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gffa · 3 months

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I've been a little slow on getting out new STAR WARS fic recs out, but in my defense it's because I've been reading a bunch of longer fics lately. In the spirit of "there's a special feeling to those fics that consume you and make you stay up until 3am because you can't put them down", here's a list of some of the ones I've loved or am in the middle of reading and they are haunting my thoughts and I need to inflict that on everyone else. Whether you're looking at a long upcoming trip and need some good reading material or avoiding your feelings by sinking into fic or just because you like reading, I hope you'll find something here! Including a bonus underrunning theme of throwing in a bunch of Jedi-loving fic to continue my agenda of making Jedi-centric fandom a more fun place to be. 30k+ is the minimum and this isn't all of my favorites, but it's a great list of "I have a week off to kill and I want to be in a fic coma by the end of it".

STAR WARS FIC FOR WHEN YOU NEED TO KILL ABOUT TEN HOURS WORTH OF TIME AND WANT TO HAVE FEELINGS ABOUT FICTIONAL PSYCHIC SPACE WIZARDS WHILE YOU'RE AT IT:

✦ Out with Lanterns by SkyeBean, mace & ahsoka & plo & shaak & cast, 312.5k In another universe, Jedi Masters Plo Koon and Depa Billaba decide a Padawan could do Mace some good. It takes a while, but he eventually agrees. When he takes Ahsoka Tano as his Padawan, Mace knows that he's broken through a Shatterpoint and changed the course of a life. How, he doesn't know. ✦ Reprise by Elfpen, obi-wan & qui-gon & mace & yoda & anakin & cast, time travel, 558.9k wip Ben Kenobi dies aboard the Death Star in the year 0 BBY. He wakes up shortly thereafter in the Jedi temple in the year 41 BBY. Haunted by memories and regret, Ben must forge a new path for himself in the Jedi Order of his youth while navigating the murky waters of time travel. Crafting a better future from bitter experience is hard, but learning to heal is even harder. ✦ Take it from the top and try again by mauvera, obi-wan & qui-gon & anakin & padme & mace & shmi & dooku & cast, time travel, 112k wip Five years into his self imposed exile on Tattooine, Obi-Wan Kenobi is gifted the chance to go back and bring hope back to the galaxy. With hindsight on his side, he fully intends to save his master, save his padawan, make some new and old friends again, prepare the Jedi for a war they’ll hopefully never see and begin to pull apart all the many tangled threads of the Sith Lord’s plans. Should be relatively easy. Right? ✦ Post Order 66 Exile AU by Livsy, obi-wan & anakin & cast, 46k Alternatively: after a failed order 66, in which many Jedi still died but the Sith were defeated, an exiled warrior and a boy wander a distant planet and attempt to get along. ✦ Remedial Jedi Theology by MarbleGlove, obi-wan & anakin & jedi & cast, 51.3k Let us consider the fact that the Jedi Order is a monastic religious organization based out of a temple, with five basic tenets of faith. ✦ Supreme Chancellor Obi-Wan Kenobi by stonefreeak, obi-wan & anakin & padme & yoda & palpatine & bail & dooku & mace & quinlan & vokara & ahsoka & cast, 124.5k wip By an old Republic law, all members of the Jedi High Council are senators in the Galactic Senate, and can thus be voted in as chancellor. A Senator from a less prominent planet has had enough of Chancellor Palpatine's incompetence and calls for a Vote of No-Confidence and the installation of Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi as Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic. This one action becomes the catalyst that changes the direction of the galaxy. ✦ What We've Become by Vinyarie, vader & ahsoka & cast, 82k Darth Vader and Ahsoka’s fight on Malachor takes a different path, and Ahsoka actually is able to save her master. Or rather, she’s able to convince him to save himself. Diverges from canon in the last few minutes of Twilight of the Apprentice and goes increasingly AU from there.

✦ time to change the road you're on by wreckageofstars, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & luke & leia & han & ghost crew & cast, time travel, 93.6k wip The end of the Clone War is near - the fall of the Republic even nearer. Anakin Skywalker, caught up in the events that lead to the rise of the Empire and the loss of everything he holds dear, finds himself sent nearly two decades into the future. Ahsoka Tano, still coming to painful terms with the true fate of her former master, is - not exactly happy to see him. But the Force works in mysterious ways - and the future is not nearly as set in stone as they've been lead to believe. Multi-chapter AU, Rise of the Empire/Rebels-era. ✦ narrower than a razor's edge by bereft_of_frogs, obi-wan & dooku & qui-gon & anakin & sidious & cast, 30.2k Dooku tips his hand ten years earlier because he can't stand the thought of his former apprentice's murder, and that might just be enough to save everyone...if it doesn't get them all killed first. ✦ soften every edge by gigglesandfreckles, obi-wan & ahsoka (& anakin), major character death, 48.1k "Rejoice!" the galaxy says, in the wake of war and the dawning of peace. "How?" Obi-Wan asks. "No," Ahsoka says. (or: Obi-Wan & Ahsoka learn to live on.) ✦ hunting toward heartstill by blackkat, mace/cody & plo & fives & shaak & obi-wan & anakin & rex & cast, 207.2k Plo has an idea. Mace agrees, and everything snowballs right into hell from there. (Or: Mace and Cody get married in order to give the clones citizen status. Before they can focus on that, though, they're going to have to deal with ancient Sith artifacts, evil prophets, plots to overthrow the Supreme Chancellor, lost planets, monsters warped by Sith alchemy, inconvenient , and Darth Sidious turning his eye on a potential new apprentice. Just...not in that order.) ✦ Cataclasm by dendral, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & waxer & cast, 63.1k wip For reasons unknown to all but himself, Obi-Wan Kenobi has left the Jedi Order in the midst of the Clone Wars, taking with him a single clone. Anakin Skywalker has been unofficially tasked by the Order to find Obi-Wan and bring him home. Unfortunately for Anakin, it seems his former master is always ten steps ahead of him. ✦ Unexpected Awakening (The Rewrite) by Rhiw, obi-wan & qui-gon & anakin & feemor & bruck & jango & cast, time travel, 135.1k wip The life of General Kenobi is cut short at the hands of his Padawan, but the sight that greets his eyes upon awakening is not that of blinding light of the Force, but the Jedi Temple he knew when he was still a youth. As he struggles to understand the path laid out before him, Obi-Wan unwittingly captures the attention of a singularly unusual Temple Guard, and that of a reluctant Qui-Gon Jinn.

✦ Knightrise by deviantaccumulation, obi-wan & ahsoka & satine & yoda & cast, 89.4k wip There is no battle on Mustafar or in Coruscant's senate building. Instead, a small but still alive Jedi Order rises from its ashes on Mandalore. ✦ Fire and Ice by Yesac, obi-wan & anakin & cast, 111.9k Anakin wins the duel on Mustafar, but doesn't kill Obi-Wan. Along with Padme, Obi-Wan finds himself living in a chaotic world where the man he thought he knew has become the thing he swore to destroy. Can Anakin be turned back? If so, what then? ✦ Better That a Millstone by Icarus_is_flying, obi-wan & luke & anakin & leia & cast, 86.7k Vader discovers Luke and Obi-Wan on Tatooine when Luke is one year old and attempts to reclaim the family he threw away. Obi-Wan is less than pleased, and Luke and Leia? They have their own ideas about how their future should play out. ✦ Bloodlines by KCKenobi, obi-wan & anakin & dooku, 35.8k When an explosion traps them in the same doomed escape pod, Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Dooku are stranded together on Tatooine. The goal is simple: cooperate long enough to survive, and not a second longer. But a shared past has a way of connecting the people we think we know—and bloodlines run deep. [or: your classic family road trip across a desert planet, except your grandpa is, you know, a Sith Lord. And now he's sort of starting to bond with your Jedi dad. And that might be an issue.] ✦ When Darkness Seems to Hide This Place by IllyanaA, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & rex & cast, 136k wip After killing three of the Jedi Order's best and brightest, Palpatine's fight with Jedi Master Mace Windu goes shorter than expected. Afraid he's lost his chance at recruiting a new apprentice, Sidious unleashes Order 66 across the galaxy, but, per their programming, the Clone Army is not to harm Anakin Skywalker. After witnessing the most painful loss he's ever experienced and injured at the hands of his captors, Anakin is ready to die like the rest of the Jedi, though not before getting his vengeance. ✦ Precipice by shadowsong26, obi-wan & anakin & padme & luke & leia & bail & ahsoka & rex & cast, 253.6k An AU in which Anakin Skywalker does not follow Mace Windu and the others to Palpatine’s office after they leave to arrest the Chancellor. As a result, he doesn’t get that final push over the edge, and doesn’t Fall. ✦ Averting Galactic Destruction by kj_feybarn, obi-wan & anakin & quinlan & rex & cody & fives & dogma & wolffe & plo & shaak & dooku & sidious, time travel, 44.3k AKA The Time the Force Sent Obi-Wan Back in Time and Quinlan Vos kept him from Going Kamikaze because let’s be Honest, Being Forced to Come Back in Time Would Suck.

✦ Into the Archives by skygawker, obi-wan & anakin/padme & palpatine & cast, 104.9k wip After hearing the legend of Darth Plagueis the Wise from Palpatine, Anakin decides that his best chance to save Padme is to break into the restricted Holocron Vault of the Temple Archives to search for information about Plagueis. Predictably, all does not go according to plan. Revenge of the Sith AU. ✦ Live To Fight Another Day by raemanzu, spica_tea, cody & rex & jesse & kix & obi-wan & anakin & fox & cast, 396.9k wip Clones have their place in the universe, beyond the schemes of Palpatine. Events conspire to place Rex on the path of a new fate, one which will affect the future in ways not even the Jedi could foresee. Loyal to source material and characterizations. Canon-divergent. Starts between seasons 5 and 6 of TCW and explores Rex’s reaction to Fives’ dying words and subsequent events building toward Order 66. Variety of canon characters. No ships. Very Ace and Aro. Strong focus on certain friendships (Rex and Cody, Jesse and Kix, etc) with those friendships playing major roles. Thematically about how the clones navigate loss, trauma, the concept of their enslavement, their identities, etc amongst the larger active plot threads. Content warnings for war-related PTSD, trauma, combat injuries, and all around war-related angst etc in later chapters. ✦ Life and What Comes After by Ibelin, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & padme & cast, 177.2k wip Obi-Wan dies on Jabiim. Anakin blames himself, doesn't know how to go on and yet - he does. Maybe the Force rewards that kind of thing, or maybe he just gets lucky, but when a mission lands Anakin on a vaguely familiar planet, he gets a second chance to do what he knows he should have done in the first place: save his master. (And maybe a chance to save the galaxy, too.) ✦ Knight-Errant by zinjadu, anakin & ahsoka & obi-wan & padme & rex & jedi & clones, 315.8k AU - The Jedi Who Knew Too Much. Rex decides to stay "in pursuit" of his Commander; he jumps. Now, with backup, Ahsoka navigates the lower levels and deals with Ventress. Meanwhile, Anakin takes the Order to task, finds a little more support, and things turn out a little differently for everyone. And this is just the beginning. ✦ the massive machinery of hope by Killbothtwins, obi-wan & qui-gon & anakin & shmi & jedi, time travel, 150.1k After the end of the war with the Empire, Obi-Wan wakes up in his twelve-year old body. Now all he needs to do is convince everyone he's psychic, trick his Master into taking him on before he's sent to Bandomeer, redeem a few bad guys, and try not to have a nervous breakdown. Pretty easy. It's not like the Sith are lurking on the horizon, waiting to devour the Jedi Order.

✦ The Exchange by MissLearn, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon & ahsoka & padme & cast, time travel/body swap, 120k The Daughter has a bad day and it irrevocably changes the fate of the galaxy, twice over. Or; ROTS Obi-Wan and Anakin are swapped with their younger, TPM, selves. It changes things, in both parallels. ✦ In All The World by Kjellarnen, obi-wan & anakin & cast, 144.8k wip The story of how Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi tamed each other, from Naboo to Anakin's early days at the Temple. ✦ In Another Life by KCKenobi, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & padme, time travel, 52.3k Eleven years after the rise of the Empire, a favor to a friend sends Obi-Wan traveling through the multiverse. He encounters different versions of the galaxy and of himself—including one in which Anakin never turned to the dark side. Obi-Wan and this Light Anakin are forced to work together to stop the creation of a disastrous Empire weapon. But as they move through different versions of reality, the timelines become more and more twisted—and the harder it is to distinguish who they are from who they might have been. And—to find their way home. ✦ The Intruder by Hollyoakhill, obi-wan & original clone characters, 82.5k When a vicious attack from a strange, indestructible monster traps them on a derelict star destroyer, a young clone trooper fresh from Kamino join forces with Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi to find a way to escape. ✦ Conceal Me What I Am by Himboskywalker, obi-wan/anakin & padme & yoda & mace & palpatine & quinlan & cast, omegaverse, NSFW, 108.3k Separatist Propaganda is turning the Republic against the Jedi Order and the Senate sees no choice but to join in a political alliance to fight dissent on a unified front.An alliance is proposed through an arranged marriage,between a Jedi Knight and Republic Senator. Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi are chosen as representatives of the political union by Darth Sidious, meant to bring ruin to the marriage and the public's support of the Jedi,for Obi-Wan Kenobi is not the Beta he claims. But even Sidious does not know of the secret Anakin Skywalker keeps, that he is not the Alpha the galaxy believes him to be. ✦ Equinox by lilyconrad, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 95.9k During the Clone Wars, Obi-Wan and Anakin crash on a remote planet and take shelter in the ruins of a grand estate only to find they are not alone.

✦ Invictus by Himboskywalker, obi-wan/anakin & cast, NSFW, 40.3k "He is the balance, the other half, the completion to Skywalker’s soul, a perfect dyad in the force. But while Kenobi is a simple answer, the force also sees the difficulty of the pair coming together in balance. The foundations of the galaxy they exist in pull at them, threatening to intervene in their unity. But this is also a simple problem, for the force is far greater than the foundations of a single galaxy, for it is the foundation of all. So the force enacts its will, to bridge the pair over a span of moments, of years, of eternities, and Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi will fall in love, have fallen in love, and are falling in love." ✦ Neutron star collision by thedunesea, obi-wan/anakin & cast, NSFW, 121.2k wip In the aftermath of Order 66, Anakin Skywalker's miraculous survival after his confrontation with the new Sith Apprentice Darth Vader ignites a sparkle of hope in the remaining Jedi, in the fledgling rebellion and, above all, in his former Master, who thought he had lost everything to darkness. But darkness is generous, and it is patient. ✦ Lex Talionis by intermundia, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka & dooku & rex & cast, NSFW, 187.1k The ancient Galactic Republic is dying slowly—an ugly death of corruption, sprawl, and decay—with the sin of slavery hanging over its every triumph. The beleaguered Jedi Knights are too few to adequately patrol and police the entire Republic, and are faced with complacency and greed at every turn. Born into a crumbling and stagnant galaxy, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker are faced with the greatest challenge of all: themselves. Obi-Wan likes rules and control. When the galaxy around him stops playing by the rules, what is a Jedi to do? Anakin needs rules and restraint. When the galaxy around him conspires to set him loose, what is his Master to do? Falling slowly or falling fast, falling through lust or falling through wrath—it all leads to delusion and moral decay. What can be born from the ashes? ✦ Atlas of Our Ruin by Ripki, obi-wan/anakin & cast, NSFW, time travel, 230.8k Both the past and the future casts long shadows. Obi-Wan and Anakin learn that the hard way, when a mysterious holocron flings them backwards and forwards in time, forcing them to confront painful truths. But the time-travel is only the beginning… ✦ Seed by bell (belldreams), obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 44k When Anakin falls prey to a lethal poison, Obi-Wan has no choice but use all his resources to heal him-- no matter how reluctant he is in administering the antidote.

