her.
“That is SO RUDE, Jesse!,” she shouted at him, hoping her heart would return to a normal rhythm quickly. “You can’t just sneak up on me like that. Are you trying to make my heart stop?” Her tone clearly showed her level of annoyance at him for the breach in etiquette.
“Well, you were staring so hard at my helmet, and it was really too perfect an opportunity to pass up…” His smile was incredibly endearing for a dead guy. “Besides, I don’t think you can exact revenge on the already deceased, so I figured I was pretty safe.”
“I could just leave, then. Because you’ve used up your allotment of jump scares with me, mister,” she said threateningly. Rhaella was somewhat satisfied to see Jesse’s look change to one of chastised amusement.
“Please don’t leave. It’s nice to have someone to talk to; I’ve been alone for a long time.”
That triggered something that had been nagging her. “Why are you alone, Jesse? Where are the other spirits that should be with you? Someone took the time to bury all of you, so you obviously didn’t blink out by yourself.”
“Truth be told, I don’t know who did this for us,” he said with a regretful shrug. “I wish I did. But as to why I’m alone, I guess I missed that particular boat. When the Guide came for my brothers, I either wasn’t paying attention or wasn’t here yet. I’ve been waiting ever since.” He stopped, his full lower lip jutting out slightly in a pout. “I guess she’s been busy, to have left me here. I would never have thought she would forget me.”
Rhaella looked over at him curiously. He was actually much harder to see outside the ship, in the brighter light. The sunlight made it more difficult to make out his lines or see the expression on his face, but she could tell he was sad as he mused about this entity that had not come for him. “Who is ‘The Guide’? I’ve never heard that title before.”
Jesse didn’t answer at first, and she was about to ask again when he spoke up. “General Lara Lin. The Guardian of the Balance, and the Guide of Souls. It’s her job to lead the worthy dead to the Undying Lands to be with our brothers. She and I were pretty good friends during the war, and she in fact married a clone commander in secret…” His voice trailed off for a moment as he thought. “She was with her own company of clones - the Dragon Company - the day Order 66 came out. I guess it’s entirely possible they killed her, too.” Jesse stopped speaking and stared at the helmets of his brothers, as well as his own, for a long time.
“That’s a very interesting name,” Rhaella said in a leading tone, hoping to get Jesse talking again. “She was a Jedi, and yet had the power to lead souls to this ‘Undying Land’ you mentioned?”
“She was never a Jedi,” he said with a shake of his head. “She was a goddess. Tasked with maintaining the balance between the light and dark throughout the whole universe. She offered to help in the war, really just to try and save as many clones as she could, and the Jedi allowed it.” Jesse paused again; it seemed like it cost him more effort to manifest outside, remain visible and audible in the sun and wind. “They wanted her power, her fighting skills, but most of all, her dragon.” He saw Rhaella’s head come up in surprise and curiosity. Jesse smiled, a little pride in his eyes over having known this amazing woman. “She rode into battle on the back of a massive, black, fire breathing dragon. He was like having a super weapon with brains, on top of brawn. They accepted her help without much argument, so I guess she was guilty by association, just for helping the Jedi.”
“If she was a goddess, wouldn’t that make her immortal?” Rhaella was trying to wrap her head around the logic of this story, but then laughed at herself. She was standing here, talking to the ghost of a man who’d died months before, having a conversation like they were good friends. Maybe logic didn’t play into things as much as she’d previously thought.
“That’s what we all believed,” he said quietly. There was disappointment and perhaps even a little fear in his voice, as he considered the ramifications of her remaining alive, but not coming to lead him on to whatever land the dead went to. He just couldn’t believe that she could be dead, murdered by her own loyal clones.
A particularly hard gust of wind blew around the corner of the Venator’s prow, knifing its way through Rhaella’s snow gear. She instinctively wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, her teeth chattering a bit. Glancing at Jesse, she said, “I’ve got to get out of this wind. Come on, Jesse. I’ve got work to do. Walk and talk.” Rhaella moved into the ship’s interior quickly, working her way back to the spot she’d left the previous day. She worked steadily for hours, Jesse sticking close to her and often telling her what was behind the wall panels before she cracked it open. He was actually fairly useful as an assistant, and Rhaella found his company comforting and entertaining. He must have been a hoot to hang out with in life, she thought to herself while he nattered on about old times with his brothers.
She finished another day with him, this time more companionably than before, as they chatted about the war, his life as a soldier, and her experiences both with the war and now the Empire. At one point he asked her if everything the clones had suffered through was for nothing - the Empire didn’t sound all that great. It didn’t seem that the lives of the galaxy had been improved through its work, and truly, he heard hints of dictator-like rule in her words. She shrugged. She was a nobody, her family of no consequence. They just wanted to make an honest living and enjoy life. She was here, salvaging this ship to help her sister cover the funds for a new star ship and tuition for higher education. Rhaella didn’t mind the work; in fact she rather enjoyed the sense of adventure and history as she crawled all over shipwrecks and crash sites. She’d learned a lot of things from the places she’d been, the artifacts she’d seen. It wasn’t a life many were lucky to have.
But she couldn’t deny the things she’d heard about the Empire’s rule. The violence of the stormtroopers. The seeming unfairness of the laws that changed rapidly, practically on a daily basis. The feeling of unhappiness that pervaded the lands she’d been to. The citizens of the galaxy weren’t content with their lives, and the rumors and whispers always led back to the same cause: the Empire. It made her sad to think that everything Jesse and his brothers had been through - their creation in fact - was all for naught. Rhaella could tell the thought bothered the clone, as he retreated into himself after a while.
It was getting late, and the temperatures were dropping. Rhaella lowered herself back to the ground level, and packed her things to head back to the Tecova. She glanced over at Jesse and invited him to go with her, get out of the cold, as naturally as if he were as real as she, and she stopped suddenly, her eyes widening in shock, afraid she had just insulted him mightily. “I’m so sorry, Jesse! I… didn’t think before I spoke.” She fell into silence, afraid she would see hurt in his ghostly brown eyes. Instead, she found humor.
“It’s okay, Rhaella. I can come with you, since you so kindly invited me. Though, I’m not very warm company,” he said with a smile and a shrug.
Rhaella smiled back, cocking her head a little to the side. “You’re still company, and between you and me, I’ve enjoyed today.” She started walking towards her ship, Jesse’s spirit moving along with her, almost as he would have had he been material. When she got to the ramp, she hit the controls to lower it and gain access to the warm interior. She looked over, expecting to find her friend beside her, but Jesse was gone. She felt a crushing disappointment, that maybe he couldn’t leave the vicinity of the old Venator after all. Rhaella glanced at her boots for a moment, huffing softly in dismay, and climbed the ramp to head inside, making sure to stomp the snow off her boots as she went.
The ramp closed behind her, sealing her into the climate controlled ship like a warm hug. Rhaella carefully unlaced her boots, removed her climbing harness, and then shrugged out of her heavy snow gear, hanging them to dry in the cargo area of the ship with practiced ease. She was down to just a layer of thermal under clothes with a set of overalls for pants, but felt comfortable moving about her very mobile home. She shrugged out of the suspender straps, letting them hang around her hips as she walked into the small commissary area, digging through the conservator for something to eat and drink.
She was bent over riffling among the pantry shelves when she heard a voice drawl amusingly, “I must say, that’s an interesting look you have going on.”
Rhaella squawked and jumped, bumping her head on the shelf above. She whirled around, finding Jesse in the room, seemingly leaning against the wall in a very lazy, playboyish manner, and yelled at him, “Jesse, quit karking scaring me like that, or I’ll disinvite you!” Huffing angrily as she slammed the meal container on the counter, she added, “And I’ll leave!”
Jesse laughed, having figured by this time she was going to do no such thing. “You’re cute when you make that noise,” he said, still giving every impression of holding up the wall of the ship with his handsome, muscled, but ghostly physique.
“If you weren’t already dead, I’d throw knives at you,” Rhaella retorted, some humor evident in her voice. “It’s unfortunate that you’re so charming, and transparent.” She ran her eyes over his spectral body appraisingly. He’d have been so much fun to date, she thought to herself with a little smirk.
Jesse chuckled softly. “But I am charming, and stunningly handsome. I used to have to beat pretty girls off with a stick, before…”
“Yeah I bet that did nothing for your fat head though,” Rhaella muttered, somewhat to herself.
“I’ll have you know, I was one of the most popular clones in the Grand Army of the Republic. Flocks of ladies wanted to hang out with me at 79s,” he bragged lightly.
Rhaella rolled her eyes a bit. “What’s ‘79s?’”
“Only THE best clone bar on Coruscant! My brothers from Torrent Company used to shut that place down, partying so hard. The Corries regularly had to come toss us out.” He smiled at the memories. “The place was amazing, all lit up with neon light, beautiful splashes of color everywhere - even the graffiti outside was pretty in its way. There were always beautiful women there…but truth be told, they tended to avoid our table.” His brown eyes were gazing off into the distance, reliving the nights of loud noise, laughter, dancing and booze.
“They didn’t like your tattoo and bragging on yourself, did they?,” she said with a smirk.
Jesse’s head snapped up in response to her little jab. “Ha, ha. Actually, it was because the General scared all of the competition away. Didn’t matter that she was only there for one clone - they didn’t like sitting near her.” He gave Rhaella a wry smile.
“The same General that hasn’t come for you? That General?,” she asked a little archly.
“That General, yes. She was so…beautiful and like, lit up the whole bar just by being there. She would dance with us, laugh with us, play her crazy music from Earth, drink with us, like we were all the best of friends. Family, even.” His voice trailed off at the end, as if he couldn’t reconcile the General of that time with the one who’d left him here, forgotten and alone.
Rhaella could hear the tone of bitter confusion and disappointment in his voice. She sighed softly, feeling sorry for her ‘friend’, if that’s what you called him. She still had small moments where her inner person demanded to know what the heck she was doing, talking to him as if he were a real person. As she pulled her food out of the nanowave, she said, “Maybe it’s like you said, and something happened to her on the day of Order 66. Maybe she will still show up to get you.” Rhaella hoped so for his sake.
She sat down at the small table in her commissary and ate her food, while Jesse moved to stand opposite her, watching her silently. She glanced up at him and briefly felt bad that he couldn’t share her meal. “I’d offer you something to eat, but…,” her words trailing off at the obvious, unspoken fact that he couldn’t.
“It’s okay. I’d rather watch you. It’s nice just to be with someone again.” He leaned against the wall across from her little nook and silently gazed at her.
