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luminouspoes · 3 years

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pick a place to rest your head

summary: when poe returns from a mission, he discovers something happened while he was away, and tries to cheer you up

content: implied/referenced ableism, shutdown, references to panic attacks (not shown), autistic!reader, no pronouns used iirc, swearing

read on ao3

It’s well past sundown when Poe finally finds you. He’d returned that afternoon from a pretty successful mission with Black Squadron and was surprised your face wasn’t among the crowd that greeted them: you were usually the first at Black One, pushing through the ground crews apologetically to hurl yourself into his arms for one of his traditional spinny hugs.

After the debriefing with Leia, he’d searched through the base for you, investigating all your favorite haunts. You were a creature of habit, which he loved, and often stuck to yourself aside from a handful of close friends - himself, Rose Tico, Kaydel, and the rest of Black Squadron namely - you hung with.

It wasn’t that you were shy, because you definitely weren’t that (you were fierce, a little smug, and as much a smartass as he was), it was that you were selective towards letting your guard down around people, letting people see you as more than just a quiet, obedient medic and part-time comms officer.

He’d asked you once why you did that, and you’d shrugged and refused to meet his eye as you answered, “Most people don’t understand me.”

It took a while for your meaning to dawn on him, the pieces coming to him slowly: how you’d cut yourself off mid-infodump if someone you weren’t familiar with approached you and the squadron, how he’d notice your hands twitching at your sides when something happened on a mission that made you happy (things that would have otherwise made you flap your hands in delight if you’d been in private), the way the sparkle in your eyes would automatically fade as your pulled your expression into a neutral expression around superiors.

Poe wasn’t sure who made you think you had to hide the spark that made you such a wonderful friend and a delight to be around, but he was certain he’d like a word with them because his heart broke a little more every time he watched you shrink in on yourself and dull your colors to fit into the boxes you thought were expected of you.

Unfortunately, the fact that you kept to yourself meant that everyone he’d asked had no idea where you’d been. You were good at avoiding detection like that - a little too good in Poe’s opinion, you’ve startled him more than once by being too kriffin’ quiet coming up behind him - but he finally finds you in an unused hanger.

You’re leaned up against a set of crates, legs drawn up to your chest, eyes closed with a pair of headphones on as you rock slightly to and fro - not to the beat, but to the energy thrumming inside you, overspilling into the action that Poe can’t help but be endeared by (he does it himself all the time, too, understands what it’s like for that energy to overflow).

He crouches down in front of you and taps your knee cap. Your eyes fly open with a start, your headphones falling askew as you jump. Poe winces, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“No, no, it’s okay - wait,” your eyes go wide and you check the chronometer on your wrist, then back up at him, apologetic. “Shit, I lost track of time, I was gonna meet you on the tarmac -” you make a frustrated noise, halfway between a grunt and a whine, and press the heels of your palms against your eyes, which Poe notes for the first time are shining.

His heart sinks. You’ve been crying.

“Hey, it’s okay, I don’t mind,” still crouched, he shuffles around until he plops down beside you. He extends his arm in invitation and you immediately take it, leaning into him and pressing your face into the fabric of his flight suit.

He curls his arm around your back, squeezing your arm lightly. You’d explained once, sheepishly, that his hugs specifically seemed to help best when you were feeling overwhelmed, and it seemed like something definitely overwhelmed you while he was away. “Meltdown or shutdown?” he asks, lips pressed against the crown of your head. After a beat, he also adds, “Panic attack?”

It takes a long pause for you to respond, and he automatically catalogs this: you were having trouble getting the words out, as well. “Shutdown,” you finally answer, and your voice sounds rough even muffled against the fabric.

He rubs soothing circles against your back. “Are you doing better?”

You nod once, and Poe feels some of his worry ebb away. “You feel like talking about it?”

There’s a drawn-out silence, and he starts to open his mouth to assure you that you don’t have to if you don’t have the energy, but you straighten abruptly. You don’t back out of his grasp though, instead as you righten yourself, you scoot closer to him so your legs are pressed together. “Bad shift.”

“Did a mission go wrong?” Poe asks, tipping his head toward you, brow creased. A few loose strands of curls fall against his forehead.

You shake your head, “Went successfully. New comms officer…” you trail off, eyes falling down to your hands, which you’ve begun wringing together in your lap. “Saw me rocking, said things.”

Poe’s mouth disappears into a thin line, his hand curling into a fist at his side. “What things?”

You shrug slightly, “Teased me.”

“For rocking?” Poe says, voice low. He looks away from you, towards the empty expanse of the hanger, anger blooming in his chest. “Who was it?”

“Does it matter? It’s not gonna change anything. People don’t...they don’t understand me, don’t like the way I do things.” You shrug again, but Poe can hear the emotion thick in your voice, registers the history behind the words, and that just makes him angrier , because the universe shouldn’t do anything but marvel at your light, at the way you view the galaxy.

“Of course it matters, you shouldn’t have to -” he exhales sharply, closing his eyes as he tries to pull the words together. Instead of anything profound, he lands on an eloquent, “Fuck them.”

You blink in surprise at him, and he hurriedly continues, “You’re incredible, alright? Anyone who doesn’t see that or wants to snuff out the spark that makes you you is a jerk, and no better than the guys we’re fighting.”

“Poe -”

“The fact that people don’t understand you says a hell of a lot more about them than it does you, because all they gotta do is stop and listen. They’d see how amazing you are, just like the way me and the others do.”

“You and the others are like me, ” you murmur, but there’s a faint smile playing at your lips and he knows you’re taking his words to heart. “Of course you think that.”

“Even if I wasn’t, I’d still think you’re incredible.”

You chew on your bottom lip, “Really?”

“Really,” Poe assures you, pulling you in for another hug. He presses another kiss to your head, and you snake an arm around his torso. “But I am serious, who was this new officer?”

You twist your head, resting your chin just over his heart to look up at him, “Poe what are you going to do if I tell you?”

“I’m going to take it to the General. Hey, listen...the Resistance stands against all forms of injustice, alright? That includes ableism and we’ve got a lot of neurodivergent and disabled people on this base. We don’t need someone wandering around, making our best feel like shit because they’re an asshole.”

You squint suspiciously at him for a half-second, “Nothing else? You’re not going to try and give them a piece of your mind?”

“Would it be so bad if I did?”

“I don’t need anyone fighting my battles for me, not even you, Dameron. Besides, you get into enough trouble on your own, I don’t need you to start getting into it on my behalf.” You huff, staring plaintively up at him and he tilts his head back to chuckle in disbelief.

“I’m not going to say anything, because the worst thing I can do to this jerk is tell Leia. Trust me, there’s not going to be much left of the guy when she’s done.”

Poe sounds entirely too confident for this to just be an imagined example, and you tap him to get his attention. “Has something like this happened before?”

He hums in affirmation, “Couple of times. They get an ultimatum, either they can be reassigned and work on being a better person, or they can leave.”

At your incredulous look, Poe shrugs. “Like I said, the Resistance is meant to be a safe space, and we take keeping it that way seriously.”

You watch him for a second longer, then a grin creeps up on your face and you twist around so that the back of your head is resting against his chest instead. After a moment, you tell him the officer’s name, and Poe’s absolutely delighted by how smug you sound.

It’s a little while later that you leave the deserted hanger, but there’s a skip in your step as you walk beside him towards the mess for dinner, your hands moving freely as you infodump to him about your favorite book series. Every now and then, your hand motions will slow down in hesitation as someone you don’t recognize passes by, but Poe encourages you to keep going with a smile, and to his immense joy, you do.

After a while, he joins in, sharing facts on different things on the Rebellion that you listen to with rapt attention, asking as many questions about it as he did your book series, and for the time being, the war feels a million lightyears away, and so do ableist pricks.

#poe dameron #poe dameron x reader #poe dameron x you #myfic #hello yes this has been on ao3 for like a month i forgot to post it here oajtojtaojta #this was a self indulgent af fic

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your-enby-antihero · 2 years

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Caleb and the two very hot purple people that are sitting at the next table over

Based on a tumblr post Caleb works as a teacher at the Soltryce Academy. His life is fairly normal, not very notable at all, but when he meets two people at a bar he becomes an utter mess. also available on ao3

—————————————————————————— Chapter 3: Beau is Sick of these Pining Idiots in her Bar

Beauregard Lionett loved her jobs. The Cobalt Soul allowed her to help make cases against corruption and injustice and owning the bar let her relax. Though Yasha was the one who really owned it, since Beau did work during the day. But the one thing she was slowly getting tired of is listening to her basically older brother pine for two of her wife’s best friends. Caleb had been coming into the bar more than usual, dressed up more than usual. At least that’s what she saw, his cardigans and sweaters didn’t have coffee stains on them and his hair didn’t look like a rat's nest. Which she felt was a step forward, after he had broken up with Astrid and Eadwulf after things got messy in their first year of university, she had worried about him a bit. But that was years ago and she could see that this was the first time he seemed to be infatuated with people romantically again. She was happy for him, but not happy enough not to complain to the Chaos Crew ( Beau, Yasha, Jester, and Veth “book club”) about it.

Their weekly meeting was held at Jester and Fjord’s house. Veth brought snacks and Yasha and Beau provided booze and Jester of course was the host.

“You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve tried to tell Caleb to just go and talk to them but then he gets all red and just like-” Beau sighed, gesturing wildly with her hands.

Yasha puts a hand over her wife’s pulling them from almost hitting Veth’s face and nodded in agreement. Jester was grinning ear to ear, fangs on full display.

“You know~ I was talking to Molly and Essek and they were saying that Caleb’s eyes were so pretty and then Molly got all like,” Jester said and mustered up her most smitten face.

Veth glared at Jester suspiciously, “what are you planning?”

Jester smirked and began explaining the most elaborate and rom com style plan to get them all together. The funny thing was that everyone was on board. Beau could stand watching them all make eyes at each other for another month. Veth was Caleb’s best friend and wanted to see Caleb happy and Yasha could see how much it would benefit all parties involved.

——————

The plan was simple: Beau and Yasha would simply set up a date for them. A blind date to be exact. They would sweet talk them into a date at the cafe Caduceus ran. It would be cute and they would finally get to talking.

Jester had said that in all the romance novels she had read and all the stories she had heard around blind dates were the best way to go about it.

It was simple, literally so simple.

——————

It was not in fact simple. The week they had planned it for happened to also be the week that Caleb had to oversee a huge school function and caught the flu. Molly was swamped with commissions for a set of tarot cards that had the deadline pushed for all the preliminary designs. Essek was asked to substitute for a course and exam season was fast approaching. Every time anyone brought up going on a blind date in the weeks before it had been a total bust.

“I’m so sorry darling but I’m up to the brim with work right now, I’m discussing with an author about doing some illustrations for a children's book,” Molly had smiled apologetically, face covered in graphite and ink.

“My students are dependent on me to give them the best chance on these exams, I know Molly and I would be interested but we can’t make the time.”

Through a thick cough Caleb sputtered, “The Martinet has assigned me to hand the schools of magic introductions for first years for the upcoming school year and I have just come down with the flu. I wish I could make it but I’m afraid to spread this flu to anyone else and this is my chance to finally get one up on Ludinus.”

The next time The Chaos Crew met everyone was disheartened. Until Jetser came up with another brilliant idea.

“We could ask Molly and Essek to drop something off at Caleb's house since he’s sick! It would be so cute!!!”

——————

Beau called up Molly, “Hey Molls could you and Essek drop something off for Yasha?”

Molly’s voice spoke from the other end of the call, “of course, what can I do. I’ve been desperate to get out of the house. I think the alcohol markers are getting to my head.”

“Cool Yasha and I have a friend who has the flu right now and refuses self care so she made soup with the stuff from the garden. Jes said that she and Fjord are heading to visit her mother and Veth and Yeza are taking Luc somewhere so I can’t ask them. I would go but me and Yash have a meeting with a musician guy who wants to play some stuff in the bar.”

“No problem Beau, text me the address and Essek and I will make sure it gets to you friend.”

“Thanks Molly I owe you one.”

She hung up the phone and pumped her fist, texted the group that the plan was in motion. Then Beau really did get ready for an interview with a musician looking for a venue.

#critical role #cr fanfic #widomauk #shadowidomauk #shadowgast #shadowmauk #beauregard lionett

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vv3nti · 4 years

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JJ HEADCANON:

i needed this really bad.

I was thinking about this last night before I went to bed, and now I want to write a little concept or whatever. Imagine if JJ had a black girlfriend, like a 3B-4C hair, dark or brown skin girlfriend.

Maybe she was friends with Sarah, and when Sarah starting Dating John B, she'd bring this girl along, and JJ is hopelessly falling for her, and he keeps asking to take her on a date. And she's just like "JJ, I don't date white boys."

JJ would be disappointed, but he wouldn't stop trying and always hanging around you, observing her and all her habits. He was going to be her one exception.

Once JJ started picking up on the little things— for example, she'd always forgot a hair tie, and Kiara's or Sarah's were always too dainty for her thick hair; JJ make sure the next time he went to the store he bought the thick ties that would hold her hold, and he'd were them on his wrist.

"Fuck, I forgot a hairband. My hair's gonna get hella tangled if I swim." She would end up sitting on the edge of the boat.

And JJ would show up next to her, the black-tie laying on his flat hand. "For you, ma'am."

She'd probably be really suspicious, her eyes squinted as she takes the tie from him, and JJ would just have a fat grin of his lips.

"What are you playing at, Maybank?"

"You never have a tie, and I'm just being a good friend providing you with one." He'd jump off the boat but not before winking at her.

She would act unaffected by all JJ's little gestures, but they'd really warm her heart, no one had done anything like this for her.

Maybe next, it would be JJ putting curl shampoo and conditioner in John B's shower. He'd have to ask Kiara or Pope's mom which ones to buy.

And next, he'd add curl cream, then lotion or edge control and a brush. But they'd all be the wrong brand, and for some reason, she'd want to take him to show him the right products.

"Maybank, let's go. We're going shopping."

She would end up taking him to the black hair store on the mainland; usually, she'd just get her stuff from Heyward, but— for some odd reason, she wanted to spend more time with JJ.

"If you want to buy me stuff, then you have to know the right stuff to buy. Okay?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

And after she got what she needed, the shopping trip turned into ice cream, which turned into sneaking on a full ferry because it was the last one.

"You know we technically had our first date, yesterday."

So, fast forward to when she finally say's yes to JJ, and they start dating. I feel like they'd move pretty fast, but it's the right pace for them.

JJ would spend a lot of nights at her house and vise versa(we're just gonna ignore his dad in here).

He'd have her all her hair, skin, and nail products in his bathroom. Both of them would have a draw in the other's dresser and a toothbrush.

JJ would always have a hair tie around his wrist wherever he went, it became natural to him. And she'd continually have a pint of weed on her or a juul because JJ always sit them down anywhere and forget about them.

I feel like their relationship would be tested a lot; her parents don't like the idea of her dating a white boy, or JJ would see some injustices and racism she faces up close, maybe too many people get in her head saying she(her blackness) is just a phase or a fetish.

And it would be hard for the two of them. JJ would have to prove to both this girl and her parents that he really loved her and all of her.

But of course, they'd get through it and stand by/support each other when things got tough, all the hardships would probably bring them closer.

OH, AND YOU KNOW JJ is reading to fight anyone who wrongs his girl, whether it's someone being too touchy, hitting on her, calling her a slur, TOUCHING HER HAIR.

He'd probably have to get on John B for asking to touch it when it was in box braids once.

"Seriously, man?" You did not just ask that. Come on, dude, you don't ask white girls with straight hair to touch it, do you?"

Pope would chime in. "You do not ask to touch a black girl's hair."

Kiara too. "First rule in the book. JJ, you need to teach him better."

JJ would love to see her in yellow and red because it complimented her skin tone.

“Should we have a small or big wedding?”

“I don't know, JJ.”

“Hm, it's up to you.”

“Maybe we should sneak off to the Caribbean and have a secret wedding.”

They probably gush over each other's eyes, JJ's ocean blue ones, and her dark brown eyes.

JJ would want to learn how to do curly hair in case they had a daughter.

“What do you think our kids will look like?”

“I don't know JJ.”

“I think we’d have super cute kids.”

“Of course they’d be cute, they’ll have our genes.”

So, she'd start by teaching JJ how to do ponytails and loose braids. But loose braids soon turned into a french/dutch braids.

The crew would be out on the boat talking and drinking. And JJ would randomly start braiding and playing with her hair. But would probably end up tangling it.

They'd probably have a lot of cooking lessons together with her mom.

“JJ, if it's not spicy, it's not gumbo.”

“My bad, ma’am. So, more paprika?”

In conclusion, I needed to live out my fantasy of JJ with a black girlfriend and I might start a series.

#jj maybank #jj maybank x reader #obx #outer banks imagine #john b routledge #kiara carrera #sarah cameron #rafe cameron #pope heyward #topper thornton #Outer Banks #rudy pankow #chase stokes #madison bailey #madelyn cline

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Ducktales Review: The First Adventure! or Baby Donald Says Eat the Rich

Welcome back. I’d been looking forward to this one for some time in the hopes of getting one thing i’ve been waiting for.. sadly that thing didn’t come, we’ll get to that, but this was still a fun episode so let’s hop right in. Spoilers in a second but my tag is spoiler tagged soooo. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We open in the 1960′s. Austin Powers just went into Cryo Freeze to prepare for Dr. Evil’s eventual return, The Marvel Universe was in full swing, a teenager in baltimore was battling racisim via a dance show, and Black Heron had just been caught by Agent 22, aka Beakly when she was young and just as gorgeous then as she is now. Heron once again engaged in her usual cartoonish supervillian, and now SHUSH has her. Meanwhile in a nearbye room a young accountant by the name of Bradford Buzzard is outlining his plan for Director Von Drake: The way he sees it every time a villian costs chaos Shush “Wastes” billions causing MORE chaos to stop it without controlling things. He proposes taking over the world, weeding out the chaos and ruling from the shadows. Naturally, Ludvig isn’t on board with any of this and points out they aren’t super villains. It’s here this episode fully defines something about Bradford’s character. Back in “Let’s Get Dangerous!” when Huey called him a villain, he said he’s not one... at least from his point of view. It’s here, in his youth we get a clear understanding why he dosen’t think so: So far most people we’ve seen in the world of Ducktales take the chaos and insanity of the world in stride: Either just numb to it like most of the citizens, Rolling with it like Daisy and Violet, or diving straight into it like.. pretty much the majority of the cast, either for the love of adventure and treasure like the McDuck/Duck family, or for their own ludcrious ends like Glomgold, Mark Beaks or Magica. To them the world’s fine the way it is and there’s to explore, take or whatever. To Bradford.. this is madness... he feels all these people are just a bunch of overgrown children, and in some cases actual children, are just making the world worse and worse until one day their going to break it. One day skill, intuition, wit, and knowledge just wont’ be enough. Someday Scrooge, SHUSH or whoever’s standing in the way of evil will fail and the world will fall. This simply can’t go on, and SOMEONE has to control this, someone has to take this world, shake the chaos out of it and MAKE it sane. Make it work the way it’s SUPPOSED to. And to Bradford that’s him. Someone has to, no one else will, so he will. To him SHUSH doing this is just the logical thing: They want peace right? Their fighting for good right? Then what’s better than making the world a utopia? Ending these conflicts and remaking it. The thing is.. that’s not what Heroes do. As we’ve seen in various stories where the superheroes, the Good Guys take over they do improve things.. but at the cost of free will. At the cost of free thought. At the cost of their morals. They become what they were fighting all those years and have to bloody their hands and keep them bloody just to make THEIR world right. And that’s not Utopia, that’s a dictatorship. The example I always come to, even though there were ones before and after this including Marvel’s incredible Squadron Supreme maxi-series, is Justice League the animated series’ two parter, like most of their episodes really but that’s not the point, a Better World, about an alternate reality where Superman kills Lex Luthor after Luthor kills the flash and hte League take over the world. The thing is.. the world isn’t BETTER. It’s just crime free. You can sweep the chaos and the crime under the rug.. but your not making a better world, your just making YOUR version of it. No one person is a god even if they have a power of one and no one person can or SHOULD be able to decide what’s best for everyone. It’s up to each of us to MAKE the world better, to fight for a better world. That’s what Ludvig knows full well and what Bradford just can’t see. You can’t control the world, you just have to accept the things you can’t change like it being chaotic and change the things you can like injustice.