✦ wicked thing by imaginarykat, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka & cast, nsfw, sith!obi-wan, 124.2k wip There are rumours of yet another Sith Lord hiding among the Separatists. The Council sends Anakin to investigate. Anakin has a bad feeling about this. or, the story of how Anakin exists in a perpetual state of intense embarrassment, Obi-Wan is enjoying it a little too much, and everything is, generally speaking, a gigantic mess. ✦ Rulebreaker/Wildheart by chapstickaddict, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka & luke & leia & barriss & cast, NSFW, 230k Darth Vader, the strong arm of the Sith, held loyal to his Order since they took he and his mother from slavery in the deserts of Tatooine. Until he became convinced they killed his wife. He abandoned his Order and disappeared in the chaos of the Clone Wars, presumed dead by all sides. That young Skywalker is known around town as a widower and homesteader; a Nabooian who emigrated to avoid the trade blockade; a father of overly-energetic twins and warding a Togruta war orphan; a decent mechanic if your farm equipment or maintenance droid is acting up. Anakin is a paranoid, over-protective hot mess doing his best to raise his weird pack the way Padmé would have wanted. How the hell is he supposed to do that when his kids and not-apprentice make him haul a half-dead Jedi Master home like a lost pet? ✦ more than a candle by jenmishe, obi-wan/anakin/padme, NSFW, 50.3k "The dark is generous and it is patient and it always wins – but in the heart of its strength lies its weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back. Love is more than a candle. Love can ignite the stars." Or, a few thousands of words of how Anakin, Obi Wan, and Padmé realize many things, which include, most notably, how they feel about each other and how to handle said feelings. Oh, and in the meantime, they deal with a megalomaniac Sith Lord. ✦ Anamorphosis by avocadomoon, obi-wan/padme & anakin & mace & corde & qui-gon & cast, 33.5k noun, plural an·a·mor·pho·ses [an-uh-mawr-fuh-seez, -mawr-foh-seez]. A distorted or monstrous projection or representation of an image on a plane or curved surface, which, when viewed from a certain point, or as reflected from a curved mirror or through a polyhedron, appears regular and in proportion; a deformation of an image.

#lumi.txt #star wars #obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #ahsoka tano #mace windu #qui gon jinn #jedi order #fic recs #star wars fic recs #long post #really long post

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serenitydiviness · 10 months

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Line Without Hook- Spock x OC

Lol not me disappearing the fuck off Tumblr, just to come back and post fanfiction.

NOTE: This is an updated rewritten version of the first chapter :)

Read on FF.NET: Read on AO3

CHAPTER 2

Summary: Six years ago, Yeoman Serena Zuriñe embarrassed herself by giving a drunken confession to her mentor, none other than one Commander Spock. Now she finds herself face to face with the Vulcan man she had planned on avoiding the rest of her life. What could possibly go wrong? slow burn. Fake marriage. Spock/OC

Chapter 1:

In precisely seventeen minutes, the USS Enterprise would be docking. Serena almost felt nauseous enough to show it. She had done her research on the ship well enough to know that her past would be coming up to haunt her. She dusted off her blue uniform dress and adjusted her black hair to hide her Vulcan ears.

“Nervous?” the human woman next to her asked.

“Annaleigh, that is illogical,” Serena replied.

“I’d be nervous too if my hunky advisor turned into my hunky commanding officer,” Annaleigh said.

Serena’s lip twitched. “You do not even think Commander Spock is attractive.”

“No, but you do. And so does a good quarter of the galaxy.”

“Hush you,” Serena said.

“Nah. Besides, I want to say hello to my Uncle Scotty, and you’re my only way on the ship.”

Serena raised a brow and looked at the thirty-year-old woman next to her. “That is a blatant lie. You are desperate to see the medical facilities.”

Annaleigh gasped in false shock, putting a hand over her chest. “Serena Zuriñe, take that back!”

“I fail to see how I can and should retract my statement when it is both true and already spoken.”

“You Vulcan witch!” Annaleigh accused with a laugh.

“You are as lively as ever.” Serena rolled her eyes.

“And you’re so tense. Listen, I know you embarrassed yourself so hard your human instincts kicked in, but I am sure the dude does not care.”

“Your grammar is atrocious.”

“There’s my computer!”

Serena rolled her eyes, watching the landing bay once more from the hanger. At twenty-eight, she still felt like a child, barely navigating through murky waters and mud. She was grateful for her friend’s presence; Annaleigh’s presence was the only thing that kept her from being with her thoughts for too long.

“Hey, Sere?” Annaleigh asked after a few minutes.

“Yes, Anna?” Serena replied, still watching the docking bay.

“Did you ever see Commander Spock Shirtless?” Annaleigh asked with a wolfish grin.

“I should nerve pinch you where you stand.”

“That’s not a no.”

“It’s not a yes either.”

Serena wondered if giving Annaleigh a light nerve pinch would ease their nerves. Still, she knew what Annaleigh was doing. She was trying to ease her nerves about seeing Commander Spock again. Of course, Annaleigh was—probably—the only person, aside from herself and said commander, who knew her embarrassing history with Spock.

Annaleigh was also the only person who understood why Serena had done what she did. And Serena would be grateful for that.

“Now docking. USS Enterprise. Docking station twenty-two.”

Serena looked up at the speaker before looking at Annaleigh. “Time to report to the Captain.” She said.

“I’ll go with you.”

Serena nodded and began walking to docking station twenty-two.

****

Spock watched the docking station with intensity, glancing down at his PADD and reading the name on it over and over again. He wondered what had happened to the young woman whose file he was looking through.

She looked the same, less mousy and more like a proud Vulcan woman. He let out a breath and looked over the picture again. She still had those piercing blue eyes and that perfectly human face and redness. Yet her ears gave away her heritage.

“She’s pretty,” Jim commented. “Is she Vulcan?”

“Yes,” Spock replied blankly.

“What do you think, Spock, a Vulcan girl like her and a cad like me.”

“I think she’d have your head on a platter.” He replied briskly.

Jim looked at Spock curiously. Spock ignored the look, mentally centering himself. He could not let his emotions get the better of him.

“Let me see her file,” Jim said, taking the PADD out of Spock’s hand.

Spock felt a wave of irritation flow through him as he watched Jim look through the PADD. Jim’s brow raised, and he glanced back at Spock.

“It says you were her primary advisor through her first four years in Starfleet Academy,” Jim said.

“Yes,” Spock confirmed.

“Interesting.” Jim handed the PADD back to Spock. “I look forward to meeting your student.”

“She is a friend, Sir.” Spock corrected.

***

Serena sat in the lobby of the docking bay. Annaleigh was sitting right across the way from her. They stared silently at each other as they waited for the announcement that the crew had officially landed.

Serena could feel the dread building in her as the intercom blasted again.

“All Personnel Landed. All Personnel Landed. Report for Launch at 1500 hours.” the intercom announcer said.

Serena stood, taking another deep breath. “Anna, let's go find your uncle.”

“Gonna avoid commander hot stuff?”

“Like the plague.”

Annaleigh laughed and nodded. “I'm fairly certain I know where we can find him.”

“Lead the way.” Serena nodded as she waited for Annaleigh to stand.

***

Serena was all too grateful when they found Annaleigh’s uncle. Scotty was just as lively as Annaleigh. The two began to chat animatedly as soon as they saw each other.

“Scotty!” A blonde woman with a red uniform dress called.

“Janice!” Scotty called, waving her over. “Come meet my niece and her friend.”

The woman—Janice— walked over. “Hello, ladies!” She greeted.

“Janice, this is my niece Annaleigh. She’s a doctor.” He said proudly before looking at Serena. “And this is Serena. A poison specialist.”

“A pleasure!” Janice stuck out her hand.

“Serena’s part Vulcan, so she doesn’t touch people.” Annaliegh, as she took Janice’s hand.

“Oh, like Mr. Spock!” Janice gave an understanding nod.

“He’ll be happy to have someone on his level.” Scotty teased.

Serena nodded awkwardly.

“Wait. You’re the poison expert that is going to be joining us!” Janice looked at Serena excitedly.

“Yes. I will be boarding when it is time for lift-off.” Serena confirmed, feeling anxious again. The Enterprise was large; she could communicate by holo-texts for the rest of the voyage and never see Spock. Yes, that would be perfect.

“I want to meet this, Mr. Spock!” Annaleigh said. “And Captain Kirk. And Dr. McCoy. Those three are the trifecta of popularity right now, and frankly, the other girls will be disappointed if I come back from dropping off our precious Vulcan without having met the men.”

“Annaleigh, I am sure they are perhaps busy. It would be best to leave them be.” Serena said, shooting a glare at Annaleigh.

“Oh, they’re waiting on me,” Scotty said. “You ladies can follow me!”

Serena’s glare got harsher as Annaleigh shot her a winning grin. “I suppose this is acceptable. Thank you for your kindness.”

Scotty laughed. “Any time. If you need anything, let me know! Any friend of my Annie is a friend of mine.” He told Serena.

“Thank you, Mr. Scotty.” Serena nodded, offering an awkward smile.

***

Spock found himself tense as he waited with Jim for Bones to show up with the Saurian Brandy he insisted on for a successful landing. Of course, the landing was successful, and the ship was operational.

He glanced at the door watching as it opened to reveal Scotty, Janice, an unfamiliar woman, and the most familiar faces.

Serena walked in last, Spock noted. His eyes traveled to her neck. He could see the slight shimmer of Vulcan rubies. He felt pleased that she kept the necklace despite their awkward state.

“Scotty! Janice!” Kirk said, snapping Spock out of his thought.

“Captain, Mr. Spock,” Scotty greeted. “This is my niece, Annaleigh Scott, and—”

“Science Officer Serena Zuriñe.” Jim finished, much to Spock’s annoyance. “Miss Zuriñe, your profile pictures do not do you justice.”

Spock smirked a bit as Serena looked at Jim with irritation. “It is for informational purposes. Logically it should serve as a way to recognize and identify me.”

“Ah, there’s that Vulcan briskness,” Jim said, shooting an almost goading glance as he walked over to Serena.

Spock stood almost immediately. “Captain.” He said tersely.

“Just going to check if Bones is coming,” Jim said innocently.

Serena moved significantly further, glancing at Spock; for a moment, whatever awkward history and six years of no contact instantly disappeared as she raised her brow and glanced at Jim before glancing back at him.

Spock shrugged.

“I won’t hesitate to nerve pinch him if he comes on to me.”

“Not if I do it first.”

“Oh, what did you two say?” Jim asked, looking at them curiously.

“Old Vulcan greeting,” Spock said quickly.

“Just saying hello.” Serena agreed.

****

Serena ignored the almost wolfish grin from Annaleigh. She glanced over at Spock, catching his gaze once again. She offered a smile before pretending to listen to Scotty.

“I hope you don’t take this the wrong way,” Janice said, looking at Serena curiously. “You smile a lot for a Vulcan.”

“That’s what I said when I met her,” Annaleigh said.

“I am only part Vulcan. Hence my livelier disposition. My father was half Vulcan; my mother was fully human.” Serena explained. “I can see why my actions cause curiosity.”

“You should see her when she cusses. She puts my ancestors to shame.” Annaleigh said with a proud look that could rival a mother’s.

Serena laughed a bit. “I will hope not to show an unprofessional disposition,” she said, bringing her hand to her necklace.

“Oh, but you’re so fun,” Annaleigh said.

“You say that until you’re on the receiving end,” Serena said.

“Bones!” The captain called, snapping the conversation to him. “Hurry up.”

“I’m a doctor, Jim. Not a track star.” the doctor called. He walked in and looked at all of them. “We’re gonna need a few more cups.”

“None for me, Leonard,” Janice said. “Nyota and Christine are waiting for me.”

“Give the Lieutenant and nurse my regards.”

Serena watched as Janice waved, looking at the captain curiously as he watched her leave. She would have thought him more serious about his earlier flirtations if the man’s gaze did not constantly shift to Janice. She assumed that perhaps that gaze was unrequited—an unfortunate feeling she was all too familiar with.

She glanced at Spock, meeting his gaze before quickly shifting her gaze back to the others, gripping her necklace.

****

“So, who are these lovely ladies?” Bones asked, causing Spock to tense up.

“Why Doctor, you’re too kind.” the human woman said, flipping her brown hair back. “I’m Annaleigh Scott. I’m this engineering genius’ niece. And this lovely lady is Serena Zuriñe, your new science officer.”

“Greetings.” Serena nodded.

“Isn’t my Serena pretty?” Annaleigh cooed. “Her Vulcan ears make her look like an elven princess.”

“You’re Vulcan?” Bones said, looking at Serena. “You’re awful lovely for a Vulcan.”

“Isn’t she?” Annaleigh nodded.

“Thank you for the backhanded compliment,” Serena said.

“My apologies. It's just. Well, you’re very pretty.”

“I know,” Serena nodded.

“Miss Zuriñe,” Spock said, deciding both he and Serena had endured enough of this strange need his friends had to flirt with her. “I have a few things I'd like to go over with you regarding the toxicology labs..”

“Of course.” She nodded, shooting him a grateful glance.

He began walking, and she followed him almost immediately.

“It seems whenever we meet, you’re usually saving me,” Serena said as soon as they were far from the others.

“It would seem so.” He nodded. “It has been six years—-”

“11 months, one week, two days, and seven hours.” She nodded.

“You still have lively acquaintances.”

“I should say the same about you.”

***

“Oh, I wouldn’t be surprised if he took her out to ravish her,” Annaleigh teased. Though she very much doubted it.

“That’ll be the day.” Dr. McCoy said with a laugh as he offered her a glass.

“Charming,” Annaleigh said with a flirtatious smile.

“Oh, I try, Miss Annaleigh.” Bones replied.

“Dr. McCoy, you’re a bit of a scoundrel, aren’t you?” She said as she took a drink. “Oh, this is good.”

“Only towards pretty ladies.” He replied with a chuckle.

“I’ve never seen him so tame.” Captain Kirk said with a laugh.

“He’ll stay tame if he knows what’s good for him.” Scotty huffed.

“Oh, Uncle, please,” Annaleigh said. “It is a great pleasure to meet the Great Captain, James Kirk, and the Good Doctor Leonard McCoy.”

“Jim is fine, Annaleigh,” Jim said.

“Bones will do, Miss Annaleigh.” Bones said with a flirtatious grin.

“The girls will be so excited to hear about this.” Annaleigh giggled.

“I hope we don’t disappoint the girls.” Jim smiled.

“I doubt it. Mind if I take a seat?”

“Not at all; I’ll escort you myself.” Bones said.

“A true gentleman,” Annaleigh said as Bones led her to the couch.

“So, Miss Annaleigh. What do you do for a living that has you hanging out with a Vulcan?” Bones asked in a teasing tone as they sat.

“She’s a doctor,” Scotty said.

“My uncle’s right,” she replied.

“We could always use more doctors on the enterprise, don’t you think, captain.” Bones asked.

“One more couldn’t hurt.” Jim laughed.

“Don’t joke with me, boys; I might take you up on that offer,” Annaleigh said.

“Well, we do have six hours.” Bones looked at Kirk with a grin

“Ay, what have I done?” Scotty muttered while Annaleigh grinned all too excitedly.

***

Serena stood awkwardly next to Spock as they watched the ship be repaired.

“I see you are a certified toxicologist,” Spock said after a moment.

“It took a bit, but yes.” She said. “Commander. That is quite a level up.”

“Someone has to keep the captain in line.” He replied. “His flirtations might get us all killed.”

Serena snorted a bit. “He sounds no better than Annaleigh.”

“She is quite a character.” Spock nodded.

“She was my roommate when I started the academy.”

“The loud one who kept experimenting with food?”

“The very one.”