Rhaella felt his gaze a little unnerving, though meant kindly. “Because staring at me while I chew is so entertaining…” Her conscience chided her for being slightly petty; the poor man was dead and so very alone, after all. She should cut him some slack.
She scarfed her food down quickly in an effort to sidestep the issue, got up and put her trash and utensils away. Without thinking much, she moved to her bunk and got fresh clothes out, then walked to the refresher for a quick shower. Looking back she said, “I’m gonna clean up. You’re welcome to stay, so long as you stay… out here. No cheating and peeking through walls, okay?” After watching him do just that all day in an effort to help her locate valuable salvage items, she wanted to make the boundaries clear.
Jesse smiled back at her a little playfully. “Well, kriff, you figured me out.” He jerked his chin up, saying, “Go ahead. I’ll behave.”
Rhaella smiled back sincerely. “Thank you. I’ll be quick.” She was true to her word, though if he had peeked, he’d have seen her thousand yard stare as she mechanically washed herself, while dreaming of what it might have been like to have such a man to hold, to shower with. He really was cute, even with the gaudy tattoo. His personality was open, frank and kind, while at the same time humorous. He’d have been fun to be around, she was sure.
When she came back from the refresher, she looked for Jesse, expecting him to be in the same place she’d left him. When he didn’t readily appear, she called to him, wondering if he’d gone back to the Tribunal, or wherever he went when she wasn’t around. He didn’t answer, and she felt a surge of disappointment. Oh well, she thought. Guess I should get some rest while I have the chance. She snuggled into her small bunk, pulling the covers up to her neck and turned to face the wall. She sighed in comfort at finally being able to stretch out, even if the mattress was thin, and opened her eyes one last time while mentally reviewing her bedtime checklist.
She was met with the sight of two spectral brown eyes staring back into hers and flinched the tiniest bit. By now she was more or less used to Jesse’s unpredictable appearances. She assumed he was doing it as something of a joke at this point, and he grinned at her mischievously. “If you were real, I’d have decked you right in that cute nose.”
“If I were real, it would be hard to punch me while I kissed you,” he said with a smile.
“And who said I would let you kiss me?,” Rhaella sputtered back at him with a small laugh.
“It’s just an inevitable thing - beautiful women can’t resist my smile.” He flashed her a winning smile and she laughed harder.
“Evidently beautiful women excluding that General you keep bringing up.”
Jesse chuckled. “She was a singular case. Besides, Rex would have probably never forgiven me if I tried.”
“Rex? That Captain you’ve asked about several times? Your friend?” She seemed to recall that was one of the names he’d dropped when they first met.
“Yes, Captain Rex. They were married in secret at the beginning of the war. Love at first sight. Luckiest clone I ever met.” He sighed a little remembering a life that had slipped away.
“You know, typically if a guy is interested in someone, he doesn’t fill the conversation up with talk of another woman. Just a little life tip,” Rhaella added dryly.
“I should remember that for the next time I’m alive,” he said with a chuff. “You really are, you know.”
“What?” Rhaella was drifting off into sleep, unable to withstand the pull as her eyes closed.
“Beautiful,” Jesse murmured. “Sleep well, Rhaella,” he said as her eyes closed and she gave out a peaceful sigh.
Rhaella woke the next morning feeling mostly rested, with the odd sensation of having been held lovingly while she slept. She hadn’t been snuggled like that in years, not since her last boyfriend ghosted her. It was a warm, happy feeling, and she strongly suspected it had something to do with her new friend, which was strange considering he couldn’t manifest in such a way as to physically touch her. As she rolled over to get a glimpse of the weak, cold sun peaking through her windscreen, she wondered where he’d gone to.
“You talk in your sleep,” she heard an amused voice quip from the area cockpit.
“Well, polite people don’t generally point it out. Did no one ever teach you manners?” Rhaella climbed out of her bunk and moved to the refresher to start her day.
“I recall that was an elective offered, but I wanted to learn how to blow things up, shoot well and study pick up lines more.” He was rewarded with a low snort from the midship behind him. He liked making her laugh; it made him feel almost alive again. “How long will you actually be here?,” Jesse asked casually, turning to stand and seeing her pulling her suspenders over her shoulders. The ghostly clone stopped to appreciate the image of her slowly snapping one of them tight, as she smiled at him a little coquettishly. He dreaded the thought of her leaving, when he would be alone again.
Rhaella’s face darkened a little at the question. “I’m not sure… a few more days at least. There’s only so much I can pack away on here before I end up over the weight limits, and after today’s haul, I’ll probably be far and away over my earnings goal.” She saw his face tighten, unhappy at the news that their time would come to an end sooner than later. “I was wondering, Jesse…is there anybody you can think of I could contact, that might be able to find that General? If she could help you, I mean.” She was loathe to leave him here alone; she already felt somewhat responsible for him, invested in his happiness.
“I don’t know. Everyone associated with her was either a Jedi or a clone. If they all turned on her, I don’t know how you’d find her.” His face fell, the lack of options stinging a bit.
“Hmmm. Well, maybe something will come to us while we work. Or maybe we will just get lucky, and she’ll realize she left something important behind here.” For sure, Rhaella was sickened at the thought of Jesse having to remain here, when it was time for her to leave.
After working for several hours without much in the way of conversation, Rhaella finally decided to ask Jesse something she’d been wondering. “Can you still touch things? I mean, like a solid person would?” Her look was full of simple curiosity, if not slightly out of a small - tiny - vein of selfish interest.
Jesse laughed softy. “You’re wondering what it would feel like if I could touch you, aren’t you?,” he said with a playful, truly beautiful grin. Rhaella felt her heart skip a couple of beats, seeing his flirtatious smile.
“Maybe a little… It felt like you had, when I woke up this morning.” She rushed to qualify the statement at the naughty light that came into his eyes. “I mean, it felt like you held me while I slept. …It was … nice.” She looked at him a little hopelessly and shrugged.
He smiled again, though it was a softer, slightly bitter expression. “I can’t. I’m not alive, so nothing to be solid with.” His mouth curved up on one side and he added, “I guess what you felt was just my charming personality wishing it could have held you.”
Rhaella simply stared back at him, finding no words to say to that. It was heartbreaking, hearing him try to maintain some semblance of laughter and positivity at his situation. She felt for him badly, if not for herself and what she was missing out on. She decided to change the subject. “Your armor isn’t quite what I remember the clone trooper armor looking like. Why is it different?”
“I was an ARC Trooper. Special training, heavier armor with double pauldrons for protection. We were like clone commandos, but the lite version, heavier on tactical thinking.”
“I see. Were there a lot of ARC Troopers?,” she asked curiously.
“No. There were only about one hundred of us, in an army of millions. We got shared out between a lot of different units, depending on the mission. My Company produced quite a few ARCs, probably because Rex had gotten ARC Trooper training too, and knew the value of it, the qualities to look for in a candidate.” He sighed. “Rex was the closest thing to a father I ever knew. And a brother at the same time.” His voice was a little flat, acknowledging feelings for a man he’d never get to see again.
“He sure sounds like a good leader, from all you’ve said. And a bit of a renegade too, if he got married to a general in secret. I’m not sure I’ve heard a story like that about the troopers - I thought you were all bred to obey orders without question.” She was a little startled when Jesse’s tone changed to one of slightly offended defensiveness.
“You know, we could think for ourselves. We weren’t just mindless drones with no feelings or wants of our own.” His face showed a heavy dose of bitterness. “People treated us like we were just numbers, even some of the Jedi. But to each other, we were brothers, individuals, with our own personalities, dreams, desires… That kind of thing used to make Fives so karking mad when he thought about it.” He huffed into a broody silence, starting at the wall in front of them.
“I’m sorry, Jesse. I didn’t mean to upset you. How could anybody see you as just a number after spending even five minutes with you?,” Rhaella asked gently. She wanted to reach out and comfort him so badly, and her hand moved before she thought better of it. All she felt was air.
Jesse caught her gesture and smiled at her a little sadly. “Some people were good about treating us right. General Skywalker valued us as individuals. Master Yoda did too, supposedly. General Kenobi was always respectful, but then he worked with Cody, so there’s no question he knew we weren’t just copy paste robots. It’s that garbage thinking like the rest of the galaxy, that made me get this tattoo. Or Fives his. Or any of us really, decorating our armor, getting ink, picking our names. Because the Kaminoans did treat us like numbers, and called us by our CT numbers, never our names. They were so dehumanizing,” he said with something of a little snarl.
“I’m glad there were some leaders that saw you as the men you were,” she said softly.
The unlikely pair worked the rest of the day with minimal conversation, simply content with each other’s company. At the end of the day, as the sun started to set again and it got colder, Rhaella dropped down from the spot she’d been working on and got her gear stowed. She and Jesse headed back to the Tecova together, to warm up and rest.
Thoughts on how she could help Jesse whirled in her mind. There had to be some small way she could reach out and find someone. She had some contacts that were on the shadier side of business; maybe they would have heard something about dealings with other clones or a missing Republic General. As she snuggled up in her blankets, with Jesse laid there next to her watching her sleep, her last thought was perhaps she could throw a random comm out into the Void on channel 00. Old stories told that that channel was heard by all manner of other creatures, even far away galaxies not yet explored. Her father had told her once that you could call up space whales using channel 00. Looking into Jesse’s warm but ethereal brown eyes as she drifted off, she thought to herself with a small smile, ‘If I can find a space whale on that channel, surely I can find a universe-traveling goddess of the dead.’
The next morning, as soon as she woke, she moved to the cockpit and comm box. Jesse wasn’t on the ship, and she wondered briefly where he’d disappeared to, but it made her little chore a little easier. She dialed in channel 00 and hesitated before she spoke. “This message is for General Lara Lin, wherever you are. ARC Trooper Jesse got left behind, and is all alone. Please find him and help him. He deserves better than this.” She stopped to think about her message for a minute… should she repeat it? Was she crazy for what she was doing, for a ghost? Had this all been a hallucination? The speaker crackled softly, almost as if someone had joined the line, and Rhaella held her breath. Nothing answered her back, however, and she let out her breath with a disappointed sigh. Well, she’d tried. She leaned over and ordered the computer to continue playing the message in bursts every hour. Maybe it would get picked up and sent on to some entity that could do something.