Bradford however, who was hired as a favor to his grandmother, can’t though Von Drake lets him off with a warning.. and a laugh about an accountant being able to be a super villian. Bradford however realizes ther’es some truth to that.. he needs someone to teach him out to operate outside the law, and if SHUSH won’t take the world and remake it.. maybe it’s time someone else did. So in the prison cells of SHUSH, which are conveniently empty outsdide of Heron, Bradford outlines his plan to her. To create a massive orgnization to steal the world and give it the order it needs. To combine their skills: Heron’s for grandeur and crime, and Bradfords for strategy and focus, to take the world. The Orginzation for World Larceny, or OWL, fitting bradford’s hatred for theatrics. Heron objects, adding an F for fiendish, and Bradford relucntantly agrees to get her on board, lets her loose and fakes like he just saw her escape. FOWL is born. And the world would never be the same. Cue credits and cue the rest of the review under the cut.

After the opening we cut to 1994-5.. sometime around then as it’s hard to get an exact year, and that’s how the crew likes it. Point is it’s the 90′s, and Scrooge is.. busy running his company. We’ll get into the weeds of that in a bit, but this is a different Scrooge, one who while no less capable, has no thirst for adventure or drive. He’s not nearly as miserable as the Scrooge we saw back in Woo-Ooo but he’s still a much less complete man. Anyways alongside him for his planning is Duckworth, whose very much alive at this time, and who tells his boss his sister Hortense left something in his office for him. To no one suprise, that thing is the twins, at the tender age of i’m guessing 10. Since your probably curious, Della is still voiced by Paget Brewster, just using a slightly different voice like the Triplets and Webby’s voice actors do. It’s just a bit more jarring here since unlike those characters, we’ve seen adult della and thus are used to this voice coming out of a grown woman. It’s not bad and I got used to it eventually but it was jarring at first especially since once again Donald has a completely diffrent voice ACTRESS doing his voice. This time around it’s cristina valenzuela, of Miraculous Ladybug fame, who I know more for her song work and twitter than her actual work ,but am delighted to see her here and she does a terrific job. I genuneily did not realize it was her, and while not exactly like the late great russi taylor, it is just similar enough to work.

So we get to see what the Twins were like when they were the Triplets age: Della is about the same, but with more of Dewey’s impulsiveness, and Donald, much like he’d be a few years and some dead parents later, is a bitter, grungey musician whose constantly on his guitar and railing against the man.. which is Scrooge in this case which is fair. Hortense left a note.. which bothered me as I genuinely expected her to show up and was majorly disappointed she did not. We are in year 4 of this series, season 3 and STILL no appearance of Hortense or mention how she died, as she and Quackmore are still alive by the end of this. Given she’s easily my faviorite part of Life and Times, this bothered me, and the only reason i’m not more upset.. is the clever way they wrote around actually using her. The letter she leaves for Scrooge explaining things is the same one Della herself used in the comic strip, and using a bit of the postcard she left in the cartoons, when leaving Huey, Dewey and Louie with Donald, down to the Twins having left a firecracker in their fathers seat, thus leaving him in the hosptial. As disappointed as I am my favorite Ginger is completely absent once again, this is a brilliant reference, and I have to give them credit for it, so it’s a fair enough trade off. As for his “Angel Nephew and Niece”, Della wants to dive into adventure while Donald struggles to write a song, singing throughout the episode. It varies in tolerablity, though mostly due to the writing, Cristina is doing fine. Della however is disappointed to find her legendary uncle views his past exploits as merley a means to an end to get his fortune and now he has it he can just focus on building it in the boardroom. This is an intresting take.. and one I could easily have seen happening to the Don Rosa version seen in Life and Times. The Scrooge there himself saw building his wealth as the most important thing until his encounter with Teddy Rosevelt, who taught him experince was what mattered and the having isn’t as fun as the getting. It works for me: This is a scrooge who never got that lesson so once he got to be richest duck in the world, having achieved his life’s goal nothing was left. He’s not miserable like the Scrooge we saw at the start of the series, having lost his love for adventure after loosing his niece/daughter, and having lost his fight. This one has retired.. but because he likely just sees no point in going on. He’s the richest duck in the world, has a vast empire.. no amount of treasure is really going to add to that like it used to, and as he points out in a second Shush has tons of agents at this point to clean up what’s left of FOWL. He’s the man who has everything, so why keep going. It’s weird to see a scrooge without the hunger to keep going, but it makes sense when his belly is full. Without someone to get him to see there’s always another rainbow, he just stopped chasing them. Also a fun nod to the comics I almost forgot to mention is when hearing about the “Gift”, i.e. the twins, Scrooge dreads it’s another surprise party, a nod to life and times where Hortense threw Scrooge one that went.. badly and lead to their entire relationship collapsing. Though Donald did get back at Scrooge for screaming at his parents and Auntie Matilda

However his busy day is disrupted with a call from Beakly. They’ve found the last known cordinates of Captain Yellowbeak, but FOWL is on them and Scrooge is the only one Beakly trusts for this since they have a leak. Beakly is also director of SHUSH at this point, with Von Drake having retired or died or both at this point. Scrooge reluctantly accepts, while Della is excited at the prospect of a real adventure and Donald ends up sharing her enthusasim as it’d make a good song. Scrooge, naturally, has no intention of bringing them with him to their disapointment and leads Donald to sing another “Suck it the man song” which totally isn’t about Scrooge.... spoilers: It entirely is, he’s just a little dumbass grunge baby and I love him. We then get a cute sequence of Della popping up in Scrooge’s Luggage and Trunk to try and convince him to let them tag along, before we cut to the Limo, driven by Duckworth at this point, which solves that mystery. Scrooge is firm in having his butler take them back and have them work with him and Duckworth’s fine with that.. but wants overtime, which is fair. Scrooge, being Scrooge, grumbles about not being made of money, proven wrong by gold spilling out of him. Though I do like the update of Scrooge’s classic cheapness when it comes to pay: INstead of barely paying his employees like a monster, he’s simply reluctant to pay extra if he dosen’t have to, and would rather drag two 10 year olds with him on a dangerous adventure than pay overtime, which tracks. It’s also clear if he had to he WOULD actually pay it, either due to legal reasons or his moral standards, he just isn’t happy about it. So he agrees, though he wants Donald to leave the guitar behind which.. given the most Donald’s been able to come up with is “Suck it THE MAN” and “This guy’s a greedy asshole”.. he’s extremely correct and when Donald tries to pull a “YOU CAN’T CENSOR ME MANNNN”, Scrooge just chucks it out of the car. At the airfield while Della is excited like an rabid chipmunk, and genuinely thinks she can fly a plane because she’s played Outrunner 2.. which I have only vaguely heard of before now. And is apparently just a pc game where you run a lot so I genuinely do not get where Della gets piloting from that.. but she IS Dewey’s mother. So with that in mind the family take off and Scrooge explains what their after: The Papyrus of Binding. It’s a dangerously powerful magical artifact from Ancient Egypt that will make whatever’s written on it happen. The dangerous part is that it’s incredibly literal: As Bradford puts later in the episode, ask for unlimited power, it might zap you dead with a million volts, ask for infinite wealth, prepare to be crushed underneath it. It’s a nice twist on a Monkey’s Paw or Jackass Genie situation. Instead of either the source of the wish granting magic just being inherently evil, or some dickhead screwing with the hero.. it’s just an object that has no ability to interpret nuance, just like your phone with the goddamn autocorrect. It can’t judge intent or tone or meaning, it just gives exactly what it’s asked. It’s a thoroughly interesting concept.

Something I really like about this episode is the fact it answers some little questions. While none were Hortense related, and I am still grumpy about that even with this coming out a good 17 hours after I watched it due to getting caught up with other stuff, it does have little touches that explain small parts of the lore: Who drove Scrooge? As just mentioned, Duckworth. Who flew scrooge? Paid pilots. Did he have a plane before the sunchaser? Yup. It fills in some small gaps in the world. Stuff we weren’t dying to know but’s stil lintresting. Said pilots in this case however are Heron and Bradford. This episode also fills in Heron’s character, as while we’ve already seen bits and pieces this season she LOVES being a classic, take over the world james bond type villian, like she stepped out of a duck version of kim possible.. and i’m just now realizing there probably IS a duck kim possible somewhere in this world as while far after disney afternoon, it fits too neatly to not be wedged in there with your tailspins and goof troops. I wouldn’t be suprised if there were brid versions of every human based disney afternoon and one saturday morning show. My.. my head’s swimming from this. I could be, and probably am wrong but the sheer idea of this... it’s amazing. Back to Heron, she just LOVES being evil and destructive, letting the world know she exists and operating on a grand scale. Now we’ve seen more of her while she’s Beakly’s nemisis.. she’s really an evil scrooge.. yes another one. Like Scrooge, at least how he normally is, she simply gets how the world of Ducktales operates and can take advantage of that to the best of her ablility. Just like adventuering, cartoonish supervilliany is about risk and reward.. sometimes you faceplamnt hard, that’s the risk, but the rewards and rush is worth it. She’s as addicted to grandoise villiany as Scrooge is to adventure by this point. And like Scrooge, and unlike her partner Bradford, she sees the world as it is: Chaotic and one big sandbox to play in. She contrasts Scrooge by the fact that while Scrooge is willing to bust down doors, he still has morals, as well as the wisdom to not go overboard Heron often lacks. It also makes her a good contrast ot the equally skilled Beakly: While Beakly is taciturn, controlled in all things especially her emotions, Heron is bombastic, gloating and borderline insane, and while deadly in a fight, dosen’t exercise any control in her plans, preferring it big and loud despite her partner usually being right about reiging it in. So Heron evacuates dramatically, taking a grumpy Bradford with them, and sending the plane into a tailspin.

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I can’t wait for Next Year’s Tailspin episode. I swear to god. I’m hoping for Shere Kahn but this episode has taught me to be okay with disapointment, if a grumpus. Della however shows her natural talent and despite having no real experince with planes, lands it gracefully. While that’s going on, Bradford berates Heron for her plan, pointing out that they COULD have simply landed the plane, then captured the McDuck family and executed them quitely, versus leaving a chance they’ll survive which they do. They AREN’T supervillains.. or at least he thinks he isn’t. Heron does show off her competence though, pointing out that this way they can simply stay low, and FOLLOW the Ducks to the treasure. Bradford is impressed for a second.. till Heron’s evil shows as she plans to use the Papyrus. Bradford loudly objects to this, listing the possible risks shown before. If not used CAREFULLY, it could kill them, and she balks and wants him to just embrace being the Villian already. It’s what I love about their dynamic set up here: While they are equals, Bradford is a better strategist, able to think and plan way in advance, and prefers subterfuge, and if present day is any indicatoin probably used Heron’s flash to distract from the real mission or goal often or to do something on the down low while she kept SHUSH busy. His last two plans, while again requiring some pizzaz, relied on misdrection: having the ducks take care of an immidate threat like their used to.. while he gets exactly what he wants while their busy and whatever they get out of it is either nothing (Impossibin) or something he couldn’t use just yet and thus if he didn’t get it, no loss, but if he did it just moves up the timetable. Not only that but he’s outlasted all three other big bads, lying in the shadows till it was too risky to leave scrooge and play and even THEN, only coming out into the open when forced out. IT’s why he’s Scrooge’s most dangerous opponent: He knows how Scrooge’s other enmities operates as well as Scrooge himself. And since he knows everything he can maneuver Scrooge exactly where he needs him to do exactly what he wants. It’s unknown how the family will beat him, but he’s easily the biggest challenge they’ve had.

But back to the show and the past, Scrooge bonds with his niece and nephew, retelling stories of his past as they get closer, with Donald ending up high at one point and thus seeing the ship stranded on a mountain. As he recounts a fight with El Capitan, the villian from the ducktales 87 pilot, he counts the story as as a loss: He didn’t get anything from it, no treasure no new contracts. But Della shows him the point he’s been missing; He got a story. Sure he lost.. but he got experince, a tale to tell and a legend grown.Just because you don’t get everything dosen’t mean it wasn’t worth the experince and you can’t hold it in your heart. And this episode shows why this scrooge needed his family: Without Teddy to mentor him, he simply never got that adventure wasn’t about gains or what you get.. it’s about the thrill of it, the enjoyment of discovery and the memories you make.. it’s about the Journey not the destination.

As Scrooge starts to warm up to that, he finds a gap, with Della volunteering Donald to jump but Scrooge just having the kids hop on his back and pogo caneing across. The family find the Papyrus, and find out why the ship is all the way up here: Captain Yellowbeak, who’s a character from one of barks stories and the one who had the scroll last, wished to escape.. but that just stranded them. He asked for water.. and it drowned his crew.. and finally with the document hteir reading he asked for release... and thus is now a skelington. The kid are happy to have reached the goal.. while Scrooge is back on his Zack Morris phone trying to reschedule things and schedule a SHUSH evac, to the kids annoyance. However Scrooge raining on their parade gets interupted by Heron and Bradford, as Heron can’t resist popping out dramatically and Bradford is UTTERLY furious since she blew his cover, and Scrooge recognizes him from his christmas party, a nice callback. Scroog being scrooge figures out he’s the mole and Bradford runs , furious at Heron. Their conflict is an intresting one: Both have a point but both will not back down. Bradford is right this showboating nonsense has only hindered Heron’s plans.. and Heron is right that Bradford needs to accept he’s the bad guy. Even if he has well meaning motives, he’s the villian, he works with them, he leads them.. he is one. He just can’t accept he’s wrong or dosen’t have the answers... huh.. I wonder who that reminds you of. And that’s 100% intentional as Frank has outright compared Huey and Bradford and like last season it’s neat to have the main vilian contrast our chosen Duck for the season.

Heron outfoxes the kids and gets the papyrus and being just an enitrely black hearted bitch, plans to kill them just to spite scrooge.. writing that “his sidekicks will perish on this mission.”.... but Scrooge’s character development, and her choice of words, means nothing happens. As Scrooge outlines, “Their not my sidekicks their my FAMILY, and this isn’t a mission, it’s an ADVENTURE”. Scrooge has finally accepted his life for what it really is.. and the thrill of the chase over what lies at the end. There’s always anothe rainbow.. and he’s finally become the man who will chase every last one.

OF course this is interupted, and Heron escapes with the papyrus, when a skeletal pirate attacks.. why is Yellow Beak alive, why’d the scroll do this?

But we get a neat fight as Scrooge fights the skeleton while he sends the kids after Heron. Scrooge gets a cool looking swordfight, while Bradford gets the papyrus, and Yellowbeak even terrifies me what with his bestial roll and fucking centepede crawling out of him.. jesus those things freak me out. Meanwhile the kids battle Heron, who throws della overboard... and thus for the first time, Donald taps into his beserker rage, snikty snoink, and easily incapaciates the more experinced and fully grown adul, though Della since we’eve been following her kids for the past three seasons, is fine, if suprised by her brother being the goddamn wolverine.

While heron is out for a second, Scrooge heads after Bradford, and vows to tell Beakly and chase him all across the world. However Bradford gets an utterly awesome moment.. he admits scrooge may be right and probably would.. but since he has the papayrus and is careful in everything he writes his request carefully and perfectly “As far as the ducks are concerned, I was never here.” Grante dit COULD have left scrooge out.. but since he didn’t sday duck family or specificy, and likely knew it’d do that, it instead just means the three bilogical ducks. Bradford dissappears, turning invisble and leaving the papyrus for scrooge, who foils heron by simply writing that this scroll will be lost until one day found by his heirs.

So Heron takes a fall and looses an arm, again.. or for the first time.. the family is triumphant and despite loosing his goal, Scrooge is convinced he and the kids will find it again. See above. Scrooge then pulls out his phone and tells Duckworth to rework his schedule.. but it’s so he can find someone to run his comapny so he can spend more time with the kids. As for why Hortense would allow this before her still mysterious passing.. i’m guessing A) she notices her brother is happier and more alive than he’s been for a while and B) they just blew up their dad’s ass with a firecracker, and she won’t be able to use it for a while, so she’s double mad, so if it means she gets a moment’s peace and is with someone she trusts.. why not?

So we end on Scrooge packing up, preparing for further adventures.. i’d love a spinoff of this one day. I mean Disney plus needs it, and since Frank is probably going over to Darkwing.. maybe matt could take a crack at this. Just saying. You have the cast ready, a giant world to explore, and 15 years worth adventures. Run that baby damn you! But yeah the inevitble happens and Bradford further proves his magificent bastardry.. by appling for the position of running the company as head of Scrooge’s board, and setting up said board. So now FOWL has unlimited resources, he has a direct eye on what he now realizes is his greatest threat, and the complete trust and faith of both Scrooge and Beakly. It also puts Beakly’s breakdown in context: We now see WHY she went as far as she did: While the revelation was bad for Scrooge, finding out one of his most trusted allies was a traitor the whole time and knew everything about him, for Beakly.. it had to be worse. Finding out one of your best employees, one of the FEW people you ever trusted, and someone you DIRECTLY RECOMMENDED TO SCROOGE, was not only the man who set up your greatest enemies, but had compromised your organization for most of your career. IT’s no wonder she broke down so hard.. while I already gave several reason adding “This level of betrayal and self doubt to the list” only makes it that much harder on her. But for now a partnership is started.. one that very well may end scrooge.

