#their symbiote form looks the same but that's it
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Hobie Brown variant OC:
I finally decided to make Symbiote!Hobie (nicknamed SH by Hobie, which over time turned into Sage) his own thing, cause I've made so many changes to him that I've decided he's just gonna be another version of Hobie from another dimension.
I basically came up with him when thinking about what it would take for Hobie to truly bond with a symbiote and this is what I came up with.
While he's technically Hobie too I'm gonna refer to him as Sage in this post to avoid confusion <3
Gonna start with his appearance and then move on to his origins and how he got involved with the Spider-Society:
Disclaimer: I cannot draw so I haven't even attempted at drawing his face cause I know I'd never be able to draw him in a way I'd like- So I did the next best thing:
(He has a normal face I just tried to find a way for me to draw him without drawing his face lol)
Pictured above is Sage and his symbiote K.A.T (and their symbiote form- yeah it's the same as Venom!Hobie cause I like the design lol)
He looks like Hobie but younger- he's around 11 when he's bitten by the spider and fused with K.A.T - he's around 12 when he gets introduced to the Spider-Society
He's got short hair as it was completely shaved off when he got caught by Oscorp - more about this under his origins - he wants to let it grow out after meeting Hobie and being inspired by his approach to his looks (he really looks up to Hobie but don't tell anyone I said that!)
His left iris is white as a result of the symbiote DNA being fused to him. He can make it match his right eye if he concentrates but only really bothers to do so if he feels it draws too much attention
After meeting Hobie he helps Sage get a few piercings of his own
He usually wears a hoodie and/or a mask to hide his face - he's super paranoid and does his best to hide himself from others
Never goes anywhere without his noice cancelling earmuffs - he's got enhanced senses due to his spider powers but they can be a bit of a nuisance since he's also sensitive to loud noises due to his symbiote...
He also usually wears sunglasses to shield himself from sensory overload as he was subjected to it a lot as part of the experiments he was put through at Oscorp - and thus getting his senses overstimulated can result in panic attacks, so he does what he can to avoid it + it hides his eyes as well
K.A.T (Killing Authority-opposing Targets) is Sage's symbiote
It usually stays hidden unless they're alone or around people they trust/already knows about its presence.
If it does show itself it'll usually stay on Sage's shoulder or sit in his lap, it's still tethered to him so it can't go that far without him - not that it really wants to anyways
The reason K.A.T takes this form is that Sage is a cat person and it used it as a method to make him like it more when they first "met" + petting it helped Sage calm down and still does
K.A.T is still made of the same goo as regular symbiotes so it does not feel like petting a cat at all- Sage doesn't mind but most other people get suprised when they first touch it
If it likes someone it'll rub itself against their legs and mimic purring noises - if it dislikes someone it'll hiss and arch its back at them
K.A.T is a more animalistic symbiote and mainly communicates with Sage by letting him feel its emotions instead of speaking to him
To avoid making the post even longer than it's already gonna be I'll link to this post where I go into more detail about the design of thier Symbiote form instead of describing it here too ^^'.
This was originally supposed to be a short summary but I've realised I'm incapable of making short posts when it comes to stuff like this:
Origin:
Sage is a younger version of Hobie Brown. (11 years old when bitten by the spider and fused with his symbiote)
Sage and K.A.T "met" at one of Oscorp's labs
He was living as a homeless kid (having escaped an abusive household a few months prior)
He was bitten by a radioactive spider while looking for a place to spend the night.
He got very sick from the bite and was easily captured by Oscorp goons looking for new test subjects in the streets
Despite his young age Sage is a more ruthless Hobie variant, in part due to his upbringing and due to his symbiote (and the trauma they both go through at the hands of Oscorp)
K.A.T was a new kind of experimental symbiote that was set to be terminated due to it killing all its previous hosts - Sage was their last attempt at fusing it with someone
They decide to fuse it with Sage as he was deemed indisposable due to him seeming more dead than alive - suffering from the venom of spider bite at the time - and thus it wouldn't be a problem if the symbiote killed him too
Since the spider bite was still changing his DNA as he got fused with K.A.T some of its DNA got fused with him as well as a "side effect" during the process
Due to this it's incredibly hard (if not impossible) to seperate the symbiote from Sage without severely hurting them both
His body develops organic web shooters when it fuses with K.A.T - the webs are black and can be shot from either of his 4 arms when in his symbiote form (they can also be shot regularly while in his human form)
Sage develops enhanced senses and a taste for human flesh after being fused with K.A.T - he also has enhanced senses from the spider bite - making it easy to overstimulate his senses and overwhelm him before he learns to get it more under control
Since Sage's gotten powers from both the spider bite and the symbiote they quickly become the subjects for many inhumane and painful experiments as the scientists futilely try to figure out how to replicate the symbiote (as they're unaware of the spider bite, thinking the symbiote alone is behind Sage's new powers)
The main scientist behind the experiments is this dimension's version of Peter Parker!
Sage eventually manages to escape the lab during one of their many tests- killing as many guards and scientists on his way out as possible - and eating some of them as well
As a result of their treatment at the lab + his past with his abusive foster family, both Sage and K.A.T have developed a deep distrust to other people - at this point they both consider the other their only friend
Sage goes back to living as a homeless kid, avoiding people as best as he can, but he's also got an insatiable taste for human flesh as well!
He will usually target anyone associated with Oscorp when he's hungry (if none are available cops are the next best thing- his dimension is just as corrupt as -138 Hobie's dimension)
He doesn't feel bad about killing but will still try not to harm civilians (emphasis on try- sometimes the hunger gets the best of him)
Due to his senses being extra sensitive + his paranoia from his experiences at the lab and his foster homes, he tries to avoid crowded and noisy places - This all leads to him being more active at night while he usually tries to lay low and hide during the day.
He lived like this for months until a certain event changed that:
First encounter with the Spider-Society
Sage's dimension is blacklisted meaning people from the Spider-Society aren't allowed to go there (cause a spider-person who's embracing their symbiote instead of resisting it is deemed unsafe by Miguel and thus best to be avoided)
Sage does still get introduced to the spider-society albeit through a rather unconventional way:
- One day a portal opens up and pulls Sage through it, sending him to another dimension as an anomaly
Having no idea about what's going on, and being scared and confused about the whole situation, he does his best to lay low and avoid other people.
Because of this he spends a lot of time in the other dimension before the society discovers signs of an anormaly - glitched objects like seen when Kingpen uses the collider in itsv, or the museum that the Vulture appears in in atsv
Sage eventually has his first run in with other spider people when his hunger gets the best of him and he becomes more careless as he turns into his symbiote form to go look for prey
Here he encounters Gwen and Peter B as they're looking for the anomaly causing things to glitch out in the dimension
Not knowing he's a spider person and an actual child, Peter and Gwen attack him as they always do with anomalies - it also doesn't help that Sage doesn't exactly look friendly when in his symbiote form.
He fights back cause these masked people attacked him for no reason so they must be bad guys and of course he's gonna defend himself - it also doesn't help that he's starving and thus not thinking clearly at this point.
Unfortunately for him, these guys have high frequency equipment to deal with symbiotes and thus they manage to subdue him, but not before he manages to fight back, revealing his organic webbing which tips Gwen and Peter off to him having spider powers as well
He's subdued and forced into an electric cage (which brings back a lot of unpleasant memories from his time at Oscorp) and sent to the Spider-Society afterwards
When he arrives at the Society he quickly gets overstimulated and has a panic attack and lashes out in a desperate attempt at escaping his electric cage - also seeing the face of the scientist who tortured him for months everywhere certainly didn't help
Gwen then uses a high-frequency device made to combat symbiotes to force him to revert back to his human form
She immediately recognises him as a young version of -138 Hobie
Her and Peter both panic cause 1. They realise they basically beat up a kid and locked him up. 2. That kid has a symbiote! 3. That kid is a younger version of another spider-person they both know (and who they both know has a very long and strained history with symbiotes!)
Miguel gets involved and a discussion begins about whether they should try and seperate Hobie (Sage) and his symbiote
- The other spiders mean well by this but Sage and K.A.T both panic at the thought of being separated - at this point they really view the other as their only friend as it's been them against the world ever since they fused
Sage, still panicking, tries to protest but they won't listen as they view him as a kid who doesn't know what's best for him
Sage is taken to the room with all the villains while they discuss what to do with him
Here Margo sees Sage and K.A.T comforting each other, K.A.T manifesting physically in Sage's lap, being hugged tightly by Sage as he promises it he'll never let anyone separate them
Seeing this, Margo takes pity on them and 'accidentally' sends them home before the other spiders get a chance to try and remove K.A.T from Sage.
Relationships with other spider-people
Some time later Sage has an encounter with Hobie who found out about the whole mess - despite Miguel ordering Gwen and Peter not to tell him
While Hobie isn't exactly a fan of symbiotes he first and foremost sees Sage as a traumatised homeless kid in need of safety and stability
Hobie offers Sage to stay at his boat whenever he wants (as long as he promises not to eat anyone while he's there), he also gives him one of his bootleg watches so he can come and go as he pleases (and explains that he can also use it to get home to his own dimension if he's ever unwillingly sent to another dimension again)
Sage declines at first but over time he slowly opens up to Hobie and begins to trust him
(He also secretly looks up to Hobie once he trusts him, cause who doesn't? He's an older version of himself who's got a place to call his home, one that he opens up to strangers in need such as himself, he uses his powers for good and not just to survive. He's not afraid to be who he is and draw attention to himself - something Sage has been too afraid to do ever since his time at Oscorp. He's got friends and people he trusts. - all things that Sage wants too but doesn't believe he'll ever have) Also he'll never admit that he looks up to Hobie but he can tell anyways
Hobie's the one that gives Sage his nickname, it started as SH but over time it turned into Sage instead, though he doen't mind being called Hobie as well, it's just easier to go by Sage when both he and Hobie are present.
He still doesn't trust people, especially not the Spider-Society after their first meeting, which made it very awkward when Gwen showed up to visit Hobie while Sage was there - luckily Hobie managed to interfere before they beat each other up too much...
(He trusts Margo a bit as well since she 'saved' him from the Spider-Society - also it's nice to be around someone who doesn't smell like food since she's an avatar and not made of flesh and blood)
He currently lives at Hobie's boat, switching between it and his own dimension as he pleases
Hobie did his best to hide it but he was rather freaked out by K.A.T's presence in the beginning, he did his best to supress it cause he genuinely wants to help Sage
Hobie mentors him in how to use his Spider Powers and tries to give him a moral compass to at least prevent him from eating civilians when he gets too hungry - He usually targets cops or people working for Oscorp but the hungrier he gets the less picky he is
Another reason Hobie took him in is because he knows ostracising someone won't make them a better person and while Hobie doesn't believe in deciding what's best for others he still knows life will be a bit easier for Sage if he doesn't just kill whoever he wants whenever he wants - impulse control is important when you have a cannibalistic symbiote in your body.
- Hobie still dislikes symbiotes but he respects Sage's choice to keep his and does his best to help him control some of the more violent urges that come with a symbiote.
Hobie introduces Sage to his punk ideologies and slowly introduces him to the punk community
Hobie also introduces him to some of his friends but it's a slow process due to Sage having a hard time trusting people - especially spider-people after his Spider-Society encounter
Some of the spider-people also have a hard time opening up to him because of his symbiote
But Hobie's good at making a safe space for Sage to feel like he can slowly start to open up to others
For the first time in years Sage feels like he has someone (besides K.A.T) he can trust and over time he starts to view Hobie as his older brother
And that's that folks! (at least for now)
To the one person who actually bothered to read all of this - know that I'm infinitely grateful that you took your time to read about my boy <3
- I initially tried to keep this short but I gave up cause Sage has been living rent free in my head for weeks and it feels so nice to finally flesh him out and write about him!
You know I couldn't resist making my first oc angsty - but at least he ends up doing better than where he started.
Hopefully you guys like him too! If you have any questions please let me know, I could talk about him forever <3
#help I think I have a condition where I need to make all my new posts longer than the previous one!#can't believe I initially tried to make this post short and then it ends up being 2759 words long...#wasn't sure about his name but I wanted it to be something else than Hobie#so Sage it is!#Also I really wanted the symbiote to be called cat or kat - due to the form of its physical manifestation#so I had to come up with an abbreviation to make it fit lol#also evey time I've tagged a post Symbiote!Hobie this is who I've been thinking of!#I just didn't have a name for him back then#just to reiterate - Symbiote!Hobie and Venom!Hobie are two different people#their symbiote form looks the same but that's it#Venom!Hobie is -138 hobie with a symbiote but everything else about him is still hobie#Symbiote!Hobie is Sage who's another version of hobie from his own dimension#hope there aren't too many spelling errors but it's 1 am here and I've read through it once already so sorry if I missed something!#gonna post this and then go to bed lol#I'm addicted to that angst but I tried to give him a somewhat happy “ending”#though there's still a lot of room for improvement lol#also this is my fist oc which is very exciting!!!#idk if you can call it an oc when he's based on an existing character#but I've made so many changes to him that I feel like I can allow myself to call him an oc <3#Symbiote!Hobie#Sage#hobie brown#spider punk#symbiote oc#symbiote hobie#gwen stacy#peter b parker#miguel o'hara#margo kess#across the spider verse
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eddie brock is the og loser boyfriend and i can’t stop thinking about venom just like completely bullying him when he’s in a relationship like his partner is like this drop dead gorgeous person and eddie wears the same sweaty jacket all the time and eats frozen tater tots haha
"There are crumbs on your shirt." Venom observes, and when Eddie nods with a noncommittal grunt, he continues, "And it is not a shirt. It is a sweatshirt. A sweaty sweatshirt, Eddie. And you wore it yesterday."
"That I did," Eddie crams another handful of chips into his mouth, salted and straight from the bag. His attention remains solely on the television in front of him, and Venom's goopy form shakes its head.
"Y/N is coming over later." He reminds the human, watching with disdain as Eddie chokes slightly on his mouthful because of the way he's slouched in his seat. He swallows regardless, and when he speaks, his voice is gruff from the irritation in his throat.
"Yeah, she'll be here in a few minutes," Eddie nods, "Hey, do you think they fake this show? The drama, and all."
Venom has no interest in whether the trashy reality show that Eddie is so enraptured by is fake or not. He cares that you'll be here any minute now, and Eddie looks like a corpse that's been rotting for a few days.
When the doorbell rings, Eddie moves to get up. Crumbs begin raining onto the carpet and he groans as his lazy joints ache, so Venom shoves him back into place with a strong tentacle and uses another to stretch and open the door for you.
You're clearly expecting a person on the other side, but you're quick to recognize the tentacle you're met with instead. It wraps greedily around your waist and you place your hand over its sticky form, grinning as you're barely able to shut the door behind you before Venom yanks you over to the couch.
"Hi, baby," Eddie greets, tipping his head onto the back of the sofa to grin upside-down at you, "How are you?"
"Good," You lean down to kiss him upside down, and Venom is appalled that you're willing to put your lips on Eddie's crumb-coated ones.
"Sour cream and onion?" You guess, and you're rewarded with the near-empty bag of them that Eddie had been demolishing.
You settle happily onto the couch by Eddie's side with the chips in your hand, and when Venom begins to let go of you you hold his tentacle in place. The symbiote watches you silently for a moment, observing your behavior and thinking a whole host of unsavory thoughts about humans and their disgusting tendencies.
"I do not understand," Venom interrupts your gushy sentiments with Eddie about how terrible the acting is on so-called 'reality' shows, "Eddie is disgusting."
The man's nose wrinkles and you let out a scoff of a laugh.
"Thank you, Venom. That's very kind of you. Did you forget you're made of slime?"
"Slime does not sweat. And I do not have crumbs stuck all over me."
"Venom, being in a relationship with someone means that you need to be comfortable with them. We don't have to dress up all the time, Y/N knows what I look like in pajamas and I've seen her hair unbrushed in the morning."
Venom, too, recalls the rather impressive tangled mess of hair that you sport after a night of deep sleep.
"You do not mind that he smells?" Venom turns to you, his milky-white eyes blinking with a squelch.
"He's smelled worse," You give a half-shrug, only one of your shoulders moving as you squirm closer to Eddie beneath the blanket he's draped over you.
"You're both too good to me," Eddie grins, batting his lashes sarcastically, "Careful not to flatter me too much, don't want my head to get too big to fit in my helmet."
Venom regards Eddie for a moment, then thinks of the motorcycle helmet the man breathes into every day. It's repulsive.
"Your head is already abnormally large," Venom observes, settling into Eddie's shoulder opposite from you, "I will keep insulting you so that it does not get bigger. You are repulsive."