She got dressed and geared up, and went back to the ship to work. It was some time before she saw Jesse. She was quietly moving down old corridors, working her way into old rooms and chambers, looking for electronics that were in good enough shape to salvage. She shoved her way into one room and took note of her surroundings. It was a bunk room. It must have been the clone quarters on the ship, where the men were berthed. She heard a sound that could have been a sigh, and moved toward it. Sure enough, around a corner on a bunk that was still intact and fairly free from damage, sat Jesse. He was bent over, holding his face in his hands, and Rhaella could tell just by the set of his shoulders he was deeply upset, most likely crying. She almost left, wanting to spare him the embarrassment of being seen in a private moment, but as she turned to retrace her steps, he called her name.
“Rhaella, it’s okay. You don’t have to go.”
“You weren’t on the Tecova this morning. Are you okay?,” she asked gently.
“No, I’m dead. And I’m stuck here alone, with no way to fix things!,” he said with his voice full of despair.
She had no reply for that; he wasn’t wrong. There was nothing cute or funny about his situation, and she wished dearly that she could help him. She was startled to realize she had real feelings for this man, who wasn’t even alive. Rhaella was invested in what happened to him now. “How can I help you, Jesse? Is there anything I can do to make you feel better? It hurts, seeing you suffer,” she said, her voice pleading. “I sent out a message on comm channel 00 this morning, asking for anyone to find the General and tell her you’re here and alone.” She saw his eyes lift to hers in surprise. “I mean,” she sputtered, feeling a little idiotic about it now, “my dad always told me you could contact space whales on that channel. If you can find a space whale, surely you can find a goddess?” She stopped talking suddenly, feeling like a fool as he watched her.
Jesse smiled softly after a moment. He was touched that she cared enough to try for him, but he had little faith that her efforts would be rewarded. “Thanks, Rhaella. Thank you for trying.” He stood and moved to stand in front of her. “I wish I could touch you, hug you.” He raised a hand to her upper arm, just at the point where it joined her shoulder, and fanned his fingers over her. They passed right through her, not even the slightest hint of his touch reached her. Jesse closed his eyes in despair and sighed, standing silent for a long time. “There’s an electronics room about four doors down on the left that has some good stuff. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll let you work alone today.”
Rhaella was disappointed, knowing her day wouldn’t be filled with his playful, joking banter. His presence had already become important to her in the span of four days. A part of her couldn’t imagine her life without him now, as if she’d lived her entire life on this crash site with him. It was clear Jesse wanted to be alone, however, so she nodded and left him to continue working. He’d been right about the electronics room; she found a veritable gold mine of strippable tech, and filled her bag with the items before making her way back to her ship at the end of the day. It had felt very empty, working without him by her side.
As soon as Rhaella stepped inside the warmth of the Tecova, she looked up to see Jesse leaning against the wall, watching her. She gave him a little smile, simply happy to see him, and worked at getting out of her layers of clothes. Down to just her overalls and thermals again, she got herself some dinner, and sat down at the table. Jesse had watched her with a hunger that was slightly unnerving in its intensity. “You’re staring at me like a nexu tracking a chicken, Jesse. What’s up?”
“I can’t help it. You’re just…beautiful. And quite attractive in those overalls with the suspenders down around your hips.” Her eyes came up in surprise at the baldness of his stated attraction. “You have no idea how badly I wish I could touch you right now.”
Her mouth had gone dry at the sincerity and need in his voice, and her body actually gave a lurching throb at the immediately lustful thought of where that touch might lead. Only a blind fool would deny that Jesse was handsome and had the body of a god, even if it was immaterial and nonphysical. Rhaella stared back at him mutely, the wheels turning in her mind so obvious to him that Jesse smirked at her a little triumphantly.
“Dammit, Jesse, what am I supposed to do with that knowledge?! Now I won’t be able to function with that in my head!” She stood as she pounded her fists on the table in annoyance and stalked over to the refuse bin to dispose of her trash and clean her utensils. She cleaned the fork, knife and spoon with angry, curt movements that spoke volumes about her level of aggravation and sexual frustration, thanks to his confession. Drying them, she half slammed them back in their drawer, shooting daggers with her eyes at Jesse from behind the sink. Finally she jerked her gaze away and sighed. “I’m going to get a shower. ALONE. Sans a partner. And if it takes me a while, you just remember it’s your damn fault.”
Rhaella saw with some satisfaction that his eyes widened in surprise, as he tried to puzzle out if that was an invitation or merely a statement of fact. She smiled as she kicked off the overalls, revealing her form beneath, sheathed only in thermal underwear. She walked over to her bunk and collected clean clothes and a towel, then seemed to pause a brief moment to think. Jesse watched in silent awe as she reached down for the hem of her thermal shirt and pulled it over her head, dropped it to the floor, then shimmied out of the thermal leggings. Rhaella picked up her bundle of clean garments and turned to face him, a truly wicked little gleam in her eyes. She walked towards him as he stood, his arms crossed over his chest, his brown eyes wide and feasting on the view in front of him. “Excuse me. I need past you.”
Jesse stepped aside, cocking an eyebrow at her as she gave him an imperious little nod and walked by. She knew he was staring at her butt, and heard him give out a little huff of surprise at the tattoo on her back. It was a type of panther that lived on her home world, striped in an exotic way and reaching out with one claw tipped paw to snatch at someone, it’s mouth open in a snarling roar, showing it’s fangs. “Like what you see?,” she asked him a little coyly.
“You’re a cruel, cruel woman,” he said, his voice a little gruff. She saw him swallow thickly, shifting a little uncomfortably, but still staring at her cute little tush.
“Come tell me that in here, then.” The water was warm as she stepped under it, and she somehow felt rather than saw his presence behind her in the refresher. She lathered up her hair with shampoo, holding the sudsy mop up and showing him the back of her neck, where the cat’s tail ended in a curl, just at the nape of her hairline. He’d not noticed it before because of her thick pony tail. Rhaella picked up the bar of soap and ran it over the curves of her body, making sure to shoot little glances his way as the bar glided over her smooth surfaces. She saw Jesse’s Adam’s apple bob slightly as he swallowed again around a mouth gone dry with ghostly lust. “I wish you could touch me right now, too,” she said in a rather sultry tone.
“You could touch yourself, though…,” he murmured.
“I could, couldn’t I?,” she said with a playful smirk. She ran her fingers over her full, perky breasts, feeling the nipples rise, imagining it was his touch rather than hers. She heard him sigh with want, even as she sighed with arousal. “You like that?,” she asked him, her voice purring.
“I do. Those are some nice boobs, so soft, so bouncy. I’d play with them for hours. I’d suck and lick those perky little nipples until you slapped me away.” His eyes were so dark now from passion, she could barely tell the different between his pupils and irises, and she knew he was not making it up.
“And what about…here? If I touched myself here, what would you want to do?,” she asked as her fingers trailed down her stomach to her center, gently playing over her swollen clit and slick folds. She was so turned on by this man who couldn’t even physically touch her, she was surprised she wasn’t already having a runaway climax at how weirdly erotic this byplay was.
Jesse moaned softly, his lips slightly open as if he could already taste her, smell her aroused scent. He watched as she moved her index finger around her clit in tight little circles, sighing in pleasure at her own touch. She propped one foot up on a small footstool in the shower, to give herself better access, and he saw her slip two fingers inside of herself, curving them to hit that perfect spot. Rhaella’s head tipped back in pleasure and she moaned softly to herself. Jesse’s heart burned at not being able to partake, or feel what she felt. She was so beautiful, so kind to him, and he wanted to be able to pleasure her, give her this rather than make her do it herself. But she seemed to be fully enjoying it, showing off for him, so he drank in the sight of her fucking herself with her own delicate fingers. He could see she was so wet for him she was dripping, and it did things to his mind as he watched.
Rhaella’s senses were exploding, so turned on by this exhibition for Jesse. Her body screamed at her in frustration that he wasn’t the one kissing her, touching her, fucking her with his fingers. She longed for his lips on hers, or his tongue on her clit. Her body cried out for the sensation of him sucking at her gently, burying his face in her sex and fondling her breasts. The mental images of him doing these things drove her over the edge, and as she felt her own touch caress her G spot and circle her clit just so, Rhaella suddenly felt the tightly bound coil within her snap. She came with something almost like a roar, the scream tearing from her throat, while with her imagination she felt and saw Jesse holding her against his body as he thrust his hard cock into her over and over, losing himself in a hot jet of release within her warm body. For a moment the vision was so real she could truly feel it, lost within the dream, but then she felt her knees give out and she slid to the floor of the shower in a crumpled, exhausted heap, her eyes closed in bliss.
“You’re gonna drown down there…,” she heard him say a little dryly, his voice still husky with excitement.
“I’d die happy though, and just maybe we could really do that, if we were both ghosts?” She cracked one eye open to peek at him from her spot on the floor.
He smiled at her wryly. “I’m not sure it works that way, but I’m game if you are.” He laughed softly. “Come on, I don’t want you to drown, even for the price of mind blowing sex with that body of yours. Get dry and let me give a very poor impression of snuggling you while you sleep.” He watched as she stood slowly, shakily, and turned off the water, then toweled off. She got dressed and headed to her bunk, where she got under the covers and looked into his mesmerizing brown eyes.
Rhaella could feel sleep stealing up behind her, to tow her under its dark cloak. As her eyes grew heavy and she drifted off, she whispered, “I think I love you, Jesse.”
“It’s the tattoo, I know.” He was rewarded with a sleepy giggle as she let go and sighed in sleep. He knew she couldn’t hear him, but Jesse whispered back to her. “I think I love you, too, Rhaella.”
On the last day, as Rhaella packed her gear and secured all the salvaged scrap in the hold of her ship, Jesse sat at her table in the midship area, silently watching her. They were both so broken up over this farewell; she was almost willing to tell him kriff it, I’ll just live here with you! The feelings in her heart were confused and frantic, but she was pretty sure now she loved him - a man she couldn’t touch, who had no corporeal body, but whose soul was the most kind and genuine that she’d ever met before.
There had been no word on the comm channel, and Rhaella assumed that her plea had gone into the Void completely unheard and unnoticed. No one would be coming to help Jesse, and it made her feel shattered and sick. Tears filled her eyes as the thoughts whirled in her head, and she quickly sniffled softly and wiped at her cheeks, hoping he didn’t see. Crying over the situation wouldn’t help, she grumbled at herself mentally. Don’t make him feel worse than he already does.