“I recall you saying you were quite close.”

“She is somehow the sister and mother I never had.”

She could feel Spock’s gaze on her covered ears. “Whatever happened with your mother and step-sister.”

“They’re in jail,” she replied.

“And your ear?”

“Completely healed save for a visible scar.”

She could hear Spock hum in response.

“Does she know about the issue with your—”

“Yes. I assume your friends know about your wife.”

“Ex-wife. I rejected her about ten months ago.”

“I am sure T’Pring was ecstatic.”

“She has already remarried.”

Serena nodded, tilting her head and scratching at her neck.

“You still wear the necklace.”

“It was a gift and still precious to me.” She said.

“I do not understand why you left that morning,” Spock said. “Though I do have my theories.”

“It was shameful.” She said, looking at the floor.

“I did not think less of you. It was more hurtful to lose your friendship suddenly.”

“I did it for my own sake more than anything. It was not my wisest moment.”

Spock nodded. “It was illogical and emotion-fueled.”

“I know.” She sighed and turned to face him. “Spock, I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for.” He assured, turning to face her. She studied his face, surprised to find no disdain.

“Still. I owe you an apology for putting you in an awkward situation. And for completely disappearing. You were my friend and did not deserve any of that.”

“I still am your friend.” he corrected. “And frankly, it will be nice to have a friend who isn’t going to get themselves killed.”

“You give me too much credit.”

“I do. You have a history of being fascinated with anything that can kill you.”

“I’ve made my name off it, so I don’t think I’ve done too bad.”

“No, you have not. Your father would be proud.”

“He’d be annoyed that I’m a scientist.”

“He’d be proud all the same. You are still a member of clan V’los and you represent them well.”

She smiled, turning back to continue watching the repairs. She hoped against all hope that Annaleigh was not getting herself into trouble.

#spock #spock x oc #star trek #fanfic #star trek fanf #star trek fanfiction #bones x oc #jim kirk/janice rand #slow burn #eventual fake marriae #fake marriage

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jcmarchi · 19 days

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NASA’s JWST probes an extreme starburst galaxy  - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/nasas-jwst-probes-an-extreme-starburst-galaxy-technology-org/

NASA’s JWST probes an extreme starburst galaxy  - Technology Org

An international team of astronomers has used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to produce the highest-resolution image of spectacular exploding stars ever seen. The Messier 82 (M82) galaxy, located 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major, is relatively compact in size but hosts a frenzy of star formation activity and is sprouting new stars 10 times faster than the Milky Way galaxy. 

On the left is the starburst galaxy M82 as observed by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in 2006. The small box at the galaxy’s core corresponds to the area captured so far by the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The red filaments as seen by Webb are the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon emission, which traces the shape of the galactic wind. In the Hubble image, light at .814 microns is coloured red, .658 microns is red-orange, .555 microns is green, and .435 microns is blue (filters F814W, F658N, F555W, and F435W, respectively). In the Webb image, light at 3.35 microns is coloured red, 2.50 microns is green, and 1.64 microns is blue (filters F335M, F250M, and F164N, respectively). Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, A. Bolatto (University of Maryland)

Dr Deanne Fisher from Swinburne University of Technology’s Centre of Astrophysics and Supercomputing led the Australian team, directing the JWST’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument toward the centre of the so-called ‘starburst galaxy’ to obtain a closer look at the conditions that foster the formation of new stars. 

This revealed that the physics involved is very similar to what shapes clouds in our sky, or waves in the water.

“The James Webb Space Telescope really opens a new window to studying the gas in galactic winds. We can now see the tiny building blocks of the wind,” Dr Fisher says.  

Star formation continues to maintain a sense of mystery because it is shrouded by curtains of dust and gas, creating an obstacle in observing this process. Fortunately, the JWST’s ability to peer in the infrared is an asset in navigating these murky conditions.

The JWST’s NIRCam instrument was well-suited to trace the structure of the galactic wind via emission from sooty chemical molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). PAHs are like very small dust grains that survive in cooler temperatures but are destroyed in hot conditions.

Much to the team’s surprise, the JWST’s view of the PAH emission highlights the galactic wind’s previously unknown fine structure. Depicted as red filaments, the emission extends away from the central region where the heart of star formation is located. Another unanticipated find was the similar structure between the PAH emission and that of hot, ionised gas.

“The PAH emission is an exciting new tool,” explains Dr Fisher. “PAHs are very fragile. You would expect that when supernovae expose the hot inner material from stars, they would obliterate the colder gas.”

“The fact that the PAHs seem to survive out into the wind is a real challenge to theory. It means there is extra physics that we need to understand. We think that similar physics that shapes clouds in the sky, or waves in water, may be important in these extreme environments of galactic winds.”

Finding structure in lively conditions 

Looking at M82 in slightly longer infrared wavelengths, clumpy tendrils represented in red can be seen extending above and below the galaxy’s plane. These gaseous streamers are a galactic wind rushing out from the core of the starburst. 

One area of focus was understanding how this galactic wind, which is caused by the rapid rate of star formation and subsequent supernovae, is launching and influencing its surrounding environment. By resolving a central section of M82, scientists could examine where the wind originates and gain insight on how hot and cold components interact within the wind. 

A vibrant community of stars 

NIRCam images of the very centre of the starburst used an instrument mode that prevented the very bright source from overwhelming the detector.

While dark brown tendrils of heavy dust are threaded throughout M82’s glowing white core even in this infrared view, the JWST’s NIRCam has revealed a level of detail that has historically been obscured. Looking closer toward the centre, small specks depicted in green denote concentrated areas of iron, most of which are supernova remnants. Small patches that appear red signify regions where molecular hydrogen is lit up by a nearby young star’s radiation. 

Lighting a path forward  

The JWST’s observations of M82 in near-infrared light spur further questions about star formation, some of which the team hopes to answer with additional data gathered with the JWST, including that of another starburst galaxy. Two other papers from this team characterising the stellar clusters and correlations among wind components of M82 are almost finalised. 

In the near future, the team will have spectroscopic observations of M82 from the JWST ready for their analysis, as well as complementary large-scale images of the galaxy and wind. Spectral data will help astronomers determine accurate ages for the star clusters and provide a sense of timing for how long each phase of star formation lasts in a starburst galaxy environment. On a broader scale, inspecting the activity in galaxies like M82 can deepen astronomers’ understanding of the early universe.

These findings have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. 

Source: Swinburne University of Technology

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shedobewritingalittle · 3 years

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Bath Time

Pairing: The Mandalorian x Reader

Summary: The Mandalorian watches as the reader gives his foundling a bath (set post Chapter 12).

Word Count: 1.7k

Rating: R

Warnings: slight breeding kink?, mentions of anatomical parts, hint at masturbation

The Mandalorian wished he didn’t enjoy watching her do things like this.

Y/N was carefully giving the little green being a bath in an small metal oblong shaped tub that was purchased for this exact reason. Mando was supposed to be cleaning and polishing his various weapons, but he kept stealing glances at her. There was a smile stretched across his partner's face as the Child splashed around the bubble-filled bath water. His movements were causing Y/N's shirt to become soaked and while Mando would have scolded his foundling before if got to that point, she didn't mind it in the slightest.

When the Child puked up the cookies he had been eating, Y/N became very concerned. As soon as the Crest had evened out, she took the kid into her arms and disappeared down into the hull. When he climbed down under the guise of cleaning his weapons, she almost immediately held her hand out and asked for his cape. Y/N was already scrubbing the turquoise stain out of the Child’s robes. He wanted to tell her that the little stain from cleaning his foundling’s mouth was nothing compared to what else was on his cape, but he knew better then to argue with his companion. The Mandalorian immediately unclipped his cape, having it over. With the Child strapped to her chest, she started to scrub at his cape, the water quickly becoming murky. The scene in front of the Mandalorian is incredibly mundane, but for some reason he finds himself trying to discreetly hide the fact that he is enjoying watching this.

He’s fucked and he knows it completely.

The cape and the Child’s clothes were hanging up to dry in the back of the hull. In all honesty, the Mandalorian probably wouldn’t have cleaned up his foundling as quickly as she did. While he was concerned about the green child’s well-being, she took it to a whole other level. Y/N kept asking the Child if he was feeling well or telling him this is the reason why he isn’t allowed to only eat sweets. Every time the Child made a noise, her eyes would look down to him and her voice would be filled with concern as she asked the green little baby if he was feeling okay. Every time Y/N asked, the Mandalorian would pause what he was doing to look up at the two of them.

"You know the whole point of the bath is to keep the water inside of the tub, kid." Y/N teases as she carefully washes his big ears. There's just something about her being so motherly that the Mandalorian just has to stop what he is doing to watch. She must've tickled the kid with the washcloth, because he erupts into a fit of giggles, which then causes Y/N to laugh. The whole scene makes the Mandalorian feel warm all over.

"Aren't you being awfully sweet today? Maybe being so dirty made you cranky." Y/N continues her one sided conversation as she rinses the soap off carefully. Mando feels like he shouldn't be watching this, but he can't help it. His hands are still moving, cleaning the same blaster he has been cleaning for twenty minutes. He hopes she doesn't notice, but the Mandalorian knows that Y/N won't. She's completely focused on the child.

"Alright, we should get you out of the water before you catch a chill." Y/N grabs a towel before lifting the green child out of the water, carefully wrapping it around him. Mando can hear her humming an unrecognizable song softly as she swaddles his foundling, looking at him almost lovingly. The scene in front of him makes the bounty hunter swallow hard. He cannot understand why Y/N taking care of the Child is affecting him this much-no, that's a lie. The Mandalorian knows why, but he rather not go down that route. He's trying to keep the relationship between him and Y/N professional. Maker, is he trying-

"Mando? Mando, are you listening to me?" Her voice yanks him out of his thoughts and the Mandalorian is incredibly glad she can't see the blush that's most likely on his face. He makes a grunting noise in response-something that he'd use to respond to anyone else. Y/N shakes her head, trying not to smile. The Mandalorian hopes that his companion cannot see the semi that he’s currently sporting.

"I was saying that I'm going to take the kid and feed him in cockpit so you can eat and clean up." She informs the bounty hunter, the bundled Child resting on her hip. That's another thing that's making this whole situation even more difficult: Y/N taking care of Mando himself. When he had hired her on, she was tasked with looking after the foundling and taking care of the ship. Yet for some reason, Y/N also likes to make sure her employer is doing okay. Every time she shows him even the slightest bit of kindness, the Mandalorian suddenly turns into a teenager, his knees getting weak and his stomach twisting and turning. He forced himself to quickly recover.

"You don't have to." He tries to argue, but he knows it's futile. Y/N is already walking over to where the meal rations are stored, grabbing the kid's plate and utensils. She hardly takes no for answer and he really doesn’t want to fight her. The Mandalorian loves it when she takes care of him, when she shows that she cares for him too, but he’d never say it outright.

"I know, but you smell as good as the kid did before his bath." She teases him, full on grinning now as she walks to the ladder. Y/N fucking teases him and Maker, the Mandalorian wants more of it. He's forcing himself not to smile underneath his beskar as she holds the child close to her chest, somehow managing to climb up the ladder. The bounty hunter would love to pretend that he doesn’t sneak a look at her ass as she climbs up ladder, but of course he does, which then causes his flight suit to get even tighter. Maker, pull yourself together.

The Mandalorian waits until she's seated in the pilot's seat before he lets out a sigh, his feet carrying him to the meal rations. He wishes that he could just chalk her kindness as naivety, but it's not that. Y/N only acts this way around the Mandalorian and his foundling. Hell, the bounty hunter has watched her bring a man twice his size down to the ground just because the creature was looking at Y/N funny. That very same woman will walk around the Crest, making repairs with the small green child strapped to her chest, telling the kid a story. Both actions had the Mandalorian thinking about his partner in a way that was far from being appropriate.

Yet, there was just something about watching her taking care of his foundling made the Mandalorian want to grab Y/N and fill her belly with his child. The bounty hunter never had such archaic thoughts before he hired Y/N to watch the Child, but they always pop up whenever she’s around. Once again, the Mandalorian tries to readjust himself, telling himself that he’ll take care of his problem in the ‘fresher.

As the bounty hunter took off his helmet in order to eat, he forced this thoughts far far away from his female companion. The Mandalorian tried to make himself think about what the ship needed or what supplies he had to pick up on their next outing, but somehow his thoughts kept finding their way back to Y/N.

Y/N is humming again when the Mandalorian climbs up the ladder into the cockpit an hour later, his stomach full and just out of the ‘fresher. She's sitting in the pilot's chair-his chair as she holds his foundling. The bounty hunter tries to ignore that as he takes a few more steps, trying to keep his thoughts clean. The Child is fast asleep in her arms. It's like the Galaxy itself is mocking him.

"He likes you, you know." The Mandalorian says quietly, his eyes on sleeping child on her chest. The kid adores her, almost to the point where Mando thinks his own foundling favors Y/N over him, but in all honesty the Mandalorian can't blame the child. It’s extremely hard not to like her. Y/N chuckles softly, the stars streaking across the sky was illuminating both her and the Child.

"I'd hope so. I like him too." Y/N replies, her eyes on Mando as she smiles. There's something about the way she says it makes his heart beat a little faster in his chest. He hates this feeling, hates the way she's making him feel. No-he doesn’t hate it. It’s just different. It’s something he hasn’t felt since he was a teenager.

"Thank you-for letting me..." His words trail off. The Mandalorian isn't a man of many words and his companion knows that. Y/N nods, her smile still stretched across her face.

"Someone has to remind you to take care of yourself, Mando." Y/N tells him, her voice soft. Her hand is resting on his foundling's back, holding him to her chest. The Mandalorian's head is full of images of Y/N holding another child to her chest, cradling a different baby while he holds the kid. Mando swallows hard, forcing those images away. He turns his head towards the Galaxy, but he can still feel Y/N's eyes lingering in him for a few seconds before she too turns her head. Out of the corner of the visor, the Mandalorian watches as she looks down at the sleeping child, one of her fingers smoothing the white hairs on top of the kid’s head.

"You should go get some rest. I'm more than comfortable up here with him." She announces, leaning back further into the chair. Once again, it's not really a suggestion and once again, the Mandalorian finds himself trying not to smile under his helmet.

#the mandalorian x r #the mandalorian #din djarin x reader #din djarin #star wars

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curioussubjects · 4 years

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come be a season 12 truther with me; or what if dean and cas got together offscreen

Originally, I wrote this post to celebrate “Galaxy Brain” airing as Berens & Glynn gave us “The Future.” It’s been a while since that episode aired, and some things have changed about this meta. As such, there are multiple versions of this post floating around, so make sure to go back to the source for the most up to date version. For all intents and purposes, this post functions as a meta manifesto not unlike shipping manifestos from days of LJ past. In keeping with that tradition, this post is a close reading of Dabb Era Destiel in which I argue that by using narrative gaps, queer coding, and romance tropes, Dean and Cas are shown to be in an established relationship. Although beyond the scope of this post, it’s worth pointing out that keeping Destiel mostly off screen was a way for the creatives to bypass network censorship while still remaining true to the characters.

This post is divided into three sections. Section I focuses on giving an overview of why earlier seasons of Supernatural aren’t as compelling as season 12 as a turning point for Dean and Cas’s relationship. That said, special consideration is given to 09.06 “Heaven Can’t Wait” as a potential rest stop in our journey due to it’s significantly placed narrative gap as well as themes in the episode. However, this post isn’t going to examine season 9 trutherism in depth, though it does coexist with and allow for it. Section II analyses season 12 and proposes a timeline and justification for the shifting Destiel dynamic. Finally, Section III will offer an analysis of how Dean and Cas’s relationship has changed dramatically from previous seasons in a way that is most like the shift from a “will they or won’t they” pairing to an established one.