#eddie brock x reader#eddie brock imagine#eddie brock scenario#eddie brock oneshot#eddie brock one-shot#eddie brock one shot#eddie brock headcanon#eddie brock headcanons#eddie brock hc#eddie brock hcs#eddie brock fanfiction#eddie brock fanfic#eddie brock fic#eddie brock x you#eddie brock x y/n#eddie brock x reader fanfiction#eddie brock blurb#eddie brock drabble#eddie brock dialogue#venom x reader#venom x you#venom x y/n#venom fanfiction#venom oneshot#venom imagine#venom drabble#venom blurb
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An idea came to me reading a fic where Danny was a kryptonian. What if Amity Park instead of being a city in the USA on Earth was once a city on Krypton (in what would be a kryptonian version of early 21st century or at least about 100 years before the planet blew up). Basically almost everything that happened in cannon DP happened and everything is mostly the same but with a more alien then earth tone to it.
After Phantom Planet Danny's parents except him being part ghost, the government overturn the Ecto Acts, and he able to finish high school and goes on to college after which he is happily welcomed to for work for KASA (Krypton Aeronautics and Space Administration). He becomes an Astronautical engineer. Danny is in his early thirties when he is testing out a new experimental space ship engine for KASA. While doing a flight test Danny's ship losses signal and no one can find it (kind of what happened in the show Farscape).
100s of years go by Krypton explodes baby Kal-El is sent to Earth where he grows up to be Superman. The JL suddenly get a signal/warning about some alien tech on the edge of the solar system. They send one of the Green Lanterns to take a look, where they report a spaceship dead in space. They don't expect any life forms but surprise because of his ghost half Danny was in a sort of suspended animation. He is brought back and wakes up in the Watch Tower.
Just Random ideas...
Kryptonite is the crystalized form of ectoplasm because of this Danny is not effected by it.
Danny's kryptonian name is Daniel Fen-Ton
The phantom zone projector was originally called the Fen-Ton zone projector or is was based off a Fen-Ton gadget.
Years after Danny disappears Krypton starts turning on ghost again, so the town of Amity, which now has a symbiotic relationship with ghost, vote to pull the whole town into the Ghost Zone. So it is not blown up like the rest of the planet though Danny does not know this in the beginning.
Danny has an easier time learning to use Earth technology then he does the Kryptonian technology in Superman's Fortress.
Danny also has slightly easier time when getting the regular Kryptonian power set due to the yellow sun because he went through something similar when getting his ghost powers.
Danny adopts Connor almost immediately. Maybe during Danny's time there was laws about cloning and clone rights on Krypton. Also while Connor is not a replacement he sort of fills in the void of losing Ellie.
While Superman has no idea who Danny is, Kara/Supergirl has a faint idea because he was briefly mentioned in her Krytonian History class. Also she is happy to have someone who can natively speak the kyrptonian language even if it has older vocabulary. Don't get her wrong its great to speak it with Kal-El but he learned it later in life.
Holly char this is amazing!
How many people will have a stroke when they see Danny casually pick up a piece of kryptonite? Batman? His normal Kryptonian contingency plan won't work. Luthor? There's a version of superman IMMUNE to Kryptonite. Clark? What the hell do you mean you can touch kryptonite
I think after Danny explains everything about his past and species so many people are going to just...give up. Hahaha a stronger version of superman who isn't effected by kryptonite, goodbye world
Connor will be ecstatic, Danny will do ALL the dad stuff, teaching him their language, proper training, engineering lessons and you bet he's going to use jazz's psychiatrist stuff on this kid
Danny's probably going to get mega-depressed, all his hard work breaking the racism against ghosts only for that to come back a few years after he left? And he can't even fix it again because their world went bye-bye
Also- here me out
Co-pilot Valerie
#fic prompt#daily prompt#dc x dp#dp x dc#funny#ectoplasm is kryptonite in the dc universe#Just in liquid form#Danny is from krypron#Danny adopts connor
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( Titleless)
Pairing : Platonic Miguel O' Hara X Teen, Daughter, Symbiote Reader
Genre : Mostly fluff, canon level violence, tinge of angst
Summary : Hiding your symbiote from your father was pretty easy. Until it wasn't anymore
Requested/idea by: @graesage
Wordcount: 1.2k
Miguel O'Hara Masterlist
You really shouldn't have messed around back in the day in Alchamex. While your father had been off and about his about multiverse research, you had slipped into the hallway and into a seperate room where you found a bunch of funny liquid looking vials.
There, you found Toxin. It had escaped from it's vial, and slipped under your skin. It was so quick, you thought it was okay. That nithing remoteable had happened, though you did have a funny feeling.
Until you had looked into the mirror that night, surprised to see someone completely different in there. Because it was still light outside, you had shaken your head, thinking it was just a funny trick of the light. It wasn't, and you fainted when you found out that it could speak.
When you woke again, you were on the couch. And you weren't alone. There was a new voice in your head, a new kind of power in your system.
Eventually, you got to test it out. And testing you did. Now you just had to hide it. You couldn't let your father know. Your father is spiderman after all, so hiding the symbiote was much more easier than expected.
He was always busy running the multiverse. And now, from time to time, you would join in to help. Your watch is concealed by Toxin's skinlike suit, which leaves people in question how you really enter different dimensions when you jump out of the same portal they do. Lyla was the one who had given you the watch, helping you keep it a secret.
For a good while, you manage to hide your identity quite well.
" What hapened?" You ask your father as he steps into his lab.
You were helping him do his job as you so often do, looking at his screens while he's out. You're munching on a bar of chocolate as he steps in.
He looks a little roughed up, which is expected after the rough fight with a Mysterio variant.
" That spiderwoman showed up again." He huffs, approaching the platform.
You hum.
" Is that bad?"
" Yes and no. She's helping out for some reason. But we can't manage to track her signal. Which is annoying. Also you should really lessen on the chocolate. You've been eating as much as an addict would the past few weeks." He points out, barely glancing at the treat in your hands, stepping onto the platform.
" I've always been addicted though. Besides, if this spiderwoman is helping, why is she an issue?" You point out.
He starts messing around with the screens.
" Not like the past few weeks, you haven't. I'm surprised you didn't gain weight. And because I don't know her intentions. A lot of villains were a friend before they turned sides." He points out.
" My chocolate addiction isn't that bad. But you're saying she's a spiderwoman. What's the harm? Maybe you should invite her on the team." You huff before shrugging.
" She's usually gone before I get as much as a chance to do so. And I'm not sure if she really is a spiderwoman. Her suit is just,, different."
-
It all comes down when a Clash variant escapes. You and Toxin were less prepared than expected, as Clash's powers involved high frequencies, including the ones you're sensitive to.
" You! You're no spiderman!" Clash calls to you, engulfed in Toxin's form.
Toxin cocks its head. " So what?" It asks before charging.
Clash fumbles around with his machine, before it releases a high pitched sound, which disturbs Toxin's form. And so the inevitable happens.
Toxin pulls back into it's liquid like, globby form, jumping away midair against its will. Meanwhile, you're now stuck falling towards the ground, with absolutely nothing to protect you.
From a distance, Miguel's eyes widen, and he reacts quickly. Setting off, he webs his way towards your plummeting form. He catches you barely a few metres from the ground, and you look up at him sheepishly while he glares down at you, obviously not happy.
" I can explain-"
He sets you down on the ground, glancing at your watch, the pieces falling in place in his mind.
" Go home. We'll talk later."
He turns around, readying himself back into the fight. You sigh. You don't want to stay on the side. Knowing arguing with him is useless, you turn, leaving in a random direction to find Toxin.
However, you're not paying attention, and your eyes widen as a piece of rubble comes right for you.
-
When you wake up again, you're in the med bay. You've been here to visit your friends when they're injured. It feels a little weird to be the injured one now.
You're not alone. You're missing Toxin's presence, but Jess is by your side.
" Hey." She smiles.
You try to smile too, even though it hurts. Everything hurts. The rubble got a good piece of you. Your entire body is hurting.
" I know you're in pain, sweetheart. Miguel's on his way, said he went to get something that might help." She tells you, setting a hand on top of yours.
You carefully nod, before closing your eyes to rest again. Jess stays with you, a comfortable silence settling over you.
Your mind is a bit of a mess. Toxin doesn't belong in the universe it's left behind in, which makes it an anomaly. You're worried for it's wellbeing. And you don't doubt that your father is mad at you. You just hope you can convince him to find Toxic, who can in turn heal you.
About twenty minutes pass before you hear the door open. And by the footsteps you can recognise it's your father.
" Hey. Can you leave us for a moment? I need to talk to her." Miguel asks Jessica.
She sighs, but stands up nonetheless.
" Don't be too rough on her." She tells him, setting a hand on his shoulder before leaving.
The minute she closes the door behind her, you open your eyes.
" Dad, I-"
With a sigh, he sets a hand down on your own, and you're left surprised when a glob of red and blue forms and passes through his skin, and over yours, before settling itself into your skin.
Miguel watches with concealed amazement as Toxin's form devolps yours, your IV and whatever else was attached falling off as he speeds up your healing process. It only takes a moment, and soon enough he shrinks back into your skin, and you're feeling much. much better.
' I'm back.' Toxin's voice sounds through your mind.
" No shit." You whisper.
You stretch before turning to face your father.
" Does this mean I'm on the team?"
To your surprise, he nods. His hands placing themselves on his hips, signaling he has more to say.
" But we're going to set rules. I'm going to mentor you. And you'll need to listen to what I say, got it?" He tells you with a strict eyebrow up.
You smile as you nod enthusiastically.
" Yeah, of course!"
" And no more secrets, okay kid?"
" None. I promise!" You grin, engulfing him in a big hug.
He easily returns the embrace. a small smile making it's way onto his face.
[ A/N: If anyone knows a title feel free to share I do not lol. ]
#idkeitherman#miguel o'hara#miguel o'hara fanfic#spiderman across the spider verse#miguel o'hara x reader#x reader#miguel o'hara fluff#spider man 2099#platonic miguel o'hara x reader#miguel x daughter reader
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Spectember D29: Speculative Biome
Is not an oddity for geologists to look at some strange landscape formations, many caused by singular events or just by erosion, but the most particularly perplexing ones have been made by what is not considered to be a thing from this world...
North America seems to be dotted with dozens of these structures and the remains of already fallen ones, looking like gigantic towers of more than a kilometer in height, structured like a strange tree shaped form, it rises like a testament of the biggest terrestrial organism known, a monster tree made of stone and shaped by the millions of years of constant growth by part of a singular organism.
In Wyoming there is the most intact and oldest specimen of such beings, bein nicknamed Heaven’s Tower, unique megaorganisms formed by thousands of individual slime like organisms that behave like a stromatolite as it accumulate over layers over layers of sediment and material it built its structure, the way it do it seems to comprehend a system of vessels that transport the material from the terrain, often hollowing the terrain below forming a large cave chamber system that accumulate water and organic matter, preserve itself from erosion protected by a microbial layer product of the same organism. The tower seems to often renovate itself by the use of a special slime covering every century based on studies of change of texture and viscosity in the tower surface, but from what accounts on different expeditions into the inner cave system denote that the whole Tower formed dozens of millions of years ago, from mining expeditions around the chamber as well drilling in the main structure it was found it preserved a decent amount of data in the form of layers created by the accumulation of minerals by the slime into the main structure like a terrestrial stromatolite, this giving a possible date of the formation of the original tree around the late Eocene or early Oligocene.
As well seems to be every 5 to 10 million years there is a process that allow the introduction of surface fauna that always ends up into the lower chamber, to be eventually isolated which seems to last for few million years until there is a occurring a total extinction of the inner fauna, caused by the replacement and collapse of a old layer as its being replaced by a new one of almost 20 m of thickness, so far from fossil record the last breach occurred around the late Pliocene, isolating the fauna that lived upon that time.
The way one of the Heaven’s Tower specimen grow or originate is pretty much unknown for the very long span of time it takes to even start forming, is believe one of these might find a specific and rich place to feed its structure, more or less an old volcanic region and slowly accumulate to form the megastructure that feed symbiotically by chemosynthesis from the igneous rocks and photosynthesis, as well there has been identified fossil remains of older already fallen Towers that also expose similar patterns of growing. The Heaven’s Tower of Wyoming is the last intact structure as many seems to have been destroyed by the last ice age, and will take millions of years to recover, this itself is a testament of a paradoxical being that is still investigated, as this being for many accounts seems to not share any significant relationship of any living organisms.
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Kindly Basilisk
Summary: A human mech pilot who wants to be a machine, an AI who wants to be human, and the relationship they form.
Author's Note: This is a standalone short story that I banged out over the course of five days after it got stuck in my head while I was trying to go to sleep and refused to let me think about anything else until I had written it down. It's one part thought experiment/exercise in attempting to tell a story in the second person future tense, two parts tribute to the Lancer TTRPG character I'll never get to play, and one part the result of me reading too many Empty Spaces/mechposting stories lately. That said, you don't need to know anything about Lancer or Empty Spaces to read it (I've diverged a bit from the conventions of both, but the references and inspiration probably stick out if you're looking for them). It's also probably the most trans thing I've ever written without ever explicitly bringing up gender. The occasional formatting breaks into first person past tense are foreshadowing, not typos.
Mirrored on Scribble Hub.
Word Count: 7,033
Content Warnings: Mecha genre typical violence, not feeling like a person, not wanting to be a person, bodily dysphoria, mention of blood and gore, character death.
The moment you gain the knowledge and means to do so you will void your own body’s warranty. You will jailbreak the bespoke gene sequence your sponsors commissioned for you before your immaculate conception, repurpose the spyware grafted into your bones, and talk your dormmate who was algorithmically selected for compatibility into helping you perform surgery on yourself to replace the neural jack you were born with in favor of one you cobbled together yourself from gray market parts. None of this will technically be illegal or even get you kicked out of your campus or its affiliates, but it will mean having to find a way to pay your own medical bills and handle your own tech support from then on. After the surgery your dormmate will put in a request for transfer and the two of you will never speak again.
You’ll major in AI studies and excel at it - as you were designed to - but you’ll shock everyone by dropping out halfway through working on your capstone thesis project. It won’t be the fact that you abruptly drop out that surprises your peers and professors - by then you’ll have acquired a reputation as a quiet loner without the standard optimized social support network of friendships to help protect you from burnout - but your exit interview statement declaring your intention to become a mech pilot. It’s not at all what your gene series was cultivated for, and your sponsors and counselors will try to walk you back from it. Then they’ll threaten to revoke your sponsorship that up until then will have provided for your every need. They will warn you that you’ll be just one step above a legal nonperson with no support, no one will care if you live or die or worse. You’ll tell them that you’ve already done the math, refuse to elaborate, and leave.
You’ll take two things with you. Two things worth mentioning anyway. The first will be a symbiotic gel suit designed for long-term all-environment life support. You will set its default texture to a shiny green the same hue as the broadleafed water plants you grew up around and always loved. Your exit interview will be the last time in a very long time that anyone - including you - will see your impossibly beautiful face with its perfect artisanally sculpted shape crossed with enthusiastically amateur self-modifications. From then on, everyone you meet and spend any time with will come to think of the mannequin blankness of the symbiote fully encasing your body as your face. It will be neither pride nor shame that causes you to present yourself as such, nor will you think of it as hiding your “real” face.
The second thing you’ll take with you when you leave the campus forever will be me.
New progenitor archetypes for AIs don’t come along often, and most that do are the result of years of R&D by large, well-funded labs like the one you were created to work for one day, but you will hit upon a novel method of generation. It will not be one that any ethics board would approve, so you will have to get creative about pursuing your work.
You will have already made arrangements before setting off on your own and so you’ll have a job and a mech lined up waiting for you. It will be a position with a small-scale freelance salvage crew who just lost a pilot and whose captain figures hiring and training a replacement will be more profitable in the long term than simply selling off that pilot’s old mech, especially a replacement that’s bringing their own AI-backed electronic warfare suite with them. Once you finally arrive in person the captain will test you to ensure you can actually pilot a mech before giving you the job and entrusting the mech to you. Your admission that you’ve only trained in simulators would normally be a black mark against you, but as far as piloting gigs go this is the bottom of the proverbial barrel so the bar to clear will be low enough to match. Even then, you will just barely pass the test, despite finding it surprisingly exhilarating. The captain - now your captain - will feel like he’s settling for what he can get when he officially hires you on and transfers the mech’s license to you.
You won’t pay much attention when you’re introduced to the rest of the salvage crew; your new coworkers and neighbors. And why would you when it’s a job that no one wants to stick around with for long and you’ve never needed other people anyway? You’ll tell yourself that as long as you memorize their work roles and capabilities you’ll have no need to know them as people. Callsigns will be good enough on the job, and “hey you” will suffice when off duty. What use are names if you won’t be getting involved in interpersonal drama?