Rhaella had a couple items stacked just inside the old Venator that she needed to get, before she could leave. She got her cold weather gear on, and walked outside to collect them, Jesse following quietly behind. It took her a few trips, but on the last, she stopped in front of his helmet one last time. She felt his presence as he stood next to her.
“I wish I could have met you in another time and place, Jesse,” she said softly.
“Because the thought of what I could have done to your body if we had, is going to haunt you for the rest of your life, isn’t it?,” he replied with his typical naughty grin.
Rhaella laughed. “It probably will,” she agreed. She turned to him, wanting to see his eyes. “I’m glad I met you, no matter how much or what I’ll regret down the line. And I’ll keep trying to find that general, to get you help. I’ll come back here to check on you. I won’t leave you alone, Jesse, I promise.” Her eyes again welled with tears at the awful thought of leaving, seeing his broken expression playing across her mind.
“I’ll be okay, Rhaella,” he said gently, reaching out to touch her shoulders, then putting his hands back down.
“But I won’t be,” she said thickly, tears rising in her eyes.
They stood before the little gravesite for a good while, the cold wind whipping around the edges of the ship’s hulk. She didn’t even notice the cutting blasts in her misery. As she was about to turn back to her ship, there was a distant call on the wind. It sounded like a scree, and a soft barking roar. Jesse seemed to have heard it too, and both looked up to the sky, hunting for the source of the sound. Jesse’s face lit up with something like joy, and he looked to Rhaella excitedly. “I think that might be my ride finally come to get me.”
Rhaella’s eyes widened with surprise and hope. Could it be? Could her message have gotten through after all? She heard the faint rustle of great leathery wings and saw a large black creature approaching from the distant rear of the Tribunal. It soared overhead, its massive bulk casting a great shadow over them, as the colossal animal over flew their position, his long tail streaming behind long after his body had passed over. It banked in the distance and came back, stretching his enormous feet toward the earth, his great talons curving into the snow and soil as he settled before them with a grumble like the tearing of metal.
As the dragon lowered his head towards them, his great fiery golden eyes watching them knowingly, a slim, tall woman with a veritable mane of curly brown hair hopped off the giant creature, walking through the snow towards the pair. She was dressed in cream colored riding breeches with suede inner knee patches, and a pair of tall, worn brown riding boots that came to her knees. She had on a heavy hooded parka for warmth and the wind whipped the edges of the garment around her, lifting her curls and making them dance around her face. The woman had beautiful, luminescent blue eyes that were shining with warmth at Rhaella and Jesse, and her smile could have melted the moon’s snow.
“You sure took long enough, General,” Jesse said with a laugh. He walked straight up to General Lin and hugged her, hearing Rhaella’s startled gasp behind him. He’d actually hugged the General. She had seen it; he had been able to make physical contact with her.
“I’m sorry for the delay, Jess,” she said with a soft drawling accent that surprised Rhaella, as she pulled away from the clone. “I’m sorry for everything, the whole damn mess. You all deserved better.” Lara looked at the woman standing awkwardly beside him, and smiled. “Who’s your friend?,” she asked, as if it were perfectly normal for Jesse to be a ghost, and yet have a friend.
“I’m Rhaella,” she said in reply, a little overwhelmed by the dragon and the General, seeing now what Jesse had meant about the girls in the bar not wanting to be near this…goddess. “I, um… came to salvage the ship. It’s what I do…,” she murmured, her voice trailing off.
Lara smile at her warmly. “Thank you, Rhaella, for finding him, keeping him company, and calling for help. Your kindness and compassion will never be forgotten.”
“I just…I didn’t want to leave him here, alone,” she said in a rush, hoping the General would understand her intentions, her reasoning, without explanation.
“I understand. Jesse is a very true and beloved friend of mine, and now it’s time I get him back to his brothers.” She smiled at Jesse with real affection and love. “They’ve been waiting for you.” Looking back at Rhaella, though, her brows knit in something of a question. “I think, though, you wanted to know something about Jesse?”
Rhaella’s face showed her confusion. “Know something? I’m not sure what you mean,” she said, shaking her head.
She saw Jesse’s face light up with a knowing expression though, and he stepped toward her, reaching out for her as for a hug. Rhaella suddenly felt the warmth of his strong hands on her shoulders, as they slid around to join behind her, and he pulled her into the heat of his chest as he snugged his head next to hers. He was real, just for this moment. He was solid, present, and truly holding her just as she’d imagined, his muscular body pulled tightly to hers in her bulky snow gear. Jesse pulled back for the briefest moment and then leaned in to kiss Rhaella on the lips, feeling her melt at his touch, responding in kind to his mouth on hers. This was nice, worth waiting for, a memory she’d never forget.
Behind them the General snickered softly in a laugh and said, “Careful Jesse, don’t want to suck the life out of her.”
“This is the last kiss I’m ever going to feel General, kriff off!,” he growled back with a laugh.
When Jesse and Rhaella finally parted, it was obvious their attachment would be rooted in a love that lasted forever, no matter how brief. It was a unique, singular love founded in respect and friendship. Lara smiled to see it; these days the people of this galaxy needed to dig deep and hold on tightly to the good things, as evil took hold in every corner of every world. Jesse smiled at Rhaella lovingly, studying her eyes as he held her shoulders under his hands.
“Thank you, Rhaella, for not running away when you met me. For braving it out and sticking with me. I’ll never forget you,” Jesse said softly. “Keep my helmet with you; it would be better for you to have it, rather than falling apart here.”
“I’ll never forget you, either, Jesse.” She wasn’t sure what to say at this moment, especially knowing he was gifting her something so important to his memory. ‘I love you?’ ‘Could you make him real again, so I can keep him forever?’ She didn’t think either of those would do her much good, so she opted for something that would make him laugh, one last time. “Maybe the next time we meet, you’ll have learned some of those manners…”
Jesse laughed, as she’d hoped. “But then you wouldn’t know me anymore! Maybe the next time I see you, I’ll show you why I was so popular with the ladies…” Lara snorted behind them and tried to turn the laugh into a bland cough, and Rhaella laughed at his brag.
In her customary drawl, Lara said, “Alright, Jesse. Save some mysteries for the future. Let’s get you home.” Turning to Rhaella, she again thanked her for helping Jesse. “If you ever need a place to live, in these troubled times, here are some coordinates that might help you out.” Looking back at Jesse and then to the girl, she said, “You’ll meet again, someday. Count on it.” She smiled at the girl, and turned to walk back to her dragon.
Jesse looked at Rhaella for a long moment, no longer solid; he couldn’t touch her now, and he knew it was time to leave. “I’ll wait for you, and watch for you. And I’ll see you again, Rhaella. But not yet. Have a full life, be happy. And someday, I’ll be there.”
He gave her a charming one sided smirk, winked at her, then turned to follow the General, climbing up on the back of the massive beast, settling in behind his leader. The dragon spread his mighty, leathery wings and hauled himself skyward with a shove, giving out a loud squawk in farewell.
Rhaella watched as they disappeared into the far distance, then sighed, feeling empty. She walked over to Jesse’s grave and simply stared at it for a long time, the memory of his warm smile, his flirty joking and finally his strong hug and soft kiss playing through her mind. She reached out and took the blue and white helmet with the Republic rondel off the pike gently, holding it to her body like an embrace. “I’ll meet you again, Jesse. Just, not yet.”
The girl turned and climbed aboard her ship, closing the doors and securing her bounty for travel. The engines whined as she powered up, and as the darkness of the sunset settled over the once proud Venator, Rhaella turned on the ship’s search lights for safety. The Tecova rose smoothly into the air, giving her a final view of the remains of the Jedi cruiser as they spread out before her. Rhaella took in the majesty of what once was, the ghost of the Republic’s former greatness represented in the fallen destroyer. Then the Tecova turned, heading away from the Tribunal. She hoped no one ever found the ship after her; she hoped it would stay silent and peacefully resting, a testament to the era that had been lost the day she crashed. The dead deserved their rest, the memory of their sacrifices preserved by those that cared.
Glancing over at the copilot’s seat, she gave Jesse’s helmet a little smile. Maybe once she dropped off her haul and saw her sister off to university, she would check out those coordinates the General had given her. She programmed in the route for her home world, and the Tecova disappeared into the blue worm hole of hyperspace, leaving the small, uncharted moon behind, free of its ghosts. Rhaella smiled at that final thought.
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A Wonderful Life Ahead P5
Masterlist
Part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | 5: Time
When he was young, Blurr wasn't the best bot, Kup and the other Wreckers made sure he was aware of it before a blaster ended up killing him by his stupid confidence or by angering someone enough with his fast intake, he was way too selfish, sometimes acting way too cowardly on his panic, way to hurried on his own way to feel every pleasure life could get him, well, he kept distance from the ones that could harm his precious body or his excellent performance, but all the others: high grade energon, interfacing, shanix, the love of every mech and femme on Cybertron; you name it, he had it all.
Maybe that was the main reason he tried to deny the simple horrible fact with greedy and destructive hunger approach, the process in which his own planet and life was being torn to pieces.
Still, he found purpose once again, the fastest bot alive could still get the love of many and he was drunk on it again, he was better, he wasn't like before, Blurr committed himself to the autobot's cause, war ripped away many things he got to cherish, friends, allies and occasional lovers, he found his way going as fast as he could along all of it in hopes it would hurt less.
And then, when the war ended, Blurr had his oil house, a little later, Blurr had you, well, more like he found you, he has seen some dead humans during his time on earth and he really thought you were a corpse rotting on the street before you blinked, creeping him out of his armor, you looking so drained with the little details of your little face, plastic protection over it while he recognized you were part of those humans doing maintenance inside of Metroplex.
At first he felt disgusted, was that energon dripping from one of your side? First, ew, second, poor little thing, why did you look like that? He couldn't phantom the idea of Windblade overworking little organics, that was more like a Starscream's thing, and Metroplex wouldn't be pleased with that, so, how come that he saw you in the damaged area near his oil house so often, bots were a lot more resisting, he himself has gone about his day without a proper recharge and still going, he knew humans needed their eight hours of sleep, he saw it in a program back on earth it was a kid's show.
You looked in the need of recharge, right now.
He tries to talk to you, maybe try to make you see how badly you really look like, but you just look at him from helm to pede, those black things under your eyes make him worry, but you don't want help, you just want to sleep and when you can't you are monitoring what provides oxygen to your fellow humans in the most deep parts of the titan.