Final Thoughts: A pretty good episode overall. It’s well paced, to the point I probably forgot a LOT, has some good jokes, and fills in a lot of the gaps in the lore, while giving us a nice insight into bradford and heron. Even without hortense this was a pretty good episode.

Upcoming Reviews: LIfe and Times; Master of the Mississippi Ride of the Three Cabbleros: The Three Cablleros (House of Mouse) Tomtrospective: Lava Lake Beach

#ducktales #ducktales spoilers #scrooge mcduck #bradford buzzard #della duck #donald duck #black heron #bentina beakley #the first adventure!#the first adventure #cristina vee

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hunidlo · 3 years

Text

Call of Fire

CHAPTER 1 - The Ship

Rating: M

Word Count: 3K

Pairing: The Mandalorian x F!Reader

Warnings: slow burn fic, graphic descriptions of gore coming in the following chapters - mild violence in this chapter, language

A/N: The first chapter is loosely based on Season 1, Episode 4: Sanctuary. English is not my first language so apologies for any mistakes in grammar. But you know, I try. Hope you enjoy it.

Summary: You should have known better than to sneak into the Mandalorian’s ship, trying to steal from him.

Next Chapter > // Masterlist

***

You hear the familiar, yet unwelcome sound of a horn.

They are coming.

Everyone gives up whatever they are doing at the moment and all people start quietly gathering on the tiny square in the middle of the village.

You know the drill—you slowly join them.

The villagers are standing next to each other in a line. No one is moving, talking, or making any sound really. About twenty people that you have grown to care about over the past fifteen years, just waiting, knowing exactly what is going to happen.

They always come on the last day of the quarter. Bandits. A horde of armed thieves which have been exploiting the village for more than five years now, living off your supplies, occasionally beating up a couple of villagers to manifest that they can and are not afraid to eliminate anyone who would stand in their way. Then they take most of the harvest you have gathered—leaving the villagers with barely enough to live from—and leave.

This time is not different.

So you just stand there and watch as they go through and start munching on your supplies again while one of them—you previously figured he is their leader—is patrolling, resting his hand on his holster just to let everyone know he would not hesitate to use his blaster in case of resistance. As usual, with a smug smile on his scarred face—convinced of his own invincibility—he is walking back and forth along the line you and the villagers have formed. He is clearly amused by the frightened faces in front of him.

You feel bile boiling in your guts. You clench your fists by your sides, pressing your nails into your palms achingly, frustrated with your helplessness. You fear them too, just like the rest of your friends, and you would be a fool not to. You are well aware of the fact that you stand no chance against one of them, let alone all thirty. They have blasters, spears and armour. Fairly simple and shabby but still—armour. It’s more than the linen clothes you are wearing.

Moreover, there are no weapons in the village, at least none that would be of any use against blasters. You’re not even sure if having guns would be much of a help. Everyone here is a farmer. They are good farmers—there is no doubt about that—but no match against the bandits. Your villagers know how to grow crops but they know little about fighting.

And you?

Well, you are not quite sure what you are and whether you fit in the village, yet you’re quite certain that you’re no fighter either.

However—unlike your friends, and despite your fear—you have an excruciating urge to intervene, to stand up to the brutes, fight back and banish them from the village once and for all.

It feels like a fire inside you—it’s spreading throughout your body growing stronger and stronger whenever you have to witness this injustice again.

Maybe you could learn how to fight? … Practice?

Nonetheless, right now you feel like you can do absolutely nothing to prevent the raiders from stealing what your friends and you have spent collecting for weeks. So you just obediently stand there with the rest of them.

It is over soon.

“See you in three months,” their leader grins, rolling up his lips and showing his teeth that have most probably been filed down to resemble sharp fangs. You jerk a little as a wave of repulsion runs through you. Then he turns and leaves, following his fellows and the cart that they just loaded up with their loot.

You watch the raiders and your harvest vanish in the woods—

„Someone needs to do something,“ you say, turning your head to Zullu who is still standing silently next to you, watching the villagers as they start cleaning up the mess the bandits made during their visit while counting how much of the harvest they left and whether it will be enough to survive for the next three months.

“What do you mean?” she asks, her voice thin. Zullu is still evidently shaken from the whole experience. She is younger than you, probably in her early twenties, and she has been like a younger sister to you. Despite the fact that she has seen the bandits raiding her village many times now, she seems to have never gotten used to it and is terrified every time it happens.

You take a deep breath. “I dunno… but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life sharing our food with these bastards, fearing them every time they come stealing from us. We should fight back.”

Zullu stares at her feet for a couple of moments, then raises her eyes sadly back to you. “Come on.”

You sigh, and both you and Zullu help the others, then try to go on with your day while still weighed down by your incapability to do anything in situations like this.

***

Almost three months later, you are resting on the grass on top of the hill above the village. The sun is high. Lying on your back as you lazily chew a straw of grass, you are watching the clouds peacefully floating in the sky. You have finished your work on the field for today and need some time for yourself to relax. You feel your eyelids getting heavy when you notice Zullu running furiously towards you.

“Have you seen it?” she yells from distance.

“What?” you blink in surprise, noticing the urgency in her voice—the need to take a nap forgotten. She is short of breath when she gets to you, struggling to talk coherently because of her unsuppressed excitement.

“The.. the ship—I… I saw it flying over the woods… huge—landed on the clearing near the lake!” She bends over, hands on her knees, as she is trying to catch her breath.

A ship? Never have you seen any ship coming to this forbidden part of the planet. It’s too far away from the closest town, there's literally no reason for anyone to ever come here.

“Do you think it might be them?” Zullu raises her head to look at you, her eyes suddenly wider.

Her question unsettles you a little. You try to stay calm, but you do take a moment before you reply. “What business would they have here?”

“Uh, maybe—” Zullu starts but you quickly interrupt her as you neither want to talk nor think any longer about what she is referring to. There’s no way it can be them, right?

“Probably just someone looking for a place to resupply and buy some spotchka before they set off again.” You wave your hand in a dismissive gesture as you begin walking back towards the village. “On the other hand….” You halt for a second and narrow your eyes. An idea starts to form in your head—

“I need to see it,” you burst out suddenly. “You go home, stay there. Understand?”

“I wanna go with you,” Zullu immediately protests.

“No way. It can be dangerous, I’m going alone.” You’re firm.

“But— ”

“Go—home.”

Zullu knows there is no point negotiating with you right now so she starts walking sluggishly down the path leading to the village and kicking the tallest blades of grass on the way while mumbling something unintelligible to herself.

You put on your hood and cover your face with your scarf so that only your eyes now peek out from your disguise.

A true spy—you think.

In a couple of hours you get to the lake where Zullu saw the ship descending. You pass it and continue your stroll through the now rather dense woods.

“It must be close,” you assure yourself, looking at your boots that are covered in thick mud and suppressing the little voice in your head telling you that coming to look for the mysterious ship was a stupid idea.

Getting closer to the end of the forest, you crouch a little, progress slowly and tread cautiously through the bushes, trying not to make any unwanted noises. Landed on the clearing, there is a starship—just as Zullu described. You notice that the hatch is lowered down. You stay hidden behind the shrubs, not moving a muscle, just trying to steady your breathing. Suddenly—

You hear cracking sounds behind you. You turn around promptly but relax as soon as you see the source of them.

“I told you to stay in the village,” you hiss at Zullu who is approaching you clumsily in what is apparently her idea of a stealth mode.

It could have occurred to you that she would follow you. She has the same sense for adventure even though she usually gets a bit more scared than you do.

“I wanted to see it too,” she blinks innocently.

You sigh. “Okay… but be quiet, they might be dangerous.”

She breaks a few branches before she manages to settle next to you.

You roll your eyes, just hoping the ship’s crew did not hear the rustle.

You both observe the ship for a couple of minutes.

It looks deserted.

“You said it was huge.” You raise your eyebrows at Zullu.

“It looked huge on the sky,” she says defensively, her voice slightly pitched.

“I don’t think there could be more than... three people... at most—and it looks…” You tilt your head sideways, “...old.”

Well, that’s an understatement.

It’s a wreck to be honest. You are undeniably a bit disappointed about the miserable condition of the vessel in front of you for it might not be as helpful as you thought after all. On the other hand... it is apparently a gunship—judging by the two laser cannons.

You shake your head and sigh, “Like I said, I’m sure they just needed to land here for maintenance and to resupply.”

“Lier!” Zullu frowns and elbows you in the ribs.

You jerk with surprise.

“You—You want to see if there are any weapons... want to use them against the bandits, don’t you?”

She can see right through you, can’t she.

“Not sure yet, first I’m gonna explore it, see whom we have the honour with. Maybe—”

You freeze.

Before you can finish your sentence, a figure emerges from the bowels of the ship and descends the ramp. You are too far away from the scene to recognise clearly who or what it is, but you’re able to see that the figure is… silver? Strangely—but yes, it appears so. It is covered in silver metal that reflects the sunlight so well that it blinds you, preventing you from seeing them properly.

“Is it…. a droid?” Zullu asks dubiously, squinting her eyes to see better.

“Could be... looks dangerous, though.”

And you’re right—there is something about the way they are holding themselves while walking that looks so self-confident and…. and menacing. You can’t tell whether the nauseating feeling in your stomach is fear or excitement.

You observe as the figure walks in the direction of the town—a fishing town—the only larger settlement that can be found on this part of the planet, and which is a couple of miles from where you are right now. You’re wondering what business they might have there unless they are passionate about recreational fishing—which you seriously doubt. They disappear in the woods opposite to you two, leaving the hatch—and therefore the ship—open.

Not so smart, you think and smile devilishly.

“You—stay—put.” You command, emphasizing every word as you say it, remembering what happened the last time you said something similar to Zullu earlier that day.

“Fine,” she exhales and rolls her eyes.

You sneak out from the bush and head to the ship. The owner, whoever they might be, is not in sight. You slowly, carefully get to the ramp and enter the ship, ready to run for your life the moment you see or hear anything suspicious.

You look around and relax a little.

It seems empty and you are quite certain now that whoever’s just left was its only inhabitant. You quickly scout the interior. It almost looks bigger on the inside. The cargo hold that you entered is dark, illuminated only by the dim light coming from the outside through the open hatch. You spot one small bunk in the wall at the end of the hull.

“Not a droid, then—” you deduce.

You can see a lot of boxes of ship spare parts stored neatly in the hull, wooden crates apparently functioning as provisory chairs and a side table—judging by their positioning and the toolbox lying on one of them—and a strange complex metal frame with a purpose that remains completely unknown to you. You notice a ladder leading most probably to the cockpit, and a small control panel of some sort right next to it.

“Eh, what the hell…” you shrug after a moment of consideration and press the big green button on the panel. The metal cabinet on the wall opposite the ladder opens with a hiss.

“Nice!” you smirk excitedly when you realize it’s a weapons locker.

There are dozens of various guns and undoubtedly lethal gadgets. You have no idea what most of them do or how to operate them but you don’t care. You take a couple of hesitant steps, stretch out your hands—eyes fixed on a peculiar black gun in the middle of the locker but—

—the cabinet closes rapidly, startling the living hell out of you. You jump back, pressing your hands to your chest, and frantically look around.

Standing on top of the ramp, right in the ship’s entrance, there is the metal stranger. With his large armoured body, he is blocking the only way off this ship. Maker, he’s broad.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asks calmly even though you can sense the passive aggressiveness in his tone so his question sounds more like a threat. His voice coming from under the helmet is cold and deep, chilling your insides and squeezing your throat shut. His hand is hovering over the holster by his side. You swallow hard.

You cannot see his face as he’s wearing a helmet made from the same material as the rest of his armour, and is staring at you through a black T-shaped visor which prevents anyone from seeing his face.

Paralyzed with fear, you do not answer him.

After a moment of silence that feels like eternity, he starts striding towards you.

Shit, shit, shit, goes through your head repeatedly.

Then the familiar fire ignites in your stomach and you know you need to act. Out of desperation, you grab something which could well be a wrench from the toolbox that is laying on one of the wooden crates in front of you. You know it’s a bad idea even before you actually do it but your hands are apparently faster than your brain right now. You throw the wrench in his general direction hoping it could distract him, gaining you just enough time to escape.

You launch forward towards the exit focusing on your one and only task—getting off this damn ship. You know that once you are in the woods again, he will never be able to get you because you know the area far too well. With your eyes pinned to the opened hatch that represents your freedom, you don’t notice that the stranger dodges the wrench with his forearm almost lazily before it even hits his chest. Not that it would do much damage anyway. You’re just about to rush past him and get out of his reach. You can make it. Yes... yes... yes—

—nope. A thick armour-plated arm lands on your stomach. He rapidly hooks his arm around your abdomen, tugs you back and slams you against his cold, rock-hard chest plate. You begin furiously kicking around while trying to wiggle yourself out of his strong hold and shooting your elbows back in vain attempts to hit him. He growls and tries to readjust his grip on you, lifting you off the ground and holding you midair when—

—one of his hands accidentally grasps your breast. He gasps sharply—the fact obviously shocking him more than you.

He doesn’t hesitate for long though, quickly and firmly grabs your shoulders and spins you around—disorienting you for a moment—until you find yourself facing the pitch-black visor with only inches separating your face and his helmet. You’re in trouble now and you know it. Panic surges through you and you feel petrified once again. His leather-gloved hand comes up and not very gently pulls down the scarf covering your nose and mouth.

For a moment he just stares at you. Clutching your jaw tightly in his hand—squeezing your cheeks with his index finger and thumb until you are pouting your lips—he tilts your head up to study your face. Towering above you like this and leaning closer, he’s bloody intimidating. You’re powerless, just gawking back at the visor, heart hampering in your chest.

Now what?

Out of the blue, he shoots his free hand backwards.

You glimpse behind him and see why.

Zullu is standing behind your captor holding a thick stick, using it as a bludgeon to attack the stranger. Unfortunately—even without ever having shifted his visor away from you—he is somehow able to hear or sense the impending assault and catch the bludgeon behind his back before it can make the contact, the result being Zullu now pulling at one end of the stick, trying to get her improvised weapon back from his iron grip.

That’s when he looks over his shoulder too to see the attacker.

Such a distraction is, however, enough for you to act. You swiftly slip by the metal giant and make your way to the exit.

“Run!” You finally find your voice again and take Zullu’s hand as you pass by.

She let’s go of the stick and you both run out of the ship towards the woods, not even daring to look back to check if he’s following you.

He isn’t.

“What was that?” Zullu is gasping, trying to keep up with you. You are clutching her hand in yours, almost dragging the poor girl behind you as you run. “Was that a droid?”

You stop to catch your breath only when you are sure you’re far enough from the clearing.

“That... was a fucking Mandalorian!”

***

Next Chapter > // Masterlist

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian fan fic #the mandalorian fan fiction #the mandalorian x reader #pedro pascal

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windup-dragoon · 4 years

Text

Since I'm in more pain than I care to admit (still sick) I'm going to write a few headcanons for Kiri.

Kiri going into Stormblood:

During the finale of the Dragonsong war, Kiri starts to undergo horrible nightmares. Far worse than what she has had before. Although Ishgard is soon to see peace once more and everyone is celebrating this new era, Kiri withdraws into herself quite a bit.

Then the Griffin incident occurs. This is Kiri's breaking point. All of those people, rallied together to see their home liberated, sacrificed in such a barbaric way. She can't save them. There's nothing she can possibly dream of doing that would return them or reverse the summoning. And the loss of Papalymo further deepens the knife already in her chest.

At this point, Kiri is clearly distraught. She keeps away from Alphinaud, whom she had shared just about any troubles with prior to the Wall. She's unusually quiet and distracted during their meetings, only finding herself being able to agree with Alisaie and Lyse when they mention fighting is at hand.

The nightmares keep her up at night. She hasn't slept properly for days now and stays clear of Kyrile in fear that she'll pick up on her distress. Her usual banter with Thancred is clipped and short which clues him in that something is amiss. But Kiri being Kiri, she presses on by herself and ignores him.

At the first encounter with Zenos, Kiri is exhausted but furious at the Garleans for what they had done. Seeing her friends cast aside like dolls by some bored prince has her seeing red. She stands against Zenos, a frenzied animal fighting it's way out of a corner, just as she had done as a child growing up in a cruel world. But Zenos puts her down with ease.

Arriving at Kugane:

Out on the open sea, on their way to Kugane, Kiri deals a bit with her unchecked emotions. The ocean reminds her of all her travels with her adoptive father and his crew which clears her head a bit. The nightmares subside enough to allow her some rest. She begins to piece together the nightmares during this trip, realizing they're more than nightmares. It's a mixture of the Echo trying to recall some of her memories.

A little girl fighting for her life, a wolf snapping its jaws at anyone who threatens it. The nightmares are vague but haunt her.

Again, she keeps her distance from Alphinaud and Alisaie in fear that they may begin to suspect she is unwell. Instead she spends time talking to Yugiri to distract her.

Finding the Prince:

While searching for Gosetsu and Yugiri's prince, Kiri begins to feel a bit of herself return. The injustice the Garleans have placed over Doma has rekindled her need to stand and fight, to protect those who cannot. Her own well being is put aside to help wherever possible.

Finding Hien was incredibly underwhelming to Kiri. She had expected something grand upon meeting him, a man like Aymeric perhaps. But instead she meets this grinning mountain man looking lordling who has ambitions to pluck stars from the night sky. His plan seemed half baked and made Kiri wonder if they should have a back up plan.

Staying with the Mol while at the Steppe did enlighten her a bit. Under such a vast night sky, Kiri felt an ease in her shoulders she hadn't felt in a while. Cirina was a refreshing young woman to talk with, and putting Kiri to work around the camp helped quell her inner demons for the time. Even Hien and Gosetsu became delightful company. They never addressed her as Warrior of Light which was a relief.

Meeting Magnai and his at the Dawn Throne initially had Kiri on edge, but when tasked to find lost lambs with Hien, she could hardly complain.

Besides their friendly banter and desire to challenge one another, the herding of sheep was the first time Kiri spent time alone with Hien. She felt sorry that a prince had to round up animals at first, until she heard him talking to one of the lambs. His voice soft and soothing, coaxing the tiny creature out of hiding alongside its mother. Such gentleness coming from a guy like Hien had Kiri flustered. She couldn't look him in the eyes the rest of the day without getting worked up. Cuteness overload.