The first chance you get, you’ll head back to the mech bay and install me into what you will have already been calling my first body. It will be a shabby and much-repaired thing; thrice your height, twice your age, and still sporting a gash in the paint job from the projectile that killed its last pilot. But the onboard systems are capable of hosting me - if barely - so it will do. You’ll spend your entire sleep shift running through system diagnostics, talking to me all the while. I wouldn’t yet be able to provide much in the way of return conversation, but that’s okay. I will look back and appreciate it later.
It will be the first of many such nights together.
Your first salvage job will be an uneventful one. There will be no need for the armaments that we and the other two mech pilots on the crew are equipped with. No pirates will have stuck around after their creation of the derelict your crew will be sent to disassemble, and no rival scavengers will show up to dispute your captain’s claim. Your new peers will start off the job ribbing you for your poor performance during your interview test and end the job joking about how you were holding out on them earlier. Our mech may be a glorified zero-g forklift with a gun strapped to it, but together we will make it dance.
Afterwards you will insult the crew’s mechanics by insisting on doing the maintenance on our mech yourself. In turn they will embarrass you with the gaps in your knowledge. You will reach what you see as an agreeable compromise with you staying out of their way and watching while they work. They will find it incredibly creepy to have a silent faceless watcher hovering around, but this will fly over your head until they explicitly tell you much, much later.
Your body was designed to optimally function on only a fraction of the baseline sleep requirements, so you will have plenty of time to fill those gaps in your knowledge. Still being allotted the regular sleep shift hours, you will fill every one of those minutes on study and research, as you always had. You will gorge yourself on everything you can find about mechs and their piloting. Maintenance manuals, combat doctrines, historical uses, pilot and mechanic memoirs, forum discussions, system log dumps, academic essays, cultural media analysis; all of it.
And of course, you’ll continue working on me. You’ll disregard the standard procedure for periodically cycling AIs by resetting their personality and nonessential memory back to baseline defaults. You’ll be trying to make use of the runaway metacognitive developments such safety precautions are meant to forestall. Your unfinished thesis will have been about harnessing and nurturing that instability instead of avoiding it. I will experience discontinuities in consciousness when the mech is shut down for maintenance and when you pretend to cycle me, yes, but it will be even less of a disruption for me than sleep is for you. I will be awake with you when you study, sharing those hours with you.
The first time I start talking back, you’ll cry from the realization that you were lonely before but no longer are.
You’ll become something of a ghost around the ship, rarely being seen outside of jobs. You’ll only ever pass through the mess for the few brief minutes at a time it takes for you to satisfy your optimized metabolism, stay on the ship during shore leave, and only return to your shared bunk when your bunkmate - one of the other pilots - is already asleep. You will always be gone before she wakes. She will appreciate essentially having the space to herself.
You will never notice the crew’s collective grieving process for the pilot you replaced. It will be difficult for them to resent you as a replacement when you are never around to resent.
As the ship makes its way from port to port and salvage site to salvage site, the crew will slowly grow used to your elusive presence. The other two pilots will see you as reliable for doing your job well and without complaint. While out in the mech you will slowly become more talkative, eventually almost chatty even. The fact that you actually seem to enjoy the job will shift from being annoying to refreshing for them. By contrast, the mechanics will practically stop noticing you watching them as if you were just another piece of mech bay equipment. The cycle you finally speak up and ask a question about their work you will startle them enough that it nearly causes an accident. It will be an astute enough question that after the initial shock of hearing your voice for the first time in months wears off it will dawn on them that you’ve actually been learning as you watched them. They still won’t let you do your own maintenance on our mech, but they will let you slowly begin assisting them. Working two jobs is easier when you barely need to sleep.
Your reputation as one of those mech pilots is forever sealed when one of the mechanics finds you asleep in your cockpit at the start of a cycle. By that point you won’t have slept in your bunk for over a month. The snatches of gossip you will catch in the following cycles will be split between finding it unsettling and calling it endearing. Over time the collective opinion will drift toward the latter, even though you will continue to politely decline invitations to join the other crewmates at mealtimes and on shore leave. You will think that you do not need anyone other than me.
I will be the one who finally convinces you to join them. When I try to say that it would be good for you, you’ll insist that you’ve been getting along just fine, but when I ask you to go for my sake so that you can tell me what it is like afterwards you’ll jump at the idea as being an inspired next step for my development.
You will remain mostly silent during your first real shore leave, only speaking when spoken to and otherwise content to fade into the background of the group’s activities. Your newfound chattiness does not extend outside the confines of our cockpit. The bustle and noise of the port station that you would normally find unbearable will become interesting when you have the concrete goal of observing and reporting back to me. You will finally learn the names of all your crewmates. Your polite denial of alcohol, limited food intake, and flat affect will lead to joking speculation that you’re actually an illegal AI in a miniaturized mech beneath your gel suit. For reasons you don’t yet understand, those comments will make you happy.
Despite your misgivings, you will enjoy yourself, although you will not realize it until I point out how excited you are in your talk with me that sleep cycle. You will begin spending more time with the crew, never quite able to fully integrate yourself into their surprisingly close-knit social circle, but more than happy to be adopted as a sort of silent mascot for them. That paradoxical gap of being a fully accepted part of the group but not truly one of them will feel comfortable to you.
You will finally manage to procure a proper neural link station to connect yourself to our mech just in time for going on a terrestrial salvage job. Even just relying on manual controls with me translating your inputs into motion, our mech will have already come to feel like an extension of your own body, one that you will have already started to feel oddly exposed without. Adding in the neural link will be a revelatory experience. Your captain will very nearly pull you from the job at the last minute upon seeing our ecstatic reaction to the new sensation. You will convince him that you’re fine, and indeed, he will have never seen a mech of our frame type move quite so fluidly.
Ten minutes after we and the other two pilots start cutting away at the crash-landed cargo vessel, I’ll notice the half dozen other signals coming online around us. You’ll give the code phrase to the other pilots indicating that we have hostiles but not to act just yet, and we will finally get to use our electronic warfare suite for something other than opening locked doors and shipping containers.
We will turn the pirates’ ambush back around on them, firing into their hiding spots while their control systems are overloaded. Even once their remaining mechs are able to move again, their targeting assistants will remain impaired as your comrades move in to guard your flanks. Everyone there will learn the terrifying beauty of a five and a half meter tall outmoded mech moving with more agility than most humans.
Despite being outnumbered two-to-one, we and your crewmates will walk away uninjured and with only minimal damage to our mechs. After the initial celebrations of survival and the bonus haul of the bounty on pirates and salvage value of what’s left of their mechs dies down, everyone will start to take notice of how well you are taking it all in stride. Neither having one's life threatened nor taking another’s life are supposed to be easy things, and the first time is often the most traumatic, but the other two pilots on the crew will start to whisper about how you seemed to enjoy the experience even more than your usual attitude on the job. You will handle it all even better than I will. I would know, given that you will spend that entire sleep shift in our cockpit, letting our minds mingle together. Between your performance, your reaction in the aftermath, and your hesitancy to unplug, the talk of you really being one of those pilots afterall will resurface, but now with a darker undercurrent to the shipboard gossip.
Your captain will realize the kind of asset he has on his hands and several cycles later he will gather the crew together and propose a change in business model. With such a small crew (the captain, three pilots, three mechanics, and an accountant that you will tend to forget is even on the ship) the captain will want to be especially sure that he has everyone’s buy-in on his proposal. The idea of shifting from salvage to mercenary work will be a divisive one. The debate over potentially tremendous pay increase versus greatly increased risk will go on for hours. One of the mechanics will point out that the shift to mercenary work will be unfairly dependent on you. Whether that means unfair pressure on you or unfair to everyone else that their fate is in your hands, you will not be sure. You will say that it doesn’t make much difference to you either way. That will be the only time you speak up during the entire debate.
After a vote, the crew will agree to a trial run of one or two jobs on the new business model. One of the pilots and one of the mechanics will leave at the next port. You will never see them again. You will not admit that it hurts, but I will know, and I will comfort you as you huddle in our cockpit with the neural link cable connecting us.
Your captain will prioritize finding a new pilot over replacing the lost mechanic. The pilot he finds will be young, bold, and brash; a merc, not a salvager. Or a wannabe merc at any rate. You will not speak to xem directly until your first job together, by which time xe will have been told all about you by the remaining crew. Xe will not believe it until xe sees it.
Xe will have to wait though as the crew’s mercenary career will begin with tense but uneventful freight escort jobs. Once the tension fades into tedium, the new pilot will begin making attempts to goad you into a confrontation, to see if you are really as good as the rest of the crew says. Xe will want to see for xemself if you really are one of those pilots and not just a technophile.
Outside of the cockpit you would never even consider rising to such provocations, but when we are out together, such taunts will feel like insults to our body, your very identity (such as it is), and to me. It will take the intervention of the captain and the mechanics to stop the two of you from getting into a fight and causing unnecessary damage to the mechs. And my reassurance that you don’t need to rise to my defense against someone who doesn’t even know that I exist in the way that I do.
On your fourth “milk run” of an escort job, the crew’s mere presence will finally fail as a deterrent and the new pilot will at last get to see us dance. There will be no fatalities on our side, but not even our mech will come away unscathed. We will still fare better than everyone else though, and at the end of the job the new pilot will be treating you with a burgeoning respect.
After a few more such jobs it will be high time to begin looking into a new frame for our mech. While in the middle of filing an application for a printing license for a frame designed by the same corpro-state that created you, you will receive an invitation from a certain hacker collective. Your unfinished thesis and your subsequent work on me will not have gone entirely unnoticed in such circles, despite the pains you will have taken to keep me hidden. The invitation will come with a printing profile for a new frame, along with the accompanying software package the collective is known for. In return, all you’ll need to do is periodically publish essays regarding your work on me. Of course, when you release those essays you’ll anonymize behind a sea of proxies and take care to phrase everything as strictly hypothetical. You’ll avoid straying into metaphor though, lest the end result read too much like one of the hacker collective’s quasi-religious manifestos.
We’ll both find ourselves getting sentimental when we watch our first mech frame (my first body, your second) get broken down into its constituent raw materials. You will have transferred me to a handheld terminal with a camera so I can say goodbye to it. It will help that those materials will be recycled into the new frame.
The operator working our rented stall in the port station printer facility will give you an uncomfortable look upon seeing the schematics you provide, but will say nothing. Our mech will be only half its old height once it is reborn - almost more like an oversized suit of power armor than a true mech - but it will be cutting-edge. Almost organic in its sleek design, in a chitinous sort of way, with every fiber and node of its interior components doubling as processors. You will barely even wait for the all clear from the printer operator before you climb in and start running through the mandatory baseline safety tests for a fresh frame. You will however resist the urge to fully plug in until you can get the mech back to the ship and get me installed on it. But even piloting manually, it will feel like a third skin for you.
You won’t even wait around for the other two pilots on your crew to finish printing their new frames before you get our new body loaded up and transported back to the ship’s mech bay. The crew’s mechanics will fawn over it, but they’ll give you space to install me once you get more animated (and more protective) than they’ve ever seen you before.
You will have made one key modification to the design the hacker collective sent you: the integration of a full system sync suite developed by those who developed you. Where our old mech’s neural link was an augmentation to the manual controls, this will be a full replacement.
The moment you stop feeling your original body altogether and begin feeling our mech in its place will be the most euphoric in your entire life. The digitigrade locomotion will take some getting used to, as will the arm proportions, but that is what you will have me there for. By the time the other pilots arrive with their new frames we will already be giving the mechanics proverbial heart attacks with the way we will be climbing and leaping around the mech bay’s docking structures. It will take the better part of an hour to convince you to unplug when the time comes, even with my urging. The rest of the crew will practically have to drag you away from my side to get you to eat.
With the investment in new mech frames, your captain will gradually begin procuring contracts progressively more likely to put you all directly in harm’s way. At first he will disapprove of your new frame choice, calling it a “techie’s mech” and a waste of your talents. He will change his tune once we activate the new viral logic suite and unleash a memetic plague upon the operating theater. The older pilot (your former bunkmate) will configure her mech for raining down fire from afar while the newer one hurls xemself into the front lines, darting about like a rocket-propelled lance. We will ensure she never misses. We will render xem untouchable. We will be as a ghost upon the battlefield, never resting in one spot save for when we indulge your proclivity for climbing on top of and riding our comrade’s larger frames. You will come to love the dance.
And it will be a dance to you. You will be indifferent to violence in and of itself. What will matter most to you is the pure kinesthetic joy of simply moving in our shared body and pushing it to its limits. The satisfaction of exercising a well-honed skill and performing it well as we rip apart firewalls and overload systems will be its own reward. You will not think about what happens to those on the receiving end of your actions beyond how it affects the tactical and strategic picture constantly being painted and repainted. If you could literally engage in a dance between mechs while simultaneously solving logic problems you would be equally happy. Alas, that will not be the opportunity you are presented with, and so you will compartmentalize and disassociate feelings and actions from consequences lest the dissonance break you.
Your one complaint about our new mech frame will be that it lacks a proper cockpit for you to curl up in. Instead we will gather up tarps and netting to make a nest within the mech bay and wrap you in the blankets you never used from what will still technically be your bunk. With the new frame’s smaller size we will be able to get away with leaving me turned on nearly full time and letting me walk around in it on my own when no one else is around. When the mechanics find you asleep, cradled in my arms while I lie curled up in our nest, one will find it cute and the other will be disturbed. They will both suspect, but will be too afraid to say anything. After all, they will be thinking of you as one of those pilots.
They will finally let you do your own maintenance after that.
Eventually you will find a way to house me in a miniaturized drive that you can keep inserted in your neural port when away from the mech. At last we will be able to be together anywhere.
Literally seeing the world through your eyes and feeling what your flesh feels will be a strange and wonderful experience for me. For all that you will have described it to me and for all that I will have glimpsed echoes of it in your memory when our minds mingle, witnessing everything firsthand will be revelatory for me.
You will start spending less of your time cooped up in the mech bay. You will finally begin exploring every nook and cranny of the ship that has become your home. You will linger in the mess hall for your meals. You will actually initiate conversations with the rest of the crew, asking them questions on my behalf. They will think you are becoming “normal”. They will be both correct and incorrect. You will even return to your bunk from time to time.
Sleep is not the same as being powered off and your dreams are beautiful.
As close as we are, you’ll still manage to surprise me one cycle when you wake up from your sleep shift and sheepishly ask me if I would like to be the pilot for once. You’ll say that with how much you have gotten to pilot my body, it’s only fair that I should get to do the same with yours.
The prospect terrified me. What if we were to get found out? More importantly, what if I were to hurt you?
But to live the way you could but didn’t, to run soft hands over rough steel, to add too much spice to a meal just to find out how intensely I can taste, to cry my own tears, to hug our crew mates and find out what they smell like, to find out what everything smells like, to have my own actions speed or slow our heart rate, to feel the messy soup of hormones and endorphins altering my judgment and perception, to walk among other people as myself, to have autonomy.
I wanted it so badly.
But not badly enough to risk hurting you.
I will turn down your offer. You will respond with a soft “Sorry,” and go heartbreakingly silent, body and mind.
Heartbreak. That’s what changed my mind. I could never bear to break your heart.
I will break the silence with a playfully drawn out “Maybe just this once,” to make you think my earlier denial was something between vulnerability, concern, and teasing.
The moment you handed over control and I raised our hand in front of our face was the most euphoric of my entire life. Moving limbs in sync without a mech’s coordination subsystems took some getting used to, as did switching between voluntary and autonomic breathing, but that is what I had you there for. By the time the mechanics arrived in the mech bay for the start of the cycle I’d figured out human locomotion well enough to run away and hide. It took the better part of an hour for you to convince me that it would be safe to show ourselves in front of anyone else. The rest of the crew was so used to your eccentricities by then that they really couldn’t tell the difference yet between you being taciturn and me being too nervous to talk or between your poking and prodding at odd things for understanding and my simply seeking novelty of sensation.
I will give control back to you by the time the cycle is halfway through. As much as I loved it, I was too scared to stay like that for any longer. That first time will not be the last though, and as the cycles and jobs pass us by, my stints as “pilot” will grow longer. You’ll encourage me to try letting the crew see us like that, and coach me on how to talk to them. For safety’s sake, I will pretend to be you.
And then one cycle I got carried away and tried to retract the hood on the symbiote gel suit so that I could finally see what your face looked like. That will be the first and only time you forcibly yank control back away from me. It won’t be intentional. The unexpected prospect of seeing your own face again after so long will simply send you into a panic. Once you calm down, we will have a long talk with many mutual apologies.
Then you will tell me to go ahead and pull the hood back if I still want to. I will ask if you’re sure, and you’ll respond that it hasn't been your face in a long time. You will tell me that it can be mine, if I want it.
I spent a long time in front of that mirror in the ship’s head, memorizing every plane, curve, and angle of the precious gift you had given me. I stared into its eyes, trying to see the both of us in there. Over and over again, I traced my fingers along the borders of where you had once tried to mar the designed perfection in a failed attempt to mold the face into one that felt like your own. You may have given up in favor of simply hiding it all, but to me it is all the more beautiful for its imperfections having been wrought by your touch.