Blurr tries to talk, make little conversation, he is not the only bot interested in you, many are concerned about you, of how your organic body can be there for so long, some bots get you organic beverages which you are thankful for, removing your little protector and drinking while catching your breath then paying the bots back even when they just tried to help you, Blurr also tried but he didn't know where to get those so he did one himself, you refused profusely because, while Blurr may be one of the best bartenders on all Cybertron, he was inept in making organic friendly beverages even with all his years on earth.
Fear is something normal, so he couldn't blame you when his supposed green tea started to boil in the cube, and also he couldn't blame the bots that started to get away, he couldn't let you alone, and, in some way, this was an opportunity for him, to be close.
Most humans are soft, by their own physical nature and by their mostly peaceful environment, this kind of things are a real shock to many bots and cons that have been at war for so long, humans and their kind behavior is quite good for some.
Was it because he missed, in some way, Earth? His humans friends? He didn't know, and he was starting to suspect it wasn't exactly friendship that he was searching in you.
You see, most bots come to him, to his oil house, to talk to him about their problems and see if he can give them a different point of view and a possible solution, so expect his anxiety when he returned to his habsuit after leaving you in your living unit, his leg joints were still hurting after the incident in the highway, the receptors on his servos were sending him the shivers, the sensation of your body, your shape, the way his scanner showed your frantic heart.
It wasn't normal, it was deviant, but he could feel his spark hum soft, trying to reach out to you, calm you down with the expansion of his EM field, one you would never feel or understand, not even distinguish from simple static electricity.
Was this what he had been hearing around? Are humans really good for bots? He isn't sure, and, in all honesty, it feels way more awful than it should be giving than, even if he can entertain the thought of giving in and really think of something more then what? Really, he needs somebot to tell him a yes or no answer, he doesn't want a detailed explanation, he only wants to know if it's really worth it to go out there and ask you out, Blurr knows you see him as a sentient being as any other mech, but you are polite, maybe a little daring with him, slag it, he could even describe you as playful from time to time.
He isn't sure is you could even see him in the way he could want, he isn't made of flesh like you and while he can so easily scan you to know how your biology works to some level he has still to learn if you are serious or not when you call him "handsome".
Color him surprised, also hyper aware of where he is getting to, when he does ask you out with all the intentions of this being something else he gets a new kind of feeling when you say yes, a new pulse of happiness that makes him have the energy to run down every race track on Cybertron, but it also brought an endless spiraling thought.
"When do humans usually die?"
It was silly to ask such a thing when you two are together during the night cycle, Blurr's optics are the only light in his habsuit since the window is closed, he wished his mouth and brain processor would think twice before asking, it would have been a stupid question for anyone but you look at him before sighing and smiling, as if you knew deep down such a question was eating him from the inside, or at least that's the one you get to understand from his endless words.
"After having sex for the first time, that's what you ask me?" You sound incredulous, maybe a little playful, your hand is holding his faceplate or at least tries to do so.
Blurr is grateful for having you here, on the way you try to be around even when is so difficult given how your body is so little, only hearing a little sound of amusement escape your mouth when his inner system had to reboot when the sensation of your body was way too much for him, he feel your soft hands on him, the way your heart is going on slowly after such a fast movement he thought was going to tear the tissue apart, he was scared as he was being hyper focused on the way you were near him, in more ways that he thought would ever happen at some point, "I mean, I've a vague idea of it"
"Some people don't get long, some do"
"What makes the difference in those cases?" How can he keep you alive for a longer time? You seem to have all the answers sometimes, when you two are arguing or when you are trying to calm him down.
He is being greedy, because he doesn't want this, any of this to end.
"There are too many: diseases, injuries, life or death situations can't be predicted" you seem to catch on his worries, kissing him with your soft lips which he accepts at the second, using his servo to keep you close and moving around to have you above him, his ankle guard pressing into the berth just like his back strut.
Such desire on his spark can't be described, thoughts difficult to give a proper way to express through with his vocalizer to make it know to you, still, after what you call "love making" he is still amazed by the way your heart and whole body can get in tune with his, how your way of describe the act of interfacing make this so much deeper, so much intimate than before, how your touch can make him feel something different everytime your little fingers get their way on his spark chamber and make feel totally different and new to all the times he spark bonded with any bot during interface, the way you kiss his spark and how his vocalizer glitches and all you get is neocybex that is impossible for you to understand but can only describe how much Blurr loves you as fast as he can in just a matter of seconds, his worries fade away by a moment to cherish it to the fullest when you experience desire for him and also love, rendering him almost blank in the processor with the only objective of bringing you more pleasure while he can, finally, express what his spark wants in a single human word: "Stay!"
If he could or if it was on his power you would live forever, stay with him forever.
Such a thing is wishful thinking.
But live goes on, it goes slow for him in comparison with you own lifespan which, to your surprise, has been expanded, there is still questions as to why it happened but he is happy nonetheless, specially when he receives on his servos the little piece of you that he has been waiting for 9 whole earth months, not really hearing the baby's crying or the nurses trying to stop him when he gets your new born daughter, his new born little femmling, to bask in the sunlight that is the center of the universe, the little baby slowly ceasing her crying while she snuggles near to his chest armor with a sour expression on her funny face that makes him cry and laugh at the same time before going back to you, "slow, slow" he chants between tears of coolant and getting himself inside the medbay again.
Time is a beautiful thing while he gets to cherish while it goes by slowly, he doesn't care how slow because that means more time with you and Ripley, it means more time to love you and also more time to see Ripley and Typhoon grow.
Still, time is so merciless when he notices how Ripley grows up way too fast, no spark to stop her from aging normally like any human, how Ty is already a totally developed mech even when he was the littlest sparkling Blurr has ever seen, how your hair take a silver color, it's slow, taking centuries in comparison to other humans, but time is still going to take to you away from him in some point.
"Blurr?" Your voice gets him away from his usual worry, Typhoon is looking at you both, his son's golden visor glowing, worried in a way he shares with Blurr by the fact of your own nature and also Ripley's.
So, Blurr smiles before kissing you softly, placing you over his shoulder armor while saying: "It's nothing".
#reader insert#x reader#angst#tf mtmte#transformers x reader#transformers#transformers idw#tf blurr#blurr x human reader#blurr x reader#idw blurr#transformers blurr#transformers oc
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Ten Books To Know Me
Rules: 10 (non-ancient) books for people to get to know you better, or that you just really like.
Tagged by @softest-punk, thank you for utterly derailing my afternoon into nostalgia <3 My problem is less not picking ancient books and more not picking exclusively Canadian and English children’s lit published between 1995 and 1999. (Still the first three picks all the same though because it is like, the opus within which my psyche is almost wholly contained.) This got long but I'm going to be very brave and not apologize about that at all. I love talking about books, and these are some of the books I love the most. In chronological order of arrival into my heart.
Some of the Kinder Planets - Tim Wynne-Jones
This book has been a part of my life for so long I cannot remember when, exactly, I first read it - only that it was taken from my gran’s shelf; Tim had sent her a copy with a lovely inscription. It’s a short story collection which remains today (and forever) my favourite format. Ted Chiang’s Exhalation, Karin Tidbeck’s Jagannath, Karen Russell’s Orange World, Margaret Atwood’s Stone Mattress are all fabulous examples, stacked before me at my desk, but Some of the Kinder Planets itself lives (alongside my two most precious childhood stuffies) at my mum’s house, the safest place of all. The stories are kids being kids in the way you want to read as a kid yourself: clever and wondering and scared and brave. Special mention also to his Zoom trilogy, beautifully illustrated in black and white by Eric Beddows.
Skellig - David Almond
Another book likely pilfered from my granny’s library. There’s a little magic in Some of the Kinder Planets, but here is ALL the magical realism, and it changed me. This book has a sickly bird-or-man-or-angel in a garage being nursed to health by a boy with an ill baby sister in hospital that he can’t help at all; the indelible image of surviving off bluebottles and then getting snuck Chinese takeaway and brown ale; nature and weird kids and William Blake poems. I will weep if I continue thinking about it.
[Not Any Book But Just A Lot Of Books] - Kit Pearson, Diana Wynne-Jones, Kenneth Oppel, Philip Pullman, Madeleine L’Engle, etc.
Listen, I know this is an INSANE cop-out but if you know the authors you know more or less exactly what I mean. These are the books that made me more tender than I already was, made me believe in Good, and Kindness, and Love, in a totally immutable way I thankfully do not ever want to change, because I don’t think I could.
Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
My first introduction to Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, and footnotes. Also one of the first books I did not simply pick up because it was Lying Around. I bought it because my older cousin listed it as one of her favourite books on Facebook, and she was (and is) impossibly, horribly cool. I was maybe 13 or 14 and wanted to be cool too. I’ve since read a smattering of Gaiman but I’ve yet to read Terry Pratchett on his own. I’d like to! I know I’d love it.
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul - Douglas Adams
Loaned to me by my best friend before we were best friends. It is, apparently, the second novel in the Dirk Gently series, and I remember nothing of it except a very good bit about a couch getting stuck in a stairwell; nonetheless it’s listed here because this is clearly actually a thinly disguised chronology of sentimentality, and also because Douglas Adams is a wonder and delight to read and I don’t need to fully remember the book to know that in my bones. I’m not sure if it’s fair but I’ll also blame Douglas Adams for my inability to be brief and to resist using semi-colons. Could’ve been someone else. But it was definitely someone English.
Sailing to Byzantium - W.B. Yeats
This is not a book, but it was in my English Literature textbook in high school, so it counts. If it wasn’t, I would still count it. Why a sixteen year old girl connected with a poem that begins “That is no country for old men.” is irrelevant, as is every stanza but the third, which contains the fateful, ruinous lines: “Consume my heart away; sick with desire / And fastened to a dying animal / It knows not what it is;” I remember when I read it, and I remember the chill feeling of Yeats’ spectral hand reaching all the way from his grave in County Sligo, across the whole Atlantic and the enormous landmass called Canada, to reach into my chest and cruelly grab my own heart, and I remember thinking How, and Exactly. The first thing I read that named the strangeness I felt inside of me. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost of all my teenage angst. Written on my bones to this day, if I’m being honest.