#|| ooc #|| Untold stories #i imagine going into stormblood was insanely difficult for kiri #so much happening that the stress of it caused her nightmares to worsen #she still doesn't have her full memories back but she sees glimpses of what she's done #it scares her to think there's a whole different person inside herself she doesn't know about #but traveling starts to ease her pain #she manages to pull herself back together for a while #it all comes undone in ShB tho #also i left out a few poinrs just bc i didn't remember them entirely #she falls for Hien bc he talks nicely to sheep #wow

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anunvalidcritic · 4 years

Text

WATCHMEN (series) EP1

(DISCLAIMER: MY OPINION IS MY OWN AND CAN BE DEEMED INVALID TO THOSE WHO DON’T CARE FOR IT.) *SPOILER ALERT*

I’ve been meaning to do this show for quite some time now but I was so wrapped up and watching and not commenting on it because it was just that good! But here I am now talking about it and that’s all that matters. Thou this series so far only has 1 season with 9 episode it’s pretty fucking incredible and the cast and crew outdid themselves HANDS DOWN. So anyways I’ll be giving some reactions and thoughts that I have about this episode and the rest to follow as per usual on this blog. Please enjoy {:*) <-- do you get it?}

It’s Summer and We’re Running Out of Ice

RORSCHACH is one bad motherfucker!

It’s crazy how ppl complain about subtitles now but just think of the ppl that had to watch the scene first and then read what the fuck was being sad smdh.... y’all bitchies got it made in the shade nowadays

“There will be no mob justice today. TRUST IN THE LAW.” - Black Marshall and the young boy

A siren is going off in the distance, the lady on the piano is fucking up now, and some type of bomb seemed to have hit the building wtf is going on is it some type of war?

TULSA 1921

Oh shit!

Racial injustice and public discrimination of African Americans but white members of the KKK...

The AA family of 3 is running for their lives

They meet up with some friends and they’re told that there isn’t enough room in the car. So the father of the young boy insist that they take their son only.

While telling his son his final goodbyes he gives him a piece of paper.

Bro that’s fucked up his parents didn’t even have a fucking chance!

There’s a car accident... the man and the woman are deceased and the boy is fortunate enough to be alive...

“WATCH OVER THIS BOY” - written on the paper

There was a fucking infant in the car bro!

All this shit was because a group of ppl didn’t like the success of a minority community coming up and being successful

PRESENT DAY (2019)

Aye that dude was really bumpin’ to that shit

Damn that light is bright as fuck!

lol PANDA must be dick if he didn’t want to talk to him

“It was a Rorschach mask.” - Police Officer

Bro the fucking dialogue going on in this scene while the office is in the car really had me dyin’ (from laughter)

MEMORABLE DIALOGUE

OFFICER - “Panda come on release my weapon.”

PANDA - “Probability of drugs and/or alcohol in the subject’s vehicle?”

OFFICER - “High.”

PANDA - “Probability of firearms and/or explosives in the subject’s vehicle?”

OFFICER - “High.”

PANDA - “What’s your overall perceived threat leave of this?”

OFFICER - “High. Just... buzz me, okay?”

PANDA - “...Stand by...”

FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!

PANDA took to fucking long!!!! (PANDA is the type of dude that does things by the book.)

That whole traffic stop had me tense af!

BLACK OKLAHOMA (shit was lowkey lit though)

That beat drop though!

Looks like the boss man is getting called in because of the incident.

AYE Ol’ COUNTRY BOY FROM HOLES

Listen, man, if you don’t like the show can you at least appreciate the dialogue that the show has to offer?!?!

MEMORABLE DIALOGUE

LOOKING GLASS - “Maybe there was something in the truck he didn’t want found.”

CAPTAIN - “Something like what?”

LOOKING GLASS - “There was a head of lettuce in the Sutton’s car. The shooter must’ve tossed it in. I believe it was Romaine.”

CAPTAIN - “...Were there any croutons?”

LOOKING GLASS - “...Not that I could assertain.”

LOOKING GLASS has the best mask on this show hands down!

It is pretty how the police have to hide their identity from anyone around them.

The fucking WATCHMEN.... how legendary

Vietnam's a whole fucking state of the USA?!?!?

Is it just me or doesn’t that little boy they keep showing looks like he could be related to the girl that plays X-23?... just me alrighty then...

Why do I feel as if ANGELA is about to traumatize these kids with a story that happened to her?

LOL the way the teacher

“Did Redfordations pay for it?”/”Your bakery... Did you pay for it with Redfordations?” - TOMMY

Idek what Redfordations are yet but that little boy looks racist lol so I’m not surprised he asked her that question. But he played his part so good for him.

DAMN THE BOY VERSION OF X-23 KNOCKED HIS ASS OVER (his name is TOPHER)

WTF IS THAT?!?! Are those baby squids?!?! They didn’t even live for that long.

ANGELA doin’ her bad bitch walk while being watched by an old man in a wheelchair.

LADY KNIGHT

tiktoktiktoktiktoktiktoktikoktiktoktiktok

Of course, PANDA looks like shit!

“Black Oklahoma was delightful.” - CAPTAIN

LOOKING GLASS was right... she not happy about not being contacted when the incident happened.

“I got a nose for white supremacy and he smells like Bleach.” - ANGELA

That integration pod is pretty cool lookin’

ANGELA got that man right on the nose when picking him.

... just tell her what she wants to know man!

CATTLE RANCH

Dang, I hope nothing happens to those cows....

Damn so much for hoping the cows would be okay

LADY KNIGHT vs THE CAVALRY

ROFL the way she’s slapping him!

“They're right under you?” - ANGELA..... These motherfuckers are in the sky!!!!!!!

Wow JUDD was really about to risk both of their lives to get those dudes and he’s laughin’ like that shit ain’t nothin’...

alright... we’ve got some nice classical music playing...

Wow naked as a jaybird and has that girl rubbin’ his thigh like this ain’t nothin’ new.

Anniversary.... is a fan of Mariah Carey??? (get it because Mariah Carey refers to her birthday as an anniversary... boujee shit)

Proceeds to eat only a forkful of cake

A play in 5 fucking acts?!?!?!?

BLACK OKLAHOMA is the musical that’s the talk of the town... HAMILTON WHO?!? (jkjkjk)

Y’all I just had an epiphany.... in the musical of Oklahoma the “bad guy” character name is JUDD just like the captain... now Idk if that’s foreshadowing but... it's whatever.... for now

The animation of that show that’s being played for American Hero Story is so damn good.

Damn this dude really played himself... his wife suggested that he shouldn’t drive...

I’m sorry but once again I don’t think that scene was necessary but then again ig something needed to be put there for that transition my dudes. (kinda fucked up that they had to do it the closet tho DEAD)

“Is this ANGELA ABAR?... Is your father MARCUS ABAR? Big Oak Tree out on Rollin’ Hill somethin’ you need to see there. I know who you are so don’t wear no goddamn mask.” - WHEELCHAIR MAN

That’s probably the coolest fucking headboard to ever be created.

Wow did he really hang that fucking man??

WHEELCHAIR MAN is the boy that survived the TULSA MASSACRE

A good way to end the first episode with the ICONIC blood splatter.

---------

All the episodes within the series are at least an hour-long so it’s good to binge it. Once again it’s really an amazing series and since the majority of the American population is under quarantine you might as well spend your time watching a show that has an outstanding production value.

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pikapeppa · 5 years

Text

Cullavellan and FenHawke pirate AU: Fantasy

Chapter 2 of Where The Winds Of Fortune Take Me is up on AO3, for the lovely and talented mastermind @schoute, who created this AMAZING WANTED POSTER TO GO WITH THE CHAPTER.

In which Cullen has some moral quandaries and runs into the polite and well-mannered Lady Rynne Hawke. [innocent smile]

Read on AO3 instead (~8100 words).

*******************

CULLEN

“Come in,” a stern female voice barked.

Cullen straightened and smoothed one hand over his cravat, then pushed open the polished wooden door.

Admiral Meredith Stannard was standing by the window with folded arms. She turned to face him at the opening of the door.

“Commander,” she said with a sharp nod. She gestured to one of the chairs in front of the pristinely polished desk, then launched into business without any preamble. “I have heard there is an increase in pirate-related crimes in Lowtown. What will you be doing about this?”

Cullen deftly adjusted the sword at his waist as he sat in the chair. “There has been a modest increase in minor crimes,” he admitted. “But the lieutenants and I–”

Meredith placed her gloved palms on the surface of the desk. “I’ve been informed that a pirate escaped from jail on these very premises,” she said. “During your watch. That is hardly an incident that I would call ‘modest’.”

Her stern tone and expression were as neutral as always, but her clear blue eyes were piercing. Cullen forced himself not to betray the sudden lurch of nerves in his belly at the mention of Piper’s escape.

He bowed his head briefly. “It was my responsibility, Admiral,” he said quietly. “It will not happen again.” Never mind that this wasn’t the first time Piper had evaded long-term imprisonment in Kirkwall. In fairness, this was only the second time she had escaped without Cullen’s knowledge; the other times she’d been imprisoned, she or Varric had either exploited the foibles of Kirkwall law to talk her out of being kept for longer than three days, or the men she’d injured had suddenly and mysteriously retracted their accusations of assault, resulting in her being released from jail without further penalty.

It wouldn’t do to point this out to Meredith, however. Cullen had failed in his duties enough already by inadvertently allowing Piper’s escape two weeks ago.

Meredith frowned. “It certainly won’t,” she said. “I am henceforth commanding more stringent punishment for any acts of crime committed by pirates in this city.”

Cullen raised his eyebrows slightly. “More stringent punishment?” he said. “Entailing what, precisely?”

“The noose,” she said succinctly.

A jolt of shock rocketed through his chest. He forced his face not to register it. “The noose? For… for what crimes?”

“All crimes committed by pirates,” Meredith said. “They are the bane of Kirkwall. Their unlawful activities place the rest of our law-abiding citizens at risk.” She began to pace slowly behind the desk. “The lenient approach has not worked. These criminals have not earned the benefit of the doubt that their presence in Darktown and Lowtown implies. If you or your men should capture any pirates committing illegal acts in Kirkwall, you will immediately arrest them and sentence them to death. Is this understood?”

Cullen hesitated, and Meredith’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Is there a problem, Commander?”

He nervously licked his lips. Meredith’s orders smacked of wrongness, but Cullen couldn’t entirely verbalize why. After all, he would have been of the same mind as her a mere year ago. But now, the thought of hanging a pirate for a minor crime – of hanging someone like Piper for defending herself from human attackers who were twice her size…

A chill ran down his spine. But he could hardly state his trepidation to Meredith – not when the pirate he wanted to defend was the very same one who had slipped out of prison right beneath his nose.

Which then begged the question as to why Cullen wanted to defend the troublesome little elf in the first place.

Confused and worried, he did the only thing he could do: he bowed his head respectfully to his commanding officer. “No, Admiral. It is not a problem.”

She studied him for a moment longer, then nodded. “Good. There is one other matter. This pirate who escaped: this Mad Piper, as she is known.” Meredith picked up a tidy sheaf of parchment from the desk. “She has been a problem in Kirkwall for an entire year now, from what I understand.”

Maker’s breath, Cullen thought. He swallowed hard, then prayed that Meredith hadn’t noticed his nerves. “Yes,” he said carefully. “She often frequents the Lowtown market.”

Meredith nodded, then pulled out a piece of parchment from the stack in her hands and gave it to Cullen.

He took the parchment, and his heart thumped anxiously. It was a WANTED poster featuring Captain Mad Piper herself, complete with a (rather fetching) sketch of the elven captain, along with a list of all her crimes: theft, obstructing merchant activity, multiple counts of assault on citizens, multiple counts of assaults on naval officers, public indecency, disturbing the peace, inciting riots, and impersonating the Divine.

Impersonating the Divine…? he thought incredulously. Then Meredith spoke again, interrupting his racing thoughts. “The Kirkwall printers are in the process of making these posters en masse. They will be ready in two days’ time.” She took the poster back from Cullen. “You will arrest this criminal the next time she makes an appearance in Kirkwall, whether she commits a crime or not,” Meredith said. “An example will be made of her. Any pirates wishing to take advantage of this fair city will know the kind of justice that awaits them here.”

Cullen’s pulse was thumping in his ears. The list of Piper’s crimes flickered through his mind – a multitude of crimes, but none of them truly horrific. She wasn’t like the pirates who had attacked his ship five years ago and murdered all of his men without a second thought. Piper was trouble, but she wasn’t a monster. She was a pirate, but she didn’t deserve the noose.

She didn’t deserve this.

He cleared his throat. “Admiral, if I may–”

Meredith interrupted him. “We are also making WANTED posters for that other elf on her crew,” she said. “The dangerous-looking one. You will bring him in as well.”

Cullen’s eyebrows rose in undisguised surprise. “You mean Fe–?” He broke off and bit his lip before he blurted out the name of Piper’s master-at-arms. It would be career suicide to admit that he had enough knowledge of Piper’s life to know the names of her closest crew.

He tried again. “That crew member of hers is not known for any illegal activity,” he reasoned. “There have been no reports of his involvement in any violent or criminal activities.”

Meredith gave him a hard look. “He is the known associate of a notorious pirate. That is damning enough.”

Cullen inhaled slowly to try and calm his racing heart. Meredith’s attitude was alarming, and it had been getting more worrying as the year had worn on. The Admiral had always been a strict but fair leader, and this was partly why Cullen had been pleased to return to Kirkwall on her orders. Cullen and Meredith had seen eye-to-eye about the dangers of piracy for many years, and Cullen had never had reason to question her orders before. But over the past year or so, he’d started to become more uncertain about the justice of Meredith’s decisions.

For the first few months, Cullen hadn’t been sure whether his uncertainty about Meredith was related to his own regrettable softening toward pirates, or whether Meredith’s orders were truly questionable. But the conversation they were having now made it clear that the problem was not just Cullen’s leniency.

Fenris had committed no known crimes in Kirkwall, but Meredith was ordering his punishment. This was a clear injustice, and Cullen couldn’t in good conscience allow it to pass, no matter the consequences that it might bring to him.

He sat up a little straighter in his chair. “Admiral,” he said. “I… I regret that cannot follow those orders.”

Meredith recoiled slightly. “I beg your pardon?”

“I cannot arrest Mad Piper’s master-at-arms,” he said. “He has no criminal record here. Any crimes he may have done are outside of our jurisdiction. It would be a… an abuse on my part as a commander of the navy to arrest him.”

Meredith glared at him for a long moment, and Cullen held his breath as he waited for her verdict. Finally she sighed and waved an impatient hand.

“You are correct,” she said, to Cullen’s great relief. But his relief was short-lived as she continued to speak. “We will have to think something else. I will speak to the Viscount about drafting a new anti-fraternization law.”

Cullen frowned slightly. “Anti-fraternization law?”

She nodded. “Any known associates of a pirate must be punished for aiding and abetting their crimes,” she announced. She rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “I will think on the phrasing. You will assist me with this.”

Cullen stared at her with growing alarm. “I…”

She frowned at him, and he cleared his throat and nodded decisively, even though he felt anything but. “Yes, of course,” he said.

She nodded in response, then waved a hand for him to rise. Cullen stood up, and Meredith gave him her usual stern look. “Remind your men to keep an eye out for this Mad Piper. The WANTED posters will go up in three days, and then the whole city will have an eye out for her. But if she should appear before then, she must not go free.”

Cullen bowed. “Admiral,” he murmured, then left her office.

He headed straight for the main exit of the navy headquarters. His gut was churning with anxiety, and he was hopeful that a casual patrol through Hightown’s streets would help to calm his nerves.

He stepped out into the blazing afternoon sun and made his way along the standard patrol route that led to Lowtown, but his mind was preoccupied with the meeting he’d just had. The situation with Meredith made him feel physically ill. Meredith had never had any fondness for pirates, but Cullen couldn’t understand her particular vendetta against Piper. Was it purely because Piper had escaped from jail, and Meredith was trying to salvage the navy’s reputation? Or might there be some other reason for her focus on the wily little elven captain? Piper was hardly the sort of nefarious pirate that Meredith and Cullen so abhorred, after all. She was actually very well-liked among many of the (admittedly less savoury) residents in Lowtown, and stories of some of her more ‘amusing’ feats in Lowtown had even trickled into the gossip circuit in Hightown. Cullen genuinely wasn’t sure that sentencing Piper to the noose would convey the message that Meredith was hoping for.

A fleeting image of Piper’s slender neck encircled by a thick noose flashed through his mind. He shivered instinctively at the thought, then ran a hand through his hair. For all that he’d scolded himself about not fraternizing with pirates, it seemed that he had somehow struck up an unacceptably affable rapport with Piper. He would be lying if he said his feelings toward Piper were completely impartial… and this was a serious problem.

Cullen now had direct orders from the Admiral that conflicted with his own sense of what was right. But could he trust his sense of justice when his own judgment was biased?

I am not entirely biased, he thought. The point he’d made about Fenris was valid. It was wrong to punish a person for merely affiliating with a pirate if that person had committed no crimes – at least none that could be proven. If affiliation was all it took, then Meredith should be targeting Varric just as harshly as Fenris and Piper.

But Varric was still technically a citizen of Kirkwall. Perhaps this was the difference. Varric still managed multiple businesses in Kirkwall, and he and Piper had never actually admitted to Varric being an official member of Piper’s crew. If Meredith’s anti-fraternization law went through, Varric could technically claim that he had been abducted by Piper and thereby get out of trouble. Perhaps Cullen ought to point that out to them if the worst should come to pass.

Then he stopped and scratched back of his neck. Why was he trying to think of ways to help Piper and her crew? He was a blasted naval commander. He should be reinforcing the law, not thinking ways to help a silver-haired little troublemaker escape it.

He sighed heavily, then shunted the problem aside for now. He would calm his mind with the familiarity of this patrol, and when his jangling nerves were soothed, he would return to the problem of Piper with a clearer head.

The routine of his patrol was as calming as Cullen had hoped. Aside from a noble youth drinking rum in public and a few children playing in the fountain, Cullen ran into minimal trouble. But just as Cullen was about to start the final loop of his patrol back to the headquarters, he spotted an unusual sight: a noble lady, alone – and one whom Cullen had never seen alone before.

He approached her and bowed politely. “Good afternoon, Lady Rynne,”

She beamed at him. “Oh hello, Commander! What a lovely surprise.” She idly waved the lacy mint-green fan in her delicately gloved hand. “What are you doing on patrol? I was under the impression that this was more of a lieutenant’s job.”

She wasn’t wrong. But he couldn't very well tell her his real reasons for being on patrol. “It is,” he said. “But I took it on myself to follow this route today. See if there are any… deviations that… Er, if any changes to the route are required to keep our citizens safe,” he said clumsily.