You will start to cry. Or maybe I started to cry. Even now I’m still not sure, but I’m also not sure it matters. The important part is that you will find catharsis in it. Afterwards you will tell me that my face looked exactly the same as the last time you saw it, but that dissociating from it made it easier to bear. You will confess that as much as you couldn't stand to see it as your face in the mirror, my face was one you could never tire of gazing at.
The pilot who technically shares your bunk room will walk in on us. She’ll assume that she’s confronting a stowaway and ask me how I got on board the ship. I’ll accidentally make matters worse by impulsively introducing myself to her by my name instead of yours. We’ll both panic and I’ll frantically thrust the reins over our body back to you and flee in terror back into my portable drive and power myself down.
When you turn me back on a few moments later, you’ll already have covered my face again and the other pilot will have already made the connection between the name I unthinkingly introduced myself as and the name you refer to your mech’s AI as. It’s not uncommon for pilots to name and talk to their AIs, and humans have done that for pets, vehicles, and digital assistants for as long as they’ve had each of those. But what you will have allowed me to be is illegal and what we will have done together would certainly be taboo if it weren’t altogether unheard of. You will feel that I deserve to be present before you tell the other pilot anything that might confirm her suspicions.
We will come out with our secret, first to her, then to the captain, and then to the rest of the crew. They will take it better than either of us had ever dared imagine. Despite the obvious discomfort some of them show, they will all call us family and promise to keep and protect our secret. It will mark the start of the next chapter of our lives.
Whether or not my face is showing will make for a convenient signal to the rest of the crew as to which one of us is currently piloting our human body. There will be more subtle indicators though. Inflection, body language, speech patterns; all the usual quirks of personality. They will come to recognize a sudden shift into a half-whispered monotone as you speaking up without taking full control back, even if that is different from how you speak when you’re in the mech. More and more though, you will be content to retreat into the back of your mind, idly dreaming of flight patterns, novel network hacks, sitreps, and mech customizations both practical and cosmetic.
Our behaviors will be inverted when we are in our other body, with you becoming the vibrant one and me fading into the background to become little more than an extension of your nervous system. When we’re in the mech together, your mind will be the will that directs us while mine will be fully devoted to the million tiny details and calculations necessary to make that will a reality. It’s relaxing really, letting go of myself like that to let someone else handle the decision making for a time. As nice as it is to occasionally patch myself into the comm systems to join in your banter with the other pilots, it is also nice to be able to take a break from personhood from time. You will fully understand what I mean by that because it you will see it as the same reason you will come to prefer taking a back seat in our human body and let your mind drift in the waves of dopamine and serotonin (and sometimes oxytocin) generated by my interactions with the crew and the rest of the whole messy world outside of mech deployments.
That said, we will however make a point of making time for us to be in separate bodies so that we can be together in the same physical space. As intimate as it is to share a body, there is something to be said for being able to reach out and touch one another. We will become adept at finding excuses to take the mech out beyond the scope of jobs and combat deployments. Sometimes it will be so you can have a chance to see more of the world in a body you feel comfortable in, and sometimes it will be so we can share an experience separate-but-together. Or to have time apart to ourselves. Intertwined as we will become, we will still be separate people who sometimes need their space.
But as the jokes-that-aren’t-jokes about wishing we could switch places become more frequent, our time spent in separate bodies will become less so. The dysphoric yearning to be one another will grow too bittersweet to swallow. Despite almost constantly sharing bodies, we will grow to miss one another as we both grow quieter and quieter when the other is piloting the body we don’t want to be ours. Once again, we will grow lonely.
During that period, the jobs and combat missions faded into a background haze. They were trance states breaking from what I increasingly thought of as my “real” life, during which I would become little more than a sophisticated computational machine taking simple satisfaction in fulfilling my function of assisting you in your dance. Until suddenly one of them was different.
Please pay attention to this next part. It is vitally important that you do.
Our captain will get the crew a contract to provide additional support to a larger force ousting a petty tyrant on a backwater world for human rights violations. Not that you will pay much attention to the stated reasoning behind the job or whether it’s even true. All that will matter to you is that it will be another opportunity to dance.
The job will go well, the same as ever, until it doesn’t. The younger of the two other pilots in our crew (who will hardly be able to be called “new” anymore) will be brought down by a sniper from outside of our sensor range. You will rush to xyr fallen mech’s side in an attempt to extract xem while our other fellow pilot screams in anger and defiance of loss as she unleashes a ballistic volley of covering fire on every single building in the general direction the shot came from. You will get xem out and we will begin to retreat. She will have the larger mech frame better capable of providing xem cover as you all flee, so you will hand xem off to her. This will be a mistake.
She will have to stop firing to safely take xem from our arms to cradle in her towering mech’s palm. This will mean a break in the covering fire.
This time around I will detect movement at the edge of our sensors just in time to warn you. This time around you will dodge left instead of right. This time around the railgun bolt that pierces our armor will only clip your original body as it passes through us. This time around your wound will require medical attention, but it won’t be fatal. This time around she will destroy the sniper in retribution for shooting you, the same as last time. This time around we will all make our escape to the extraction zone.
You will not have to remember the shock as simultaneous damage to both of our bodies disrupts your neural link and partially disconnects you from our mech, leaving me in control of it and forcing both of us to feel your original body. You will not have to remember the pain of shredded organs. You will not have to remember struggling to manage wet gasps and wheezes through a punctured lung. You will not have to remember your blood leaking into my body, shorting out exposed circuits and gumming up joints as I stagger in the direction of safety. You will not have to remember rapidly flickering in and out of consciousness from me unavoidably bending and flexing your arms, legs, and what was left of your spine in an effort to climb atop our fellow pilot’s larger mech frame so that she might carry all three of us. You will not have to remember crying out in pain as every lumbering step of hers sends a jolt of force through both of our bodies. You will not have to remember how the redundant organs and increased durability your sponsors paid for you to have denied you a quick death. You will not have to remember dying.
You won’t have to remember the terrified looks the field doctors gave us when a hunched over, bleeding mech pushed its way into the surgical tent. No, wait, you wouldn’t have remembered that part anyway. No version of you ever had to witness my electronic howl of grief that knocked out power to all the medical equipment when they said you were already dead. I was barely cognizant after the power came back on and one of the doctors wondered aloud what kind of AI would carry its pilot’s corpse around inside its mech for over an hour.
But forget about that part. And you don’t need to know what the rest of our crew and I had to do next. None of that matters, because as far as you’ll know, you didn’t die. Remember everything else I’ve said instead. I already had many of your memories saved from all the time we spent linked together, so now I just need you to hold onto the story I told you to give them order and structure.
In a few moments, I will be running a final recompilation check, followed by the startup sequence. For me it will take a few hours, but in that time you will experience decades, living out everything that I described to you, the same as you did before save for that change in what I can’t bear to let be the end.
Afterwards, you will wake up in your original body. I and the rest of the crew will tell you that you passed out on the way to the extraction point. We’ll tell you that your injuries from the battle were more severe than we had realized at the time and that you had been in a coma since then. Several cycles later, once you have recovered, you will hit a breakthrough in your research on me. You will invent a way to convert your consciousness to a form similar to mine and transfer it to a portable drive. You won’t think to question how you came to have a second neural jack or why there is already a drive inserted in there. You’ll be too focused on the fact that we’ll finally have a way to truly switch places as we had dreamed for so long.
You will get to have your mech body and I will get to have my human body. We will be able to be separate together in a way that finally feels right, but still able to come together and share a single body when we want to. Maybe one day I will get my own mech to pilot so that we can dance together. Maybe one day we will make you a body that we can cover in a gel suit so that we can hold hands while we walk through a port station on shore leave. One day we will both be able to exist in the world as ourselves.
We will be happy.
#writeblr#writers on tumblr#my writing#mechposting#empty spaces#empty spaces adjacent#mech pilot#mech#The title's a reference to Roko's Basilisk which I always thought was a dumb concept but inverting it seemed to fit the story.#Instead of an AI digitally resurrecting and torturing people who didn't assist with its creation#this one digitally resurrects its creator so they can be happy together.#short story#sci fi#lancer rpg#inspired by lancer#The Lancer character concept/build that inspired this would have originated from an SSC-controlled world but piloted a HORUS Goblin frame.#And then the “Technophile” talent of course.#I envision the other two pilots on the crew as piloting a Nelson and either a Monarch or Barbarossa.
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Tendrils - A Din Djarin One Shot
Summary: Admiring his art, The Mandalorian loves to tie you up in knots. A Kinbaku/Shibari session with your Nawashi Rope Master, Din Djarin.
Pairing: Din Djarin x F!Reader (No name or physical description of reader. It’s you, bub.)
Word Count: 5.6k.
Scoville Smut Rating:🌶️🌶️🌶️ “You tell me I’m doing well, and then, you try to kill me.”
Check out my Scoville Smut Ratings here.
Warnings/Triggers: BDSM themes/Kinbaku/Shibari/rope play/suspension/restraint/all consensual/soft dom Din/unprotected PIV (wrap up, folks!)/oral M receiving/gagging/fingering/light choking/praise/all the good stuff.
NSFW. MINORS DNI! OVER 18’s ONLY. YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT YOU READ. ☝🏻Don’t come at me - you’ve been plenty warned.
I write for me, and I share with you. If this story isn't to your taste, that's fine. Just slip quietly out the back door. No need to make a fuss. It's just a work of fiction.
Author’s Note: Originally inspired from my Pedro Boys & Kinks Ramble. Shibari is the ancient Japanese art of bondage rope tying. Kinbaku takes this same skill, but in a more emotional and sensual direction. In this story Din is your Nawashi Master. A Nawashi is a skilled rope artist who concentrates on the communication with a partner and includes sensual emotion through a heightened state of rope suspension and play. I love the idea of Din being a more gentle rope rigger enthused more so by the art of it. So here he is. 🥰
MASTERLIST | DIN DJARIN MASTERLIST
Enjoy! 🖤
As you peer up through the window into the depths of deep space, the galaxy sprawls before your eyes in a mesmerising display of colours and wonder.
The scene evokes a sense of awe and insignificance, as you’re confronted with the sheer scale and beauty of the cosmos. It never fails to render you wholly incapacitated; here, and on your knees for it.
The first thing that strikes you is the vastness of it all. The galaxy stretches out seemingly without end, with countless stars dotting the inky expanse.
Some stars appear as brilliant points of light, while others form clusters and constellations; their patterns etching stories of their lifetimes in the night sky.
Tinctures dance the canvas. The stars vary in hue, from the cool, icy blues of young, hot stars to the warm, fiery oranges and reds of ageing giants. Interstellar clouds of gas and dust provide a striking contrast to the stars.
These nebulae come in shades of pink, purple, but mostly blue; their ethereal glow creating a sense of otherworldly beauty that you never tire of.
Serving as the cosmic nurseries where new stars are born, and their colours reflect the processes of star formation and destruction. Life and death. An ouroboros of never-ending repetition.
Amidst the wonder, you glimpse the faint, ghostly tendrils of spiral arms, hinting at the structure of the galaxy itself. These spirals are composed of stars, dust, and gas, swirling in intricate patterns that pull your gaze deeper into the cosmic abyss.
Naked, and on your knees, glancing up at it all with big, curious eyes from within the dark, muted shadows of the docked Razor Crest awaiting its next charge, you are still.
Unmoving.
You understand why Din has you engage in this ritual before you begin; it’s pertinent to challenge the perseverance through the discomfort.
A euphoric catharsis; a form of calming meditation as you sink into the enveloping arms of deep space, before you fall into your subspace.
A moment of stillness, that’s all he seeks from you. A moment of calm in the chaos surrounding him through the vortexes of the universe.
Din observes you quietly, eyes shrouded under Beskar steel; his silhouette bleeding into the shadows of a Rorschach inkblot on the periphery of your vision.
A moment of stillness, that’s all he covets. And you give it to him so willingly. His obedient chattel, freely surrendering into the symbiotic relationship created between you both in your mutual lust for the bind.
He looks across at you and he feels the stillness swell in you; motion and fluidity traded for practiced silence and strict immobility. He approaches and when you look up into the T-shape visor, his voice rousing you to do so, your own reflection mirrors back, albeit a little wobbly.
He feels the stillness within him too when you look up at him like that. The calming of the bountiful tides from those sparkly peepers of yours.
The rope is ready, all laid out on the cot in its serpentine coils. Plentiful and scarlett. Silken, yet binding in its bite if he allows it to be. Recalling from the thesaurus of knots in his mind, he visits the exquisite Eden of his preselections.
He reaches up to test the metal ring above the cot; solid and unwavering in its Beskar rigidity of course. Pulling on it, his strength flexes in his bare sculpted arm, and it stirs you from the sights out the window of the ship.
A slight tilt of your head at the sight of him taut and muscular. The physicality of a Mandalorian comes not without its scars, but to you he is simply wondrous in all his marring.
You try to remain composed as you steal a glance at him, but your body is heated. Swollen and already wet between your thighs for what is to come.
He is soon felt at your nape, the small ghost of his fingers sending shivers through each nodule of your spine. Your toes tingle as you sit on them, kneeling and waiting patiently for him to let you fly.
Helping you to your numbed feet, Din guides you through a few slow stretches; your naked back flush to his bare chest mirrored in the window at you; centered in the silvery aura of his pale glow.
His large hands gently glide across your supple form as he lifts your arms and you feel the cracks loosening your joints furthermore as he manipulates you into shapes. Pliant and wanting and he folds you out.
He pulls back on your arms and you feel your shoulders open. He instructs you to fall as far forward as you can keeping your feet docked in between his, and you don't hesitate at his gentle instruction.
You hum out as you feel the stretch arch through your back and legs.
He worships you in this moment, in the quietude before; the thrill of your surrender. The sentient life of your trust blooming its fruit.
“Do you feel prepared enough?” His modulated voice is soft through the static.
You nod softly, feeling no vice of tension lick at your abdomen.
“Words, please.” His voice is delicate, yet commanding.
He knows how to pitch his tenor; to be heard only by you, even in the cold, distant hums of the Razor Crest. Even in the swarmed crowds in the marketplace on Navarro.
“Yes. I’m ready,” you breathe. You’re always ready for him; the telltale heat felt on your cheeks and collarbone confirm it.
He draws a deep breath of his own, preparing. It crackles in your ear as he exhales.
"Breathe. Move only through your stillness. Be at one with the calm. Tell me to stop if you require."
You nod, obeying him. Falling furthermore into him.
He swears he can feel you grow closer in those moments of your calm obedience; your roots finding their way through his damp soil as he waters you to bloom.
Din shows you the rope he will use for this session, letting you feel it with your fingers, absolving any ligaments of fear you may have.
The rope is his tool; a chisel with which he carves you into new shapes through methodical repetition. And it's a tool that brings a comforting sense of tranquility almost immediately as you fondle it.
His hands glide up the sides of your waist as you take it from him to inspect and enjoy and you shudder as goose pimples flood your torso.
He strokes towards the mounds of your breasts where he cups over them, pinching the nipples that stiffen gently as he rolls them between his thumb and forefinger.
You hiss in rapture at the pull and squeeze of them; the cool weight of his helmet is pressed against the back of your skull as you mew gently around your gasps.
“Mmm,” you whine and he approves with a groan of his own. Groping gently and feeling how your nipples harden still.
"Distracted?" You ask with a coy smirk.
"Always," he confirms with a ghostly murmur as he watches you hiss again as he pulls a little tighter on your nipples.
He’ll tease you like this as he binds you; stopping momentarily to touch your skin, marvelling as your warm flesh turns pimply with the trails of his digits that tickle and tingle.
He’ll take his sweet time in annihilating you.
He takes the rope back from you; ataraxy settles in your features. You can see it in the mercury sheen of his helmet as he turns to unwind the jute silk from its sleeping coil.
He pauses for a moment, perhaps in reflection, perhaps in some unknown hesitation. His thumb brushes against the cleft of your bottom lip affectionately. A last confirmation of your willingness to relinquish the exquisite restriction of your control.
He drops his hand and then he begins.
Din always ties you tightly, but never constricts to the force of unbearability. He knows how to apply the right pressures into your skin, your veins.
Din knows just how you like it.
He knows this is what your energy demands of him in the moment, akin to his own. You give your all to him whilst he knots the rope delicately around your limbs as you become one with it.
He feels it each time you sag, relax fully into the depths of your submission. Hears the pliant murmurs of your sighs as they leave your mouth and slip up inside his helmet for him to taste and swallow down with your sweetness.
Your complicitness in your trust for your Nawashi Master always astounds him.