Hamlet - Shakespeare
We got off on the wrong foot, after I was personally victimized by the line ‘Brevity is the soul of wit’, but I do love Shakespeare. I credit this to having an excellent teacher for it, and reading it aloud in a cohort of tryhards and musicians and theatre kids. A case of familiarity breeds...appreciation, actually. We did a lot of Shakespeare, but we were asked to learn 20 lines of Hamlet specifically, and rewrite them, marked down for every error. Forty lines for bonus marks. There was much grousing and it seemed like a cruel, outdated task of rote memorization, but writing this a decade later, I am belatedly realizing this was a sneaky way to get a bunch of kids to recite a soliloquy so much that they couldn’t help but find the life in it, the rhythm and meter to make it stick in our minds. And now look! I love it! I am writing fanfic in iambic pentameter! Wherefore art my fucking restraint!! I learned my lines so hideously well that when I pulled up the scene just now (2.2, from “Yet I, a dull and muddy-mettled rascal peak”), I a) noticed and b) was offended by, minute differences from the version I memorized, which I then searched out and knew the moment I found. Incredible?!
Still Life With Woodpecker - Tom Robbins
The most recent time I’ve read a work of fiction and been rearranged by it, at the tender age of 21. here I am, I wrote, in my journal, after a very good sob, happier and more rudderless than ever. This man writes with totally unfettered joy and unhinged sincerity, two things I am hopelessly into, but also with a deep distaste for institutions and conformity that I desperately needed back then: lost, returned from a year of magical realism and the sort of adulthood growth spurt that makes you feel dizzy, home and yet horribly missing the home I’d made for myself elsewhere, all my nearly-fulfilled ambitions towards security and prestigious government postings feeling sort of hollow and reeking in my hands. It comforted me that I wasn't wrong as much as it spilled my own guts into my hands, and while I went on for another year seeing things through, it planted a seed that quickly grew proper roots and pushed me right off the ledge of respectability. And it’s a love story, of course.
It’s his prose that sits glowing on the horizon to me when I try to write richly: a distant shore of orgiastic language (from which you can surely hear the wind-carried cries of people fucking day and night), towards which I, still shy and prudish, ever point my prow.
How to Be Happy - Eleanor Davis
A comic collection. Sharp and wonderful and alive. Another Best Friend gift (bless those around us with impeccable taste), of which every single panel is MARVELOUS. I meant to share one of my favourites here but apparently it has! Gotten up and left!! I will buy another copy in hopes of coaxing it back out of wherever it’s hiding.
Down to Earth - Monty Don
This did not rearrange anything. But it does give me a good hug about it, so to speak. A month-by-month gardening guide which is chock-full of brilliant, sensible advice, and also so cheerfully comforting in a highly specific English way that I actually feel like I’m drinking a cuppa whenever I read a page or two of it. It makes me think of my grandmother. And so we’ve come full circle, eh?
I hope some of you are now nodding thoughtfully and thinking, well, Chrissakes, that explains it. Very sorry, hope this helps, etc. Passing on the tag to @fancy-rock-dove, @chubsthehamster, @broomsticks, @wordsinhaled, @btwimkindagay, @hardly-an-escape, @xx-vergil-xx, @that-banhus, and anyone else who wants to expose themselves on main and chat about their fave books
#about me#god also slap up tamora pierce#inkheart book thief all those guys#the bartimaeus trilogy!! also brilliant footnotes#i tried SO hard to keep this brief..... so hard.....#but like im a bookclub girlie at heart#i just wanna talk about the works of art i love and why and how they make me feel and i want u to love them too#book recs#i can still rattle most of those hamlet lines off with feeling#a good party trick
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Hello. I hope everyone is well! I want to thank everyone for reading my work and entertaining me with theirs. It was a pleasure to read everything I was tagged in this year.
In the summer, I decided to join writeblr. This was to give myself a push to focus on my WIPS and to simply have fun. I made some friends in Writeblr, but I disappeared in November.
I also created a Discord that celebrates all types of creatives. I will announce this sometime next year. It has channels for pomodoro and sprints, as well as writing prompts, qotds, etc. I'm excited to share it with everyone when it is ready.
Flight of the Dragon added 14 new characters to the Planes of Existence Universe. This is also the novel that fleshes out my world's dragons.
A new god and goddess joined the pantheon -- Nyxa and Noxxus. Noxxus oversees boundaries, funerals, mummification, mysteries, poisons, precious metals, travel, and wealth. While his wife oversees, darkness, decay, famine, ghosts, magic, night, nightmares, sleep, and winter. Nyxa also is called the Queen of the Death Plane, as she oversees it
The Wraith and the Shadow Blades worship Nyxa and Noxxos, while their leader worships Vittore.
I decided to convert an old WIP I was working on about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and set it in my Planes of Existence universe. At the time, this was my main WIP.
Flight of the Dragon always featured the male protagonist as a draconic being. Before it was set upon Cirel, Brennan was King Arthur. The story was almost the same, but there was a glaring difference: the child of prophecy introduction.
Shortly after, I decided to work on Cold as Ice. This has been my passion project since 2009ish. In 2021, I lost most of the data in a glitch. Needless to say, this killed my drive to work on anything related to the Planes of Existence. I would have to rebuild it from the ground up.
I think the biggest change this year was I finally named my planet. The world is called Cirel and resides in the Life Plane. It features two moons: Andrea and Amés. These are named after the chief god and goddess.
The magic system was overhauled once more. I never really gave a specific name to the magic system. This year I decided on calling it Manipulation.
I created four categories for each of the magick types: body manipulation, elemental manipulation, mind maniplatuion, and magic associated with the children of prophecy. This was further broken down into specific types of manipulation.
For example: for body manipulation, they can manipulate air, earth, and ven while someone who is versed in body manipulation could manipulate blood, bone, eye, hair, as well as heal themselves and each other.
During this time period, I made many people who I admire: @starryeyes2000 @blind-the-winds, @perasperaadastrawriting, @arrthurpendragon, @writingpotato07and @athena-anna-rose, to name a few. Their works and support leave me in awe.
This is difficult for me as I tend to shy away from interactions, as I've been diagnosis with AvPD. I don't know what this will mean for my writing career, but I'll try my best.
There were not many new characters that I introduced during this time, but that did not mean I wasn't working on them behind the scenes.
I fleshed out all the characters of Pale Fire, mainly those in the secret society that is found in that book. One of the characters I named Rosette, an homage to one of the first OCs I've ever created.
November came around, and I decided to work on NaNoWri. This work created the Dullahan named Kian. Heart of the Horseman was based upon a WIP idea I had a year and a half ago. He only had a placename until then.
I decided to see if I could salvage a WIP, Heart of the Horseman, for NaNoWri. HotH was to take place during the 18th century and in Ireland.
HotH always featured Donn, a Celtic proto-god of Death who would serve as an antagonist. It was during this time that I decided Donn would be gender-fluid.
cw: death
This wasn't meant to be. At the end of October, I had a sudden death in the family. She was the only fatality in the car accident. She was only a year older than my daughter, a brilliant young woman whose life was snuffed out much too soon.
In the immediate aftermath, I found it difficult to focus on this Tumblr, much less writing. It was hard to write about death. I don't think I will ever be comfortable writing about it again.
cw: illness
In the middle of November, I had to take a blood test for my doctor. I have high blood pressure and high cholesterol, so I am on medication to lessen my symptoms.
The results didn't come back as normal. I have an elevated liver enzymes count, as well as my AC-1 came back as horrible as well. I'm 2 points away from Diabetes. I'm prediabetic.
After an aggressive lifestyle change -- plant-based diet, as well as moderate exercise-- I finally feel well again. Well enough to write, at least.
FanFiction
I decided to transfer my fanfiction to this account. As a writer, I want to embrace all forms of writing. This includes both fanfiction and original writing.
I am focusing upon two fandoms: the Elder Scrolls and Star Wars.
During this time, most of my worldbuilding focused on Heart of the Horseman.
In October, I decided to complete a worldbuilding in 30 days worksheet. This included figuring out the magic system that would allow Donn to reanimate Kian, as well as the powers that the Morrigan possessed.
As it was set in Ireland, I wanted the magic to be nature based. I feel like this kept it grounded in reality somewhat.
My upcoming plans is to take a break from writing for the holiday season. I should have announced this at the beginning of the month. I will be ready to be back writing full-time around January 12th.
Why am I taking a break? The ending of 2022 was tragic. While I am ready to move forward, I still need time to process it and spend time with my family. My daughter is on winter break until Jan. 2nd. December 31st will be my 16th wedding anniversary. I'll be spending that day with my husband.
I will focus on Cold as Ice as my main WIP. This is my dark epic fantasy filled with political intrigue. My side projects -- Flight of the Dragon and Pale Fire -- will be worked on when I have some spare time.
Also, I will continue to share my fanfiction. I have some exciting things planned for Darth Noktis, and of course, Mirne Stedhans. I look forward to sharing them with everyone.
My follows can expect worldbuilding posts, drabbles, and standalone work. I will not be sharing many snippets. This is because I don't want to overshare.
Writing is a passion for me, and I'm excited to see what 2023 will bring.
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❝ guess who’s home early! where’s my… oh, my goodness. ❞ erin’s nose wrinkles in tandem with her brow, her lips parting in disbelief as she fails to conceal how she’s really feeling about the sight in front of her. a flurry of emotions flickers across her features and eventually a full-bodied sigh escapes her. she definitely needs a moment to process the fact that her precious, sweet, angelic baby girl is dressed as m.ichael m.yers, running towards her on her wobbly legs, clutching a plastic knife in her tiny hand, eager to greet the curly-haired brunette and show off her brand new outfit — the infamous mechanic jumpsuit paired with ghostly pale, creepy-looking mask, ketchup smeared all over, imitating blood. as erin struggles to understand why on earth anyone would think this is a great idea and an age-appropriate halloween costume, m.eegan remains perched on the leather couch, laughing so hard that it’s a wonder she hasn’t busted a lung yet.
today is evie’s first halloween, or at least the first one where she kind of understands the idea of dressing up and can go from one house to another with her mom, admire the decorations and enjoy some candy. she’s still too young to understand what this holiday is all about, neither can she truly grasp the meaning of most halloween costumes ( including the one she’s wearing right now ). which is why erin made sure to plan her outfit months in advance, every detail meticulously tended to and taken care of — she wanted to put her daughter in something cute, but also something that she could wrap her head around, something that would put a giant smile on her face.
just like her own mother when she was about the same age, evie is obsessed with disney princesses and there’s one in particular that bears a striking resemblance to the little girl — snow white. every time she spots her favorite character on the tv, her pale skin, dark curls and the red headband, evie goes absolutely ballistic. there’s nothing the little girl loves more than snow white. which is why erin spent hours, stayed up late and woke up early, trying to sew the most beautiful costume on the planet… and now her child is dressed as a murderer and having the time of her life. great, just great.