“Ah, of course,” Lady Rynne said. “A noble undertaking for a noble commander.”

Her tone was pleasant and unsuspecting, but Cullen awkwardly cleared his throat nonetheless. “I’m surprised to see you on your own,” he remarked. Leandra Hawke doted on her eldest child, and Lady Rynne was always accompanied by at least one handmaiden, as well as a personal bodyguard from the Hawke estate or her burly younger brother Carver, when he wasn’t carrying out his lieutenant duties himself. Seeing the young lady out on the town by herself was very strange indeed.

Lady Rynne made a tiny moue of dismay. “My handmaidens fell ill on some poorly-prepared fish, I’m afraid. And dear Carver stepped into the weapons shop – no place for a lady, you’ll agree. He’ll be back momentarily.”

Cullen frowned slightly. “Would you care for my company until his return?”

She delicately fanned herself. “Oh no, Commander, please! Don’t concern yourself with me. I’m sure I will be fine until Carver’s return. I’ll sit in this shade and enjoy the breeze. It’s such a lovely day, don’t you think?” She took a seat on a nearby carved stone bench beneath a tree and arranged her petticoats around her lap, then smiled up at him.

Cullen studied her curiously for a moment. The Belle of Kirkwall, they called her, and it wasn’t difficult to see why; Rynne Hawke was one of the most beautiful women in Kirkwall, with her delicate porcelain skin and her long shiny chestnut hair. She was sociable and charming and exceedingly well-mannered: by all rights, a very proper young lady. But there was something about her smile that always made Cullen feel like she was on the verge of making a joke that never quite left her lips.

He discarded the strange impression. He was probably just imagining things. He bowed slightly once more. “Well, if you’re certain you’re all right on your own, I should return to my desk to file my, er, patrol notes.”

Lady Rynne nodded and smiled. “Of course. I appreciate your concern, Commander. Have a lovely afternoon.”

“You as well,” he said, and he left her on the bench as he made his way back toward the navy headquarters. As he neared the carved pillars of the tall and decorous government building, his nerves began to vibrate once more, and he forced himself to breathe calmly as he made his way up the steps.

One thing at a time, he thought to himself. First he would try to determine if there were any other reasons that Meredith might be targeting Piper so distinctively. If he pored carefully through Piper’s criminal record, he might be able to find a way to alleviate the Admiral’s concerns and convince her to be slightly less strict in her sentencing.

Perhaps in the course of his investigations, he would also figure out why it mattered so much to him that the infuriating, flirtatious Captain Mad Piper not be sentenced to death.

RYNNE

Rynne fanned herself lazily and watched from the corner of her eye until Cullen’s navy-coated back disappeared around the corner.

Thank fuck, she thought. She flicked her lacy fan shut, then rose to her feet and began to walk away in the opposite direction that Cullen had gone.

She glanced toward the parasol and kerchief shoppe, then averted her face and sped up slightly to pass it by; Carver was in the shoppe getting her parasol repaired just as she’d cajoled him to do. He would be angry when he discovered she’d snuck away from him again, but Rynne didn’t care. If she had to spend one more minute today being fussed and clucked over like a useless child, she was going to start tearing out her perfectly pinned hair.

Her lovely handmaidens were at home, playing sick just as Rynne had paid them to do. Free now for the first time in over a month, Rynne was going to take full advantage and do the one thing she’d always wanted to do: she was finally going to venture into the Lowtown market.

She couldn’t explain why she wanted so badly to go to Lowtown. By all rights, it was a place she should want to avoid; it was dirty and noisy and full of people of questionable cleanliness and manners, and if Carver and her mother were to be believed, it was full of criminals who would sooner tarnish her honour than tell her ‘good day’.

But Rynne couldn't believe that that’s all there was to the market. It might be noisy and smelly and packed, but it was also vibrant and colourful and full of life. Flowers burst unfettered across the roofs and walls, and there were strange and delicious smells emanating from the many chaotic cooking fires – smells that were savoury and sweet and spicy, and so much more interesting than the cooking smells she was used to at home. The sounds of music often floated out of the market, merry sounds of instruments that Rynne had never heard at the formal dances and dinners in Hightown. And the people – Maker’s balls, the people...

There were all kinds of people in Lowtown. Humans, of course, but also dwarves and elves and the occasional qunari, and all of them wearing strange and colourful clothes and adorned with tattoos and jewelry the likes of which Rynne would never see in Hightown. On the cherished occasions when Rynne ran into Varric at the book shoppe, he’d told her about the funny conversations he’d had or the odd people he’d seen in Lowtown, and it only enhanced her wishes to see it for herself.

Where Hightown was a perfect pastel-coloured canvas of humans with perfect pristine smiles, Lowtown was completely imperfect, like a mad and unstructured jumble of people and things and noises from everywhere in the world – everywhere that Rynne had never been, and probably never would go.

Rynne was stuck in Hightown society. She was the eldest and only daughter of a controversial family: the Amells had a good reputation among the noble families but the middle-class Hawkes did not, and Leandra’s bold choice to marry below her station was still having its social consequences over two decades later. Rynne’s mother was desperate to marry her off to some high-class pompous twat to wipe away the so-called shame of having married the infamously academic Malcolm Hawke – an irony that made Rynne laugh on the good days, and made her want to scream on the bad ones.

She sighed internally as she gracefully strolled through the streets of Hightown. At times like this, Rynne really missed having Bethany around. Bethany was the sweet and gentle one, and on the days when Rynne was feeling really hard done-by, Bethany had usually been able to remind her why an arranged marriage would benefit the family – usually by pointing out their other friends who seemed to be happily married to men they hadn’t met until their wedding days. But the scarlet fever pandemic three years ago had taken Bethany away, and Rynne no longer had a confidante when the expectations of her station became too heavy to bear.

And the expectations were heavy indeed. Rynne was twenty-five now – practically an old maid – and her mother was becoming more controlling than ever, forcing her to meet with the parents of eligible young men at least twice a week and to go on heavily escorted dates with those young men just as frequently. Being stared at by bodyguards and handmaidens and family members was hardly conducive to getting to know a possible suitor – not that Rynne wanted to anyway. Every bachelor her mother forced her to meet was either too young, far too old, too bland and boring, or far too prone to eyeing her in the overly-attentive kind of way that made Rynne’s skin crawl with misgivings.

In short, Rynne felt like some sort of prize cow who was being shown around for the value of the milk she could provide. In contrast, her fantasies about Lowtown were like an escape. She saw the crowded market as the entryway into a land of adventure and strangeness and freedom that she could never have. And she was so desperate for even a tiny taste of the freedom that Lowtown offered that she was willing to risk the punishment that Leandra would inevitably bestow for her misbehaviour.

She slid her fingers into her elaborately curled hair and rubbed absently at her scalp. Then the first strains of noise and foreign music floated to her ears.

She smiled, then lifted her skirts slightly and walked more quickly still. She was nearly running now – a very improper thing for a young lady to do – but Rynne didn’t give a shit: she was almost there, almost at the broad stone steps that led down into Lowtown’s lively and fragrant depths. She had limited time now before Carver would realize that she’d gone missing, and she had to make the most of the time she had.

Within a minute, she was at the top of the steps. She stared gleefully at the market, with its colourful tarps and dancing ladies and all the fucking people. Without another second’s hesitation, she lifted her skirts and hurried down the steps. Then, for the first time in her twenty-five years of life, Rynne set foot in Lowtown.

It was so much louder here, and the smells were much stronger and laced with the pungent scent of unwashed bodies. Wide-eyed with wonder, Rynne began to slip through the crowd as unobtrusively as she could despite her vast stupid skirts. People were swearing and shouting and singing, and as she made her way toward the nearest merchant’s stand, she was rudely jostled in the sort of way that would never happen up in Hightown.

It was wonderful. Cacophonous and chaotic and absolutely fucking wonderful. When she finally reached the dwarven jewelry merchant’s stand, she couldn’t stop herself from beaming at him. “These are beautiful,” she called out over the noise.

“Thanks, lady,” he shouted back. He looked stunned for some reason, but Rynne didn’t mind; she was too preoccupied by the glittering jewelry on display. It looked ‘cheap’, as her mother would say: glass crystals set in plain copper and bronze, with no fine gems or metals to be found. But the artistry in the curling metal and the arrangements of the cut glass gems were like nothing Rynne had ever seen.

She pointed at one piece and looked up at the merchant. “How much for this?”

“Ten silver,” he replied.

Ten silver? Rynne thought. That seemed quite expensive indeed. She could purchase a moderately fine silk parasol for that price.

She tilted her head. “What is it made of, if you don’t mind my asking?”

The merchant tilted his chin up slightly and folded his arms. “Why’re you asking?”

Rynne widened her eyes and blinked. “Why, because the artistry is astounding, of course. I’m curious about your methods.” Flattery always worked in the shoppes at home; perhaps it would work here as well.

Luckily for Rynne, her hunch was correct: the merchant relaxed at her words. “Oh. Well.” He scratched his ear. “Five silver, then. Since you asked so nice.”

Rynne smiled and pulled a tiny coin purse out of the pocket of her skirts. “Wonderful! If you don’t mind wrapping it for me…” She looked up to find the merchant’s wary gaze focused just behind her head.

She tilted her head in confusion. Then a large and callused hand took hold of her upper arm. “You look lost, missus,” a deep guttural voice grunted.

Rynne turned toward the voice. It belonged to a large and grubby human man with two equally large and grubby companions.

She ignored the little leap of trepidation in her belly and smiled politely. “Good afternoon, gentlemen. That’s kind of you to be concerned, but I’m just fine.”

The man’s grip tightened on her arm. “I think you’re lost. And I think you need us to help you find your way home.” He pulled her closer. “For a price.”

Rynne recoiled slightly from his rancid breath, then smiled more widely despite her rapidly beating heart. “No thank you, I’m perfectly fine,” she said. “Please, feel free to move on. Don’t let me hold you up.”

The thug narrowed his eyes. “You dumb or somethin’? Give us your fuckin’ money.”

Rynne sighed musically. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. But I do have to apologize.”

He glared at her. “Apologize for what?”

“For this,” Rynne said. Then, before she could think twice, she crushed the heel of her shoe onto his filthy bare foot.

The thug yelped in surprise and released her arm, and Rynne spun around as quickly as her skirts allowed and ran – straight into the chest of yet another man.

Her nose slammed into his sternum. “Fuck,” she blurted. She grabbed her aching nose and stumbled back, then glanced up through her watering eyes at the man she’d just walked into.

He wasn’t a human, but an elf. In the space of a split second, Rynne realized three things: first, this elf was extremely handsome, with dark tawny skin covered in strange trailing white lines and the most lovely sculpted lips she’d seen outside of an art museum. Second, he looked extremely dangerous, with one hand resting on the handle of his cutlass and a forbidding scowl on his face. The third and most surprising fact was this: Rynne had seen this man before.

It was the elf she’d made eye contact with a couple of weeks ago, when she’d managed to cajole her usual entourage to come to the threshold of the market with her and watch the goings-on. A rush of combined embarrassment and pleasure cut through her swiftly growing panic as she remembered that fleeting moment: the second that he’d met her gaze and the way his scowl seemed to soften for the briefest instant, and the way she’d shamelessly stared at him as though she wanted to eat him up–

A rush of heat bloomed in her cheeks. Fuck, fuck, shut the fuck up, Rynne, she scolded herself silently. He could be another assailant, for all she knew. Speaking of assailants…

She spun away from him and toward the humans who had originally approached her, but they were gone.

She let out a relieved sigh, then tensed and stepped away from the handsome elf. She lowered her hand from her nose and gave him a guarded look. “I’d like to think it’s my menacing demeanour that scared those assholes off, but somehow I think I’ll be disappointed,” she said. “Are you going to try and mug me, too?”

His stern eyebrows leapt high on his forehead, and Rynne winced. “Sorry. Do you – maybe you don’t speak common. Varric mentioned that a lot of the people who dock here don’t. Um…” She gave him a hopeful smile and tried out the only elvhen phrase she knew. “Andaran atish–”

“I speak common,” he snapped, and Rynne shivered involuntarily. Maker’s balls, he had a bloody nice voice.

And he wasn’t finished using it yet: he continued to berate her in a deep and disdainful tone. “You are fortunate that your coin is all they tried to take. You should not be here.”

“What do you mean?” she said shrewdly. “You don’t know where I’m from.” She was starting to feel a bit excited. Did he remember having seen her before, as well?

He scowled more deeply, and Rynne watched with delight as the very tips of his ears began to turn red. “You are obviously from Hightown,” he growled. “You should go back there now, before you cause anyone any further trouble.”

She bit back a smile. He clearly remembered her, but wasn’t willing to admit it.

She stuck out her hand. “I’m Rynne,” she said. “Rynne Hawke. It’s nice to meet you.”

He recoiled slightly from her and folded his arms, which naturally only served to draw Rynne’s attention to his hands and arms. The same white lines that curved down his chin and neck also climbed from his wrists all the way up to his shoulders.

Rynne forced her eyes back to his face: no hardship there, given how gorgeous he was. “All right, I’ll keep my hands to myself,” she said affably. “What’s your name?”

He frowned more deeply still. Then his posture loosened very slightly. “I am Fenris,” he said.

She smiled. “Fenris,” she said. “It’s lovely to meet you.” She turned back to the merchant. “Now, where were we…?”

“Price has gone up, lady,” the merchant said. “Seven silver for the business your antics cost me.”

Rynne froze with her fingers halfway into her coin purse. “Seven? Oh dear. I only have five.” She snapped her coin purse shut and turned away from the merchant’s stand in mock regret.

“Fine, fine,” the merchant hastily said. “Five silver, all right?”

She paused and widened her eyes. “Are you sure? I don’t want to discount your lovely workmanship–”

“It’s fine, lady,” the merchant grumbled. “The necklace is all yours.” He started wrapping it in a scrap of coarse brown burlap.

Rynne beamed at him. “You’re far too kind,” she said. Then she looked up at Fenris, who was studying her as though she’d grown an extra head.

She tilted her head. “Is something the matter?”

He stared her for a moment longer, then tucked his hands into his pockets. “That necklace is worth one silver at most,” he said in a quiet voice. “And he did not make it himself. He is fleecing you.”

Rynne gaped at him. “It’s not handmade?”

“Not by him, at any rate,” Fenris said. He glanced quickly at the merchant’s wares. “It is of elven make. It’s the workmanship of the free colonies on the Rialto Bay.”

Rynne’s eyes widened. “All the way from the Rialto Bay? Wow.” She gazed at the merchant’s wares for a moment longer, then held out her hand to the merchant. “May I?”

The merchant paused in the act of wrapping the necklace, then handed it over to her. Rynne reached up and untied her scarlet ribbon choker from around her neck, then held it out to Fenris. “Hold this for me, would you?”

He stared at her again as though she was some kind of strange creature, then gingerly took the ribbon from her hand.

Rynne unwrapped her new necklace from the scrap of burlap and swiftly clipped it around her throat. She fondly stroked the glass crystals, then smiled at the merchant. “Please give my compliments to the elves of Rialto Bay. And give them four of those silver that I gave to you.”

The merchant gave her a hard stare, then lowered his eyes. “Missus,” he grunted.

Rynne smiled more broadly, then looked up at Fenris. “Well, it’s clear that I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she said cheerfully. “Would you care to escort me around the market? I would be happy for the company of such a handsome elf.”

Fenris’s face twisted in an odd way: almost as though he tried to scowl and smirk at the same time. Then his expression returned to its default frown. “I can’t,” he said bluntly. “I am meeting someone.”

Rynne pouted to hide a legitimate pang of disappointment. “Meeting someone, you say?” She tilted her head and batted her eyelashes at him. “A special someone?”

He scowled. “That’s none of your business.”

She sighed. “Fair enough. Well then, now I have to find out as much about you as I can before your companion arrives. Are you a sailor?”

His scowl deepened, and he hunched his shoulders defensively. “Why do you want to know?”

“Curiosity, of course!” Rynne said. “This is obviously my first time here. Who knows if I’ll ever come back?”

“You are looking to collect stories to tell your friends back in Hightown, then?” Fenris replied. “Tales of the pathetic and the poor, so you can congratulate yourselves for avoiding such an ignominious fate?”

It was Rynne’s turn to recoil from his acidic tone. “What? No, not at all,” she said blankly. “I… honestly, I’d rather stay here than go back to Hightown. Despite the big smelly thugs and the fleecing merchants. I’ve never been on a ship before.” She glanced wistfully toward the port and the many merchant ships that were docked there, then looked up at Fenris once more. “What’s it like? Being on a ship?” She raised one eyebrow at him. “I’m assuming again that you’re a sailor, what with the gear and the bare feet.”

He studied her carefully for a moment longer, and Rynne forced herself to be patient as she waited for his response. Then he sighed and glanced toward the dock.

“It can be difficult,” he told her. “Storms can be near-fatal. Running out of fresh water is a constant concern. But it is a free life. That counts for more than comfort.”

Rynne stared at his stern and handsome profile with a growing lump in her throat. She swallowed hard, then looked off toward the horizon. “Well, shit,” she said lamely.

Fenris snorted.

Rynne looked up at him once more: he was smirking, the first evidence of amusement she’d yet seen on his face. It was enough to make her heart flutter.

She smiled at him. “What’s so funny?”

He shook his head and didn’t reply. Then a bright, cheerful female voice approached them.

“Fen! There you are!” A short, pretty elf with a gorgeous mass of silver hair bounced over and tapped Fenris’s arm. “I looked for you at Bohdan’s stand, I thought you said–”

Rynne’s jaw dropped. “You’re Mad Piper,” she gasped. “The one who escaped from jail!” She pressed a hand to her chest in excitement. “Oh Maker, I’ve heard so many stories about you. It’s lovely to meet you.”

The silver-haired elf beamed at her, then bowed deeply with a flourish. “I am Mad Piper, at your service, m’lady.” She straightened and eyed Rynne’s impractical dress with interest. “Lady, indeed. You’re a ways from home, aren’t you, love?”

“That is what I said,” Fenris grunted. He shot Rynne a pointed look as he spoke to Piper. “She insisted on staying after picking a fight with three human thugs.” He folded his arms. “An idiotic move in the extreme.”

Rynne lowered her eyes demurely. “Oh, Fenris, you certainly know how to flatter a lady.”

Fenris huffed. Piper’s keen gaze darted between Rynne and Fenris, and to Rynne’s surprise, Piper slung an arm around her neck. “Come on, m’lady, Fenris and I will give you a proper introduction to the market,” she said. She tilted her head. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“I’m Rynne,” she said. “Rynne Hawke.”