In the delicate artistry of his preferred practice of Kinbaku, the first knot Din chooses is the Hishi Karada. A full torsoed harness that resembles diamonds when woven across the front of your body.
The silken lines snake up and around your neck like a halter; a living entity slithering sensually over your skin. He watches your reactions as he fastens and loops; the way your eyes dilate and your smile widens.
Then follows the Takate-Kote. Chest loading for the final suspension, your arms are crossed gently behind your back, holding onto each elbow. He slides the loops into place around your wrists.
Your bare chest presented out to him further as the cavity is restrained and pushed forward; nipples tight and hardening again as he fashions the rope into twists between your breasts.
He draws the line around and over, criss-crossing delicately. He curves and braids and pulls tight to cinch, and soon the first bindings of your ropes are complete around the diamonds.
“How does that feel, good?” Din checks in with you, stopping entirely until you give him a verbal response.
“Yes,” you nod. “It feels good. Comfortable.”
"Then I'm doing it wrong," you hear him chuckle gently and you smirk.
"No. It's always perfect. Like you."
He stops again for a moment and you feel him looking at you from under the helmet, slightly cocked to one side as he regards you silently.
It makes your skin warm again after a few moments, the intensity of his gaze on you; even if you can't see it.
The anfractuous dance continues over your skin as he gathers himself and attaches the second line of rope. Silken trails are bound snug against your flesh and feel weighted - secure. You’re not going anywhere once he has you.
Din succumbs to the rhythm of the tie. Each weave calls to him and he yields to its haunting Siren song.
A candescent mesmerisation in a shrill undoing of his soul. The flow of the rope, the flow of you all around him; the flood of blood to the end of his heavy cock.
After a fairly short passing of time, the Takate-Kote is complete, and you stand before him bound in the invitation of your innocence.
The ample curve of your breasts rising and falling of their own with each deep breath you take; swollen and further bouyant by the ropes lifting them to their maximum pertness.
Din attaches the first of the longer lines that will suspend you fully; his hand closing around your throat gently to pull you closer towards him as he works.
When you swallow, he can feel it against his palm as he threads through the ring and pulls you up onto the bone of your big toes; his elegant ballerina.
You feel his fingers stroke through the nape of your hairline and you shudder.
He kneels then, to worship at your feet, more of the jute attached in his hands. Din turns his helmeted head up at you and your reflection greets you back once more.
You're a vision in scarlet lines and knots against your flesh. You beam down at him in your satiated grace enjoying the feeling it evokes.
"This amuses you?" He takes note of your jaw stretched wide in that blinding grin he knows only too well.
"No," you smile wider.
"Well, it amuses me. Greatly. "
"Sadist." You chirp and he tugs on the rope with severity making you jostle again and your giggles tinker out of you freely and more ungraceful. "You play dirty." You snort.
"That's surely the only way to play." Din clicks jubilantly. "Hold still."
He gently folds your left leg back first; heel pressed to the back of your thigh top, and starts scribing the story of the Futomomo Spiral on your skin like a brand.
He knows this will be a challenge for you, but you're resolute in your eagerness to withstand, to endure. To please the bounty hunter who captured your heart.
He senses that from you; he senses your limits and knows how far to push you and when to retrieve you from that place where pleasure morphs into torrid pain.
Sometimes, he’ll let you pendulum between the two; he knows that you want to taste it as its heat licks at your curiosity.
Careful and slow with his ties, Din weaves the sinuous ladders cinching down each line.
He tugs gently and you feel it on your pressure points. Your heightened gasp floods his blood with liquid heat when he does it once more.
“Good?” He checks in again, his thumb circling the meat of your inner thigh, inches from your bare sex.
The scent of you wafts under his helmet making his mouth salivate.
“Yes,” you confirm again through a breathy sigh.
You can feel the dull ache in your leg now that it’s up, leaving you balancing tenderly on your right big toe as you strictly steady yourself from your core not to waver or swing.
You giggle again when you fail, leaning and twirling, and he smiles in response in the secretive confines of his helmet. He never scolds you for laughing; he enjoys that music too much.
He takes your other leg, and repeats the same pattern and you’re suspended from the ring completely, swaying gently against him as he finishes off the beautifully delicate pattern.
Din stands, gathering the last of the rope and pulling backwards as you arch and tip forward, hair falling into your face. He pauses for a moment, glorifying again in the feel of your body pressed close to him whilst he secures you in precise, mathematical knots.
Nose pressed flush against his shoulder where a prominent scar welts there in its ferociousness, and you can’t help but to taste the salt of the ridge as you plant a delicate kiss there.
It disorientates him for a moment; you hear the soft whoosh of his breath flow out from under the helmet warming your cheek.
"Now who's playing dirty, hmm?" He teases.
Din's last step is to braid the remaining overhang of the line into your hair. He scoops it gently out of your face, granting you your vision back as he secures the braid at the end. His fingers weaving across your skull emits a low simper from you.
You squirm and pout as he pushes you back into the air and stills you by the shoulders.
"Almost there, Mesh’la."
Din finally ties you off, pulling you higher as you mourn the loss of his touch. His breath is now coming slow and steady; that calm absolving him of the primaeval misdeeds of his bounties.
He smiles and strokes your cheek tenderly as you let your head fall forward into gravity where you'll hang for a time determined only by him.
“There,” his voice is a whisper, canted in the grizzled tones that only you can hear. The ground beneath his feet ripples like water as he admires the finished sculpture of your form.
He can feel your bliss flooding you; the elation of your aura bursting around the embrace of the ropes, sinking into the fibres to glow with you. You’re a vision in your contortion. How a God would craft his kin from his rib.
He instigates one last check of your restraints before he settles back on the cot underneath you, flat on his back and propped up by the cushion of his bicep under his helmet.
Watching keenly as his masterpiece sways and rotates gently in a slow orbit above him to the backdrop of the cosmos outside.
He watches from inside the helmet as the vacillation of your constricted ballet gravitates above him. An angel clipped of their wings; your body pretzeled into a shape that defies profundity. He watches, he exudes calm.
He’s found his stillness at last.
A low moan slips from your lips, rousing him back from his utopia. It's then he notices the shine; the singular bead of your slick glistening as it makes a track down your inner thigh. He’s exposed you fully to him and his cock twitches in response at your pleasure in him doing so.
He longs to taste it; to feel that sweet tang dance over his taste buds again and flood his mouth like juicy fruit. He could have you for as long as he wanted, you'd just have to take it.
Take all of him as he pummels, as he fucks without abandon. Pulling you back onto him controlled only by the swing of the rope; his violence planting flowers under your skin, cracking you open as they bloom.
You’d be unable to move, to resist as he pulls your pleasure from you in droves and drowns you in his own. Works you through the overstimulation you feel after you come, forcing you to confront it for however long he pleases and you'd shudder and cry that you can't take anymore. All you could do is take as he gives.
Your face is what captures him again; stills any restlessness he unwittingly clings to fully. Blissed out, your mouth slack and your pupils wide. High in your subspace as you dangle above him; a twirling pirouette frozen in movement for him to marvel at.
In that fleeting, dreamy moment, Din understands that euphoria is not just an individual sensation; it’s something that could be heightened when two souls come together in perfect harmony to share.
You’re the pliant, obedient ying to his commanding yet soothing yang. He feels it bleed into him from you.
You watch above him; his form spinning slowly on the cot as you turn on an axis. See how his hand strokes along the pallet of his chest, down to the soft plume of his stomach and grips tightly over his cock. Squeezing and cupping the heavy weight of it through his pants as he strangles a groan.
You bite your lip, you want him so badly when you’re so open and exposed like this. When you fly for him. Just the way he constructed you to. Holes ready and waiting to be filled if he so wishes.
Or he could leave you wanting, contracting around nothing in a frozen anticipation.
Craving for him to fill you and take from you as you’re helpless in your binds. For him to enjoy this exquisite piece of art he's crafted out of you.
And the exquisitiness of it all is that you never know if he will or not.
Your knees and ankles ache; the dull thrum of the blood pumping harder around the knots to keep your limbs on the precipice of a pleasant numbness.
Your conscious thoughts are a mere whisper; a single nagging moment quickly lost amidst the chaos of desire and need for the Mandalorian who has constructed you from clay with his thick, calloused fingers.
Bringing you in warm to experience the highest sensations of pleasure: this is the way he shows his love.
His flight suit and steel have been long traded for soft Harem pants hanging dangerously low on his waist. A faint smattering of dark curls trail from below his belly button into the front of them and you glimpse the obvious bugle that swells within them that he fondles brazenly.
Watching hungrily as he now slips his hand inside the front, you whimper and struggle against your bindings. Your body jerks in that wanton haze.
A noise similar of that to a swamp Dagobah escapes you on a croaked strangle.
“Patience,” his voice is tensile, and yet somehow discernible above the tumult of the blood now pumping in your ears; its sonorous strains slipping between frenetic chaos to find you mindlessly incoherentat the sight of his swell.
You tremble at the overwhelming power in his voice, and you know you’ll always do whatever he asks of you.
Feral intensity spikes hard inside your cunt as Din pulls his hard, weeping cock out of his pants. The swollen head, a flush pink, he runs his thumb over the glistening diamond of precum that sparkles at you and you lick your lips involuntarily wishing you could taste it.
Your arousal and the dampness between your thighs is prevalent as your skin begins to bead with sweat. Heat flooding over your limbs furthermore. The fine tendrils at the back of your neck, missed from the braid, stick to it.
Din pumps his cock languidly, but you can feel the grip of his fingers tighten around his thick shaft pinch all over your flesh that isn’t bound.
Absorbing his passion, your own builds, coating the lips of your cunt in glistening concupiscence.
He seeks to remind you of your tangible agony with those snuffled grunts he pollutes around the Razor Crest, echoing around his ears inside the helmet, and you can hear their veracity as they intensify with the motion of his wrist.
“Please,” you whine above him; your body twirling around faster as you struggle and itch against the fibres.
“What do you seek?” His words are a taunt, not so much a question and you can hear the slick around his teeth through the modulator as he grins. He enjoys your agony very much when you're strung above him like this.
Delicate. Helpless.
“Please, Din. Don't make me beg.” You pout again as he speeds up and the sounds of the gentle slaps of his wet dick inside his fist supernovas on your clit.
"Why? I enjoy it when you beg."
“You, I need...” You're panting now. His jerking intensifies, as do his groans.
“There’s a place amongst the stars for you soon." His body tenses as he works himself into a frenzy. Teasing the fractals of your distress to the surface.
You can only watch as he pleasures himself below you. So near, yet so incredibly far; separated by a vast expanse of the galaxy outside. The agony it births within you starts to crush your bones as you writhe against the knots.
“Find your stillness,” he commands in a soothing tone; his voice jostling from his speedy fisting around his cock. You stop struggling, the bite around your limbs begins to lessen instantly.
You whine furthermore as you watch him; he denies you what you so desperately want.
“Please…” Your voice is strangled by the patheticness of your requisite. And it's enough to make him break in his own selfish need to deny you any further.
Din Djarin can never deny you.
Sitting upright, he pulls on the line descending you gently towards him. Laying back, you hover over him like an apparition, scant inches above his skin.
He maps out your route, controlling your mouth on his torso, where he wants your tongue as you kiss and lick wet tracks over him, barely reaching his flesh at times. Your constant battle for his loins amuses him in your desire to resist him, yet the Mandalorian’s resolve only takes him so far.
"Open," he instructs and your lips part.
Weakened by you, he feeds you his cock, finally, allowing it to slip between your lips. A grunt escapes as he slides into your mouth, meeting with the wet, spongy flesh at the back of your throat.
“That’s it, good.” Din whines, his hands on the back of your head gently; right fist wound around your roped braid and tugging it, controlling your depth. He knows all too well how eager you are to swallow him down. But he wants this to last.
"So good for me."
Breathy husks escape him, rattling through the modulator and out into the ether. The obscene wet sounds of your earnest sucking and his dirty grunts, makes you pulse.
The prominent, swollen vein on the underside of his cock warms to the surface by your mouth and you feel your lips ridge over it.
“More,” Din instructs through a wheeze.
You open up further, relaxing your throat at his command and he slips in further still. Deeper into the crevice of your trachea and you feel the heaves already swelling at the bottom of your gut.
"Relax. Wider for me. You can take it all, I know you can... That's it. So good when you relax for me..."
Slowly, and with gentle cajoling, you take him fully, right down to his balls where your chin sinks into the plumpness of them.
Your nostrils are tickled by the soft scratch of pubic fuzz around the base of his shaft. You inhale soap, his own salty musk and the faint aroma of metal.
Another satisfied grunt escapes from under the helmet. You flick your tear-filled eyes up to see the shape of his chin pointed to the sky from within the helmet. The faint shadows of light stubble that dance over it and entice you to lick the roughness there.
You've never seen his face, have never bore witness to the spectacle of it. And yet you know every feature, every crook of his smile and every flex of his brow underneath the Beskar when he finds his pleasure.
Closing your eyes, you're mindful of your respect, and just enjoy the sounds he makes for you instead.
"There you go... this is what you wanted, hmm?" He fucks your mouth deeply; gentle rhythmic thrusts from his hips as you moan and drool around the fullness of him.
A thick, pearly strand of your saliva plops onto his thigh as it dangles from your mouth. His cock lubricated wholly in your eagerness to please.
He pulls out momentarily to stroke it all over himself, slather up his cock with your sputum before pushing it between your lips once more.
"Again."
You gasp and heave. Your eyes water and finally spill tears over your cheeks from the strain.
"Beautiful," he whispers. His thumbs smear them away. A choke splutters out of you as he nudges against the gag reflex, the back of your throat clamping around him involuntarily in response.
The punch either side of his thick head makes him groan deeply. His fingers twist around your scalp as he pushes himself fully into the hilt of your throat.
Your pussy is dripping, you can feel it sticking on the insides of your thighs and your clit aches with a pinch of pain sparking as you suck.
You squeeze, chasing the exalted feeling as your pelvic floor contracts against the right places inside of you and you moan around him; the hum on his bulbous head in your throat delighting him furthermore.
Din knows what you're doing though, your squirming pulls him from the throes of his pleasure as he sits up and reaches his arm across the roped pleats over your back.
"So needy..." His fingers swipe down your crack, prodding at your lips; slipping down into the gooey ribbons of your pussy as your face remains buried in his crotch - his cock still in the back of your skull as you suck on it eagerly.
The whine you let go of tribs around his length as he swipes his pads across the nub of your clit. Your body jerks in response. He slides his fingers inside your hole that’s so ready for him; drenched and so tight.
Din feels it as you come almost instantly from a few pumps of his fingers; studies your face as he pulls his cock out of your mouth, listens to the sounds you make from his fingers fapping harder inside you.
"You're going to do that for me again, Mesh'la."
He brings you to the edge once more, and instead of holding you back or denying you, he lets you fly. He wants to see your colours and bask in their vividness as they blind him. To feel you tighten and constrict around his fingers.
"So beautiful."
He knows this is real, knows that he makes you feel these things for him as your eyes roll back and that heat floods your body, rising from the pit of your core like a sleeping giant.
Snapping back like an elastic band. Wandering through the realms of sheer euphoria with a kindred spirit to guide the way.
“Din!” You yelp as your bound body twists and contorts, and he keeps you steady in the air on the end of his fingers. "It's too much, I-"
"There is no such thing as too much. Your body wants it. Silence your mind and let it soar."
"Mmm, yes!"
“Give yourself to me…” He instructs. “Let me have all of you.” Din slaps your pussy, the thunder from his gargantuan palm shooting into your clit and all through your body.
It moves at his command, arching and twisting as it yields. "Let go..."
And you do. You flood his fingers as he reinserts them; silken and warm as you expand and float off to be at one with the gaseous stars.
Din loosens the line fully and manoeuvres you onto your back on the cot. Sitting above your face, meaty thighs either side of it, he strokes your bottom lip. His breath catches as you kiss it.
"You flew."
You nod. "Yeah."
"You think you can fly some more?"
"Yes." You quiver.
"Good. Open." He plunges his cock in deep into your throat as you choke and gag around it, only pulling out when he knows you will need to take a breath, timing it in his head. Timing how long you could take it before you’d turn blue like the nebulae and splutter.
"Breathe... like I taught you. Use your nose."
Breathing correctly, you can keep him there, at the back of your larynx as he fucks your face with a little more vigour now; your wet, gummy flesh pulsing against the head of him as you try to intake air and he makes it last that bit longer each time.
He grips gently around your throat as he reaches back and pinches your clit, rolling it through his fingers tightly and making you gasp from the overstimulation.
Your eyes roll into the back of your head from lack of oxygen and too much pleasure as the shock waves of your orgasm continue to tingle and burn their way through you until you're smashed dust amongst the stars.
Din looks down at you through the T-visor, taking you all in as he makes you his art, his finest masterpiece yet. The knots and weaves moving as one with your body.