Before I move to Section I, I’d like to note something this post takes for granted: Dean and Cas are the main romantic subplot of Supernatural, and, in fact, their relationship is elevated to main plot for both characters in season 15. This post won’t argue about the canonicity of Dean and Cas’s feelings for each other, therefore, and so won’t spend time looking at many Destiel defining moments. I’d also like to make clear that this post also takes for granted that Destiel is being intentionally developed by the writers starting with Carver’s Era, and more so in Dabb’s.

I. Why Seasons 4 through 11 May Not be It

The tl;dr. here is that while there are many moments throughout these seasons that Dean and Cas could potentially get together, none of those moments are ideal for a bunch of reasons that can be summed up as really bad timing. I also think the narrative is actively pushing them towards a moment that works. We get plenty of stepping stones, especially once we hit seasons 8 through 11 (and 11 most of all).

Seasons 4 & 5:

I know there’s been a lot of get together fics over the years set in this time period, but I just don’t see it. Do I see them being intrigued and drawn to each other? Yes. Do I think either Cas or Dean would act on it? Nope. I’m not arguing anything re: Dean’s feelings, but with everything going at the time I find it hard to believe he’d pursue anything with his angel friend. Most importantly here, though, is that during this time Cas was still very alien and other. There was too much angel in him, and while he obviously came to care about Dean (and Sam) very much, I just can’t see him navigating the realm of human relationships. That said, seeing human!Cas in “The End” is the first we see of potential developments for how Cas could behave without his angelness interfering. Being human changes Cas a lot, beyond even his experience existing among humans, though that of course matters too. This development will be important later /wink.

Seasons 6 & 7:

Before anything else let me just recognize that if we could see some sexual tension in seasons 4 & 5, these two seasons come with our first taste of romantic tension. The pining! Also note the difference between season 4 Cas and season 6 Cas in terms of behaviour. He is much less the angel we saw in that barn in “Lazarus Rising.” In season 6, we have a Cas making misguided decisions guided entirely by his emotions – namely, not wanting to involve Dean with the war in heaven – which is peak human, honestly. Put a pin on how sad Dean is in both seasons with Cas’s absence. Finally, put a pin on this being our first moment of Cas doing things on his own to spare Dean and it not ending well (soulless!Sam, Cas “dying” after Leviathan) because this is *the* hurdle in their relationship (along with Dean’s lashing out and self-worth issues). With all this said, the marked distance between Dean and Cas in these seasons negates the possibility of them entering into any kind of relationship. Much like seasons 4 and 5, there’s too much going on.

Season 8:

Ah, yes, the summer of purgatory. If you thought we had pining before…! I think we’re all very clear on season 8 being a turning point for the show, not only because new showrunner, but we also get the bunker. TFW now has an HQ, which pretty soon becomes home. Yes, Baby will always be home, but the bunker becomes the *unmovable* safe haven that Baby couldn’t be. The bunker is a place to coalesce, and for all the amazing things Baby is, she is not that. The acquisition of the bunker marks a shift in the psychology of the show: with the stable home space we can start to imagine domesticity, a place to come home to, the stuff of ordinary living. Most of all, the bunker is emblematic of security, of safety –keep this in mind, as we go forward.

This season also continues to see Cas go down the path of independently solving his problems instead of asking for help from Sam and Dean (his family in a way heaven never was) – note that the better together issue is at play in different ways with Sam and Dean also, but I digress. I also want to point out disastrous instance #2 of Cas’s insistence on figuring it out on his own: he loses his grace, and the angels fall. As for Dean, season 8’s focus for him has much to do with Sam, and them coming face to face with their issues with codependency, which hit catastrophic levels with the gates of hell and Gadreel plots.

So despite all the deliciously angsty get together purgatory fics and spec, there’s too much distance between Dean and Cas on Cas’s part due to his guilt over betraying the Winchesters in s6 plus slaughtering angels plus unleashing Leviathan. We do see Dean being more emotionally open with Cas and continue to voicing his wish that Cas would just stay with him and Sam, and let them help. It’s clear as day how much Dean cares. The timing is still bad, though.

Before moving on to next season, let’s take a moment to appreciate that this is the season Dean admits being kinda done with one night stands because “always with the adios.” Remember the bunker as a sign of stability? Yeah. I wouldn’t say Dean is craving a relationship, exactly, but I think we can see that he does want something more (ahem also I’m nodding to Cas refusing to stay put just cause).

Seasons 9 & 10:

The most important thing to happen between this two seasons is Cas’s stint as a human for an extended period of time. There’s been plenty of spec and meta written over the years about the effects of being human on Cas’s grace (a proto-soul now maybe?). What we can say for sure, regardless, is that Cas is much more humanized once he becomes an angel again. The understanding he gets from being human doesn’t go away once he regains his angel powers. You’ll notice that while we still see some of season 4’s characterization, Cas is not the same as he was – he is alien to angels now and is more intelligible to humans. Additionally, in an interesting reversal from previous seasons, we now get to see the depth of Cas’s feelings for Dean (thanks, Metatron) as well as seeing him be more open emotionally, while Dean does most of the pushing away (first because of Gadreel, then because of the Mark of Cain). In short, the timing is still bad as Dean and Cas are largely kept apart both physically and emotionally.

9.06 Heaven Can’t Wait

This episode is my white whale, friends. While I’ve come to fully subscribe to the idea that something did happen between Dean and Cas during the fanfic gap, I don’t actually think it’s feasible that it marked the start of a relationship -- be it sexual or romantic. My reasoning here is quite simple: the timing is bad. Were it not for external events (Cas regaining his Grace and Dean taking on the MoC), the course would have likely differed. Furthermore, Dean’s guilt over making Cas leave the bunker as well as Cas’s own hurt and self-loathing pose a significant and as yet insurmountable obstacle, which is easily seen with how Dean and Cas’s character trajectories go separate ways.

YMMV on what exactly happened between them in that Motel, but something definitely did. Perhaps one day I’ll have a proper s9 trutherism post to link to here for more details (likely won’t be written by me, though).

10.16 Paint It Black

From the point Dean gets the MoC until the end of season 10, anything between him and Cas is quite impossible due to distancing, to say the least. Again, yes, the fic is really good, but alas. One of the reasons I’m bringing up this episode in particular is because of the confession scene. One, it’s a rare bit of explicit emotional honesty from Dean, and two, it tells me that while he and Cas may be well aware of the Thing™ between them, it’s still uncharted waters. It’s scary, and murky, and they’re unsure how to navigated it or if they should even try. Makes sense, too, there’s been A LOT going on since s6. Anyway, he’s the full confession:

You know, the life I live, the work I do…I pretty much just figured that that was all there was to me, you know? Tear around and jam the key in the ignition and haul ass until I ran out of gas. I guess I just thought sooner or later, I’d go out the same way that I live – pedal to the metal, and that would be it. […] Now, um… recent events, uh… make me think I might be closer to that than I really thought. And…I don’t know. I mean, you know, there’s – there’s things, there’s…people, feelings that I-I-I want to experience differently than I have before, or maybe even for the first time. […] Yeah, I’m just starting to think that… maybe there’s more to it all than I thought.

Can I just say, first, that this confession keeps me up at night because we never actually see anything done with it explicitly? I mean, obviously, I think we do in fact see the effects of this confession in the show, otherwise I wouldn��t be writing this behemoth, but still, like. Damn. Ok, so, remember when I brought up that thing in season 7 about Dean being kinda done with hook-ups? Here’s where that led us. We’re seeing a Dean here who wants more than what he has convinced himself he gets to have. He wants more than dying bloody. And when he talks about wanting to experience people and feelings differently, well, that says a lot not just on the queer coding front or the romantic front. I mean, jfc, Dean is accepting the idea that he can have more in life than just hunt until he drops, and he’s specifically talking about experiences at the interpersonal level.

Do you ever see a character having an epiphany and find yourself wanting to cry because this is it right here. Dean is just blatantly admitting he wants more and maybe he can make himself be open to that (!!!), which all culminates in season 11, so…

Season 11:

The pining is still here, but it’s worse now since it’s the whole plot? It’s been *checks calendar* 5 years of this. How are any of us still kicking I don’t know. Your slow burns could never. Cool worth noting points: Cas says yes to Lucifer (bad decision #2.5, lots of mitigating effects_I don’t actually hold it against him that much but Dean is another story & not entirely rational at this point); for the first time since the early days, Dean and Cas are on equal grounds: they’ve both fucked up a lot and have hurt each other. The issues this season are outside their dynamic. Amara and Lucifer here serve as externalizing forces for Dean and Cas’s problems: Cas checks out with Lucifer because he thinks it’s the only way he can help, Dean is caught up in the turmoil of Amara, the emblem of absence and avoidance of struggle. We do get something like an affirmation from the two of them to each other via Dean calling Cas his brother (and I want y’all to consider the historical queering of that statement, and Cas’s “I could go with you.” It feels like we’re headed to them being on the same page. By the end of the season, though, it feels like we’re getting a clean slate: Mary is back, nobody died, no end-of-the-world in sight, no interpersonal crisis. We’re also getting a new showrunner, so. No wonder. We’re gearing up for something, but I’m getting ahead of myself. What this season does that is super important is that it sets up the stage for the possibility of an actual relationship between Dean and Cas, something that has, up until this point, been pretty much impossible.

11.04 Baby

Y’all know what I’m about to quote here, right? That conversation between Dean and Sam about having something with someone who understands the life. Here we still have Dean reverting to the idea that it’s impossible, which is a direct contrast to the openness in 10.16. It’s understandable, though, considering there’s been little reason to think anything like that would be possible (see all the mess and poor timing from seasons past). The quote in question, though, marks a continuing development regarding the issues Dean is struggling with this season:

DEAN: Piper? That’s awesome. Heather. One-night wonders, man. Shoot, we’re lucky we still get that at all. SAM: Really? You don’t … Ever want something more? DEAN: I’m sorry, have you met us? We’re batting a whopping zero in domestic life, man. Goose eggs. SAM: You don’t ever think about something? Not marriage or whatever. But … Something? You know, with a hunter? Somebody who understands the life?

We wouldn’t be talking about this stuff all these years after Sam and Dean had a serious relationship if it wasn’t important, right? Also who else do we meet this season? That’s right! Eileen! And doesn’t that hit different with season 15 hindsight? And who does Dean have that understands the life? Whose stories have been intricately connected to his? Right now, this is all conjecture. A pipe dream Sam is revisiting, and Dean is skeptical about. Except, well. Look at what we get in “Into the Mystic” and “The Chitters.”

11.11 Into The Mystic

I’m bringing up this episode as a cross reference to “Paint It Black” as well as to complement the talk from “Baby,” and to show, again, that, for all the closeness between Dean and Cas, there’s still a marked distance they haven’t yet bridged. There’s still truths they haven’t told each other. Thanks Mildred for the delicious exposition:

Darlin’…If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years on the road, it’s when somebody’s pining for somebody else. […] Oh, don’t try and hide it now. Follow your heart. Remember?

11.19 The Chitters

And here we see some validation to Sam’s imagining of a possible future with someone else. We actually see hunters who not only are married, but they both make it out alive. Jesse and Cesar get their happy ending. They make the dream come true. And the reality of it important not just for Dean to see, but Sam too.

Dean: [with realization] Oh, so … [points back and forth to Jesse and Cesar] Cesar: Yeah. Dean: Okay, that’s… Cesar puts his beer bottle on the table and looks at Dean, while Jesse is being silent. Dean: What’s it like, settling down with a hunter? Cesar: Smelly, dirty. [turns to Jesse] Twice the worrying about getting ganked.

I’d like to point out, too, that the fear of getting ganked is thematic when it comes to the tension between Dean and Cas. More on this when we hit s13.

Alright, now, having said that, let’s take a look at season 12. Bear in mind, this is the official start of Dabb’s era, even if he kinda began taking over in season 11, and the change in vibes is obvious. In fact, 12 jumped out at me as a turning point, in hindsight, after getting smacked by the domesticity of seasons 13 and 14.

II. Why Season 12

[Out of date section. Update coming soon when spoons. After significant debate, I’ve altered the definitive start of Dean and Cas’s friend-with-benefits-with-mutual-pining relationship to between 12.02 and 12.03. I briefly explained why here, and yes it’s a shitpost--still true tho.]

Finally, the promise land, y’all. Getting right to it: what s11 was for Dean in terms of setting up the relationship stage, s12 was for Cas. In its initial beats, any way. That is, until the Kelly debacle, this was the longest Cas has been around the bunker and with the exception of seasons 13 and 14, it’s one of the first times we get to see how Cas might actually fit into the bunker-as-home. Things seem remarkably chill. Of course, we’ll notice that there’s still a lot of baggage hanging around because despite Dean and Cas being in a more stable place, they haven’t actually dealt with their interpersonal problems. I didn’t single out directly this episode, but do keep in mind Cas’s declaration in 12.09 First Blood as far as how much the Winchesters matter to Cas & how we also see Dean and Cas be particularly singled out with them seating together in the backseat of the Impala. What we also see this season is Cas trying to prove he is worthy of this family, his family. He’s not fighting for heaven or to right some grievous wrong (a la s8). No, this season he’s fighting to spare the Winchester, to bring them a win. To bring Dean a win. The major disconnect is that Dean (and Sam & Mary) already sees Cas that way, he doesn’t think Cas has anything to prove. And just maybe, Cas starts believing that too – or, at least, believing it enough.

12.10 Lily Sunders Has Some Regrets

This episode, oh my god, the goodness. In the wake of 12.09 we have Dean and Cas in a tiff because Cas mistake #3 (killing Billie and “cosmic consequences”), this is a pattern. Twice the worry of getting ganked, etc etc. But where this episode really shines is through the contrast between Ishim’s obsession with Lily and Cas & Dean’s mutual affection for each other. Ishim sees no difference here and, to him, Cas’s feelings for Dean are a human weakness. Returning to my point about human!Cas, this episode underscores that Cas’s increasing humanity is what puts him in the place where he can want what Dean wants instead of either being too alien to get it (see s4 & 5) or unable to experience it properly (Ishim).

12.12 Stuck in the Middle (With You)

Cas’s trajectory culminates here with the whole I love you (@ Dean), I love all of you (@ Winchesters). Let’s note too that Cas is dying here, in a way that is much more human than going up in light. This declaration of different types of love is entirely human. It’s also a definitive step wrt to Cas and Dean’s relationship because of what happens in 12.19. This. is. it. Oh, and, of course, let’s not forget to point to Dean’s face when Cas says that “I love you,” and how terrified he is that Cas is dying. Might make one rethink some things, hm?

12.19 The Future

This episode is simply hella suspicious, and all the kudos to Berens and Glynn for writing it. It’ll haunt me forever. Consider watching it again and just questioning everything. So. Weird things:

1. Dean’s reaction to Cas no getting in touch as opposed to Sam’s. Dean is pissed, which is Dean-speak for worried out of his mind. Sam is very worried, too, and puzzled, but he’s mostly expressing his relief that Cas is back. But Cas has gone awol before, but this time Dean is much more worked up about it; Sam takes note of this, too. Now, let’s imagine that maybe the events of 12.12 led to something happening between Dean and Cas. Then Cas decided to leave to find a lead on Kelly, but eventually Cas decides to work with Heaven and goes radio silent. For days. Having taken a chance, and something having happened between them, how would Dean react to Cas just going poof and not contacting him – despite Dean having called Cas multiple times.

2. Cas knows about the Colt. Ok, nothing off there. But when he goes to Dean’s room to talk, right after Dean leaves we see Cas looking around briefly. Like he know Dean would keep it in there. Maybe Cas had looked other places already. Who knows. What we do know is that eventually he does find the Colt not only in Dean’s room, but under Dean’s pillow. Sam didn’t even know the Colt wasn’t in the safe. So how did Cas know?