❝ pwetty. pwetty pwincess, ❞ evie chirps in her tiny voice, smiling disarmingly at her mom. erin doesn’t want to break her innocent heart so, despite feeling nauseous, she crouches down and pretends to be completely in awe of the costume that’s being presented to her. her hand lands over her heart and she gasps again, watching her baby twirl and dance happily. ❝ ev and i decided this is way prettier than the princess costume, ❞ meegan explains, practically beaming at her friend, clearly oblivious to how inappropriate it is to dress a toddler in a costume that represents all kinds of evil things. they could have as well picked the grim reaper, erin thinks to herself, fighting off the urge to tell the other how she feels. she doesn’t want to sound mean or come off as ungrateful, after all meegan does spend a lot of time with evie and babysits her whenever erin needs to go to work or wants a moment to herself, but… this is a lot to take in.
❝ isn’t this the funniest thing ever? the coolest halloween costume, right? ❞ meegan asks, giggling as she gently pats the toddler on the back. erin can only shake her head in response, afraid if she utters even just a word, she’ll end up fighting with her best friend in front of her daughter or worse… hurt meagan’s feelings. they clearly have a different definition of a cool halloween costume and fun. she doesn’t find it one bit funny, especially when she thinks about how much evie hates getting her curls wet and screams bloody murder every time she as much as reaches for the shampoo bottle, and she’ll have to somehow get all the fake blood out of her hair. amazing. besides, putting an innocent baby in a costume so scary and vile should be illegal. for little children halloween should be all about cuteness, making caramel apples, visiting pumpkin patches, baking cookies, not gore and slasher films and haunted houses. m.ichael m.yers isn’t just an inappropriate costume choice, it’s disturbing and says a lot about the child’s parents. grown ups can dress as whatever, sultry, scary, it doesn’t matter because grown ups can understand the meaning of what they’re wearing. but children? they’re simply too little. she’s been planning on taking a bunch of pictures of evie tonight and she wants to be able to show them to her friends without cringing.
❝ mhm, wow — you look beautiful, honeybun, but mommy though you wanted to be snow white and wear the cute dress? and the red headband? come on, it’s getting late. we should probably change while we still have some time left, ❞ erin subtly suggests, but the toddler shakes her head and even stomps her foot stubbornly. a sigh falls from the brunette’s lips. and so it begins, she thinks, deciding she’ll have to have a serious conversation with meegan about all this later tonight. it’s ridiculous…
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Biweekly Media Roundup
- Dark (TV) - Well into the second season now and while I do still want to finish it, the show has not been nearly as entertaining as it was in season one. I suppose it was inevitable that it would be less interesting once they answered most of the central mystery questions, but also it really feels like they are dragging out the melodrama, and I just can’t bring myself to care about all these boring heterosexuals as they lie to and cheat on each other constantly. Bring back the time travel nuclear fusion death ball and the 50′s lesbians.
- The Thing (Movie) - Was planning on seeing this in theatres for a 40th anniversary special, but there was an issue and the tickets got refunded. Luckily my friend had the Bluray so my homies and I met for a rewatch anyway, dope. Obviously, The Thing is a cult classic for a reason, great sense of suspense, awesome practical effects, awesome concept, tight writing, and a hell of an ending, it’s great. Also, a very good doggo.
- Escape From New York (Movie) - After finishing The Thing, the Kurt Russell + John Carpenter dream team continued with my friend putting on Escape From New York. I’d surprisingly never seen it despite being pretty familiar with the Metal Gear Solid Franchise that it spawned. I do respect the creativity of the premise and the unique look of the film, though I can’t say I’d be interested in watching it again, it’s not really my thing. The politics are still disappointingly relevant though.
- Heartstopper (TV) - Binged almost all of the first season at a friend’s house before finishing it up on my own, as well as reading a good bit of the comic. It was really cute; I liked the little graphic elements they added to the show and how sweet and relatable Charlie and Nick’s romance was. Representation wise it does a great job, and I’m glad a show like this exists for the next generation of queer kids who will really appreciate it.
- Witch Hat Atelier (Manga) - oh man oh man, this has been on my to read list for awhile and now that I’ve finally checked it out I’m in love. The art is gorgeous, the hard magic system is interwoven into the plot so well, the characters are all engaging and well-written, and I love the way it handles it’s themes of teaching and living with a disability. The child characters are precious and some of the best I’ve seen, and I love their little family with their adopted father mentors-both of whom are fantastic characters in their own right and have such a likable dynamic on their own that the author made a whole-ass other series just about them cooking meals for each other and their daughters together, absolutely wholesome. One of the few series that I’m buying the physical books for, which says a lot for how much I plan to reread it. Unfortunately the fandom is moderately small at the moment (at least in the west), so hopefully the upcoming anime will bring in some well-deserved attention to the series.
- Prehistoric Planet (TV) - Hell yeah, high quality dinosaur documentary where the dino’s are treated as actual animals? Some of them have feathers? David Attenborough?! This has been fun, makes me miss my child discovery channel phase.
- Spy X Family (Anime) - They have a dog now, nice.
- Phoenix Wright: Justice For All (Video Game) - Almost through with the second ace attorney game, I am liking Franziska and how petty she is, very Azula energy it’s great. Overall though I’m admittedly not as into it as I was with DGS, the cast isn’t nearly as solid and the Circus case in particular was. Ooof. This last case seems more promising however, and I’ve heard good things about Trials and Tribulations so hopefully the worst is behind me.
- Lot’s of Monster Anime (Multi-Anime) - Still working through these monster anime, been wanting to just skip straight to the good ones like Hanako-kun instead of sitting through all the mediocre ones but eh I dug my own grave, gotta lie in it.
Listening to: Samaritan by ionnalee, Cold Cold Man by Saint Motel, Willow by Taylor Swift, Killin’ It by Foxy Shazam, Atlantis by Seafret, Why Am I Like This? by Orla Gartland, I Won’t Say I’m in Love by Susan Egan, Starry Eyed by Ellie Goulding, Go Get Your Gun by The Dear Hunters, Twilight Princess OST
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Ovarian Cyst Miracle Program Evaluation - The Professionals And Cons
Based on our analysis, we imagine that 3 of the most effective cryptocurrency IRA firms to speculate with are BitcoinIRA, Regal Belongings and Broad Financial. Thus more than 4,500 men of the corporate are still lacking. How we identify and evaluate the very best gold-backed ira firms? Most IRA investors proceed to invest in traditional investments by way of banks and monetary establishments as a result of these are the only funding choices they provide, even though the code allows for greater funding diversification. Protecting the gold from your gold IRA at home is similar thing, so you’d find yourself paying taxes and withdrawal penalties on the worth.
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Their gold IRA experts are glad to answer any and all questions, plus they take a professional strategy to creating sales and offering all vital info. These embody conventional assets like gold, silver, and coins and non-conventional investments like bitcoin and different cryptocurrencies. Withdrawals are therefore not subject to tax and so is any incomes derived from their investments so long as they're qualified. Paper Metals. IRAs that allow you to choose your own stocks make it relatively easy for you to convert your holdings into paper equivalents for treasured metals.Self-Directed IRAs. The first factor to consider is a reputable business. Stated simply, https://bestgoldira.info and Gold IRAs are a kind of self-directed, tax-advantaged Individual Retirement Account that accommodates tangible, IRA eligible gold and different authorised treasured metals rather than stocks and paper assets. They also present important tax advantages. The Federal Reserve's digital and physical printing press pumped out $27 billion almost every day in 2020. This incessant inflating of the cash provide and foreign money devaluing has, of course, continued.
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bestie level?!?!?! please i might cry this is so sweet :( it was really fun to do! it was a work secret santa but we weren't given a list of what our person liked, we kinda had to just buy them something we thought they would like 🫶 luckily i had one if my best friends as mine and she was easy to buy for so i got her a candle and some dog socks!! 💞 i'll be making you a gifset 💖
they definitely are two very different people but sometimes those friendships can be so precious too 🖤 oh my god it's so HARD to just not bias the whole group!!!! 😡 i feel like lately wonwoo is about to slip into the bias list and i'm not prepared 😂
ahhh you're most welcome. the carat family is possibly the nicest fandom, everyone's so kind, and i'm so shy when it comes to making new friends because i struggle with anxiety but i've made some of the coolest friends in the carat family 🫶 i always make the mistake of listening to that song in public bc i really just want to start dancing in the middle of the street 😂
i think hao's lives are my favourite to watch, he's chill and i enjoy a nice live to watch when i'm not at my best ❤️
you can't not love seungkwan! i see a little bit of myself in him. there's a compilation of him on youtube of him getting angry and in one of the clips hoshi is saying he's the mafia and seungkwan looks like he's about to beat him up and it's just so funny 😭
oh my god that whole video is so cute 🖤 she's so so pretty 😭 tbf i would definitely be super shy around her too :((( bless your heart, you're so so sweet 🫶🧡
svt are just one of those groups where every single gose episode has you in fits of laughter 😂
a few of my favourite episodes are;
https://youtu.be/7-RbcrWTth4 - this is one of their mafia games, it's a two part. it's just so funny how SERIOUS hoshi gets in trying to figure out who the mafias are 😂
https://youtu.be/d1Tjh0mJBZU - i don't even know what to say about this tbh. it's just....chaos 😂 also a two part!
https://youtu.be/ncgd8GfklT0 - two part ❤️ again..... complete chaos 😭
https://youtu.be/hxTGug0k39s - the worst thing about svt is that i wanna play all of these games with them !!!! 😭 this one is a three part :)
https://youtu.be/XbNcsgEX2jc - this is also a two part 😂
ENJOY 🖤 i can always send more!!! i apologise for the late reply, i always see my family on weekends 🧡
i always talk too much, it's why i send big asks 🫶 i'm happy you're okay with long asks!!! ❤️
hi bestie 💞 thank you so much for answering so thoroughly ❤️ i appreciate it a lot (x3) first of all, i don't want you to apologise/worry about not answering quickly. i'd rather you spend time doing things you love than being here and feeling pressured to do things 💖
ooh! was it not difficult though? i mean being your best friend's secret santa hehe ^^' i can't imagine the stress of not getting caught/not letting too many clues out. btw the dog socks must have been the cutest thing ever. i'm sure she liked it a lot!