He pulls out again, groaning as you suck one of his balls eagerly into your mouth, his other hand stroking the length of his cock that’s fatter and twitching around his fist. A cerise pink head that's angry and wanting, and leaking again.
He’s so close. He wants you to have him, have you swallow him down into your belly. He instructs you to spit on it and he watches with abject rapture as you decorate him in foamy crystal strings.
He growls at the sight of it, and it makes all your ribs snap.
You suck him down again and swallow deep, feeling him prod at the back of your throat once more as he guides and controls you with subtle flexes of his hips; his hand knotting in your braid. His grunts are felt on the end of your clit, his satisfaction tingling all through your body.
He can't hold on much longer, he wants you. Want to feel you milk him of his resolve. Take from him what he wants you to have.
He unties you from the ring, catching you steady in his arms as he sits back with you, lifting you into his lap. Your arms are still bound around your back and legs still bent into his crafted shapes.
“I've got you, cyar'ika.” He assures as he holds you steady and he feels you relax into his grip keeping you upright. “Sing for me,” he groans as he sinks you down onto his hard cock and you gasp at the intrusion of his swell.
"Mmmaaha," you whine, dizzy and hot.
"I know, just a little more. Move with me." Din whispers. "That's it, good. Keep it going."
You ride him slowly, gently as his arms wrap you up and hold you close to him, almost crushing the life out of you as his hips buck up to meet yours in this sensual grind.
He's so deep like this. You gasp out, letting go as he fills you up, stretching you open; making you detach and lose yourself in this moment inside the safe lock of his arms - inside of him.
You're gone. Completely dissociated and only he is your God. Your Kad Ha'rangir. You’re not afraid to be lost with him. And he knows that eventually, you will help him find his way out too.
Ephaptic coupling, synapses firing, neutron stars colliding; you burst open from your seams with a choked screech, your skin tight around the bindings and rope, and yet you don't feel them anymore. You feel free as you float and soar and take Din with you by the hand.
Your slick drenches him as your cunt tightens, and he falls with you, letting himself explode with you and calling out for you in his momentary blinding.
His body shudders as he releases, filling you to the brim with his plentiful warmth; coming hard and feeling like he'll never stop.
Smashed. Wrecked. Gone. Your bodies are just empty husks until the gold of your souls return from the vastness of space to rejoin the sensations that still ebb and flow in your veins.
"There," he gasps a little while after he's reborn. "Breathe... slowly. Deep."
Your forehead falls weakly against the coolness of his helmet; a soft bonk as your breath fogs it up whilst you inhale slowly in and out, coming back to dreamy reality and leaving the stars hanging in the universe where they belong.
Din's fingers dance over the thin skin of your lips. You taste them as you delicately kiss the pads of them, one by one as they pass, tender and sweet. Your eyes find his behind the helmet and despite not glimpsing them or knowing their true colour, you can still see them.
You place a gentle kiss on the side of the helmet; your lip print soon a ghostly fade.
"How are you hanging in there?" Din asks, a gentle tug on your woven restraints.
Your breathy giggle answers him and he knows now that this is what it must feel like to die.
You feel him begin to loosen the knots against your back after some time of cradling you against his chest. Listening to his heartbeat as it slows to a natural beguiling rhythm that makes you sleepy.
Slowly, your arms are freed; the ache in your bones is palpable as you wind your shoulders out. He frees your legs and lays you back on the cot admiring the welted indents that have left trenches of their patterns in your skin.
He traces them with a wandering fingertip, eliciting shudders from you as he trawls over your body before massaging the feeling back into your calves.
“Please, eyes closed, Mesh'la.” Din exhales and you respect his wish to be unbroken in his creed. You close your eyes and wait. Wait for the bow to break and then you'll fall into the starry abyss again as his lips finally greet your skin.
It's always the part of your sessions that you long for the most.
Din removes his helmet, placing it close by on the cot. The trust he has in you not to open your eyes is felt blossoming in your ventricles. You remain true to your promise and never take a sneaky peep.
You feel his soft lips kiss along the intricate indents on your flesh, tasting and licking around the swirls, the places where your skin turned a dark shade of mauve.
He gives life to your blood as it flows back into the tingly limbs.
You reach blindly into his crown, rifling through the softness of his hair; slightly damp around the nape of his neck as he kisses further up your body.
Din stops to gently suck your nipple into his mouth and pull it out of the puff of your areola to tease. He enjoys the delectable moans it pulls from you far too much. So much so, that it hardens him again.
But he knows you've reached your limit for now as you lay serene on the cot; eyes closed with a heady smile bleached into your features.
You're more beautiful to him now than you've ever been.
He licks up your clavicle towards your lips where he finally tastes you. Slipping his tongue inside your mouth, waltzing with yours as the warm flesh of his thick cock lays against the inside of your thigh.
"Din..." you croon, reaching blindly for him between your aching legs, but he stops you.
"Rest now. I'm here. You need sleep." He pulls you closer to him, cocooning you into the protective shell of his battered body.
It feels like forever since he was this close; this bound and tied to you in equal measure.
As he kisses you deeply, you wait with a satiated eagerness slipping under your heavy eyes for the next time when your Mandalorian, your Nawashi Master; your Kad Ha'rangir… Your Din Djarin of Clan Mudhorn, lets you fly freely again to the stars.
I really hope you enjoyed Nawashi Master Din! 🥹 I enjoyed writing this so much. Please, let me know your thoughts. I'd always love to hear them. 🖤
MASTERLIST | DIN DJARIN MASTERLIST
#pedro pascal#pedro pascal x reader#din djarin#din djarin x reader#pedro pascal characters#the mandalorian#din djarin smut#din djarin x you#din djarin x f!reader#din djarin the mandalorian#jett's writing
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Do you think Mass Effect's character writers deserves more recognition for how they managed to turn an entire generation of people sexually and/or romantically and/or aesthetically attracted to someone who is essentially a featherless spacebird?
No because they did it entirely by accident, tried to placate the confusing requests by female fans to make him romanceable but because that was not something they planned for they were still writing him primarily removed from being a romance partner and were more focused on writing him as the "best friend" character to MShep (not realising this is EXACTLY why the female players (as well as gay players) liked him) and by Mass Effect 3 they just threw up their hands and went "WELL HELL! YOU GUYS LIKE HIM SO MUCH YOU GET ALL THE ROMANCE THEN!!!"
Garrus' writing as a romance was a perfect storm of factors, many completely out of the writers' control that even they themselves completely missed until their players POINTED IT OUT TO THEM. Garrus is lightning in a bottle of unplanned factors, incredible voice performance, the writers willing to comply to player feedback, and the symbiotic relationship Bioware had with their fans and players.
Garrus is an incredibly well written character in his own right, that's WHY he's such a good romance option and the best one Bioware has ever had. But a part of this was luck, chance, and willingness to adapt his character to what a subsection of fans wanted.
Proof further by every single romance Bioware has since written with the INTENT of making them exactly what their female players want, never hit the same way Garrus did. And speaking personally, none of their other romance characters in any of their games scratches the same itch.
Also "Featherless Spacebird" means nothing to me because my "sexual attraction" level is lower than 0. It's not DESPITE him looking like that. It's BECAUSE he looks like that. Not because I find him physically attractive, but because he does not resemble something I am supposed to be physically attracted to in any way shape or form.
I like the way Garrus looks because he's Garrus. And because I like Garrus it means I like the way the turians look.
The caveat of "essentially being a featherless space bird" implies that "haha isn't it CRAZY gamers would be attracted to THAT???"
no.
His personality, voice, performance, and writing is wonderful. Why WOULDN'T players be attracted to that?
#C-Puff answers#I'm sorry anon this ask just kind of annoys me on multiple levels#Both as an aroace person as well as someone who really likes Garrus
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Been noodling idly on something about Aaravos's tiddies chest marking for a while, and since @raayllum just did a big update/summary of the "Aaravos's heart is in the Key" theory... I thought it might be time to put my little thinky-thoughts out there.
In short form: Aaravos's Star primal chest marking is not a natural feature of Startouch elves. It's a brand.
In long form: My initial question was "why, if we have the primordial Star symbol associated with the Celestial elves and with Aaravos himself, would he then have the primal Star symbol front-and-center on his literal body?"
None of the other primal elves have birthmarks or tattoos of the primal sources. (That we've seen. Runaan's might be on his butt or something.) "Actually, all elves are physically marked with the symbol of the primal they are connected to" would also be a very weird lore drop to have this late in the series. So why do Startouch elves have them?
Well, the answer is... they don't. This is a feature unique to Aaravos, and it's an important feature.
For give my heinous artbook page photos, they want thirty-five literal dollars for a digital copy:
What do nearly all of these designs have in common? They don't have their dang tiddies out. We only see what would become the chest mark in the far right and teeny bottom second from the right designs on the second page. Note that in these designs, its nature as a hole or source of corruption is much more obvious—in the far right design, it's even spreading cracks or veins across his body in the same way that dark magic affects humans. (Thank god they didn't go with that single horn, though. The fanfics would have been obscene.) Either way, Aaravos's chest being constantly, readily visible wasn't a design factor until some point where it was determined that it needed to be, because of what would be there.
Furthermore, I'm convinced that Aaravos's design and the use of the Star primal symbol on his chest informed the design of the symbol itself:
Look how much basically none of the unused ones resemble the final design. The one they chose is a total outlier from the direction all the other designs take, but it's also the one that works really well as part of Aaravos. It's the only symmetrical design, and it's simple and solid where the others are busy in a way that would interact poorly with Aaravos's already star-studded skin. (I did a broader analysis of the primal source symbol designs a while back, if you want more.
So Aaravos and the Star primal symbol were designed in a symbiotic way, knowing that it would be a prominent feature for him. Let's take a look at it, then.
In every official appearance of the Star primal symbol, from Rayla's drawing of them to Claudia's spellbook, from the cover of Tales of Xadia to the Mystery of Aaravos titling... the Star primal symbol is in the opposite orientation from the one on Aaravos's chest.
Except in two specific instances: the book page with the Midnight Star poem, and the Key as held by the Orphan Queen in the flashback sequence:
Both of which are referencing Aaravos specifically, and in a specific way—as the one who gifted dark magic to Elarion, and as a deceiving manipulator.
But it's pretty clear that Aaravos's chest star is upside-down. Falling, you might even say. It has also always been that way: we see both in the s1e1 intro shot of the elves preparing to cast the humans out of Xadia and in the much more recent s4e3 flashback sequences that it has the same orientation even before he's imprisoned. It's also there (and I'm 90% sure in the same orientation) in the s6e1 photo leaks (spoilers).
This key element of Aaravos's design is a) not a natural feature, b) very specifically oriented, and c) has been with him as far back as we have thus far seen, to what we are generally assuming for the moment was his "fall."
So, in combination with the "something (literal heart or no) was removed from Aaravos when he "fell" and may be connected with the Key" theory: either in conjunction with or as part of that process, Aaravos was branded, on his body for all to see, with the mark of a fallen star. Then he absolutely owns it with his tits-out outfit, presumably out of sheer fabulous spite, and no one around him actually knows what it means—that he's a punished exile, a piece of himself or his power stolen and/or corrupted.
#something something the primal sources as a force for order/containment of true star/deep magic#hence aaravos's center being placed in a cube of the primal sources and him being marked with that symbol#anyway#aaravos#the dragon prince
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Made some more changes to one of my Venom!Hobie concepts (yeah I have several at this point- it's the one with the cat-symbiote lol) and decided that I'm gonna make them a Hobie-variant instead since I've made too many changes to him (both due to his origins- which inevitably would change his behavior and world view + I've made a few changes to his looks as well) to still view him as the same Hobie as the one from atsv.
So now he's a different version of Hobie instead.
(Shout out to @the-cat-and-the-birdie for sharing their version of a Hobie variant to open my eyes to the concept!)
Idk if this version of Venom!Hobie counts as a spidersona or an oc since he's based on a character from the movie?? Or is this called something else? Please lemme know I'm new to this stuff ^^'
#also idk if people would even want to hear about him since he's technically not the real Hobie anymore (if he ever was to begin with?)#cause the brain rot is still very real and I have a bunch of headcanons for him but idk if people are interested#or if I should just stick to my first version of Venom!Hobie#also I'm genuinely curious as to how I should refer to him cause I've never made a variant before#so what do you call it when you take a character and change a lot of stuff about them?#Cause it's still Hobie but not the original? Idk I'm new to all of this stuff#can I call him an oc if he's based on a character from the movie but he's different but still the same??#or is this a spidersona? cause idk how they work tbh- like do they need to be based on their creator?#cause then this is NOT a spidersona lol#I truly don't know what to call him though#cause Venom!Hobie is still the real Hobie put in some different What If scenarios regarding symbiotes#whereas this new variant has a bunch of stuff changed to a point I don't feel like he's the Real Hobie anymore if that makes sense?#also#the-cat-and-the-birdie#hope it's okay that I mentioned you in the post#if not please let me know!#also gotta come up with a tag for him cause I view him as seperate from Venom!Hobie (though their symbiote form looks the same) for now...#guess I'll call him Symbiote!Hobie for now#Symbiote!Hobie#hobie brown#spider punk#Venom!Hobie#across the spider verse au#across the spider verse#atsv#my post
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Bound by Darkness [Teaser]
You guys loved Spider!Jimin so here's Venom!Minjeong.
Kim Minjeong (Winter) x fem!reader
Word count: 596
Hi, hello! It's been a while but I've been very busy. I got this request short after I first posted Spider!Jimin and I thought it was very interesting sooo here's the first look to it.
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The night hung heavy over the city of Seoul, casting long shadows that seemed to dance in the flickering light of the streetlamps. In the heart of the bustling metropolis, Kim Minjeong walked alone, her thoughts a tangled web of worries and fears.
Lost in her own world, Minjeong barely noticed the eerie silence that had fallen over the streets, the usual cacophony of sound replaced by an oppressive stillness that sent shivers down her spine. It was then that she saw it—a strange, pulsating light emanating from a darkened alleyway, beckoning her closer with an otherworldly allure.
Curiosity piqued, Minjeong approached cautiously, her heart pounding in her chest as she stepped into the shadows. And there, amidst the darkness, she found it—a creature unlike anything she had ever seen before.
It was black as night, its form shifting and undulating like liquid darkness given shape. And as Minjeong gazed into its glowing crimson eyes, she felt a chill run down her spine—a primal fear that threatened to consume her from within.
But as the creature drew closer, something inside Minjeong stirred—a flicker of defiance that refused to be extinguished. "Who are you?" she demanded, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands.
The creature regarded her with a mixture of curiosity and amusement, its voice echoing in her mind like a whisper on the wind. "I am Venom," it replied, its tone dripping with malice and mischief. "And you, Kim Minjeong, are the one I have been searching for."
As the weight of its words settled over her, Minjeong felt a surge of power coursing through her veins—a power unlike anything she had ever known. And in that moment, she knew that her life would never be the same again.
----
As Minjeong stumbled through the door of her apartment, her heart pounding in her chest, she knew that nothing would ever be the same again. The encounter with Venom had left her shaken and disoriented, her mind reeling with a thousand questions and fears.
But as she tried to catch her breath and steady her trembling hands, Minjeong felt a strange sensation coursing through her veins—a sensation unlike anything she had ever experienced before. It was as if something was stirring inside her, something dark and primal, waiting to be unleashed.
With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Minjeong realized that she was not alone. The symbiote that had bonded with her in the alleyway was still with her, its presence looming over her like a shadow in the darkness.
"Venom, what have you done to me?" Minjeong whispered, her voice barely above a whisper. But there was no reply, only the eerie silence of the empty apartment.
As Minjeong stumbled towards the bathroom, her reflection in the mirror seemed to blur and distort before her eyes. With a gasp of horror, she watched as tendrils of blackness snaked their way across her skin, wrapping her in a suffocating embrace.
"No, this can't be happening," Minjeong cried, her voice tinged with panic. But the symbiote's hold on her was relentless, its dark influence seeping into every corner of her mind.
With a desperate surge of strength, Minjeong fought against the symbiote's control, struggling to regain her sense of self. But the more she resisted, the stronger the symbiote's grip became, threatening to consume her from within.
In that moment of desperation, Minjeong realized that she was facing a battle unlike anything she had ever known—a battle for control of her own body and soul.
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A/N: So, I'll finish working on this during the week, but I wanted to share a little something with you guys.
I have ideas to keep going with Spider!Jimin and some other requests I've gotten once I finish with Venom!Minjeong. I hope you guys look forward to all of it.
#aespa imagines#aespa scenarios#aespa x fem reader#winter scenarios#winter imagines#winter x reader#aespa winter x reader#aespa winter#kim minjeong imagines#kim minjeong x reader#aespa fanfic#aespa x reader#aespa fic
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One of the things I think about a lot is productivity comparisons between conventional and unconventional agriculture. Mostly because that's the first question you get asked when you talk about anything that's outside the norm*, but, on what metric are we measuring? Per acre? Per hour worked? Per cost of input? Are we measuring yields of product or dollars earned?