“Rynne Hawke! Fantastic name,” Piper enthused. “Almost a pirate-y name, actually.” She began to pull Rynne further into the market, and Rynne was delighted to follow her.

“It’s not as impressive as Mad Piper,” she replied. “So tell me, are the stories true?”

“Completely,” Piper said.

“Exaggerated,” Fenris drawled at the same moment.

Piper pulled her arm from around Rynne’s neck and punched Fenris lightly in the arm. “Excuse you! Don’t you listen to Varric? He says that every story is based on something true.” She turned to Rynne with a charming smile. “In my case, I guarantee that a solid eighty percent of what you’ve heard is true.”

“I heard you once knocked out a whole tavern of Carta thugs single-handedly,” Rynne said eagerly.

Piper’s grin became a grimace. “Well. I took out… maybe eighty percent on my own.” Fenris cleared his throat, and Piper dissolved into laughter. “Fine, maybe forty percent. I have a very loyal crew.” She winked at Fenris, who grimaced in response.

Rynne watched their playful back-and-forth with a slight ache in her chest. Despite Fenris’s inscrutable manner, he and Piper were obviously comfortable in each other’s presence. Rynne couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt that way around anyone aside from her late sister.

She gazed between Piper and Fenris little wistfully. “How long have you two been together?” she asked.

Piper jauntily tucked her thumbs into her belt. “Oh, Fen’s been with me for–”

“We are not together,” Fenris interrupted.

Piper stopped and looked at him in confusion, then burst into laughter. “Oh! Oh fenedhis, you thought…? Nah, don’t be stupid.” She elbowed Rynne playfully. “Fen is like my brother. He’s been with my crew for… what, over a year now?”

Fenris nodded confirmation and shot Rynne a very quick glance, and her heart did a little flip in her chest. “Interesting,” she said.

Fenris pursed his lips and didn’t meet her eye, but the tips of his ears were turning very slightly pink again. Rynne smiled to herself and turned to Piper, who was grinning knowingly at her.

Rynne grinned back; she couldn’t help it. It somehow felt like she’d known Piper for ages even though they’d just met. “Tell me more about your life,” she said enthusiastically. “Where have you gone in the past year?”

Piper laughed again and ran her hands through her wild hair. “Not enough places, if you ask me,” she said. “We spent most of our time near Rialto Bay and along the coast of Rivain. There are a lot of free colonies there, and we helped them to resupply. It was a pretty dry season.” She snapped her fingers and looked at Fenris. “There was that one slaver ship though, the random one off the coast of Ferelden–”

“The Tevinter ship,” Fenris put in.

“Right. We sunk them good,” Piper said with relish. “But not before stealing all their supplies and their coin.”

“And freeing their slaves, of course,” Fenris drawled.

“Of course,” Piper chirped. “We should go back sometime and see how they’re settling in.”

Fenris nodded, and Rynne simply stared at them. All this travelling they did, freeing slaves and helping colonies to resupply… Piper and Fenris barely sounded like criminals at all. It sounded like they just did what they wanted, and what they wanted to do seemed to benefit a lot of people. But if they were pirates, clearly they were engaged in some kind of criminal activity…?

Rynne chewed the inside of her cheek as she tried to think of a tactful way to ask about it. Finally she decided to just blurt it out; she was sure that Piper wouldn’t mind.

Before she could ask, however, a loud and angry male voice called her name. “Lady Rynne!”

Rynne winced. Cullen, she thought with a jolt of dread. But to her surprise, Piper perked up.

She fluffed her hands through her hair and turned to Fenris. “How do I look?”

Fenris rolled his eyes. “The same as you always do,” he deadpanned.

“Not terrible, then,” Piper said cheerfully. “Excellent.” She shifted her weight coquettishly to one hip as Cullen strode toward them. “Golden Boy,” she purred in a sultry voice. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Rynne watched in fascination as Cullen’s angry expression melted into a look of worry. “Piper! What are you…” He trailed off and frowned at Rynne. “Wait. Do you two know each other?”

Rynne was equally confused – no, not confused. Intrigued. She looked at Piper and gestured at Cullen. “You know him?” she asked slyly.

Piper grinned at her salacious tone and took a slinky step closer to Cullen. “Not yet,” she said. “Someday though, if I’m lucky.”

Fenris made a strange choking noise. Rynne, meanwhile, couldn’t decide whether to be more entertained by Piper’s shameless flirtation, or concerned by the way Cullen’s face was turning uncharacteristically pale.

Piper, too, seemed to be concerned; she dropped the flirtatious act and frowned. “Cullen, is something wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghoul.”

He stared worriedly at her for a moment, then straightened and seemed to collect himself. He turned to Rynne with a stern expression. “Your brother reported that you’d gone missing. There is a search party looking for you.” His scowl deepened. “You told me you were waiting for him.”

Rynne sighed. Looks like the fantasy is over, she thought sadly. And it was going so well. She regretfully looked up at Fenris’s handsome face, then sighed.

“My apologies, Commander,” she said. She gave Cullen an innocent wide-eyed look. “I was hungry, you see, and the kebabs smelled so good… I’m very sorry that I caused you trouble.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw Fenris’s eyebrows rising. Cullen, on the other hand, lifted a forgiving hand, just as Rynne had known he would. “It’s all right, Lady Rynne,” he said. “I will escort you home.” He chewed his lip in silence for a moment, then took a step closer to Piper.

He lowered his voice, but Rynne could still clearly hear him. “By the order of Admiral Meredith Stannard, you are to be taken into custody and hanged by the neck until dead,” he said.

Rynne clapped a hand over her mouth in horror, and Fenris restlessly shifted his weight. Piper, meanwhile, scoffed and folded her arms. “Are you fucking kidding?” she demanded. “For what?”

But Cullen shook his head slightly. “I must escort Lady Rynne home. It is my duty to ensure her safety as a citizen of Kirkwall,” he said carefully. “I will return to arrest you once this duty is done.”

Rynne immediately cottoned on. She didn’t know why Cullen was helping Piper, but she wasn’t going to question it. “Commander, if you wouldn’t mind, I do need to run some errands before returning home.” She placed one delicate hand on his forearm and batted her eyelashes. “Would you be so kind as to assist me?”

He relaxed slightly and nodded. “Yes, Lady Rynne, of course.” He looked at Piper once more. “I will be back to take you in,” he said in a loaded tone.

Piper gazed at him for a long moment. Then a slow smile lit her face. “Such a sweet man,” she murmured. “This isn’t the last you’ve seen of me, all right? I’m not quite done with you yet.”

Cullen shook his head and lowered his voice even further. “Kirkwall is no longer safe for you, Piper.” He glanced at Fenris. “For any of you.” He gently took Rynne by the arm and stepped away. “This is goodbye.”

Piper grinned, then darted forward and kissed his cheek. To Rynne’s vast amusement, his face instantly turned bright red.

Piper grinned at him. “Not for goodbye. For luck,” she said. She winked at Rynne, then slapped Fenris’s shoulder and darted away.

Fenris shot Rynne a quick frown – just quick enough for Rynne to smile at him in return – then he, too, disappeared into the crowd.

Rynne sighed, then turned to Cullen, whose cheeks were still red. She forced herself not to laugh at how flustered he looked. “All right, my dear Commander,” she said. “Would you care to tell me what in the Maker’s name is going on?”

Cullen rubbed his stubbled chin, then ushered Rynne forward with a gentle hand at her back. “Absolutely not. It is official navy business,” he said sternly. “You, on the other hand, had better tell me what you were doing here.” He frowned at her as they neared the stairs back to Hightown, but Rynne could see the worry in his face. “Were you… you were not… conspiring–?”

Rynne tutted delicately. “Of course not. I swear to you, I just met them today.” She raised her chin slightly defiantly. “Besides, they weren’t the ones to be worried about in that market. That Fenris fellow rescued me from some rather unsavoury gentlemen, in fact.” She gave Cullen an appraising look as they returned to the relative quiet of Hightown. “He may be a pirate, but he’s not a bad man.”

Cullen sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I am… not unaware of that, Lady Rynne,” he said quietly.

Rynne studied his profile with a pang of sympathy. He looked troubled, and it was quite obvious to Rynne that his actions in Lowtown would likely not be approved by his commanding officers.

Perhaps Rynne wasn’t the only resident of Hightown who was feeling rather… well, trapped.

They walked in silence for a time through the clean paved streets of Hightown. Then Rynne quietly addressed him. “I don’t really have any errands to run, you know.”

Cullen sighed. “Why am I not surprised?”

He sounded so long-suffering that Rynne almost laughed. But she bit her lip instead and stayed quiet. There was a good reason he’d accepted her feeble excuse, after all, and that reason was a pretty little captain with a mass of silver hair.

She tilted her head coyly. “Come to think of it, I do have to visit the book shoppe after all. Would you be so kind as to accompany me?”

The book shoppe was on the opposite end of Hightown from the navy headquarters. Cullen glanced at her, and Rynne could swear she saw a hint of gratefulness in his expression before he bowed his head. “Of course, Lady Rynne. For your own safety, of course.”

Rynne smiled. “Thank you, Commander,” she said. “I could never carry all that heavy parchment on my own.”

Cullen narrowed his eyes for a moment, but Rynne only blinked innocently, and he finally nodded and gestured for her to lead the way.

She and Cullen made boring polite conversation about their families as they slowly walked to the book shoppe. As they neared the cozy storefront, Rynne idly reached up to touch her scarlet ribbon choker.

Her fingers found the glass crystals of her new necklace instead. Rynne widened her eyes, then hastily began removing the necklace. If her mother saw it, she would throw an absolute fit. But where had Rynne put her choker?

Suddenly she remembered. She’d given it to Fenris to hold while she put the necklace on.

A flush of heat bloomed in her belly at the thought of Fenris. Maker’s fucking mercy, he was truly gorgeous. And mysterious, with that whole quiet-and-brooding thing and the marks on his chin and neck and arms. Rynne still wasn’t sure what those marks were; they didn’t quite look like tattoos, but what else could they be?

She sighed a little wistfully. I suppose I’ll never know, if Piper and her crew will be leaving Kirkwall for good, she thought. Piper made it sound like she’d evade the threat somehow, but even if the little pirate did sneak her way back into Kirkwall, it was unlikely that Rynne would be able to sneak back to Lowtown again. She was unlikely to ever see Piper – or Fenris – again.

She forced a smile onto her face as she and Cullen stepped into the book shoppe. I hope Fenris keeps my choker, she thought.

At least a part of Rynne would get to see the world that way.

#cullen rutherford #cullen fic #fenris #fenris fic #pirate au #Where The Winds Of Fortune Take Me #cullavellan #cullen/lavellan #cullen x lavellan #piperford #fenhawke #fenris/hawke #fenris x hakwe #fenris/femhawke #fenris x femhawke #fenris/f!hawke #fenris x f!hawke #fenrynne #pikapeppa writes

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arcticdementor · 4 years

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My take on modern Star Trek compared to the old:

Star Trek very much embodied what liberal American white males of the 1980s and 1990s thought the future would (or should) look like: secular, sexually liberated, humanistic, meritocratic, equitable, and technological – a man’s world, basically. In this world, religion plays practically no role in public life. Problems are solved with diplomacy instead of violence. Money doesn’t exist, so there is no capitalism, greed, or want. People spend their lives bettering humanity and doing other such noble things like negotiating peace with aliens or exploring the universe in one of Starfleet’s advanced starships, each equipped with a plethora of miraculous technologies. In their leisure time, the crews of these starships visit a holographic room, the holodeck, which can conjure any fantasy into a photorealistic facsimile of the real thing.

Probably the only place in the Western world where this mentality can still be found is California’s Silicon Valley. As in the fictional world of Star Trek, men do most of the work; they advance through meritocracy; and there is something akin to a fraternal culture, irrespective of the prevailing progressive ideology. Silicon Valley is also still largely free of the odious diversity requirements imposed on the rest of society.

…

The high point of the franchise, The Next Generation, featured a mostly white liberal cast and various things white liberals liked at the time – sex appeal, food, pseudointellectualism (although handled capably by talented male writers), cutting edge tech, meritocracy, optimism, exploration, and the white man’s moralism.

Starfleet, the Federation’s military and scientific branch, was a rigorous meritocracy, just as Silicon Valley is today. Members were admitted only through a combination of senior officer recommendations, high scholastic achievement, and phenomenally high standardized test scores. Character was also paramount. Crew evaluations feature prominently in several episodes of TNG, and it was made clear to underperforming members that the starship Enterprise cuts a standard above the rest; perform or hit the road.

In the diverse world of Star Trek, the white writers imagined meritocracy would ensure whites like themselves would still have a position at the top of society (just as in Hollywood then and Silicon Valley now) despite soon becoming a minority in real life America. You’ll notice progressive humans are at the center of the Federation in Star Trek despite being a small minority in that fictional universe as well. That’s by design, conscious or not.

…

In the TNG episode The Drumhead, Picard faces down a witch hunting admiral — a woman, no less. The plot revolves around an incident that occurred on the starship Enterprise. Sabotage is suspected, and the situation is tense. The initial evidence points to a low ranking crewman who is later discovered to be of mixed race, one-quarter of the Federation’s most feared enemy. This all but convicts him in the eyes of the admiral’s tribunal. The admiral mercilessly presses her case, threatening to destroy anyone who gets in her way. She’s meant to be a caricature of conservative jingoists of the era – always scared of the Russians, racist against minorities, emotional. In Hollywood’s view of history, those were the people behind the McCarthy hearings, which this episode obviously pulls from.

…

Toward the end of the episode, Captain Picard confronts his antagonist and gives a fine speech about principle, temperament, and morality in the process. The admiral is defeated when a fellow admiral, a black male character, stands up and walks out in disgust at her actions.

This is one of the reasons why fans liked the character of Jean-Luc Picard: he was a decent, honorable man despite not being perfect himself. He had a code he lived by, and he led by example. Men like that sort of thing. Star Trek Picard, in contrast, portrays him as a bumbling moron who is always wrong and continually berated by female underlings. His view of the world is portrayed as naive or just wrong, requiring strong SJW women to take it to the enemy themselves, often employing violence – including rank murder and sadistic violence.

In another episode of TNG, white male commander Riker stands up to his white male superior — an admiral — who wishes to break the terms of a peace treaty to gain a military edge over a mortal enemy. Riker prevents him from doing so and exposes the dastardly plot. Moral of the story: principle trumps Machiavellianism.

Star Trek was very much a pre-Millennial liberal morality play whereby inspired characters (mostly white) would often stand up to authority figures (mostly white) in order to promote a general moral code — a greater authority — among fellow whites.

Consider some of the following things about Star Trek: The Next Generation and ask yourself if any of this would be allowed on television today without controversy.

…

The diverse new cast of Discovery and Picard mostly excludes white males. The only principle white men who did not appear in make-up during Discovery’s first season were either villains or openly gay. The show’s lead is a black woman who’s the best at everything, acts bizarrely hostile towards the crew and later berates the male commanding officer, captain Pike – introduced in season 2. There’s also an assortment of other female archetypes more typically seen in network television crime dramas – the dorky female comic relief, the bestest ever leader, the tech guru.

Star Trek: Picard’s white male actors, aside from TNG cameos, are mostly villains when they appear at all. Picard himself is a senile old man who contributes essentially nothing to the show. He is used as the butt of criticism from the cast. It’s clear the writers are using him as a canvas to paint their grievances with the real world. Picard — white male America — stands in the new boss’s empowered way. He lives in luxury as minority characters live in poverty. The (white) institutions he represents are all corrupt and racist. To rectify this injustice, the diverse cast must defy Star Trek convention – up to and including committing acts of cold-blooded murder (even villains don’t deserve that).

The new shows also – bizarrely — feature a dearth of straight black male actors. TNG had two; Voyager had one; DS9 had several, including a masculine male captain. The feminists who write this newer junk must feel threatened by their masculinity, a common phenomenon in modern Hollywood movies, comic books, and in network television: black men are usually removed (Star Trek), made gay (Marvel’s New Warriors), or turned into female servants (Samuel L. Jackson in Captain Marvel – a pet to Brie Larson). So, they’ve almost entirely been excised as primary leads in the new shows. The mostly unaccomplished female writers of Discovery even reported the more accomplished (read: threatening) black male writer, Walter Mosley, to Human Resources for uttering a racial epithet (in context with writing about racism), causing him to quit the show in disgust.

Author Walter Mosley Quits ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ After Using N-Word in Writers Room

Discovery and Picard are both written by a crowd that obviously hates the demographic they are writing for, so they pepper many of the episodes with things they know that demographic will take as insults – female characters insulting male characters, underhanded jokes about masculinity or mansplaining, obnoxious female leads, incompetent white male characters who need female instruction, excessive melodrama, denigration of lore. It’s patently obvious. They aren’t even being subtle about it.

…

Fundamentally, these new shows struggle because they are written by people wholly unlike the target audience, so they are not able to appeal to them (the same is true of other ruined male franchises like Star Wars – but I’ll save that for another time). These new shows aren’t for the old audience. The new — diverse — show runners have made that clear. Star Trek now serves as a vehicle for airing out racial and gender grievances against the perceived white male audience. It’s akin to planting your tribe’s flag on another tribe’s territory. The aggrieved gets a rush from being able to rub their enemy’s face in their loss. It’s intentional.

…

Regardless, the primary audience for a show like this is heterosexual men, disproportionately white … And when minority male characters appear, they’re not supposed to be losers upstaged by their sassy, disrespectful and arrogant female subordinates. In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the black male captain put his hothead female executive officer in her place more than once. In the new Treks, men are continually insulted, often for no good reason, by female crew members.

What do men like in Star Trek?

Men like technology. So, the writers of Picard introduced a magic wand to the newest iteration.

…

Men like adventure, not melodrama. So, obviously the female writers feature an inordinate number of episodes of characters crying.

…

Most of the adventure element prominent in previous shows is absent or poorly constructed in the newer ones … or ripped off from other properties, including video games. Paramount was being sued a while back for copyright infringement.

…

Men also like ship design, which was a major component of the old shows. They provided countless hours of free fan promotion across message boards and websites, they were cool locations for new episodes, and they inspired fan movies. So, obviously that had to be sidelined in the new shows. The ships, once iconic and profitable selling toy items, are now generic CGI models – totally uninspired trash hastily put together as an afterthought. The new shows can’t sell the merchandise, so the retailers have refused to license much of it.

Another thing men like? Group service – following rules, meritocracy, sacrifice for the tribe, defending territory (even the non-violent philosophical variety), that kind of thing. Well, that’s almost totally absent in Discovery and Picard. The once-honorable and meritocratic military-like Federation is portrayed as corrupt and unequal; the black female lead of Picard berates Jean-Luc in one episode for living “in his fine chateau” while she lived in poverty – again, a totally antithetical concept to the old shows.