3.“He came into my room and he played me.” So, this quote right there, makes it seem like some seduction for personal gain, right? But can you see Cas actually doing that if they hadn’t gone there previously? For Dean not to suspect anything and go with it? There’s plenty of plausible deniability here, but the gaps in time in the narrative make me question what is there in those spaces. The scene where Cas tried to give Dean the mixtape back doesn’t read like “playing,” so it’s about a different interaction. Hm. Hmmm.

4. Dean and Cas’s brief conversation in Dean’s room is clearly Dean just wanting Cas to stay, so they can work (and be) together – because they’re better that way. Which, yeah, truth, but also ow.

5.And most importantly: When did Dean give Cas that mixtape??? How did that happen?

Sequence of events: Cas tells Dean he loves him – Dean is clearly shook by it – Dean gives Cas a mixtape (romantic gesture, often a declaration of feelings; in true Dean speak too lolsobs) – Cas goes awol - Dean acts like he got ghosted by his new bf -?????- Cas somehow knows the Colt is under Dean’s pillow – "He went into my room and he played me."

What am I supposed to do with that, hm? Like. Y’all realize they probably had some emotionally constipated getting together moment, right? Something that Dean clearly initially thought meant things were gonna change, now. Something that Cas couldn’t allow to happen until he could give Dean a win. Y’all are seeing this, yeah? I’m not saying they slept together and were full of feelings, except that’s kind of what I’m saying. But YMMV, there are other possibilities beyond sex. The full of feelings isn’t up for debate, though, even if the whole thing is informed by ridiculous amounts of miscommunication.

III. Seasons 13 through 15 As Established Relationship

Regardless of what happened in season 12, exactly, I can’t shake the feeling that something did happen, and something did change. My reasoning here is actually really simple: in comparison to previous seasons, Dean and Cas’s dynamic shifts significantly come season 13. I know some folks have been disappointed with some of season 13 and then season 14 for having dialed back on the destiel side of things. And, hey, maybe there’s truth to that in terms of backstage stuff, but I also want to point out that...well, the dialing back isn’t quite dialing back is it? Let’s look at 13 a little more closely:

Season 13:

So I said the deancas dynamic changed, right? I also think that change caught us unaware because the pivotal turning point that would cue us in never happened on screen as well as being subsumed by Cas’s death and Jack’s birth. But if I ask you about deancas in season 13 what would come to mind? Grief arc? Brokebacknatural? How domestic Dean and Cas are? There’s just something easy about their relationship after Cas returns from the Empty. The tension we’d grown so familiar with over the years is gone. Actually, it feels like we skipped the getting together bit of their relationship and went straight to established relationship and parenting. Some of the most peak married deancas moments we see circulating? Season 13, (and 12.10). It’s a lot, and it’s different, and it’s amazing.

13.01-13.05

Dean’s grief mini-arc. He was acting like a widower. Here’s me vaguely gesturing towards the mapping of Jonh, Mary, Dean, and Sam onto Dean, Cas, Sam, and Jack. And the reunion? I can’t help but be giddy at the song choice: “it’s never too late to start all over again.” To. Start. All. Over. Again. I’m just saying.

13.06 Tombstone & 13.16 Scoobynatural

I’m not going at length about these episodes, I just want to point out that they reveal that Dean and Cas have a whole thing going on off screen: they watch movies together, Cas knows about Dean being an angry sleeper, Cas seems to have been aware of the Dean-cave before Sam was. It’s little things like this that are examples of the narrative gaps surrounding Dean and Cas that have cropped up over the years. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to wonder what else could be hiding there. And when did the movie nights alluded in “Tombstone” happen? Maybe in season 12 when Cas in hanging around the bunker? The same period when Dean and Cas seem to be coalescing into something safer and more stable? Something that we never see come to a head because plot happens and Cas dies? Something that is immediately taken back up once Cas is alive again?

Season 14:

Overall, this season is more of what we got during 13, but it had two high notes I wanted to single out before ending this already too long post.

14.15 Peace of Mind

Look me in the eye and tell me Dean and Cas talking in the kitchen about Jack doesn’t read like husbands talking about their child. Look me in the eye and tell me Cas just texting Dean to gossip about Sam isn’t couple-y as hell.

14.18-14.20

Ah, yes, the divorce arc. Awful. Terrible. The culmination of Dean’s problem in all this: he lashes out, he pushes Cas away, his anger is alienating. Cue all of us suffering. But while Dean is clearly in the wrong in how the deals with his feelings, let’s not pretend some of his anger doesn’t come from a long established, and unaddressed, rift between him and Cas, which had its last traumatic turn when Cas died in s12. Dean isn’t being rational here: he saw Cas doing something on his own, and he saw that his mother is dead. What else could happen? Why won’t Cas just trust they can work as a team? What if Cas died again? And why should Cas put up with Dean’s behavior without knowing the cause? How can any relationship work this way? But notice how caught in the middle Sam was during all this. Notice how Jack is running off and acting out. The whole family is falling apart. Divorce arc, indeed.

Season 15:

But what about what we’re building up in 15? That seems like it could be a getting together plot, too, right? Well, yeah. It could very well be. But I’d argue the tension we’re seeing isn’t a will-they-or-won’t-they because they already have. We’re are watching a getting back together plot! The tension is, instead, will-they-or -won’t-they use their words to talk about the baggage that has kept them from truly being confident about their relationship. That’s the crucial step in their togetherness that they’re still missing, which is also the bedrock of the divorce arc that spanned twelve fucking episodes -- y’all, that’s half a season.

And technically? We’re not even done with yet because Cas never let Dean finish his prayer/confession in purgatory. What’s more, Cas hasn’t grappled with his role in the breakdown of their relationship, either: that he keeps going off on his own and getting hurt (and getting other people hurt), and Dean has to deal with the fallout. The deep emotional understanding, the truly being on the same page is what we’re on the edge of our seats for. We’re waiting to see what else Dean had to say, and what will happen when Cas’s deal with the Empty comes to light.

Finally, could we still have this plot without Dean and Cas having gotten together off screen? Sure, but I think the stakes are higher if they already did have something between them. If they actually have an established romantic relationship going on. Something real and tangible and as of yet much too fragile.

"...you asked what about all this is real. We are."

#destiel #deancas #supernatural #spn #spn meta #this thing is gargantuan yikes #anyway enjoy? let's chat #my writing #this thing is half meta half my adhd unleashed

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murky-galaxy · 1 year

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And now it's time for the tried and true Eurovision tradition: being mad about the results

#Finland was robbed #so was Austria #eurovision #posts from a murky galaxy

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gffa · 11 months

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Hi! I've got a 12 hour flight in a few days, so by any chance do you have any more star wars fic recs? I love your rec lists, they're so detailed and amazing and always such amazing recs!

Hi! I have been slowly plunking away at doing a recs list and here are some slightly longer fics (and a couple epics thrown in for fun) I've enjoyed that should hopefully round out your reading list! ✦ wayfinding by night by wrennette, obi-wan & luke & cast, time travel, 10.2k Before him stood a fellow Jedi, worn and weary with loss. Obi-Wan finds himself on Ahch-To and helps Luke find a path through his grief. ✦ Birds Fly in Different Directions by Triscribe, jedi & clones, time travel, 14.6k In the corridor beyond her quarters, other Jedi were emerging from their own doors, most of them wide-eyed with shock. A few merely looked blearily concerned, and Aayla heard snatches of questions as she darted past, queries as to whether everyone experienced the same distressing vision. But those who clutched at their chests or throats, their weak points- those Jedi bore a muted horror in their eyes, and Aayla didn’t doubt they’d just suffered their own betrayals from trusted men. ✦ Off-by-one Error by Jessepinwheel, obi-wan & cast, 12.2k A stranger appears in the Jedi Temple. Nobody knows who he is or where he came from. Nobody knows what has happened to him except that it must have been something truly terrible. The stranger’s name is Obi-Wan Kenobi. ✦ Loth-Cats and Loth-Rats by TessaDoesThings, mace & depa & kanan & ezra, 19k All Mace Windu wanted out of the Post-Clone Wars world was a simple trip with his lineage to the long-forgotten Jedi Temples of the Outer Rim. However, on Lothal, the three might have bitten off more than they expected. The Republic may have triumphed, but the roots of what could have become the empire are gripped in the corners of the galaxy, and it might be time for some aggressive space weeding. Or a coup d'etat. That would work too. ✦ Unexpected Awakening (The Rewrite) by Rhiw, obi-wan & bruck & qui-gon & feemor & cast, time travel, 130.2k wip The life of General Kenobi is cut short at the hands of his Padawan, but the sight that greets his eyes upon awakening is not that of blinding light of the Force, but the Jedi Temple he knew when he was still a youth. As he struggles to understand the path laid out before him, Obi-Wan unwittingly captures the attention of a singularly unusual Temple Guard, and that of a reluctant Qui-Gon Jinn. ✦ Supreme Chancellor Obi-Wan Kenobi stonefreeak, obi-wan & anakin & padme & bail & palpatine & various jedi, 115.6k wip By an old Republic law, all members of the Jedi High Council are senators in the Galactic Senate, and can thus be voted in as chancellor. A Senator from a less prominent planet has had enough of Chancellor Palpatine's incompetence and calls for a Vote of No-Confidence and the installation of Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi as Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic. This one action becomes the catalyst that changes the direction of the galaxy. ✦ Reprise by Elfpen, obi-wan & qui-gon & mace & anakin & cast, time travel, 558.8k wip Ben Kenobi dies aboard the Death Star in the year 0 BBY. He wakes up shortly thereafter in the Jedi temple in the year 41 BBY. Haunted by memories and regret, Ben must forge a new path for himself in the Jedi Order of his youth while navigating the murky waters of time travel. Crafting a better future from bitter experience is hard, but learning to heal is even harder. ✦ The Intruder by Hollyoakhill, obi-wan & original clone characters, 82.5k When a vicious attack from a strange, indestructible monster traps them on a derelict star destroyer, a young clone trooper fresh from Kamino join forces with Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi to find a way to escape.

#obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #luke skywalker #fic recs #star wars fic recs

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lightsinthedistancee · 3 years

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Birds : Poe Dameron x Reader

Pairing: Poe Dameron x Reader

Words: 1k

Summary: “When Poe Dameron takes his final breaths, he knows he will see birds.”

A look at those who remained with Poe throughout his entire life.

Warnings: Mentions of violence, sexual implications

A/N: So I haven’t posted any work in a minute…. Writer’s block is horrible; I’m sure we can all agree. Well, I’m back with this. It’s super short, loose in structure, but it’s a start…. Hope you enjoy!

Poe Dameron’s earliest memory is of birds.

Of flight. Of freedom. Of liberation in the sky.

It’s of a flutter of wings, a stream of air, a thousand bullets made of bone, flesh, and feathers erupting from foliage.

Parrots, macaws, hummingbirds...a thousand other nameless Yavinese species—they’re all nestled into his mind, into the cracks and crevices of his brain. Dripping through his amygdala. Tunneling their way into his hippocampus.

Painful. Numbing. So ethereally euphoric.

Eternally present in every day of his years alive.

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

Two Months of Age

Poe’s nursery is white. It overlooks a section of the lake behind the house. One window brightly illuminates the space.

The walls are adorned in artful brush strokes, done meticulously by his mother and father.

A blue barber bird struts along the baseboard. Flocks of lantern birds streak across the ceiling. Golden pheasants rest level with where his tiny body lays in a crib.

The birds watch over him when he falls to rest at night. They observe every morning when he wakes. He finds stability beneath their eyes.

One morning, a crown finch begins to nest on his windowsill.

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

Eight Years of Age

His mother is dead.

The crown finch is not.

The bird has returned every year. It comes around April and meticulously builds its nest, straw by straw, the old one having been blown away with the winter winds.

Eggs are lain, babies are hatched, chicks are fed.

Poe watches them from behind the glass, the mother quite unbothered due to the known barrier. She glances at him, eyes dark, rather inexpressive, yet still full of life. Poe twists his mother’s old wedding ring between his fingers as he watches a chick’s beak part in a plea for food, a plea that is soon granted.

He thinks of how precarious the nest looks, perched on the barely six inch wide ledge of the sill, protected from rain and docile summer winds, but not from the long fall.

The next spring, he has his father drill in a larger platform.

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

Sixteen Years of Age

It’s Poe’s first time flying a fighter ship other than his mother’s old A-Wing.

He’s decided that if he had the opportunity to do nothing else other than zip through the skies in this X-Wing for the rest of his life, he would take it.

The height is freeing. The way his body digs into the back of his chair when he accelerates is exhilarating. The way the controls feel beneath his fingers is a feeling that somehow evokes one of home.

Yavin IV is a sea of green beneath him, only briefly interrupted by murky swamps and blue bodies of water. The world that he’d always longed to escape suddenly seems as large as the galaxy itself, stretching into the horizon, disappearing from his eyes, disintegrating into more and more green.

He deftly slows the ship to a crawling pace, barely more than a sprinter’s speed, and opens the cockpit’s bubble. He looks down, the steep drop making his heart rate grow. The air is thin; he feels at peace.

To his left, a dot of pure white stands out against the blue sky. A Cairoka bird, flying alongside him.

Poe’s head cocks slightly as he watches.

The bird peers at him and flies off.

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

Twenty-Three Years of Age

It’s Poe’s first true battle.

The sky is dark as his heart hammers in his chest. All of it is disorienting: the flurry of ships, the sound of cries over the comms.

Birds black in color darken the skies. They are terrified.

They flee the flying hunks of metal, the deafening sounds of blaster shots, the heat of explosions.

Their noises are more akin to shrieks than cries.

They are the only sounds Poe will dream of for the next year.

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

Thirty Years of Age

There’s a sparrow on your shoulder and a dove on your ribs.

That’s what Poe had discovered as he’d undressed you for the first time, as he’d run kisses along your body.

In the aftermath, as he lays beside you, he thinks it’s fitting.

A dove for his adoration of you.

A sparrow to guide him home.

There’s no denying that that’s what you’ve become to him.

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

Eighty-Five Years of Age

Poe’s old now. His flying days are long over.

His back hurts. His mind is not nearly as sharp. The joints in his fingers that had once so expertly maneuvered the controls of a ship now ache.

But he’s happy.

He’s content with the life he’s lived. He’s content with his marriage to you. He’s content with how he spends his days.

The two of you had found a lake home.

In the morning, cranes gather and silently wade through the water. Poe drinks his caf, taking it the same way he has for seventy years.

The afternoon brings the songbirds. They sing and sing and sing, and he drinks up every drop of it. They build nests on the windowsills of your shared bedroom every spring—all with platforms for the chicks’ safety installed.

The evening brings the hawks. They circle above, and he likes to lie in the grass and watch. He often needs your help to get back up.

But he doesn’t mind the pain that lying down to gaze into the sky brings to his back. He doesn’t mind dangerously climbing a ladder to restore a baby bird to its nest every once in a while.

He doesn’t mind doing any of it even as his strength dwindles with the passing years. He keeps up a routine, but he doesn’t deny the fact that old age is catching up to him.

As he lays in bed that night, your breath fills the air. You still fall asleep against him each night, as you had nearly fifty-five years prior.

The etchings of the birds on your skin have inevitably faded with time despite your meticulous care of them. However, they still remain for him to see each day.

He gently shifts away, tuning on his side to face the nearest window, careful not to wake you.

A single pure white Cairoka bird lands, nearly glowing in the night.

His lips twitch, his breath slows in comfort.

Poe knows that when he takes his final breaths, he will see birds.

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

A/N: I honestly wasn’t really a huge fan of this at first, but it’s def grown on me. I just really adore this sort of “one personal motif (or does this count as a theme?? Idk) traced throughout a character’s life” type thing. I’ve actually been thinking of doing this with some other characters I write for (with something else, not birds obv). Idk, would anyone be interested in that?