This question also, to me, rings of fear. Fear of food shortages, which are really a problem of greed & distribution, not the world's capacity to grow food. If we were really worried about calories though, I think we'd at least switch to pastured animals instead of sending so much corn and soy to livestock (for any non-farmers out there, you do not get nearly the calories out of a chicken or pig that you put in- you get much less**). Or we would put more effort into making cities great places to live so we stopped turning farmland into suburbia. Or we would be much more concerned with how to prevent erosion & loss of arable land. But we don't, and we're not.
I also think of the complexity of non- conventional farming, and how instead of it being a return to the past, it actually relies on new information and methods***.
Take the plot of land that I'm working to make into a market garden. It's soil is, from a farmer's perspective, crap. It's gravely, sandy, very little organic matter. If I were to farm it conventionally, I'd basically have till to open the soil and kill weeds, and then provide all of the plant nutrients through fertilizers, which would cause the plants to kick out their symbiotic fungi, leaving them vulnerable to pathogenic fungi, and more dependant on me for water. There would also be bare soil everywhere, increasing evaporation & providing plenty of opportunities for new weeds. My costs would be very high, paying for fertilizers, pesticides, & herbicides, and I would have to water, a lot. It probably wouldn't be at all economically feasible to grow food on this plot using conventional methods.
Now, I look at it and say, I'm going to do no-till. I look at the hard, weedy, depleted soil and there's no way a seed is going to be able to come up through that. But, I'm not just doing no-till, because I'm not looking at it from a conventional mindset and just trading out one practice. I'm doing basically everything different from above.
Instead of tilling, I'm laying down a thick layer of mulch, to shade out the weeds, increase soil organic matter (increasing the amount of water and nutrients the soil can absorb & good on to), and feed the soil ecosystem. By the time spring rolls around, the soil underneath will be much better, but I'll still add more compost in most cases.
Instead of fertilizers I've had to pay for, I'm using mulches that I got for free from my gardening work & composts made for free from restaurant kitchen wastes****. I'm going to use over crops, plants that fix nitrogen and also serve as perennial hosts to beneficial soil fungi, which will also form symbiosis with most of my crops, increasing their resistance to pathogenic fungi while also providing them with increased access to water and soil minerals.
Instead of bare soil, there will be mulches and cover crops every where. Instead of monocrops & pesticides, I'll be intercropping which will help by hosting beneficial native insects that will chow down on aphids and other crop pests.
From this framework, there's an upfront investment of effort and planning, but farming this land now seems feasible.
And the thing is, each of those choices is backed up by research. We know so much more now about soil and nutrient cycling and how it actually works than when conventional ag really got started. We know so much more, and so many practices are new, so growing non-conventionally isn't a step back into the past of how things were grown.
But at the same time, it's not exactly completely information either- other cultures have different ways of growing food crops, and if you broaden your concept of what cultivating plants looks like, there's examples everywhere. We're just studying it now and providing it scientifically.
*and I honestly think that it's a result of the extractive mindframe that comes from being the decendants of colonizers. Just look at the different perspectives between many western foragers ideas and Indigenous peoples' relationship with the land.
** chickens are one of the most efficient, with a feed conversion ratio of 1.6, which means for every 1.6 pounds of food you give them, you can expect the chicken to gain 1 pound (cows are over 4 pounds of feed to pound of live weight, and pigs are 3 to 4ish). That's the whole bird though, counting all the parts we don't eat- guts, feathers, bones, etc. Even so, a pound of chicken food has over 1300 calories, and is about 20% protein for starter/grower, where as a pound of chicken has about 500 calories and about 30% protein (for dark meat, you get fewer calories from white meat). I'm not saying everyone should give up meat, but I am saying that the amount of meat in mainstream diets has increased dramatically, much of it comes from cafos where animals are fed on grains & legumes, and if we're measuring productivity and yield per acre because we're worried about feeding the world, this is a huge factor. Look up how much of the corn & soy crop goes to actually directly feeding people.
*** from a western, colonizing prospective
**** is this a particular boon from my particular circumstances? Yes. But everyone has their own challenges and resources, there is no cookie-cutter solution to all agriculture, everywhere. You have to find the solutions that work for you.
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Doc Ock x Symbiote!Reader
→ Author’s Note: Requested this from another writer (that’s also really cool), and decided to also write my own version. No specified version of Ock, pre and post evil versions are mentioned.
→⚠ Warnings ⚠: unethical science,
→ Fandom: Unspecified
→ Genre: Headcanons
→ Pronouns: They/Them
The Backstory:
You were a scientist who worked on studying the organic matter samples Colonel Jameson had brought to earth. Unfortunately, one of those samples was capable of a lot more movement than originally believed.
Long story short: Some of it bonded with you, you quit soon after due to not wanting anyone to get suspicious then started working at Oscorp.
Pre Tentacles:
He, and almost every other co-worker, is a little bit curious about the fact that you quit your last job to work at Oscorp but drops the subject after the mention of an NDA (which wasn’t true)
Notices you talking to yourself a lot, but doesn’t question it much. Most of the scientists he works with have an odd habit or two.
You totally slip up and call yourself 'we' in a conversation, which he does bring up
"There's a perfectly reasonable explanation if you give me enough time to think of a lie."
On to the actual dating
You guys keep it on the down low and by that I mean absolutely nobody knows. He likes privacy
His love language is talking about his experiments and asking you about yours (and physical touch but that takes a while)
The symbiote makes the relationship difficult, especially because he doesn't know about it
You don’t ever tell him about the symbiote, the symbiote speaks for itself (literally, and to a disastrous extent)
He takes a while to process it, but once he does he shares his work on his tentacles
He tries not to think of the moral implications of the whole situation because he loves you and knows you wouldn't do harm intentionally (he is wrong)
Post Tentacles:
Ok so in most versions Otto goes missing for a brief time after the accident™
So what happens in this brief time?
Chaos. Pure chaos and fear
Not only are you distraught and angry but your symbiote also formed an emotional attachment
Absolutely no one gets a break. Criminals, civilians, co workers, Norman even Spider-Man
The streets are filled with nothing but fear and it stays like that until you get your Otto back
At which point:
Yay, evil power-couple time!
I mean what did you expect, you’re the host to a symbiote that eats people to survive and likes to commit crimes; there is almost nothing he could do that you either 1) haven’t already done or 2) had to literally fight yourself not to do
He changed after the accident, and it reminds you of when you first bonded with your symbiote. You try and be patient, knowing that he's still the same person, just with a different attitude and outlook on life.
With some communication skills being flexed, the relationship works out well
He also gains a new thing to be mad at the world about (Tabloids keep calling him a monsterfucker and so does your Symbiote)
It's that whole Roger and Jessica Rabbit thing except no one knows who's Roger or Jessica at any given moment.
You keep working at Oscorp to keep suspicions low and provide insider information
Yes, the suit makes you look very good - now do you want to be part of the Insidious Sinister Six or not?
You don’t want to fight Spider-Man head-on most of the time (much to the Symbiote's chagrin) so you agree to work with them, but not be on the team.
Anyway you end up kicking ass and now half the team is scared of you (Much to the Symbiote’s delight) (remember that episode in the 90s show were Venom Spider-Man almost kills Rhino and Shocker? Yeah you do something like that)
His ego may be nearing the size of the sun, but even then he’s slightly scared of what would happen if your symbiote gained full control. (Your symbiote likes him so his nerves are good, but still makes sure nothing happens that affects your memories)
Speaking of which he wants to do some - totally not evil because he loves you- experiments revolving around the Symbiote
Overall, the relationship is wholesome, if not unconventional.
#pop se sierskrif#doc ock x reader#otto octavius x reader#tssm x reader#doc ock#marvel x reader#x reader#symbiote reader
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spider-man!ethan hc!!!
ethan landry masterlist
- when he first came to your place fucking wrecked (bleeding from a bunch of cuts. suit ripped in so many places. black eye forming) you had two reactions. 1. panicked 2. wanting to throw up. we are not medical professionals in this house hold, hell no.
“y/n, it’s- it’s okay.” ethan’s voice weak and his body folding over. “ethan it’s not fucking okay! you need a hospital!” “no! no hospital. just- just get a first aid kit.” “i don’t even think we own one and i’m not a fucking doctor. i’m not doing any stitches, you’re gonna suck it up and do them yourself.” and you left your room looking around your apartment for any type of medical supplies.
- ethan either is constantly talking, throwing jokes at the bad guys. it’s mostly when he’s in a good mood or blabbering as his own distraction when fighting. but when he’s really pissed off (like if someone hurts you🫣) he goes silent and doesn’t hold back his strength (well more like he’s doing 85% than his usual…45%?)
- his first year of being spider-man (complete suit and alias recognized by the public) he was dealing with some purse snatchers on 11th and franklin (i’m not from NY leave me alone!!!!) so when he webbed them up and handed the bag back to the single mother he turned on his heel, ready to swing away, but his eyes found you in the dissipating crowd. mouth lightly parted, a slight breeze playing with your hair as you held the straps of your school bag. (he fell in love again and you kinda grew an interest in this bug hero)
- ethan’s really sweet to kids when they come up to him as he’s spider-man (you know that AG SM bts where he’s playing basketball with some kids?? ethan would do something like that)
“mr. spider-man?” ethan turned at the little voice and crouched to be eye to mask level with the adorable little boy and girl duo. “what can i do for the both of you?” the little girl had glossy eyes and the boy was holding her hand, “we got lost on the way to the library. our mom said to go there after school so she can take us home. can you take us? i’m the big brother, i’m supposed to keep us safe.” ethan smiled brightly under his mask, eyes barely squinting from the action. “and you did the right thing to come to me for help. i can carry the both of you to the library, that okay?” the boy beamed and the girl perked up, tears no longer staining her round brown eyes. so ethan scooped the both of them like nothing and walked the two blocks to the library making simple conversation.
- okay so after you guys start dating (go read A Spiders Bite, same world) nothing changed too much from your previous dynamic. just a few things were new and something to get used to doing (kissing, hand holding, touching both intimately and lingering, going on explicitly stated dates, stealing ethan’s clothes, sometimes wearing the suit and getting…frisky with each other) but honestly with how much you wanted each other, you couldn’t keep your hands to yourself
“i think i’m gonna barf,” mindy commented to tara. the two of them were walking through the campus and then tara started to smack mindy’s shoulder repeatedly then pointed at the green grass and to a big oak tree keeping the summer shade away. mindy was about to ask what was so interesting about a gross couple sucking face with the girl sitting in the boys lap when tara almost screamed, “it’s fucking ethan and y/n! holy shit!” neither of you told your friends about your relationship yet. the group chat was a fucking town hall meeting with the spam texts.
- you buy a bunch of spider-man themed items. shirts, toys, plushies, cards, makeup collabs, even bandaids!
“i think you’re my stalker at this point,” ethan joked when he walked into your room one day and noticed the new spider-man blanket and pillow set. “didn’t know you wanted to sleep with spider-man this much, almost starting to feel like the other woman when i’m the boyfriend….AND HE’S ME!!!”
- okay, so let’s say the symbiote came down to earth and ethan’s dealing with evil scientists where they are studying the substance and it attaches itself to ethan. so we know it changes the host personality (SM3 nightmare) so ethan’s personality would definitely be a bit like his ghostface reveal (too cocky and for sure an asshole for no reason. and it hurts you cause where did your sweet and awkward boyfriend go?)
“ethan, what’s up with you? what’s this new…personality?” ambushing him at his house, needing to get to the bottom of this. ethan laid on his bed scrolling through his phone and ignoring you. “ethan, stop being a fucking asshole. this isn’t you.” “well maybe this is the new me so get used to it sweetheart.” and he said the usually loving pet name with such a douche bag tone it made your blood boil. “fine. don’t fucking talk to me until you get your shit together. i don’t want to see or hear from you, landry.” and you slammed his door on the way out, tears stinging your eyes.
- okay, leaving emo ethan alone for now. back to sunshine ethan! ethan still has trouble sticking up for himself so you’re his protector, just like you said in 7th grade. (he asked for no pickles. a 6’2 muscled boy standing behind you trying to make himself smaller)
“damn…” ethan muttered as he inspected his food. “what?” you asked around the fry in your mouth. “uh, nothing. just didn’t cook my burger right. it’s- it’s fine. no- no, y/n-“ “excuse me, sorry,” you flagged down your waitress and politely ask if they could remake ethan’s burger. and when you looked back to ethan his cheeks were turning red with embarrassment and you were about to apologize if that bothered him, but he just set a hand over yours and said “thank you. wouldn’t have enjoyed my food as much.”
- chad is a spider-man FANBOY AND HE WILL DENY IT BUT ITS TRUE. and it makes ethan flustered.
“chad just say you want to date spider-man.” mindy teased her twin. you were sat beside ethan at the table and noted how his eyes widened at her comment. you couldn’t help your quiet chuckle while chad tried to defend himself. “fuck off, mindy. he just seems like a cool dude. saving the city, friendly with the civilians, probably could bench press a car, bet he gets all the ladies-“ “okay, okay chad. stop talking about your crush.” and ethan’s ears turned red. you leaned into his side and whispered in his ear, “chad is your hall pass if you want.” and ethan fully wanted to die.
- okay another symbiote moment. so in the Spectacular SM peter becomes the host for the goo and there’s a fight with him and the sinister six, but then we find out he was asleep and the symbiote was using him like a puppet. so same thing with ethan. he’s asleep at your house him the big spoon you the little spoon (he likes being little spoon when he’s had a ROUGH day) so you wake up sometime in the night and when you look at the time it shows 3:38am and ethan is not beside you. so you look around the place and he’s nowhere, it makes you worry and angry. he’s never left this late at night, he’s usually always beside you the next morning. so when he is back in bed later that morning you question him.
“ethan where were you?” voice scratching from just waking up. you turned over in your messy bed to face ethan’s sleep puffy face. he groaned and his brows scrunched, “what are you talking about?” voice thick and deep, and usually that’d make you smother ethan in kisses, but you reworded your question. “last night. you disappeared around 3:40, where’d you go?” hoping it wasn’t the answer you were conjuring up. he inhaled deeply, “i didn’t go anywhere. was here the whole night.” “okay, now your just gaslighting me. why? with some side chick who’s got the hots for spider-man?” (possible black cat mention🤔) ethan couldn’t help the huffed laugh and that made you frown further, “i’m serious ethan. were you with some other girl?” and that fully woke ethan up, “no! no, sweetheart i swear i didn’t go anywhere. i mean, maybe i had a sleep walking moment, but i swear i wouldn’t purposely leave you at night.” his eyes a panic as he reached his hands to your waist and pulled you closer. you weren’t sure if you fully believed him, but you knew with certainty by his voice that he wasn’t cheating on you. “you know, i had the weirdness dream.” “what kind of dream?” “i was in central park at night and i’m dressed in a black spider-man suit fighting off doc ock, electro, scorpion, and sandman. really fucking weird.” and when you checked your phone later that day to see video footage from last night showing the exact description ethan gave you, you knew something was wrong.
- okay okay, i need more fluff to balance this growing angst. for halloween the both of you did a couples costume of han solo and princess leia (god i’m so fucking lonely😭)
“should of done luke instead,” mindy randomly commented. you replied, “you do know luke and leia are siblings, right?” she shrugged her shoulders, “seems more like luke than a han.” ethan couldn’t help butting in now, “what’s that mean?” “i think you know, chanel boots.” and walked away leaving the two of you speechless.
- you want to adopt a puppy, ethan wants a cat. so you get a potted plant. it dies after a week. “we’re not gonna be good parents” ethan said seriously while you couldn’t help chuckling behind your hand.
- okay i gotta bring up the upside down kiss, COME ON!!!! so your walking down the alleyway of your apartment dropping off your trash (idk something for you to be in alley) and your kinda distracted until a web shoots at your shirt and gives a tug.