…

The whole Federation is a dystopia with criminals and drugs and injustice all about.

Various Federation admirals in the new movies and television shows are belligerent, short-sighted, and rude; one is an outright war criminal. TNG featured at least two episodes with corrupt Federation admirals, but our show’s male heroes put them in their place by the end of the episode. Even the female captain Kathryn Janeway did this once in Voyager. Not true of these newer shows, though. Admirals berate the male characters, then go away – never to be redeemed or brought to justice.

Many of the characters in the new shows act entirely unprofessional towards each other. They are sometimes even cruel or sadistic. The female captain of one Discoveryshort Trek allowed a bumbling white male crewman (whom the female writers mocked the entire episode) to die horribly and then simply shrugged it off when asked about it, “he was an idiot” (implication: he deserved to die because he was annoying her).

…

The biggest supporters of these new incarnations, not surprisingly, are the show’s American writers – along with a few “critics”. These people lack any loyalty to a higher cause (other than themselves), are nihilistic, are sadistic, enjoy berating “the other” (men, whites, themselves even), and have practically no respect for anything they aren’t personally invested with. In other words, they are thoroughly Americanized losers.

There would be a college thesis in that observation if we lived in a better timeline. In this one, the world where the bad guys won, you are stuck reading it in a random internet comment.

I think that observation explains much of what is wrong with modern culture: the past, in many ways, was better than the present and probably will end up being better than the near future. That’s intolerable to a lot of political extremists, the very people who put us in this position in the first place. So, the past has to be destroyed; it serves as a foil to the current reigning madness. “Let the past die, kill it if you have to.” That’s why pop culture had to be denigrated. That’s why Star Trek is trash nowadays.

When conquering armies of the ancient world subdued an enemy, they often defaced the conquered tribe’s symbols – destroyed the statues, burned the temples, desecrated anything sacred; both Muslim and Christian conquerors were famous for this. Same thing here. The new regime is burning the cultural bridges so you can’t go back to the better world left behind, the one not ruled by them.

…

Although, in fairness to the ladies, it’s mostly men like Alex Kurtzman who have ruined the new shows. The guy once stated in an interview that he has a problem writing male characters. Hollywood: let’s hire that guy for Star Trek!

#unz.com #star trek #read the whole thing

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macbetha · 5 years

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hi all! i’m so excited to share the playlist for chasing the dragon, the sequel to my first free! fanfic, eyes wide open all the time. as usual, these songs are what i use when writing each specific character / couple and i’ve highlighted some lyrics that might give you some pre-insight to the state of certain characters / gangs. you’ll notice there’s still a continuing theme of eyes and seeing that can change for each character given the context of their song. please let me know whatever theories you come up with, i’m very interested!

G E N E R A L T H E M E S

the prologue by halsey from ancient grudge break to new mutiny our toil shall strive to mend

way down we go by kaleo oh, father tell me do we get what we deserve? and way down we go do you dare to look them right in the eye? ‘cause they will run you down, down to the dark yeah, son they will run you down down til you fall and they will run you down down to your core til you can’t crawl no more and way down we go

again by flyleaf i love the way that your heart breaks with every injustice and deadly fate praying it all will be new living like it all depends on you here you are down on your knees again trying to find air to breathe again right where i want you to be again

everybody wants to rule world by lorde welcome to your life there’s no turning back help me make the most of freedom and of pleasure nothing ever lasts forever

this is america by wunderworld

F R E E B I R D

we carry on by the phantoms this fire won’t go out though just a flicker it may be shifting through the shadows to a vision we can’t see clinging to this dying breath holding on for a fighting chance hold fast to one another we will stand to one another we will stand stranger to brother we are one we carry on

fools by emi all this money won’t make me switch up on crew we all dying, til then i’m riding with you

D I A M O N D B A C K

copycat by billie eilish you got your finger on the trigger but your trigger finger’s mine silver dollar, golden flame dirty water, poison rings perfect murder, take your aim everybody knows my name

H O N E Y B L A D E

sixteen shots by stefflon don they gon' put hands on a chick? eyes watchin' when I comin' through the door what i'mma do, they ain't prepared for no boy can tell me 'bout my mother round here and safe everybody need ammo if you hear that da-da-da-don bullets gon' hit you wherever you are

R O U G H R A B B I T

railroad track by willy moon come along with me i’ll take you to a place you never did see yeah said i’mma go down to the railroad track and we ain’t comin’ back, no i ain’t comin’ back no more

B L O O D H O U N D

wolf by skott please do not give up on us i’m a wolf howlin’ on your door step callin’ out

?????????

ready aim fire by imagine dragons off in the distance there is resistance bubbling up and festering blood in the writing, stuck in the fighting look through the rifle’s sight how come i never seen your face ‘round here? i know every single face round here here in the heckle, holding the shackle i was never welcome here

heaven knows by the pretty reckless won’t be pretty, won’t be sweet, just sitting there on their feet if you listen close you can hear them cry oh lord, heaven knows we belong way down below

haru tachibana

my sweet prince by placebo me and the dragon can take all the pain away my sweet prince you are the one

popular by emi fuck surveillance please just close your cases i’m about to make it and rub it in yall faces they know i got birdies they want me in cages stay off my line baby, you know that shit’s tapped on the move, yeah i always got a pack serve it, i still know my purpose trust me i ain’t worth it you don’t got my prints, oh i got my hands so dirty

makoto tachibana

devil’s backbone by the civil wars oh lord, oh lord what do i do i’ve fallen for someone who’s nothing like you he’s raised on the edge of the devil’s backbone i just want to take him home oh lord, oh lord what have i done i’ve fallen in love with a man on the run there wasn’t a right or wrong he could choose he did what he had to do don’t care if he’s guilty, don’t care if he’s not he’s good and he’s bad and he’s all that i got oh lord, oh lord i’m begging you please don’t take that sinner from me

solider, poet, king by the oh hellos there will come a solider who carries a mighty sword he will tear this city down oh lay, oh lie, oh lord there will come a poet whose weapon is his word he will slay you with his tongue oh lay, oh lie, oh lord

rin yamazaki

promises by jhene aiko i been comin’ home late night i been sleepin’ past day light baby, that ain’t right i don’t think i can make it then i hear you say that i better not do nothing crazy nami really needs you and i would never leave you everything i do is for you and i really do adore you everything is all right, everything is in your mind if anything should happen, cause anything could know that you’ll be all right promise i’ll be, promise you’ll be, promise we’ll be all right

better by banks why are you so afraid? i can see you waiting, waiting, waiting withering away i can see you dying, dying, dead, dying how couldn’t you see? all the water’s cold, cold, cold and why, don’t you see? baby, try try to see me

sousuke yamazaki

fire by barns country lonely shadows following me lonely voices talking to me a thousand times i’ve fallen my mother told me, “son let it be.” sold my soul to a sweet melody

soldier by fleurie soldier, keep on marching on head down til the work is done head in the dust, feet in the fire labor on that midnight wire listening for that angel choir you got nowhere to run you wanna take a drink of that promised land? you gotta wipe the dirt off of your hands careful son, you got dreamer’s plans but it gets hard to stand

gou matsuoka

love club by lorde i’m in a clique but now i want out i was in but i want out there are fights for being my best friend and the girls get their claws out there’s something about hanging out with the wicked kids i’m sitting pretty on the throne there’s nothing more i want except to be alone the love is choking me what about the kid? it’s time the kid got free

stay by zedd and alessia cara (acoustic) make it on your own but we don’t have to grow up we can stay forever young

isuzu mikoshiba

bad friends by emi lil aries with an attitude men always put her in a bad mood bad libra with the gold tan she like an angel with the snow man yeah i got some bad friends no you cannot have them they wanna doubt her, let her show them if you wanna talk to them you talk to me, yeah we don’t keep no company we do not need, yeah we don’t fuck around with just anybody, yeah

hiyori tono

you should see me in a crown by billie eilish bite my tongue, bide my time wearing a warning sign wait til the world is mine visions are vandalized cold on my kingdom side fell for these ocean eyes count my cards, watch them fall blood on a marble wall you should see me in a crown i’m gonna run this nothing town

ikuya kirishima

waiting game by banks baby, i’m thinking it over what if the way we started made it something cursed from the start what if it only gets colder would you still wrap me up and tell me that you think this was smart? cause lately i been scared of even thinking ‘bout what we are i was in love but i don’t wanna cause any pain and if i’m feeling like we’re evil we got nothing to gain

asahi shiina

smile by mikky ekko we’re trying so hard to get it all right i wanna be somewhere somewhere just a little closer to grace when i’m quiet i can nearly hear him say: smile, the worst is yet to come we’ll be lucky if we ever see the sun got nowhere to go, we could be here for a while but the future is forgiven, so smile

miho amakata

i want to be evil by eartha kitt i’m tired of being pure and chaste i want to be evil i want to spit tacks and cheat at jacks i wanna be nasty and tell lies i wanna be mean and i wanna be bad

nii satomi

the lament of eustace scrubb by the oh hellos brother, forgive me we both know i’m the one to blame cause when i saw my demons i knew them well and welcomed them father, have mercy i know that i have gone astray cause when i saw my reflection it was a stranger beneath my face when i touched the water they tell me i could be set free

yazaki aki-mikoshiba

i got you by ciara hush little baby, don’t you cry momma’s gonna love you all your life and if you ever need a friend momma’s right there til the very end if you’re feeling down or weak momma’s got the strength you need there’s nothing in the world that i wouldn’t do cause i love you

natsuya + nao

the golden floor by snow patrol tell me that you want to dance i wanna feel your pulse on mine just treat me like a stolen glance dark shape on a golden floor a sleeping planet with a molten core i’m a peasant in your princess arms penniless with only charm

kinjou

game of survival by ruelle who’s in the shadows who’s ready to play are we the hunters or are we the prey this is a wild game of survival

ayumu: breakaway by kelly clarkson

shizuru: generation why by conan grey

romio: jordan belfort by weswalker

haru + makoto

compass by zella day if we make it out alive compass point you anywhere closer to me where you are, i will be anywhere in between miles high in the sea

the good side by troye sivan i’ve got the good side of things left you with both of the rings i’ve got the good side of you sent it out into the blue the people danced, the sound of your heart the world sang along to it falling apart

i found by amber fun and i’ll use you as a warning sign i’ll use you as a focal point so i don’t lose sight of what i want i’ll lose you as a makeshift gate of how much to give and how much to take and i’ve fell farther than i thought i could but i missed you more than i thought you would i found love where it wasn’t supposed to be right in front of me talk some sense to me

sousuke + rin

if it hadn’t been for love by the steeldrivers never would have run through the blinding rain without one dollar to my name if it hadn’t been for love never would have seen the trouble that i’m in i wouldn’t be free if it hadn’t been for love four cold walls without parole lord have mercy on my soul

↳ namiko: boats & birds by gregory and the hawk if you’ll be my star, i’ll be your sky you can hide underneath me and come out at night when i turn jet black and you show off your light i live to let you shine ebbing and flowing and pushed by the breeze i live to make you free but you can sky rocket away from me and never come back if you find another galaxy far from here, with more room to fly just leave me your stardust to remember you by

hiyori + ikuya

loyal by 6lack i been studying you ever since we locked eyes even knew your favorite pie, said that it was key lime i don’t want this kind of life, so can you please get it right why you keep lyin’ why the fuck you keep lyin? i know i been loyal, baby showed you how to ball like a hoya, baby see them talkin’ i’m like so what have you walkin’ through the fucking party with your nose up i treat you like you royal, royal, royal tell the truth, don’t you soil, soil, soil i can tell cause i know you, know you

sunflower by swae lee thinking in a bad way, loosing your grip screaming at my face, baby don’t trip some things you just can’t refuse ride my like a cruise and i’m not trying to lose you’re the sunflower i think your love would be too much

isuzu + gou

crush by tessa violet you make it difficult to not overthink and when i’m with you i turn all shades of pink i wanna touch you but don’t wanna be weird but i could be your crush throw you for a rush

#ctd playlist #chasing the dragon #free! fanfic

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idio-cies · 6 years

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My Thoughts on S7

Okay first things first.

Atm my emotions are mixed. I am angry, disappointed, confused and happy all at once.

I don’t think that this was a bad/terrible season per ce but there were definitely different elements in it that rubbed me the wrong way.

These guys can never catch a fucking break can they?

I’ll do plot points/devices before I go into characters because... whoooooo

Okay so like, the beginning of the season was actually pretty damn good, the road trip episode (episode 2) was really fun, it was making me laugh and it wasn’t too out of the narrative, it laid the ground for the fact that going into the rift and such messed up time (I thought it would). Then the family feud episode was ehh... and there was a couple of other things that you felt were steering the season downhill. And then the flashback episodes happen and that’s when you knew everything went out the window and into the pot.

Look, I’m not usually one of those people who doubt or anything at the crew. heck I gave them a chance at still showing themselves after I watched LoK which I hated. I did. There was something about LoK that made me feel so weird and it was because of how poor it was, after the flashback episodes I began to get that same feeling. That is not good, though was still hyperventilating over the fact that the new season was out and Earth was in danger etc etc. I am just disappointed in the crew. It always starts out pretty good and then goes to shit. (well actually S4-6 was all over the place).

So Plot points. The Earth being in danger? I knew that would happen, it is a dark thing, it was about war. Sendak wanted to exploit their vulnerabilities. It makes sense due to the fact that Sendak was Haggar’s puppet. Hence why we see that white alternative Voltron Robeast at the end that turns out to be an Altean powering it. 1 altean manning that was like fucking incredible though. That cliffhanger sets up something with Allura. I was saddened when it looked like that Altean business was swept under the rug in that episode with Kolivan. I knew Haggar would then be involved with the other Alteans but damn she works fast. That episode with Kolivan did hint that it’s not going to be over for them in deep space. This opens up so many things... Hopefully (I’m finding myself saying that a lot now in response to this show). Anyways, yeah. The next person to take down is Haggar and I’ve always been on board with the idea that Allura will go 1-on-1 with her because it was awesome what we saw of Allura in S2 with her alchemy and it will be a chance to show how much Allura has learnt about herself. Allura is the one connected by the way. That’s telling enough. It was just her in that end scene, no other paladins. I want this to be her battle.

Enslavement? who saw that coming as soon as earth was under attack *raises hand*. It was obvious. I was actually surprised with the technology that Earth managed to create, I know it was because it was because of Altean functions etc, but they actually achieved it, like what the hell. Also the setting. So do people think this is in the future or an alternate reality of our current Earth? because Veronica said about WWIII and I place my bets on alternate reality. Plus it would be quaint with Voltron and all that jazz.

There were some plot points that were just like really?? like, I think I speak for the entire fandom that was happened with Adam was shit. As soon as Sam said they were doomed I was like “Oh no, this isn’t going to end well.” but they didn’t even give us the decency to see his ship blow up, only to see his tag go red like, shit man, why did you play us dirty like this? It is suspicious that that happened, but after everything I highly doubt Adam is alive. I just want to say though. That device of when a character is killed off screen, well that either can tell you that they are irrelevant to the story (like Lady Macbeth in Macbeth) or it can be because the scene holds weight to it. Not too much, but some, and that scene I didn’t feel anything, just a void. I knew he was doomed.

Overall with the plot in he second half, again it was one thing after another. I have to say though, it wasn’t as rushed to me as it has been previously. Thing is, that just seems to be the way of vld now; it’s rushed. One thing after another and these guys really do not get a break whatsoever.

I thought we would see a little more Romelle, but just like everything, vld seems to not have the time to do stuff like that.

Okay the amount of parallels to S1 was ridiculous. It puts my theory forward but I find it hilarious because S1 is the better season. The parallels are important. i spotted ep 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11. There was other parallels to other seasons but those parallels are really important to me for my theory on things repeating. And guess what, that happened with Hunk! For others it is a mixture of arcs (Pidge, Keith and Allura) and for Lance it is a repeat as well, with Keith. I can’t believe that that theory is the one thing that still stands from S4 onwards, I kinda feel proud.

I also want to say how many fucking rainbows there were this season. They were everywhere!!!! When my hope did fleet for a second, I did think “are the rainbows what the crew meant by LGBT rep?” because, what the actual fuck. They were everywhere. I don’t know whether people agree with me, but in the fights I still saw the Bi colours, especially against the robeast at the end... and there was a scene with Lance when they were out of commission. I believe it was the scene where Veronica was calling for Lance, there was the Bi colours there. The blue on his suit and outside was prominent and the purple from the blasts and the red in blue looked oddly pink, it was so fucking weird. It may be wishful thinking and the quality was not great, but the colours were there I’m almost certain of it. I don’t know whether anyone is with me in that though?

So characters.

I’ll start with Pidge.

There wasn’t much over her character this season, but she has her whole family reunited. Okay, right Pidge is not very popular rn, but like Sam telling Colleen that their Children are “strong like their mother” moved me. At least they display that. I liked Colleen actually, I really did. Sam’s command was cool to see but Matt arriving home? He gave me soooo many Edward Elric vibes like wtf. Pidge was her usual, just at least she wasn’t digging at Lance the entire season.

Hunk

I think it's safe for me to say that everyone was fairly happy with Hunk getting some more attention? I was happy with what Keith told him on earth and the display or growth he showed when floating around in space. It was really cool and gives us a firm point that he too has had growth, it wasn't just in S1. It was lovely to see, though I still have some things I'm not so happy about, I'll come back to that later. But yeah. Hunk’s arc(s?) in this season were actually heart warming to see. Hunk kept the team together which is something that makes sense with his character, though the sticking together thing can be shown with Shiro and Lance? But yeah. That scene with him working through anxiety was actually really nice. Then later with his parents, it hit me in the feels. Then what Keith tells him was so sweet because it was so lovely to see something 1 on 1 with Hunk because he never gets that, I wonder if his siblings(??) are okay, we only saw his parents...

Shiro

So, despite the injustice of Adam, Shiro taking the captain role... I knew that would happen and I’m happy it did. The white lion thing? Yeah, that was Atlas. That was really nice too, it really was just let down by a few things and it was all to do with relationships. Okay, right I know Keith and Shiro get a lot of screen time and stuff but after that first episode it was like it went *poof* like episode 1 didn’t even happen which I thought was highly strange, I was expecting to see more of their dynamic but I guess not. Then of course there was the Adam stuff, I almost wept in the last episode where Shiro was talking and it honed in on Adam’s plaque and Shiro was saying something about sunlight. Urgh, just kill me now. Then finally, I did think something would be suggested with Lance but nope, nothing. I knew Lance’s arc and Shiro’s help wouldn’t happen this season but I’d found so much that suggest it, even in the newer seasons and I thought it would still run in S7 as a hint, nope nothing. I still think Lance was hung up over Shiro and such in the first episode, but like overall? We didn’t even see Shiro in with Lance’s lion. Lance either had Romelle or... well, nothing...