Also, I’m also about ten away from 100 followers, so thank you everyone! ❤️

Taglist (for everything): @dark-academics-and-florals @theultimateslashgirl @princessxkenobi @djjarins

Taglist (for Poe): @paper-n-ashes @synical-paradox @spider-starry

If you’d like to be added to my tag list, let me know (along with preferred characters) or do the form on my masterlist!

Thanks for reading!

#poe dameron #poe dameron x reader #poe dameron fanfiction #star wars #star wars fanfiction #tfa #tlj #tros

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swaps55 · 3 years

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This Hole You Left (Anderson)

Pairing: mShenko | Tags: Canonical Character Death, Grief

Post-Alchera.

This is a stand-alone scene from a larger work, but I’m very fond of it, so I’m posting it on its own.

Captain David Anderson stares out at the repair crews moving around the Presidium. Here, from the safe retreat of his office, it doesn’t look so bad. Scaffolding covers the damaged bridge. Debris still floats in the lake, turning the serene blue water a murky brown. The air circulators have almost cycled out the smell of soot and burnt alloy, but a trace of it still lingers. If he leans out far enough, the tip of the relay Shepard had barreled through using nothing but an M-35 Mako just four weeks ago is barely visible on his right periphery.

He doesn’t lean. Just as he doesn’t look at the datapad in his hand. Hearing the words come out of Joker’s mouth was enough. Seeing the helmsman’s face was enough. Anderson had remarked once to Shepard that he’d like to be there the day someone wiped the smartass off Joker’s face.

Shepard had snorted. Not me, sir, he’d said. If he gives up the smartass that probably means I’m fucked. I’d prefer my pilot remain an asshole at all times.

Shepard had been right, of course.

Anderson wipes a thumb across the corner of his eye. It’s all right. No one here to see.

They came back around for another pass, Joker had said, in a voice that was dull, dead, about as far a cry as you could get from the insubordinate ass who’d gone off on the stand in Vancouver just two weeks ago. Shepard had to be to blame for that display. Politics had never been his game.

We lost gravity right as he shoved me in the pod. Momentum from the blast…kicked him the wrong way. I didn’t see what happened after the door closed, but I didn’t need to. Drive core implosion doesn’t leave much to the imagination.

Anderson’s fingers grip the datapad harder. No. It doesn’t. That doesn’t stop his mind from filling in the blanks anyway.

All Shepard’s training. All the hell he’d put himself through to earn that N7 designation. There couldn’t have been a person more prepared to live through the Normandy’s destruction. And in the end, the realities of space had still won.

At least it had probably been quick. Probably.

The door to his office hisses open. For a moment, Anderson expects it to be Shepard. It should be Shepard. That son of a bitch has been putting Anderson’s heart in his throat since he was fourteen years old, but he’s never had the audacity to actually die. Hell, the kid had taken a reaper to the face and shrugged it off.

Kid. Shepard hasn’t been a kid in a long time, maybe never really was to begin with. But to Anderson, some part of Shepard would always be that fourteen-year-old with the thousand-watt grin and a glimmer in his eye that usually meant Anderson’s heart was about to leap into his throat. The smile had faded over time, but not that damned glimmer. He’d last seen it right here on the Citadel, when he’d stood up from the table at Flux Casino with plans to steal the Normandy right out from under the Council’s nose. And Anderson had helped him do it.

This can’t be how it ends. It can’t.

A voice speaks up behind him, crisp, formal. “You wanted to see me, sir.”

His expression tightens, but he smooths it out before he turns around. Lieutenant Alenko stands just inside the door to his office, shoulders straight, hands clasped behind his back, chin in the air. Anderson can’t shake the feeling there’s an empty space next to him.

Probably because he’s never seen Alenko without Shepard.

Kaidan Alenko. Damndest thing.

Who do you want on your marine detail? Anderson had asked, after informing Shepard he was being transferred off the Myeongnyang and onto the Normandy.

You’re asking me?

I’m naming you XO. If there’s someone you want, just say the word.

Alenko.

Anderson hadn’t had a chance to blink before the name was out of Shepard’s mouth. Not another N. Not someone from the special ops teams Shepard had run when Anderson could pry him out of Captain Oseguera’s hands. He wanted the biotic from the ‘Yang.

Hackett was the one who’d argued for assigning Alenko to Shepard’s detail five years ago, when the dust from Torfan had finally settled. Anderson had thought it would be a mistake. Alenko’s file showed he could keep up with Shepard, sure. But Alenko embodied the kind of idealism Shepard would chew up and spit out.

If we’re going to put his mind right to get back on the front lines, he needs an anchor, Hackett had replied, with that calm, ice cold demeanor that has won him nearly every argument he’s ever been involved in. Alenko will do the job.

The old man had been right. Shepard didn’t get close to people, and that was before Torfan. But he’d gotten close to Alenko. Hell, Alenko probably deserves most of the credit for bringing Shepard back from the brink. Because after Torfan, Shepard had indeed been on the brink.

Alenko might be the one on the brink, now. There’s a look in his eye that Anderson recognizes, and it isn’t a good one.

“Sit down.”

Alenko shifts his weight. Not the sitting kind, then. Not today. Anderson’s going to take a wild guess that Alenko hasn’t stopped moving since the Marrakesh picked him up.

He sighs and remains standing, giving the lieutenant silent permission to do the same. “I thought you’d like to know we’re working with the elcor to get a salvage team to Alchera. We’re hoping they find the Normandy’s black box data. Be nice to get some clues on what the hell happened out there.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hm. Brick wall is not Alenko’s usual MO, but that’s sure as hell what he’s talking to right now.

“Joker finished his debrief an hour ago,” Anderson goes on. “I assume you’ve heard his version of what happened.”

More shifting. The uncomfortable kind. Shepard’s done it more than a few times in Anderson’s various offices over the years.

“I haven’t, sir.”

Anderson takes a good, long look at him. He’s spent fifteen years worrying about Shepard. It’s never occurred to him to worry about Alenko.

“I see.” He exhales through his nostrils. “The Normandy was attacked by an unknown vessel. Whoever they were, Joker says they came out of nowhere. Shepard got him into the escape pod, but the ship lost gravity. He…well.”

Alenko stares straight ahead, silent. Anderson looks for a tell, but he only knows Shepard’s.

Alenko isn’t Shepard.

If this conversation is going to be one sided, Anderson needs backup. He moves to his desk, fishes a bottle out of a drawer that’s already half empty after being new just yesterday, and pours two glasses. He pushes one of them across the desk. Doesn’t occur to him until after the fact he has no idea if Alenko drinks scotch. It’s just one of the things Anderson and Shepard always agreed on.

“Have it if you want it,” he says, not up for bullying the lieutenant into a drink. “This is off the record.” He swallows half of his in one go, then heads back for the balcony. A few moments later, Alenko joins him, hands empty, still avoiding his gaze. There’s a chip in the brickwork, though. Not much, but something in his eyes wavers.

Yeah. It might be time to worry about Alenko. Losing two ships in the span of four weeks would do a number on anyone.

Except he doesn’t think it’s about either the Myeongnyang or the Normandy.

Anderson leans on the railing, gazing out at the wreckage of the Presidium. He takes another sip from his glass. “I’m sorry. I know he meant a lot to you.”

It takes Alenko so long to answer Anderson thinks he isn’t going to. But then some of the starch fades from his shoulders.

“He did.”

Anderson side eyes him. Had it been Shepard standing next to him, he might press. He could get Shepard to open up if he was careful enough. Sometimes.

But this isn’t Anderson’s business. And his own grief certainly isn’t Alenko’s business. But while most of the galaxy is preparing to mourn Commander Shepard, the soldier standing next to him might be the only person he knows who’s grieving for Sam. He swirls the remaining liquid in his glass.

“He was the most reckless SOB I’ve ever met,” Anderson says, watching a hanar drift along one of the intact pathways below them. “I’m pretty sure half the shit he pulled over the years was just to piss me off.”

Alenko raises an eyebrow ever so slightly in surprise, but doesn’t turn his head. “He’s always at his best when the plan goes to hell.”

“Since he was a kid,” Anderson agrees, not missing the fact that Alenko had referred to him in the present tense. “First time I ever laid eyes on him he was four. He’d wandered away from Daniel on Arcturus and he called in the cavalry to look for him. You know where I found him?”

Alenko shakes his head.

“In a fountain, playing with a model ship. I asked him what the hell his spaceship was doing in the water. He said, ‘I’m about to find out.’”

Alenko’s mouth curves in a brittle smile. “I didn’t know you knew him that young.”

“I doubt he remembered,” Anderson says. “His father and I were good friends. I dropped in on occasion while he was growing up.”

Before Shepard was a soldier. Before he was the Butcher of Torfan or the Savior of the Citadel. Back when he was still Sam, all knees and elbows, so desperate to please he couldn’t sit still.

Anderson still misses that kid.

“He said you kept an eye on him when they shipped him to Ares Station.”

Anderson huffs. “Told you about that, did he.”

Alenko nods, resting his hands on the balcony railing.

Then Shepard had indeed trusted Alenko. Only a handful of people knew about Ares Station and Guthra Tulak. Shepard had been one of five kids sent to biotically train with the krogan, and the only one to realize any potential.

Leave it to the Alliance to come up with a program even riskier than BAaT. Leave it to Hannah Shepard to volunteer her own kid to be part of it. Anderson always wondered if Sam knew about Hannah’s role in Ares, and how hard Daniel fought to keep it from happening.

To Hannah, Sam was a legacy. To the Alliance, he’d been a tool with astronomical potential. Someone had needed to look out for the actual kid. Daniel had tried, but.

Losing Daniel still stings. What would he have thought about his Spectre son?

Hell, Anderson knows exactly what he’d have thought. He would have feared this day, this ending, with every breath he took. He’d wanted anything else for Sam. Anything but this.

And Anderson had helped him become everything Daniel was afraid of. Hell, what choice did he have? You couldn’t dissuade Sam from anything. Once he was target locked on something there was nothing you could do but get as many obstacles out of his way as possible and hope for the best. So that’s what Anderson had done. Mentored him, advocated for him, taken a few hits behind the scenes on his behalf and cleared the path as best he could. Maybe you couldn’t take the target out of Sam’s sights, but you could guide his aim to make sure he hit it dead to rights.

“He’s come a long way since then,” Anderson says, wincing when he realizes now it’s him who can’t let go of the present tense. “I wish I’d been at the inquest. From the secure feed it looked like he put an entire roomful of admirals on their asses. Would love to have seen it in person.”

Alenko stills, expression frozen in place like a mask. Whatever nerve Anderson just touched is a big one, so he steers the conversation in a new direction.

“Though what I really wish I could have seen is what he found to gripe about being stuck in atmosphere. The entire time he was in Rio for ICT, he never once complained about the work. Wouldn’t shut up about how much he hated humidity.”

The fragile smile returns. “He hated going down a well without a hardsuit.”

“Know what almost kept him from qualifying for N1?”

Alenko shakes his head.

“Bugs,” Anderson tells him. “Not twenty-hour days, not hostile terrain, not crawling around in the mud without food or sleep. It was the bugs that damn near washed him out.”

A laugh escapes the lieutenant. It’s a rusty sound. “That…doesn’t surprise me.”

Anderson smiles at the memory. “He got over it. Made it through, like he always did. Wish I’d told him more how…proud I was.”

“You meant a lot to him,” Alenko says, so quietly Anderson almost doesn’t hear him.

The lump that forms in Anderson’s throat takes him off guard. “He had a way of affecting everyone he ever met. I forget sometimes it could go the other way. He made it so easy to think he was fine on his own.”

“He wasn’t.”

Alenko’s stare remains fixed on the view from the balcony. Not many people saw the side of Shepard that needed anyone. Even Anderson only saw it on occasion. Alenko was so far from the kind of person Shepard would let his guard down in front of, but clearly he had.

If we’re going to put his mind right to get back on the front lines, he needs an anchor, Hackett had said. Alenko had done the job, all right.

Problem was, it looks like that had gone both ways.

Anderson draws in a breath. Might as well get this over with. “I called you here to ask if you would speak at the memorial.”

It’s going to be a spectacle, the likes of which Sam would have hated, but the Alliance sure as hell isn’t going to be denied their PR opportunity.

Alenko shifts his weight. He’s so damn still. Shepard would be pacing the room until Anderson wanted to strangle him.

“Is that an order, sir?”

“A request.”

“Then I respectfully decline.”

Anderson finishes his drink. “Can I ask why?”

Alenko’s grip on the railing tightens. “The Alliance cares about the symbol. I cared about the person. I can’t give them what they want.”

Anderson can’t help but wonder what the lieutenant would have to say. Shepard was so many different things to so many different people. What, exactly, was he to Kaidan Alenko?

Why Alenko? Anderson had asked Shepard back on Arcturus, the Normandy’s hull gleaming and new out the shutters.

Shepard had thought a long time before answering, like there was too much to say and not enough words to say it.

Because he grounds me.

The older Shepard had gotten, the rarer it was to get glimpses of Sam. Sometimes Anderson wondered if Sam still existed, or if he’d been swallowed up by the mantle everyone demanded he carry. But that answer had come from Sam.

“Ok,” Anderson tells Alenko. “I’ll hand it off to Hackett.”

“Why not you?” Alenko asks, looking in his direction for the first time.

Anderson gazes down at his empty glass. Twenty years ago he might have thrown it against the wall just to watch it shatter. Nowadays he thinks too hard about the mess it would make, and being the one who has to clean it up. “Because I cared about the person.”

Heavy silence settles between them.

“You should take some leave,” Anderson says. “You’ve more than earned it.”

“I’m fine,” Alenko replies, but that haunted look is back.

Soon enough you’re going to have to stop moving, son, Anderson thinks. After Torfan, Shepard had hit the same wall Alenko is cruising right towards. But Alenko isn’t Shepard, and he isn’t under his command anymore. All he can do is give him a hand if he asks for it, and from the looks of it he isn’t going to ask.

Not that it would matter. Anderson’s got no anchor to give him that could replace the one he lost.

“Just think about it. And get some sleep.” He gestures towards the door, freeing the lieutenant from further torture. While Alenko makes for the exit, Anderson heads for his desk and the untouched glass. No sense in letting it go to waste.

Alenko pauses at the doorway and looks back over his shoulder. “Rain.”

“I’m sorry?” Anderson asks with a frown.

“You wanted to know what he found to gripe about on Earth. It was the rain.” He looks away without waiting for a response and walks away.

That empty space Anderson thought he’d been imagining when Alenko walked in feels even larger, now. Yeah. Shepard sure knows how to leave a hole in people.

#mshenko #kaidan alenko #mass effect #david anderson #trilogyappreciationweek #me legendary countdown #my fic

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brendanpatrickhennessy · 3 years

Text

Abby Loretto Does It Again is a game that will never exist

The thing about being a games writer is that most of your ideas do not become games. Which is good: the old ideas decompose in your head and become the topsoil that better ideas grow out of. Most of the time you just move on silently. But I was trying to make this game work for so long that I couldn't help but say something about it.

Abby Loretto Does It Again went through so many reworks that I don't even know how to summarize it. It was either a romance game or an "anti-romance" game, depending on the month. At one point the titular Abby was a literal clairvoyant who was tormented by the absolute cosmic certainty that her crush on her straight best friend was doomed to end in tears. Later on she was World's Greatest Teen Surfer, hiding out in her hometown of Wasaga Beach as she tried to run away from a life she had completely fallen out of love with.

What stayed consistent was the setting: a house party by a lake full of goofballs and weirdos. And the weirdest of all was an anonymous girl who had shown up to her first party ever in a homemade owl costume because she didn't realize that all parties weren't also costume parties. "Mystery Owl" filled a bunch of roles as the story got reworked. Sometimes a friend, sometimes a love interest -- she was even a time traveller during one particularly galaxy brain weekend. But the surreal instant relationship between her and Abby was always the backbone of the story.