[big sigh] i feel the same about the bias thing in seventeen. i just finished watching all the gose episodes you recommended and i think my bias changed at least 25 times 😂😂😂
yes! carats are some of the chillest people i've ever seen. i think when you're a seventeen fan, they kind of rub off on you in a way. i mean the guys are so funny and (AJU) nice. it's only natural they attract people with the same mindset and personality 💗 also, all their interactions with other groups/idols are super wholesome :( like they make them feel like a part of the group 💘 sorry, i'm getting a little emotional rn
tbh seungkwan is one of the only people (along with the rest of seventeen) capable of making me smile so big :D there's a reason why a lot of people like and bias him 💟 i've known him from his variety show appearances and he's one of the funniest people on this planet. and what i like about him is that he's still super nice and friendly 🤍 anyway seungkwan is love, seungkwan is the friend we all dream to have
oh trust me when i say ahn sohee is one of the most beautiful women ever 😭 plus she's so sweet 😭 what's there not to like about her? tell me!
like i said, i've just finished watching all the gose episodes. it took me all day but it was SO worth it 💓 i haven't laughed like that in a long long time. they're all comedians at this point. they should add that to their resume. you can see how strong their friendship is because filming that many videos and still being able to bounce off of each other and make each other laugh... that's a strong friendship 💞 and they manage to catch your attention every single time! thank you so so much for the recs 💞 they made my day. bonus points for hao's outfit in the second part of that last video (playground). it's super duper cute.
you never have to worry about sending long asks with me because i really like reading them 💓
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Also people need to stop speculating about my friendship with Luna. She doesn’t like to respond in public because of the harassment but we’ve had quite a few friendly casual conversations and I want to bring her on as an illustrator for one of my projects once she finds stable housing and has the time for it. I think she is a kind and talented person and I’m not going to stop posting positivity/support because it upsets a bunch of mean girls with their precious e- burn book. It’s not even drama so idk why my small positive messages are “milk” to you guys she’s said they uplift her and I’m not going to be bullied out of being kind to somebody who is struggling. There but for the grace of God go I, if I got into heroin as a teenager instead of hallucinogens I wouldn’t be any better off than her and I don’t think I’m any better than her just because the drugs I got into weren’t as addictive (and to a degree I AM an addict if u count my prescriptions) so I don’t see myself as above her I see her as one of my contemporaries in my generation of the art world and would be honored to collab with her. She’s a genuinely nice girl who made some mistakes when she was a struggling teenager. She doesn’t deserve what you guys are doing to her like how are you going to sit on tour throne of moral superiority while laughing that somebody is posting that they are depressed? What is funny about that? What is funny about the housing crisis and the epidemic of “hidden homeless” (which my best friend is a member of)? Look in a mirror or something, look into your own eyes, are you proud of bullying a homeless suicidal girl in recovery from one of the most addictive drugs on the planet? Wouldn’t it bring u more joy to show kindness to the struggling? Doesn’t it make ur soul heavy to be so cruel?
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This Zodiac Sign Makes the Best Cat Owner — Best Life
New Post has been published on https://petnews2day.com/pet-news/cat-news/this-zodiac-sign-makes-the-best-cat-owner-best-life/
This Zodiac Sign Makes the Best Cat Owner — Best Life
There’s a reason one of the most popular ice-breaker questions is “are you a cat person or a dog person?” Stereotypically, cat people are introverted, quiet, and enjoy their personal space, while dog people are extroverted, outgoing, and prefer to explore the world with others. It turns out, astrology can predict some of those characteristics. But can it determine who might be the most suitable pet owners? Astrologers say yes. Read on to hear from a panel of experts about which members of the zodiac make the best cat owners, from casual feline parents to those who spend every last minute catering to their kitties.
READ THIS NEXT: This Zodiac Sign Makes the Best Dog Owner, According to Astrologers.
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Libras value sophistication and outward appearances, and cats can offer them just that.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb
“Cats’ meticulously clean, elegant, and graceful nature makes them the perfect companion for the refined and fashionable Libra,” says Masha Loddy, owner of the tarot, astrology, and spirituality blog Pish Witch. “These air signs will genuinely appreciate the aesthetic look of a silky smooth Russian Blue or the dignified, glamorous qualities of the Maine Coone.”
Because Libras enjoy being surrounded by beautiful things that are made to last, their cats will have the highest-quality beds, collars, scratching posts, and every other kitty accessory.
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Represented by the Crab, Cancer is the homebody of the zodiac. And what better person to shower a cat with constant love and affection than a born nurturer?
“Cancerians want nothing more than to pamper the people and animals they love,” says Loddy. “Taking care of a precious kitty allows Cancer to bestow the motherly love and attention that makes them feel warm and fuzzy.”
Don’t be surprised if a Cancer cat owner tells you they bake homemade treats for their pet or that they need to leave a social function early to play with their furry friend.
READ THIS NEXT: What Your Dog’s Zodiac Sign Says About Them, According to Astrologers.
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According to Maria Hayes, astrologer and tarot reader at Trusted Astrology, each animal has its own ruling planet. For cats, that planet is Saturn, the same one that governs Capricorn. So, these two understand each other on a deep level.
“Just like Capricorn, cats reward their owners for acknowledging boundaries; they will not give their affections easily, and you need to prove you are worthy before they cuddle up with you,” says Hayes. “Capricorns are also good cat owners since they don’t get mad even if their furry friends wake them up at night.”
This sign is extraordinarily tolerant and never tires of offering their pets treats and playtime.
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Leo is represented by the Lion, so it’s no surprise it’s one of the top three best cat owners.
“Cats are subtle, hard to read, and very comfortable on their own. Feline owners have this trait that doesn’t really sit well with dog people who are used to being greeted enthusiastically and licked all the time,” says Hayes. “Similarly, Leo wouldn’t think of embarrassing themselves with a puppyish nature.”
Another reason Leos make fabulous cat owners is for the aesthetic. “Nothing makes them happier than sharing a selfie with their pet cutie,” Hayes adds.
For more astrology advice delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter.
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There are no two beings that are more similar in nature than a Scorpio and a cat.
“Cats and Scorpios both require solitude and independence on an intense level, and if you cross into this space without permission, then beware of the claws,” says Bre the Malefic, astrologer, psychic medium, and tarot reader. “A cat approaching you to request being petted is similar to a Scorpio sharing a personal fact about themselves; will you shower them with adoration, or will you make a mistake and have the cat and Scorpio pull away entirely?”
As any cat owner will tell you, you’re only likely to make the correct move about 50 percent of the time.
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The best cat owner of the zodiac is Taurus.
“Taurus is a fixed earth sign ruled by the planet of love and pleasure, Venus, meaning it has a deep need to be comfortable at all times and will spend the time, energy, and resources ensuring its home matches this energy,” says Bre. “A cat fits perfectly in this space and would have no issue finding a comfy, cozy space to relax.”
Another reason Tauruses make excellent cat owners is that they’re highly routine-focused. Cats can depend on their Taurus owners to feed them, play with them, and pet them every day at the same time, without fail. Plus, their cats will get all the snuggles and affection they allow.
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The communal Child
There is a hypothetical future. A hypothetical future where my local friend group of five people have a child. The Child will be Benjamin Luke.
Benjamin: named after Obi Wan Kenobi, also called Ben.
Luke: named after Luke Skywalker.
The hypothetical plan consists of this….
The lesbian of the group will birth The Child as she is the one with mad levels of estrogen that plagues her with pregnancy dreams and instant cute aggression whenever she sees an infant. Not to mention she’s got some useful birthing hips.
Despite the lesbian birthing The Child, her genes will not be included at all as they are not the most favorable. In her stead, the two least messed up people in the group will use their own genes and the birther will simply be the host. Luckily the one male body in our group has some of the best genes, whilst I have the second best.
Even though three of the five will be directly involved in the building of The Child, the other two are crucial to his raising, development, and support. In total, the lad will have a lesbian, a panromantic asexual, another asexual, a bisexual, and a genderfluid being as his parental units. Thus, he will be the most powerfullest of humans with all the knowledge of life and complete acceptance of the weirdos and outcasts of his species. He will be raised with five diverse backgrounds and experiences.
Should the five parental units not remain single, The Child will gain five more parents, bringing it to a total of ten individuals raising one. They say “it takes a village”, well, here be that village. Ten parents, two of them biological, another of them the birth mother, and a single precious child. Also it all takes place in a hand-me-down house that has three bedrooms. If anyone filmed, it would be a sitcom of the ages.
The lore would deepen though, after every one of the couples gets divorced, but then proceeds to remarry. The Child then ultimately ends up with fifteen to twenty parents in total. If he wanted to, he could fist fight a god.
Now, why in the ever-loving fuckery is this at all a hypothetical future? Well, it began with the fact that the one person who desperately wants to birth a kid is also not attracted to men, nor wants her genetics to be passed on. Therefore we came up with random ideas to make birthing someone a possibility for her. Sure, she could use a sperm donor but anxiety and fear of people exist. That made us think more locally, which led to using members of the group. We had a male and we had two females plus an indeterminate gender with eggs. We then narrowed down who had the best genes and that’s when the plan truly flourished. All we needed was a name for The Child, and since we were in the midst of watching Star Wars at the time, the name came rather easily.
None of this is serious, but it’s a grand time pretending it is. There’s a lot of layering to the whole thing. Some of us grew up in poverty so having five to ten breadwinners would ensure a financially stable environment for a child. Some of us were raised by single parents so having such a ridiculous amount would ensure that a child would never run out, nor would too much strain befall a single parental unit. There are the amusing stupid things like imaginig what a parent-teacher meeting would be like. There are the fun sweet things like imagining what baby clothes we would get. It’s a batshit insane concept that brightens the day whenever it’s brought up, which is sometimes all we need.
Having a child this day in age seems irresponsible oftentimes when you take into account the human population, the current state of the planet, and the way society is. So coming up with such a convoluted plan to make that work is found hilarious by the lot of us. It’s a fantasy but I think it’s also a hope of sorts. We all want to be in a place in life where we could comfortably raise a family, even if we don’t want kids. If ever we got to a point in time where by looking at what we had, we could succeed in pooping out offspring and still be in a good place, that would be a victory. I’m not saying we actually would have a child but knowing we have enough money to support a family without monetary worry would be fantastic for any of us. It’s on the same level of being able to buy a house. It’s a fantasy that involves financial comfort, which we could all use.
Benjamin Luke is an unlikely spawn of two and a half people, but his spirit encourages us to keep aiming for that life of inner peace, comfort, stability, and family.
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