I knew Sendak would be Shiro’s to take down. Makes sense with the 0109 and 0104 parallel. Oh wait! In that case, I did think when I saw that fight scene with Sendak, I did think of how Shiro was protecting Lance at the time, so that could be a hint because it was a throwback, but I’m not sure.

Allura

Okay Allura fucking confused me this season. Though it was cool seeing her royalty badge slip, she is becoming her own person, a paladin of Voltron. Not just Allura, Princess, Daughter of King Alfor. It’s all about her legacy arc and finding that she can be her own person, not just live for the purpose of her father, that she is also not alone in everything. The thing is, some of those things are who Allura are, it’s just she needs to find that balance. Her authority in this season stood out to me for some reason. Like, she still had a voice, but it wasn’t her usual one of her place of being royalty. Allura is still finding herself. The Alteans plot line is for her, always has been, always will be. Her royalty title is a strange one, and it would feel like she is reverting back to it, but she’s not, because that is one of her titles and she is good at that, she is still a teenager bless her and like I keep saying, she is still finding herself, she doubts herself too. We were told in a review that Allura and Hunk were the ones with the arcs, but Allura’s was very subtle. It was basically leading to her last arc, but she did give up her royalty title when she threw her crown on the floor and gave up the crystal. Also guys, Allura’s arc is weird when you add in Lance, like her having feelings for him now is so fucked up? and in the next season I’m waiting for there to be a break. I will talk a bit more about this when I get to Lance because it will be easier, but yeah. I love Allura and I want her arc to be of justice and she is so close, but I find it ssooooo very interesting that the two characters with most of the character development left to undertake are Lance and Allura and this can go one of two ways; their arcs respectively end up making them grow together to be better or they end up growing a part. When I get to Lance, I can tell you which one it will be.

Keith

Keith's growth really does show, but it’s super weird right? I was right about things still needing some time with Krolia, though I thought there would be more too it that would end up with more angst but I was wrong. I was wrong and right about a lot of things... Anyway, I was expecting there to be something more there with the build-up to Keith calling Krolia Mum/Mom, I head-cannoned something that I thought might work with Adam and Shiro in respect to this (forgiveness and acceptance) but that flew waayyyyyy out the window and into an electrified fence. Anyway, so a little disappointed about that, though I knew it would arrive and I still was on the brink of tears when I saw it because like, this is Keith we’re talking about. So I was right with Keith and creating firmer bonds with the others, except there are two gaps. Allura and Lance. Keith and Hunk was the “pair we haven’t seen in a while”- I knew it would be those pairs from 0209-10 or klance in ref. to 0107, and I was almost there, except Klance was fucking weird (I’ll get to that later). Keith and Hunk was actually really fucking sweet like omg. Keith still being closed off with his arms, but slowly coming out of the shadows and being open was so... urgh, it was lovely to see and it’s something that I wanted to see. Shiro and him is just the norm now, but like I said with Shiro, I thought it were weird that it was just dropped after ep 1. Then Keith and Pidge, I mean, not anywhere near Hunk and Keith displayed, but it paralleled Klance which was so... weird. I’m glad but confused because of what I’ve said before about the parallel theory I have, but Pidge and Keith were still working together, Keith got it quicker as well. I just thought it was super weird how Pidge had almost literally turned into Lance. I’m so confused by it because I can’t tell if it’s a good or a bad thing...

So anyways, if we stay on the topic of Keith and his bonds with people, he referenced the friendship thing in 5th(?) episode when they were floating around in Space. That whole scene was... ummm yeah, very telling. Keith hurt Allura, Allura hurt Keith and then Lance was hurting Keith and Keith was hurting Lance. It was complicated. Allura and Keith have always been patchy and they need to work on it. the forgiveness in S2 was super weird because it was one-sided and then Keith didn’t want her to lecture him in S4, leaving where they are with things is because of Keith. Keith was the one to dig at Allura first and Allura bit back. Yeah, that is something they need to work on. Keith apologises to them all, though it wasn’t individual, plus he goes on to be good with Hunk and Pidge later on. I feel like Keith needed to apologise to Allura separately, like he also needed to do in S2... Then with Lance... Lance was hurt because of the actions, not what was said. Lance started to perk up only when Allura called out Keith for leaving. I don’t think Lance added to that because of his ties with Allura, otherwise he would have said something first, but he said about Keith leaving twice, it hurt him differently and was separate from Allura. I mean, I’m sure there was an element of Lance sticking up for Allura, but yeah, he wouldn’t have said what he said if it was just for her, it was personal. Plus, (yes I will still listen to the crew) one of the crew said that Keith leaving hurt Lance specifically. I stand by this because the narrative we have been shown doesn’t make sense other wise, we wouldn’t have seen Lance be so isolated etc when Keith was away. Keith’s interactions with Lance were weird, but I’ll talk about that later. But still. Keith, if he explores romance (it would make sense with the bonds he has made; parental, brotherly, friendship etc) he seems to be super bad at it (again, I’ll get into that later)... but yeah, he needs to patch things with Allura and Lance because I think they will show that he has a unique bond with each of them, plus Voltron is like “The Keith show” now, so it would be stupid if they didn’t patch it.

So, lets talk about Axca and Keith. I’m sorry I crack up every time I think about this because of how devoid Keith is. It is fucking hilarious. Thank god someone officially said in a review that it was one-sided because it so totally is. So first. The bonding moment, that came up 3 times. 1st with Krolia, though this was never shown to have a reaction shot, and was basically the “Keith” in that situation, plus context was all different. Then we had Ezor and Zethrid. Ezor is meant to parallel Lance, but Ezor has the fond look on her face, but the words said and such was meant to parallel the bonding moment, no doubt. Though, it did feel like a joke... The whole Ezor and Zethrid thing was weird-up from the very beginning. Then we arrive with Axca and she says “It brought me to you” meaning Keith, I full on cackled. Keith’s face is devoid, he makes no discrepancies of what she really means and it is so funny because omfg. his “reaction shot” isn’t even a reaction. There was no weight to it whatsoever. This is what I’m getting at. The bonding moment held a lot of weight because of all the elements, the lighting, the music, the looks, everything- but also because it was reciprocated. Ezor and Zethrid was blatant because it was reciprocated but Krolia and the Axca, it wasn’t. I would be concerned if Keith had said something in return or even a fond look or maybe even surprise like “OOHHHH you meant like that”- but it didn’t... there was nothing. There wasn’t the same music. Then that end scene where Axca comes to the grave??? I was so confused and my thoughts were “Ohhhh you’re gonna be disappointed” because it was all from Axca’s side. Keith suggested nothing, even when he fought to help Axca, nothing, he was being Keith in that moment. Their whole “relationship” just seemed to be like “I hate being indebted to someone, so I’ll help you and that’s it” also, when they meet Keith was starting his arc really... I mean, there is weight to their relationship but I find it so funny because I don’t see an ounce of romantic reciprocation from Keith. Keith makes absolutely no effort to be fond or anything, except to Lance, and then when he checked out Rolo. That is the thing that makes me live. Keith making all those fond looks and such at Lance and their dynamic in S1 and S3 matched with all the tropes in S2, it doesn’t make sense. Keith is gay. I really do still believe that.

Okay, so Lance.

I am disappointed, I was depressed about it all but now I am riding on something. So you know how Lance is like the Sokka incarnate? Yeah, I think they’re gonna pull a Sokka. I mean, I really thought about it and I was like, well I wasn’t 100% happy about the Sokka arc but at least his insecurities were handled and such, though some things were left rather late. Sokka had the meteorite sword and he took a whole episode trying to master it, it was all about his insecurities as well, there was a sense about him that was totally serious and now I can’t help but think of Lance. I believe it was Joaquim who said Lance’s arc is subtle and his favourite. Well, if that’s so (and it is subtle) they will do him justice and have things handled. In the family feud episode, I was not happy, but they referenced Space mall and The Depths a lot. The depths (if any have read that post I did) made me hopeful. The family feud episode felt like a huge dig at Lance and it totally was. For over half of it, he was the centre of attention. I may talk about that episode separately as there is a lot on it, but I do have acceptance over it, though I do feel cheated and annoyed. But yeah. Sokka ended up helping his father in the war, so it will be slightly different. I haven’t watch ATLA in ages, but I know that Sokka’s father called him a good man or something, and that was all Sokka wanted to hear as he did have to grow up quickly in his water tribe, but because of that, he exerted that child-like goofy behaviour. He didn’t have any bending skills, but he got by with his instincts and tactics (sound familiar). Lance feels like he doesn’t bring anything, but his growth relies on him to use instincts and tactics. This is shown with Keith putting his faith in Lance and Lance looks so lost almost every time (expect the drone shooting, that was weird) and then when Lance accepted his death, it makes my heart hurt to think about it. He gave up. It is a parallel to the Keith scene in 0605. He gave up on himself and Red saved him. If anything, that puts Klance further forward. You know what though? you would have thought Lance would have fought a losing battle to get his sister to safety, but he didn’t. That’s what hit me the most. Their teams would have lost important members respectively, they would have lost without them, plus their family would have lost two members. I can’t believe Lance let himself give up. It really does show how troubled he is deep down. After the impression we get from Lance, fighting to save someone he has known for all of 10 minutes and then lunges at Ezor to not get to Pidge though he was tied up and then not even make an effort to save his sister? What was that? WHAT WAS THAT. That’s what made me cry. I knew that Red wouldn’t activate with the others. you could see it coming. Then Red saves him, yet it was a huge surprise because, usually when Keith was saved by Red we always saw Red glow. I still have hope for Klance, and this scene is one of the reasons why. That context of Red saving Lance and it being a huge fucking surprise, yep, i just.

I will say it once and I will say it now. Lance did not get an arc this season. Why? Well, it actually wasn’t stated that he would, but the groundwork is still there. At this rate, they are just dragging Lance face-first through the mud. If they don’t give him an arc it would be a huuugggeee injustice to his character. Yes, it was annoying that Hunk got the family arc and not Lance as Lance seemed to be the one hinted at that, but they still put in his insecurities and also how he has not fully connected with his lions. I have so much to say about Lance, so bare with (when do I never?).

Okay so first. The paladins have each had those connection things with their respective lions except Allura individually with Blue and Lance in general. Shiro was the first with Black S2 (?), then Pidge S2, then we saw Keith with black in S6 and S7 again, Allura with the whole of Voltron in S6 and then Hunk in S7. Lance, I know we are riding on trusting what Jeremy and other crew members have told us, but Jeremy said he will connect with his lion. Well, when we had that opportunity like the others, he still hasn’t connected, but Red still saved him and he did use his Bayard 3 times which is a first, though it was never on his own. The first time there was no build up to it which was weird, but it was with Keith and they drew no attention??? Then next with Pidge to get the dual blades which was cool, and there was build-up, then lastly again with Keith and there was build-up there. I don’t think that that is the “connection” Jeremy was talking about, but Lance seems to slowly be getting there.

You know there are loads of people thinking that Lance will be like “nah, I’ll stay on earth, I’m not worthy anyway” when the paladins inevitably have to leave earth again for another space battle. Well, I think I believe that more now than ever. It makes sense, especially after that “I accept my death” scene. Lance is not a stable human and his insecurities are really getting the better of him now. Somebody pointed out, all during the family feud thing “I’m not dumb, I’ll prove it”, straight after: “You know I’m the dumb one” :// I just aaaahhhhhhhh. The Shiro thing... I don’t know whether that will come back, I thought during episode 1 that Lance was still concerned about that, but I’m not sure. But Lance’s insecurities need to be handled, and here’s how A//urance doesn’t make any fucking sense.

You know how I said earlier about Allura and Lance being the ones with the most remaining character development left to go and that could either bring them together or break them apart. Well, here’s some food for thought: Allura is almost there, but Lance isn’t. Why present a romance when a character is at their lowest and doesn’t talk about it whilst the other one is thriving, doesn’t realise the other persons low but continues to grow because of this person if they were meant to be? Absolutely nothing indicates to me that Allura makes Lance feel better about his insecurities. Her presence and such may make him feel better, but that one time Lance faltered in 0302 and let slip some of his doubt in himself Allura told him to go after Red. the one time, now it’s like that never ever happened. The one time Lance lets out his doubts to Allura and she directs him elsewhere? To red no less? I have this theory that Lance prefers the weight of actions over words as no one has ever been able to make him feel better with just words, except Keith, who then proceeded to do an act. Allura directing him to Red was words and actions too, but he was smitten over Allura saving him, but any other time it’s just words and it doesn’t leave a mark, but it does for Allura. This is why A//urance doesn’t make sense. It builds up Allura more than it does Lance and only now is Allura showing any feelings towards Lance and it’s weird. I know that Lance was telling Allura to be safe because of his bias, but then Allura does it and it was weird that Lance didn’t say it first... I don’t get it. Their arcs don’t align, and if people are correct with Lance doubting so much that he will stay on earth, and now Allura is tied back to living Alteans again, the only thing for them to do is drift apart romantically speaking. Like I said with one building up (Allura) and the other staying still (Lance)- it doesn’t make any sense. It would be stupid because it is an injustice to both of their characters. Allura has another path and Lance has another. It would still be what Lance wants and not what he needs.

So lets finally talk about Klance. Okay, they were super weird to me this season, but I still believe in klance, because of what I said above, and more. Look, so lets get something straight(lol). There has been a slight role reversal. It is super weird because they have the dynamic of S3, but Keith is acting like old, closed-off Keith when Lance is being genuine. Keith to me seemed pretty hostile and that in of itself and the fact that he had his arms crossed and such in the family feud episode is enough to tell us that the “rivalry” is not through, and it would be stupid if it was left like that, as they are meant to be friends as Keith said in the 5th episode. It is stupid if they didn’t come to a close about it because it was evident that Keith wasn’t telling the truth, because he was closed off and poked at Lance. I mean, I don’t blame Keith, though when you look at S1 and especially S3 you’re like Huh? because Keith did put faith in Lance, but he was being Shitty towards him too and it was so weird because he wasn’t acting that way with anyone else. Not even James, which I’m sure was meant to be a parallel to Keith and Lance. As James was hostile to Keith when he first saw him and then, by their last interaction James was being cocky and teamed up with him, acting like a friend. I also found it hilarious how James knew exactly who Keith was and Keith in return had no clue, they always honed in on Keith and his face just read “I feel like I know you but I just can’t put my finger on it”- you would think of all the people in the Garrison that he would remember James, but nope.

Does anybody else feel like everyone falls away when Keith and Lance have moments? Like in S3, they frame their moments so it looks like they’re alone? Well they still do that in this season. So, first scene was when Keith goes to help Axca and leaves Lance in charge. Literally everyone walks past them and Lance turns around and gets Keith to turn around (lol, thats a visual trope) and Lance’s face screams that he has never had this much faith put on him, I mean, Allura, Shiro and Krolia were there and then Coran as well, this was everyone and Lance was put in charge of leading them all out safely. I think especially because Shiro was now there you would think Shiro got the lead, or it be a shared responsibility. But Lance’s face, bless his heart.

Then we have the drone thing where it was literally only them. Keith said not to miss but it was weird. I saw someone say it was like a tease, but I disagree, a little. His facial expression matched with his tone didn’t suggest that, but Lance made no reaction, so it might have not phased him, he didn’t miss though. But that is a role reversal of 0107. “I’ll distract them, you take the shot” is the equivalent of all the gestures Lance made in 0107. Also Lance’s face is a little confused when Keith says not to miss. Keith wasn’t exactly being hostile, and he wasn’t full-out teasing, it was a bit more like the start of a gag they could have between them, it was super weird. Glad to see the sniper again though (mwahahahaha means his growth bitches).

Then we arrive at family feud and like Lance is so genuine and tentative, his face is all soft and is the same face he makes when speaking about Allura in his vlog and he says that Keith is the future. If that doesn’t make you scream and have hope, I don’t know what will. They voted for each other! I just can’t man. Lance takes the longest to write down who he chooses, Keith takes the shortest and lance comes out saying shit like that. Man, way to puncture my heart. Then Keith is closed off and just says that he doesn’t want to be stuck with Lance, Lance thinking he said something nice though is stupid. 1. it puts across that Lance is dumb (again), 2. It feels like Lance doesn’t listen which doesn’t show his growth. But I’m gonna keep saying this, the fact that there is still clearly a rift between them makes no sense if they were to leave it that way, they will have to work through that. Plus Keith was open to Lance in S3, why throw that all away. Lance was being so open to Keith in S3, now he’s really genuine in comparison to Lance’s facade and rivalry, why squander that. Then the bonding moment, what was the point in having that, paralleling that but it not having the same affect as it did with the other times we saw it, unless you look at the other one that is almost exactly the same with Krolia and Texas. It makes no sense to build something so early on to fuck it up. Their character arcs won’t do it justice if keith also isn’t open and at least friends with Lance, or for Lance to be so insecure about taking up some more leadership roles or just being insecure in general. The fact that Allura and Keith still have a rift between them and so do Lance and Keith is really fucking interesting. Why those two, ohhhhh you don’t think it could be because Lance has always tried to get closer to Allura and now he is and Keith is very fucking confused about Lance now he’s being so genuine about everything. I wonder if Keith is annoyed at Lance. It is meaningful that Keith put that faith in Lance despite Lance looking like a lost puppy.

Guys, the context is still there. The whole time whilst watching and i got to that A//urance scene, I was just confused because the development with Klance otherwise makes no fucking sense. Keith is nowhere near interested in Axca, Lance still is upset about Keith leaving, Lance has insecurities, Lance raises Allura up, though he is still dragging himself down, Keith has a rift and it just happens to be with Allura and Lance, mostly Lance, though he finds it easy to dig at Allura. Those 3 I swear to god. As I said before, as vld now seems to be “The Keith Show” I’m sure those bonds will get sorted. Allura’s arc has been left on a cliffhanger for her to solve and Lance is digging himself a grave it seems. Everyone else seems to be good atm.

Maybe this restored some positivity? maybe not. A few threads of my hope did fleet, but seriously, I’m trying to look at the brighter side of things. It is not fair about the queerbait, I grant you that, and I have a feeling that Lance will be like Sokka and it being rather late and then IF we get Klance, it will be probably like Korrasami... which is a huge shame, but is the only way I see things happening.

Sorry for those who has lost faith and are very disappointed, I’m still disappointed to, but now I’ve arrived at acceptance in some places. sorry for the length

Later Paladudes ;)

#klance #voltron #voltron s7 #lance mcclain #keith kogane #vld

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