In Summer 2018 I thought I had the whole thing down. I had an outline, a cast I really liked, and some rough scenes starting to fill in. It was far enough along that I felt confident commissioning a set of full colour illustrations. I was convinced this thing was going to ship in a matter of months.

And then it didn't. At the time I thought I was flailing was because the story was kinda thin and I didn't have a good ending. And like, yeah. All true. But the simpler explanation is that I had a full time job working on an extremely complicated AAA video game, and years of overheating my brain on it were finally catching up to me. I banged my head against it for way too long before I finally had to shelve it.

By Summer 2020, with the worst of my day job behind me, I was able to write for myself again. But by then the decomposition had already started, and a new idea had replaced the old one. Boat Prom brought all the best parts of Abby Loretto Does It Again together in a much simpler and funnier package, one that wasn't weighed down by a bunch of murky gimmicks. And now that the old idea's been stripped for parts, there really isn't much left to do with it. I've been trying to salvage the cast of characters and bring them into something new, but as we head into Summer 2021 I've finally accepted that it's just not gonna happen.

So I'm letting it go. And honestly I probably wouldn't even be posting about it, if not for these amazing art assets that I prematurely commissioned years ago:

Left to right: Abby Loretto (our hero), Mystery Owl (masked and unmasked), Brooke Haven-Amesbury (who interrupts the game to read you her poems), Mackenzie Singh (the spacey bunkmate from Birdland), Julie Roseway (doomed straight crush), Lorenzo (gay "best" friend), Big Dylan (doofus party host), Sonny Lee (Julie's annoyingly perfect hetero crush), and Casey "Surf God" Wyoming (self-explanatory)

These were the last finished character portraits that came out of my years-long collaboration with Izzy Marbella, the artist who brought the cast of Birdland and Known Unknowns to life. She's an incredible talent that I was very fortunate to have worked with, and my biggest regret with this whole thing is that her excellent work here never made it into a real game.

But hey, now at least it's out there in this post. And I'm moving on to my next game, one that with any luck won't become brain mulch.

#abby loretto does it again #boat prom #birdland #twine #interactive fiction #post mortem #pre mortem???#mulch

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lovelyasfcuk · 3 years

Text

Voyager

A Mandalorian Story | Din Djarin x F!Reader

V: Sacrifice

Summary: Din starts to unravel the mysterious shroud you’re hiding under and the legend of the Jedi. In the hope of finding a lead and repairing the Razor Crest for the journey, you make a difficult decision in any possible chance for success.

Word Count: 2,120

Warnings: Mentions of death. Internal struggle. Protective Din.

A/N: Starting to post longer chapters because there is...a lot.

The gentle hum of the atmosphere in the Crest crept into his consciousness, as he started regaining awareness of his extremities, slowly shifting his body about the small cot. He glanced at the monitor next to him, displaying various readings of within the ship. He sighed, realizing he had only slept for not more than four hours.

The truth was, he couldn’t remember the last time he fully rested; definitely not while the child had come into his life. It also didn’t help there was a stranger onboard. He listened harder, trying zero in on any foreign sound outside of his quarters, but the only sound that he found was the gentle coos of the foundling, deep in sleep.

The vastness of space was insurmountable. How could any thing exist at all? It had been so long since you had seen the stars so clear. You sat in the pilot seat, legs pulled up into your chest and arms wrapped around them, gazing at the delicate swirl of colors against the harsh black. You had heard the clanking of his boots long before he had quietly cleared his throat in an attempt to make his presence known.

“Couldn’t sleep?” You quietly asked.

“Had to make sure we were still on course.” He replied.

Realizing your potential faux pas, you dropped her feet to the ground and standing to leave the cockpit. Din watched you gather your cloak, pulling it up to your lips and clutching your text in hand.

“You said this might hold the next clue?” He asked pointedly.

You stilled at his question, watching him sit in the co-pilot’s chair. Slowly sitting back down yourself, you tried your best to read the air. “I believe so. I believe there is someone in Black Spire that may be able to help me with…”

Hesitating, you glanced up at Din, who made no effort to interrupt your thought.

“How do you know of the Jedi?” You asked him.

“One of my creed told me about them. Some kind of…sorcerers…who can move objects with their mind. Enemies to Mandalore.”

You chuckled quietly at his assessment and peered down at the text in your hand, gently swiping your thumb over its cover. “Long ago, the Jedi were peacekeepers in the galaxy, but they were deceived. Manipulated like puppets by the Republic. By the time it became clear, it was already too late. They had their faults, to be sure, but I believe they were just misunderstood by everyone on the outside.”

“You sound confident.”

You paused for only a moment, before opening the text to a page. Holding it up to Din, you pointed to the geometric drawing. “That…is the next clue – a Holocron. Said to hold vital information used by the Jedi. If I can find one, it may be able to tell us the location of any that remain. If any survived.”

“Survived?” Din gently prodded, his voice soft and thoughtful.

“Yes. They were all but executed and the few that remained abandoned their lives, going into hiding to protect themselves from the Empire. After that, it’s almost as if the utterance of the word “Jedi” put you in immediate danger. They became a legend. A myth.”

The air around you both seemed to grow heavy, as your voice became merely a whisper. You closed the text, laying it on your lap, becoming self conscious of the weight of the conversation.

You smiled bashfully and glanced up at Din. “…But you cannot kill the force. I believe your little one possesses the talents that would make a very strong Jedi. I have never seen anything like him.”

“Like you.” Din responded.

“No.” You chuckled, “No, I am of no importance.”

“You have the same power that he does. If the Jedi is where he belongs, then you must too. Is that why you have these texts?” Din asked, but received no answer. “Where is it that your people are from?”

“I hardly know anymore.” You responded, looking down at the text in her lap. “I am without a people”.

———

The Razor Crest touched down, landing within a dark hanger. The grinding groans of its mechanisms giving away the tell-tell signs of much needed repairs.

A young man approached the ship’s ramp, pulling his googles on his forehead and grease-stained gloves from his hands, watching as you made your way down alone. A smile broke across your face as you eagerly took his hand in yours.

“Just where have you been, cuyan?” He asks you, his wide smile matching yours.

“It’s been sometime, hasn’t it?”

“…and still getting into trouble, no less.” His smile leaving his face, as his focus was stolen by the beskar clad Mandalorian making his way down the ramp. His eyes met yours again, filled with questions.

“This is my friend Coltan. He’s the best mechanic I’ve ever come across, and he’s going to get the Razor Crest repaired so we can be off planet quickly.” You spoke to Din, but kept your eyes on Coltan’s, his own gaze still fixed on yours intently.

“The faster, the better. And discretion…” The modulated voice directed.

“Let me just grab everything I need. If you wouldn’t mind just walking me through the problems? I’ll meet you inside.” Coltan interrupted Din, quickly turning and jogging off to retrieve his tools.

You turned to the man at your side, stepping closer and lowering your voice, though the hanger was empty except for the humming of the buildings generators. “You can trust him. I’ve known him for many years and he’s never once let me down. In the meantime, I’ll head out and see what I can find.”

You looked down at the child in the knapsack slung around Din’s chest, finding him peeking out from behind Din’s arm. You reached down, rubbing the pad of your thumb against his cheek. “I will be back.” You promised, your eyes meeting the wide stare of the child and returning to Din’s visor.

“And if things go wrong?” He challenged.

“It won’t. There won’t be a Mandalorian with me to give me away.” You smiled. “And with Coltan working on the Crest, I’ll have to be quick.”

His helmet lingered in your direction after you spoke, left you wondering what expression shone through his eyes. He nodded once and made his way back into the Crest.

“What are you doing?” Coltan’s voice appeared from behind you, making you jump slightly while you watched Din disappear into the ship. You turned to him, meeting his inquisitive expression.

“I don’t know anymore.” You sighed.

“No. You don’t. Have you learned nothing? Do you know anything about him? Where he comes from? Who he belongs to? What if he is one of them?” Coltan lectured, his voice in hushed frustration.

“No, I don’t know any of it. But I do know is this - nothing will ever change unless someone takes a stand.”

“And you’re the one that’s going to change all of that?” He asked skeptically.

You paused, your gaze falling to the ground. “When will it ever be enough? I’m…so tired, Colt.”

He reached a finger under your chin, lifting your gaze. “But are you ready for what this might bring?”

His words stung and you winced as your mind conjured up every possibility laden in his meaning. Before you could dwell on any one possibility, you began to feel a light bloom in your chest, melting any frayed edges of your doubt.

“I believe he is different.” Confidence ringing in your tone. “I feel it.” You spoke quietly, bringing your hand to your chest, fingers splayed over your heart.

A slight smile played on Coltan’s lips, but failed to touch his eyes. He sighed and nodded, slinging a thick leather band of tools around his shoulder. You returned a single nod and patted his arm before heading out of the hanger into the dimming light of the afternoon.

———

The settlement was calm as the sun began to fall on the dark spires that pierced the orange and red sky, casting a fiery hue against the cylindrical structure in front of you. You took a deep breath and entered the doorway.

Dim lights filled the space below the vaulted ceiling. Various artifacts hanging from the long walls, filled every open space. Mounted heads of trophied kills, murky green water filled glass canisters of ancient creatures - the room was a menagerie of the disgraced and forgotten.

You looked around in awe, recognizing some and curiosity drawing with others. From behind the ornate metal counter within the room, an Ithorian appeared speaking his native tongue.

“I’m…sorry. I do not understand.” You smiled apologetically, approaching him.

The Ithorian continued to speak, deep gurgled sounds filling the room, and waving you closer to him. He waved his hand over the counter, encasing artifacts of higher value, and to the wall behind him. You reached into your knapsack, retrieved your text and laid it upon the counter.

“I’m looking for one of these.” You said, pointing to the holocron.

His eyes widened and blinked, as he made a deep grumbling sound from his chest. He disappeared behind the counter, gurgling and rustling items as we went. You reflexively looked over your shoulder but was immediately distracted when you heard the clank of an object set down in front of you. A holocron.

You reached out hesitantly, but was stopped by the Ithorian’s hand, his palm facing upwards. Reviewing your pockets in your mind, trying to conjure up any amount of credits to offer for the relic. Your face fell knowing there was no financial value to your name, until a thought flashed across your mind.

Taking a deep breath, you reached into your jacket and pulled out a delicate silver chain that hung against your chest. Slowly, you unclasped it from you neck.

You draped the chain around your fingers, holding it up for the Ithorian to survey - a long silver, diamond shaped pendant. Pointed at the top and bottom, its flat sides embraced a turquoise stone at its center.

It swayed heavily in the air between you. He squinted his eyes and, after a moment of consideration, nodded. You took the pendant in your hands and brushed your fingers against the stone.

You felt tears well in your eyes, quickly sniffing and straightening your shoulders, attempting composure. You brought the pendant to your lips, quickly kissing it and placed it in the the Ithorian’s palm.

———

“Everything should be running smoothly now. Quick fix.” Coltan called out, making his way off the loading ramp of the Crest, tools in hand. You had just returned to the hanger, meeting him at his work station.

“Too quick, I’d say.” You responded as lightly as you could.

“And that kid is…wait…how could you ever doubt me?” He feigned shock at your assessment, before turning to see your expression. He recognized it immediately. “What happened?”

You shook your head, your eyebrows furrowed in concentration and trying for the best smile you could. “Nothing. Just…focused.”

Coltan grunted in disapproval. “You may be able to lie to him, but you won’t ever be able to fool me.”

You smiled at your old friend but found no other words to offer in your defense.

“You were right, you know - he’s not like them. But that doesn’t mean…just…be careful, please?” He quietly pleaded.

“I will. I have to help him. That child…he’s too precious.”

“Yeah, there’s been a lot of talk about a bounty hunter in town, but I had no idea it was that one. You sure know how to avoid trouble.”

“I’m starting to think that maybe I’m just destined for it.” You chuckled darkly. “How could I ever repay you?”

A smug look flashed across his face, “Well, he already did. Truthfully, I’m just honored that I got to see you again.”

You held steady your trembling lip as your eyes glossed over with fresh tears, threatening to pool. You tightly wrapped your arms around him, hiding your face to quickly clear the emotion that dared to break your visage.

“If you ever need me, I’m never far away.” He said, holding you at arms length, his hand framing the side of your face.

You nodded, composed again.

“Be strong, ner kote.” He said softly, before taking your hand in his, bowing his head, and placing a kiss upon it.

.........

Taglist: @babybelou @pascalsky @ayamenimthiriel

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weirdmarioenemies · 4 years

Photo

Name: Slimy Spring Galaxy

Debut: Super Mario Galaxy 2

Well! You guys asked for it! By popular demand, it’s yet another Weird Mario Location. Weird Mario Worlds? Places? Habitats? I’m not sure what we’re calling this yet! Either way, there’s surely no end to locations in the greater Mario universe that could be described as “weird”- when the world is comprised mostly of floating gameplay elements, what is there to marvel at? But when you think about places like Wet Dry World, you mean places with a certain... aura.

I think Slimy Spring has an aura.

Am I crazy? Surely someone will back me up on this. If you haven’t played the game, you might be wondering what I’m on about. Isn’t this just a run-of-the-mill underwater cave level? And it is! But it’s so much more! I mean, it’s the only level in the game that is locked behind a Hungry Luma stage! Its Japanese name is “Bottom-of-the-Earth Cave”!

youtube

Well, it’s in no small part thanks to the music! This song is just... well, it’s not a strictly NEGATIVE emotional aura. It’s serene? Transcendent, maybe? It makes me feel things.

When you first hear this song, and the game flies you through an underground cavern before landing you in this tranquil little ruins area, it seems... a bit off. There’s cartoon bats, there’s a question block- this is certainly a Mario level, but one that is Not Quite Right!

As the game leads you down a waterfall and into the deep-sea caverns, two things become apparent- the first is that this level is awfully linear- it’s very much a straight tunnel to the end! And the second is how... claustrophobic everything feels! These caves are shut off from all sides, with pillars all about and small passages to squeeze through. What’s more, your air is limited, and there’s nowhere to replenish it!

And as the lack of air becomes ever more suffocating, so does the stage, forcing you through a frighteningly narrow passage -with rolling urchins- that flows directly into outer space, and into a Launch Star! Hooray!

This next section has Boos! Ghosts! Underwater! That’s not right. I don’t think it’s okay for the ocean to be haunted. And the level simply gets deeper and darker! How far does it go? What secrets does it hide? An incredible treasure, perhaps? A monster?

Yet as you emerge from the dreary waters, you find... peace. Quiet. There is no music in this area- only the distant flowing of water and the singing of birds. After such a gloomy level, it seems odd by contrast. To me at least, it makes me think: much like how such a beautiful oasis can exist at the end of a grim, murky tunnel, maybe a glimmer of hope can always exist beyond the deep suffocating depths of despair...

And then you throw a turtle shell at the treasure chest, and Captain Toad pops out. What a card! Falling into treasure chests, who even does that? He cracks me up! Well, it might seem like a rather anticlimactic ending, but Slimy Spring Galaxy was about the journey- not the destination!

I couldn’t tell you why, but this stage has always stuck with me. I’ve tried to put that into words the best I could in this post, but maybe you think I’m nuts after all! Maybe it’s just the natural result of experiencing a game when you’re 9 years old. Or maybe other people get the same feeling I do? Please let us know- I really am genuinely interested!

You may have noticed this Galaxy has a lot of Snoodles! I mean, they’re even in the World Map icon! We’ve already done a post on them, but this is just a reminder that they’re very fantastic, and their name is very fun to say.

Heheh. Snoodles.

#mario #mario worlds #super mario galaxy 2 #slimy spring galaxy #snoodle #mod f boy

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goldeneyedgirl · 3 years

Text

charity fic: all in the stars

So, some of you might be aware of the Move to Higher Group fan-zine that was being put together. It is an awesome project and I cannot wait to see the final product.

I��ve decided to release my fic independently, with the same goal of raising money for the Quileute Tribe’s Move to Higher Ground Project. There is an amazing post right here by lemonadebottlecap that covers the history of the tribe and the misconceptions that Twilight spread - I’ve also reblogged that right below here.

So I will cheerfully suggest and implore you to donate to the Move to Higher Ground Project - even just $1 would be amazing.

I’m not asking for anything for the fic, but in the spirit of the zine and the fandom renaissance, please consider it. <3

Onwards to the fic

all in the stars.

Mary-Alice doesn’t speak much. She hasn’t for a long time. Mostly, she rocks and murmurs and stares. Sometimes she cries or shrieks, but that happens less and less since the doctors started her on the shock treatments. She shivers and stares and mutters, and the staff leave her well enough alone. Mostly.

(Matron hopes she dies this winter, she heard her say it to the nurse; she’s a fragile thing, all bird bones and sharp edges from her body eating away at itself. Her lungs rattle and her chest aches and her head always hurts and she knows that, one way or another, death is coming. It won’t take much to send her on her way.)

The nights are bitterly cold, and she shivers as she stares out the tiny barred window at the stars. No one knows what she’s looking for, or looking at; she’s been having treatments so long, and lived in the dim gloom of her cell for so many years, that her eyesight is greatly degraded - if she were free, she would be considered legally and irreversibly blind. But she stares, right at the stars, as if she’s searching for something.

(Her sight in the real world is nearly gone - she sees shapes and the shift of shadows, but everything is quite smeared, like looking through deep, murky water. But her other sight, of things that are to be and things that could be, that is still as sharp as ever, even if it doesn’t always make perfect sense.)

When she eats, she struggles to focus on her tray, to judge space and distance. Some of the orderlies laugh at her fumbling (hands shaking, eyes squinting, tiny body hunched over her singular meal of the day) and she is left to try and feed herself, barely managing to consume half before she has spilt it everywhere, or she gives up out of frustration and exhaustion, out of disgust of the taste of turning milk, of cooling animal fat and rancid vegetables. When she is taken to her treatments, and sessions with the doctors, she tries to guide herself with one thin hand on the wall. Mostly, she’s manhandled - dragged into the rooms with the report she was being ‘difficult’ and the unspoken promise of punishment, or ferried about in an ancient wheelchair.

(She used to count her bruises like the constellations in the sky, blooming black and blue, purple and green. Her very own Aurora Borealis. Back then, they were just needle sticks. Then they stretched out, wrapping painfully around her torso, her thighs. They swelled with blood and kept her from sleep. They made her easy to manipulate, fingers roughly pressing down on a raw spot to make her bend to their will. Now the bruises don’t fade, they linger - overlapping and constant, and it’s too hard to see them to bother counting them. She cannot tell the difference between a shadow and a bruise now, anyhow - her cell is dark, her eyes are dying, and there is always pain, no matter where she touches on her skin.)

Elias arrived (arrives? Sometimes the passage of time is hard to track) sometime ago. He was… he simply was, in the beginning. Another set of hands moving her around, sticking her with the needles, frowning and judging and damning her. And then one day, for no reason at all, he brought her an extra blanket and wrapped her up tight against the cold. He brought her cold tea, over-steeped and bitter on her tongue, but insisted she drink it. He looked at her with eyes that had seen too much, had tried and failed and run right through every ounce of hope and benevolence he could manage, so he had given up. Until now (then?).

(She knows she would have died that night, from the cold of the night and the shock of the ice bath, for want of a blanket and something to drink. Except he swept in, with his red eyes and the clean blanket and bad tea and held her hand in his, his gloves warming her skin. He stayed, she lived, and the future went spinning off into a kaleidoscope of possibility, lighting up her mind. She’s already lost her words by then, but she wants to tell him, however this all falls together, she forgives him and thanks him for his kindness. That she knows what he is, what he has done, and it is not her place to pass judgement on anyone, man or immortal.

That any kind of light in the dark is a beautiful thing, no matter how long it is lit.)

—

To say she dies when Elias bites her, when he presses venom into her wrists and throat and prays to a god he hasn’t believed in for many years, is a fallacy. It is a polite lie, a bedtime story for children. It is fiction designed to absolve the villains of the piece - doctors in clean, white coats; nurses with shark-smiles and vindictive natures.

(She has died a little every single day since her parents sent her to the asylum. That is true, if quite dramatic.)

What killed her, truly? It might have been the distracted nurse, overzealous in her dosage; it could have been the blow to the head when she fell against the desk in the doctor’s room, shoved by an irritated orderly in charge of shepherding her around. It might have been the addition of an imprecise voltage or two from a dismissive doctor. It might have been all those things bleeding together. But by the time Elias bites her, changes her, there is very little of Mary-Alice Brandon left - just a failing body struggling so hard to make it to the next hour, minute, second. Her heart thumps slowly, her lungs rattle with oxygen, her eyes glassy and unseeing. She does not know what is coming for her, and how Elias intends to protect her.

(If she could speak, she would talk of the change like being in the middle of space, of watching the rush of stars and galaxies, of colours and combustion and the swoop of the unknown, great and terrible. It was like being a tiny spot of dust in an expansive, ornate concert hall - terribly insignificant and in the presence of true greatness. But she is far enough gone that she doesn’t even know of the Hunter that stalks her, doesn’t know that when she wakes, she will be a brand new girl, an entirely new person who will be able to speak and think and run and see.)

It happens exactly how it is supposed to. Elias is old enough to know the tricks, to leave a false trail miles long that sacrifices more than one innocent, maybe a mad little inmate or two, as he carries Mary-Alice to sanctuary. She is an easy burden, still and silent, and Elias continues his futile pleas to god that this will work, and she will be born anew, and he won’t have immortalised her misery and suffering. In his long life, he has never seen an impaired vampire, one that has carried their damage and their disease over into eternity, and he hopes Mary-Alice will not be the first.

(Her galaxies surround her, in black and navy blue, violet and emerald. Rich gold, too bright to look directly at, streaks across the endless space. The stars wink at her, and some of them blink out - futures that are not hers to have, she decides. The light of the remaining stars is warm on her face and limbs, fills her chest to bursting, and she wants to cradle them in her arms, hold them tight forever.)

—

They nearly make it, you know. One day, two days, the third day dawns with no sign of the Hunter; not a scent on the breeze or the still of the woods. Just little Mary-Alice’s thin little breaths and faltering heartbeat, curled into a ball of blankets in the grass. Elias’ hand strokes her hair, and he remembers another sickly girl, brittle and dying. Long gone, in a forgotten grave in a corner of the woods an ocean away. It makes him feel ashamed, like he only helped Mary-Alice to fit her into the place left by another; that he is not so good to help her simply because of her suffering. But in truth, why else pick her, of all of the poor souls in that ward?

(Her old self is almost gone, as the stars slowly decline and the colours begin to fade. She cannot excuse his motivations when she does not know him or remember him. Or remind him why he was precious and good and kind to her. In her memory, his star has blinked out and gone, another lamp extinguished.)

She whimpers then, and it is their undoing - he is startled by her sudden noise; hope and concern knotting in his chest as he leans over her. It is also enough for a lurking Hunter, downwind to surprise his target. He is angry, a rippling red rage, at being tricked and turned around - at his precious quarry being snatched from under his nose and the stench of Elias’ venom taking hold of her blood. The Hunter is no loser; he is his own champion, one that takes sick delight in broken, bloodless girls whose throats are raw from screaming, and whose bones never fit back together right. One that has lost the battle but will win the war, and salt the earth just to spite Elias.

(In her last seconds, Mary-Alice sees. She sees Elias and the Hunter locked in battle; she sees Elias’ destruction and then she sees the Hunter come for her, still lost to the change. She sees what he does to her, how he mutilates and breaks her to punish her saviour, who is already ash in the air. And as quickly as the images press around her, they are gone, like confetti in the air.)

Elias is angry, angrier than he has been in a long time as the Hunter is upon them, and he drags the Hunter away from his charge’s prone body.

(Just a little longer. A little more time…)

—

She has a choice to make now; one she won’t remember. There are only a handful of her stars left, and she needs to pick one.

(She sees herself rise, red-eyed and confused but determined. It’s an easy trail to follow, watching the Hunter feed broken limbs into his fire with a smirk on his face and delicious plans for the girl in the glade. He’s taken the other man’s coat, and that strikes rage into her heart. He doesn’t have time to turn around before she has his head off and into the fire. She crouches in front of the fire, and watches carefully as it burns lower. It’s only when she’s left with ash and smoke that she rises, feeling heavier and sadder than she thinks she should be able to feel and slips off back into the forest, to a future yet to be decided.)

No, she doesn’t want to be sad anymore. She was sad before, she’s tired of sad.

(She runs south. She runs through the forest, faster and faster, to escape the one that is coming for her. When she stops running, she hides. She’s frightened, fearful, like a hunted rabbit. Her heart is quiet, but it still feels like it wants to burst from her chest in fear and she is completely and utterly lost, in all the ways that someone can be and she doesn’t know what to do.)

She doesn’t want to be afraid either.

(Golden eyes. A warm smile, one that makes her feel like her chest is full of starlight again. A scar on his neck that her fingers worry over, as if she can protect him from the pain. A kiss on her nose, her cheek, the corner of her mouth before his lips graze her ear.

“I love you, Alice. Irreversibly and forever,” he murmurs and, and…)

That one. That’s her. She’s Alice; she gets to be Alice, chooses to be Alice - Alice who is happy and loved and safe and precious. Alice, who loves him more than anything in existence. She could burst with how much she loves him. She could have a million choices, a million stars, and that will always be the one she chooses and holds tight.

(“Forever.”)

—

And she opens her eyes, clear and bright and ruby-red. She spies the moss and the ferns, her discarded blankets, the bugs in the dirt. She sees feeble light of dusk pushing through the trees. She smells water and dirt and trees and … smoke.

(“Alice.”)

Getting to her feet, her throat burning and her mind too full of everything that is new and unknown around her, and the ominous promise of the smoke hovering in the air, she holds the image of the man with the golden eyes in her mind and she begins to run.

(“I love you.”)

She runs North with nothing but hope and a name, spoken by the one who loves - or will love (she forgets that time moves differently when you can’t see what’s coming) - her best. She runs away from disaster, from pain and fear and sadness, and everything she came from, a brand new girl on her way to a brand new life.

(“Irreversibly and forever.”)

—

#twilight fic #alice cullen #jalice #my fic #my fic: all in the stars #mary alice brandon #twilight renaissance #mthg #mthg zine #twilight zine #twilight fans #charity #charity fic

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botanyshitposts · 5 years

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A little while ago you made a remark about ferns along the lines of "God really left you unfinished huh?". Can you please elaborate on that?

yes and i have to admit that was specifically a vague post at one single particular fern, Vittaria appalachiana:

‘wow, that really doesnt look like a fern’ you might say. ‘that looks like a moss. that looks like the beard stubble of seedless plants’. but no. this is a patch of this species of fern. it is the only one of it’s extremely specific life style type known to man.

i would like to take you all on a journey. imagine, for a moment, an alternate universe where a human dude loses his dick in a cave (stay with me here) and instead of dying, the dick forms its own goddamn civilization (i PROMISE this will make sense shortly). like it just learns to reproduce asexually into more identical dicks. technically this is a population of humans, just one that throws us for a loop because generally, thats definitely not how humans go on in life, but like technically it’s a population of humans. this is a very, very rough analogy for what this plant is.

allow me to explain how the hell this happened. those who have studied plants might remember the infamous botanical concept of the ‘alternation of generations’, which is known for like, fucking everyone up in every introductory bio class ever because although it’s nearly ubiquitous in plants, us animals dont have to worry about it, and it’s so alien it’s hard to learn. basically, the alternation of generations describes how plants reproduce in a cycle of two major stages: the sporophyte stage, which is a structure that produces spores, and the gametophyte stage, a structure that produces gametes.

for example, we know the sporophyte stage of flowering plants as the actual flowering plant, and the gametophyte stage as very specifically pollen and the ovules (inside the flower ovaries). pollen in and of itself isn’t the equivalent of sperm in human bodies; it’s the equivalent of a penis, which then lands on a stamen and grows into a microscopic structure that THEN produces the actual sperm for fertilization. the anthers of a plant do not produce sperm; they produce things that grow into penises that then produce sperm, which then fertilize the egg cells (produced by the ovules inside the flower ovaries) that grow into a new sporophyte in the form of a seed and it’s subsequent mature plant. yes this is wild and again, its notoriously one of the hardest things to learn and teach in biology, but stay with me here.

in ferns and nonflowering plants, this cycle is a bit more evident; ferns produce spores, which then land and germinate into the fern gametophytes, which look like this and can be seen with the naked eye:

these then grow male and female reproductive parts that produce the plant equivalent of sperm and eggs. like human sperm, fern sperm are flagellated. unlike human sperm, fern sperm are able to sense pheromones from other gametophytes nearby and literally swim through water out in the open to have sexy times in the mud, which i thought i would mention because it terrifies me. this sperm then fertilizes the egg in another gametophyte, and the new fern literally bursts chest buster style out of the gametophyte into a new baby fern. the entire life cycle looks like this:

which brings us back to Vittaria appalachiana, the only currently known fern that does not have a sporophyte stage.

things about this:

1. there is no fern on this fern. this fern has evolved past the mortal fern form. it has ascended. it has deleted like, 95% of the chart above in favor of only the mature gametophyte on the upper right

2. this fern reproduces exclusively by budding. like. asexually. like, i mentioned earlier in this post that the gametophytes produce sperm and ovules and have sex, but nah. not for these lads. they gave that up long ago. now each individual just makes tiny organs that fall off and grow into identical fern gametophytes, and like technically this should be like…..really bad? like theres a reason for sexual intercourse, and that’s because it lets genes get recombined into more resilient offspring so you dont end up with inbreeding and all that awful stuff, as well as allowing for evolution and diversity within a population and all that. but somehow, this species has circumvented this with the absolutely galaxy brain take that you cant have problems with inbreeding if you dont breed. like, sure, it theoretically slows evolution down to a goddamn crawl and makes it incredibly vulnerable to disease, but like. sure. its made it this long, somehow

3. these ferns live in caves. in the grand scheme of things this isn’t a big deal, because like, plenty of fern species love caves for several primary niche ecological reasons that i wont go into here, but one of the reasons V. appalachiana is the only known fern to only live like this is because the gametophyte stage in ferns isn’t made to last, it’s made to have sex and die. there’s little to no protection from the sun on a gametophyte. it’s prone to drying out. it’s less resilient to temperature extremes than a fully grown plant would be. there are so many reasons why, in theory, to us mere mortals, evolving to live eternally in the (arguably) most vulnerable stage of one’s life cycle in a cave where temperatures regularly get low, in a region where winter is a thing, would like, a terrible idea.

but….Vittaria appalachiana is an absolute chad.

somehow these little madmen have done it. they live in peak form in appalachian cave entrances just to flex. we aren’t even sure how they really happened, either, like the details about how they evolved into such chads remain murky. so like i say that god left them unfinished, and personally i still refer to them like that in my head when i think of them, but i suppose the real question is if god really left these lads unfinished or are these lads are the only finished thing on this earth. like this could very well be the best shit evolution has ever come up with. like maybe humans really missed a solid chance with this strategy

#sorry for like....talking about dicks and stuff so much in this post but its like my lichen professor always says #'biology is just sex and death'#long post #ferns #plont asks #asks #Anonymous

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