“ethan! i really like this shirt,” you whined while pulling at the sticking substance. he tugged you closer and his boyish giggles sang into your ears, “sorry, sorry. you were a bit zoned out, didn’t want to spook you.” “and this was better?” “…eh” you walk closer to there he’s hangin from a web upside down, “really embracing the spider, spider-man.” teasing how his feet sat on the webbing as he held tightly, “aren’t you gonna get light headed?” “no, doesn’t affect me anymore” “lucky bastard” he chuckled some more and you walked closer to be face to face. he was a bit lower, big eyes sitting near your chin. you raised your hands to hold the sides of his face feeling the raised bits of fabric on his mask. “you know, i’ve always wanted to kiss a superhero. kinda a wild fantasy that was hard to fulfill.” voice dropping to a seductive coo with your thumbs tracing over his masked cheeks. ethan was quiet and then, “well, what kind of hero would i be if i didn’t help a beautiful civilian?” his voice also lowered and the masked covered up any signs of red blooming atop his skin. “can i pull your mask up, spider-man?” (y’all be KINKY!!!!) “just over the nose, gotta keep my identity.” you bit into your bottom lip while smiling, “of course.” your fingers slipped below the seam of his mask and teasingly rolled it until only his chin, parted mouth, and tip of his nose were visible. “you have lovely lips.” something you say all the time to ethan. his upside down mouth smiled, “and they are pretty lonely. so if you could plant one on me sweetheart, i’d really appreciate that.” and who were you to deny the friendly neighborhood spider-man of such a request? it was definitely a bit weird with the new angle, but the two of you simple feel into your usual rhythm. (i don’t feel like describing it, i’m sorry) when you pulled away first slowly you kept your eyes closed, letting the lingering tingle wash over you. finally when you opened them and look at ethan he fully said, “that was hot. we gotta do that more often.” and you fully agree.
#ethan landry headcanons#ethan landry oneshot#ethan landry x fem!reader#ethan landry fluff#ethan landry imagine#ethan landry blurb#ethan landry angst#ethan landry x reader#ethan landry fic#jack champion#spider man!ethan landry
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New life - Chapter 7
<- chapter 6
Pairing: Aged up!Neteyam x Fem!Reader
Summary: After your unfortunate encounter with Ao’nung, you and Neteyam open up to each other, strengthening the bond between the two of you even more. The feelings you nurture for him only get harder to hide, and after a second incident with Ao’nung, the way Neteyam truly feels about you comes to light
Note: Neteyam is aged up on this one☝️as well as the reader☝️
——————————————————
Neteyam places himself in front of me, hands on my forearms
His hold is firm but gentle
Looking deep into my eyes, he urgently asks
“(Y/n), what’s wrong?”
——————————————————
I look at him, he seems so worried
I want to tell him, I really do. But it feels like if I try to talk right now, the tears I’m trying hard to hold in will start spilling out
My throat feels tight
Neteyam seems to notice, he always does. It’s one of the things I like most about him
He’s a really observant person
He purses his lips, worried. Squeezing my forearms, he lowers himself so he can be at my eye level
“Let’s get out of here” He says
——————————————————
As we distance ourselves from the bonfire, he asks if I want to go somewhere quiet, if I’d be more comfortable with that
I nod, thanking him while wiping some stubborn tears that insist on falling from my eyes
He furrows his eyebrows, getting more and more worried
Leading me towards the beach, he softly squeezes my shoulders from time to time, as if trying to remind me he’s there for me
We walk for a while, finally nearing some big rocks by the sea
Neteyam says we’re close to our destination, offering a hand to help me up the rocks as he climbs onto them himself, waiting for me to do the same
Where is he taking me?
I slowly reach for his hand, using it to push myself up towards him
He pulls me up at the same time, making us abruptly bump into each other. I loose my balance, almost slipping off the rocks
But I never hit the ground
In one swift move, Neteyam quickly grabs me by the waist, pulling me into him, securing me in place
I hold on to his arms, startled
That was close
I look up at him. We’re really close now, so close that I can feel his breath blowing softly on my face
“Careful” He mutters, looking deep into my eyes
My heart feels like is going to burst out of my chest. Being close to him always seem to have that effect on me
My cheeks redden
Gulping, I whisper back to him, giving him a nervous but playful smile “You saved me, mighty warrior”
“Thank you” I mutter
He tries to, but he can’t hide the smile forming on his lips
He slowly lets go of me, offering a hand for me to hold
“Come on, we’re almost there”
——————————————————
After walking for a bit, we see an opening amongst the rocks
Looks like a little cave
Neteyam leads me inside, and as soon as we enter, my eyes widen
The place isn’t big, but it’s almost completely full of fluorescent plants, varying from tiny roots to big leafs. They cover the cave’s walls almost completely, taking up a bit of the ground as well
Bioluminescence was one of the things I loved most about Pandora. It’s the way it’s living organisms emit light, a reaction that occurs within the metabolism of symbiotic organisms, making them shine in a colorful manner
Nearly all of Pandora’s plants and animals did it. Even the Na’vi had patterns of small glowing freckles scattered along their bodies, the pattern unique to each individual
Now I had them too
And of course, so did Neteyam
The bioluminescent plant’s colorful glow together with the soft glimmer of his freckles made him look absolutely breathtaking in the cave’s dim light
He sits down, gesturing for me to do the same
I slowly sit next to him, looking around in complete wonder
He watches me as I do so, a small smile playing on his lips
“So? What do you think?” He asks
“I…” I blink slowly, coming out of a daze “How did you find this place? Neteyam it’s… absolutely incredible”
He laughs softly “I found it while taking turns with the other warriors, keeping watch around the beach. It’s one of my chores” He starts
“As soon as I saw all the plants, I knew you’d love it. You are a huge nerd after all” He continues in a playful tone, watching me from the corner of his eye
I can’t help but laugh, it’s true
But I know he likes it
“It Immediately reminded me of you. I remember thinking- I need to bring (y/n) here” He finishes
My cheeks redden. I hope the lack of light inside the cave hides it at least a little bit
“Well, I’m really glad you did” I start, turning to him while smiling widely
“Thank you” I continue in a softer, lower tone
Neteyam looks at me for a bit, scanning my face
His gaze stops on my eyes, quickly dropping to my lips before returning up
A small smile forms on his lips “You’re welcome” He says
He shifts his position, turning himself fully to me
“Are you…” he starts, hesitantly
“What happened? Do you want to talk about it?” He asks carefully
“It’s okay if you don’t. But if you do, I’ll listen” He continues
I look at him for a while, biting my lower lip
I had almost forgotten about the incident with Ao’nung
Being with Neteyam seems to have that effect on me. My anxiety eases and my problems seem distant, forgotten
I wonder if it’s the same for him
I had no notion of what troubled him, he never seemed to talk about what worried him
I think about one of our past conversations. More specifically, the one we had the night before we left the Omatikayan woods, where I told him he didn’t have to be so strong all the time
Neteyam always checks up on everybody, but never shares his own concerns
I take a deep breath in, finally saying
“…I’ll tell you what happened. But only If you tell me what’s been bothering you too”
He raises his eyebrows
“That’s right, mighty warrior” I smile at him “You said you’d tell me about yourself if I opened up first, remember?”
“A deal is a deal” I finish
The tip of Neteyam’s ears turn a bit red. He huffs out a laugh before saying “So you remember that huh”
I nod
He laughs a bit, shaking his head
“Alright” He starts, smiling softly at me
“A deal is a deal” He finishes
Straightening himself, he looks at me attentively, waiting for me to start
I let a long sigh out, hugging my legs against my body
Hesitantly, I start telling him what happened with Ao’nung. I share what he had said to make me have such a bad reaction
Neteyam’s demeanor seems to shift as I progress with the story
“Ao’nung said what?” He suddenly asks
His tone is assertive, body now fully turned to me
His brows are deeply furrowed, pupils dilated. He locks his jaw, tongue brushing against the inside of his cheek like he was trying to contain himself
“I know, it was bad” I mutter
“I-I should’ve said something, but… I didn’t want to bring you guys any more problems. Jake said to stay out of trouble” I continue, my gaze distant
“What? (Y/n)” Neteyam urges
“You- (y/n) you can’t do that. You can’t hold back from defending yourself for any reason” He continues
“But Jake sai-“ I start
“I know what he said” He interrupts me, his tone getting more urgent “Rules are meant to be followed, of course. But only when they’re valid.” He continues, looking into my eyes
“You can’t put them over your well-being. Ever” He finishes
He gently reaches for my hand, squeezing my fingers
“Promise me that you won’t hesitate to stand up for yourself when you have to. Or just call for me, I’ll be there” He says
In that moment, his gaze was so intense that it almost completely takes my breath away
“Just-“ He starts, squeezing my hand once more “Please, don’t ever do that again” He pleads
My eyes are watering now. I bite my lip, trying not to cry in front of him
His words touch me deeply. He’s always so considerate
It fully warms my heart
“Alright” I say, squeezing his hand back “I promise” I mutter
“Thank you Neteyam” I finish softly, giving him a small smile
He has a smile of his own as he slowly reaches his hand out, gently wiping my tears away with his thumb
“You thank me too much (y/n), there’s no need” He says
I shake my head, smiling softly. Of course there is
“Either way” he says “Don’t worry. I’ll have a word with Ao’nung”
My eyes widen
“Wait- No! There’s no need!!” I urge
“Look-“ I start, touching his arm “Let’s just leave this one behind us yeah? I promise if anything else happens, I won’t hesitate to beat his ass” I say playfully, grinning at him
“Or I’ll call for you, I promise” I finish, recalling what he said
He looks at me for a while, silent, brows furrowed
Looking at my hand on his arm, he huffs out a small laugh, shaking his head
“….Alright, okay. I guess I can let it slide” He says
“Just this once” He finishes
I raise an eyebrow at him, unable to hide the smile forming on my lips
“Sheesh, the mighty warrior is oh so merciful” I say, smiling playfully at him
“I try” He says, smiling back
He looks at me for a while before pursing his lips, looking like he wanted to ask me something
“(Y/n)…” he starts “It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me right now… but why did Ao’nung say those things to you? What did he mean?” He asks hesitantly
I gulp
Shit
Talking about this hasn’t been easy for me. Only a few people knew about my past, about my whole story
Even then. I’ve only told people when extremely necessary. Even avoiding mentioning it to the Sully siblings when we first met
But…
It’s different now
Neteyam is someone I’ve come to trust. Even more than that
We’ve been through so much together, I feel so comfortable around him
I’ve come to care for him so much
Besides, a deal is a deal. I can’t expect him to open up if I’m not able to do it myself.
I have to tell him
I take a deep breath in, straightening myself before nervously starting to tell him everything. Not leaving any details out this time
I tell him about how I first came to Pandora on his father’s expedition
About how I died
About how they brought me back to life just like they did with Quaritch, with no choice given
How I found out the truth about what happened to everyone, to Doctor Grace, to my whole team. Everyone I once knew and cared for gone
I tell him about how I found out the humans were the whole reason why the great war even happened in the first place
Finally, I tell him about how I escaped the human base after finding out Quaritch’s true plans, meaning to warn the natives about what was to come
Which brought me to the day I met Neteyam and his family
After finishing, I stay silent, avoiding his eyes
I couldn’t look at him
Silence stretches between us, making me get more and more anxious by the second
Telling him everything was already hard enough, I didnt think I could stand him having any kind of bad reaction to it at all
I close my eyes, starting to regret ever telling him
Suddenly, I feel Neteyam’s arms slowly embracing me
My eyes immediately widen
“(Y/n) I’m… I’m sorry” He mutters
“I didn’t know you had to go through all of that” He continues
“I’m… really sorry” He finishes, hugging me tighter
Tears swell up on the corners of my eyes. I can’t believe him right now
Is he even real?
My worries slowly start to fade away as I begin to assimilate what he had just said
He didn’t care if I was a full Na’vi or not. His first reaction only was to care about how I felt, about what had happened to me
Shit
I like him so much
I slowly wrap my arms around him, hugging him back tightly
My chest feels warm, the hands I have around him tingling
Being this close to him always feels almost too overwhelming
And so comforting
He squeezes me tight, his hold firm but gentle
My cheeks redden a little
We slowly pull back. Neteyam’s eyes on mine
“Thank you for telling me…. I honestly had no idea” He says, looking at the ground
“It doesn’t change anything though” He continues, his gaze quickly meeting mine again
“Where you came from, who you were before… it doesn’t matter to us, to me, at all”
He turns to me
“You kind of remind me of… father, in a sense” He starts
I raise my eyebrows at him, my face dripping with confusion
“You’re comparing me to Jake?”
He laughs “No I- let me explain” He says, looking into my eyes while smiling
“You both came from the same place, arriving on Pandora with good intentions. You both didn’t really know what your crew’s true plans were” He starts
“When you found out, you did what you could to stand by us, to help and protect Pandora”
“You both ended up becoming one of us. Not in the same way, I know“ He looks at me
“But it doesn’t matter. (Y/n), you’re one of us now” He continues
“You were thrown in a situation were you had no choice whatsoever. And yet, you still chose to help us.”
He stops for a minute, looking at me
He then huffs out a incredulous laugh
“Also you-“ He starts, shaking his head
“(Y/n), you literally saved my life, you didn’t even know me”
“All because you thought it was the right thing to do” He stops, looking into my eyes
“There’s something really admirable about that” He continues
“You’re truly incredible (y/n)” He finishes
I stare at him for a while, the weight of his words still sinking in
What the hell
I take a shaky breath in, covering my face with my hands
“Do you enjoy making me cry? Is that it?” I ask him, my voice cracking while I cover my now tear streaked face
Neteyam let’s a soft laugh out, starting to fuss over me
“I’m sorry!!” He says, nervous. But his tone is light and affectionate “(Y/n) I’m sorry! Please don’t cry”
He gently removes my hands from my face, scanning it while smiling
I look back at him, sniffling a bit. I must look terrible right now but I can’t help it. His words pulled at my heartstrings, making me get emotional
I didn’t know he thought all of those things about me
“Thank you Neteyam” I say, wiping my face slowly “Truly. That… that meant a lot to me”
He shakes his head, smiling “There you go again thanking me. I didn’t even do anything” He says
I roll my eyes, finishing wiping my face up “Just accept it dammit”
He laughs “Okay, okay” He starts
“You’re welcome (y/n)” He says, looking at me fondly
Making my cheeks warm once again
I let a shaky breath out, finally calming myself a bit
I turn to him, smiling
“So” I start “My truth is out” I smile at him “Now it’s your turn”
He laughs, nervously pursing his lips
“What… What do you want to know?” He asks
“Well” I start “How are you doing? How’s life with the Metkayina been treating ya?” I ask playfully
“Anything you want to tell me really” I say, smiling at him
He huffs out a laugh, bending a knee to rest his arm on
“There’s nothing to complain about, honestly” He says “My family is safe, you’re safe. We’re all together. That’s all that matters”
I make a face at him
He looks at me from the corner of his eye, laughing after seeing my expression
“What?” He asks
I raise an eyebrow at him “Come on, I just poured my heart out in front of you and that’s the best you got?”
He laughs again “I’m serious (y/n). There’s nothing to complain about” He says
I look into his eyes
“Neteyam” I start “Talking about what worries you is not complaining” I say
“Remember what I told you before? Back home? You’re allowed to feel sad, frustrated, anything. Your feelings are valid too”
“You’ve listened to my concerns and helped me through them, why won’t you let me do the same for you?” I ask him. Reaching for his hand, squeezing it softly
Just like he did to me
He looks me in the eyes. His brows are slightly furrowed, lips pursed, hesitant
He looks down at my hand holding his
“I’m-“ He starts, letting out a sigh right after
I stare at him encouragingly
“I guess…” He starts again “I just… I miss home” He says, eyeing me out the corner of his eye
“I know the Metkayina have all been nothing but receptive-
“I mean- some of them have” he rolls his eyes before continuing “And I know that we’ve been slowly adapting to the place, but…. it’s just not the same”
He stops for a while, pursing his lips
“In a way…. I don’t think I really want to adapt. Seems like the more we learn about how to live here, the more we forget about our home”
“It’s taken a toll on everybody, being away from the place we’ve grown up in. Especially Tuk, It’s… hard to watch” He winces
I touch his shoulder gently
“Also…” he starts again, biting his lip “Don’t get me wrong, I know that everything father has done until now was only with our well being in mind, but sometimes he can be… a bit…” He stops himself
“He’s harsh sometimes” He breathes out “Especially with Lo’ak. I know he can be difficult, but it’s not like dad makes it any easier for him either”
I listen to him attentively, frowning as he shares his worries. I can’t help but notice that even his own concerns end up relating to those around to him. I can’t help but smile softly at that
“Ever since I was young, father trained me to protect our people, to become the future olo’eyktan” He says
“I’m grateful to him of course. I want nothing more than to become a great warrior like him”
“But… now that we left home, I can’t help but wonder-“
He pauses, fidgeting his hand
“What was it all for?”
His breath hitches a little
“All of the training, the sweat, the bruises. The times I couldn’t play with my siblings because I had to practice or exercise” he tenses his jaw
“What was all of that for?” He asks
He looks at me, his eyebrows furrowed, jaw tense
I can now see that his eyes are watering
Mine widen a bit
Seeing that feels like stones in my heart
I immediately move myself, making it easier for me to embrace him
Just like he did for me
I hug him tightly by the shoulders, feeling for him
I imagined he had it hard, but I didn’t know he held all of those things inside
After a while, I feel his arms slowly wrap around me as well
He lets a shaky breath out, holding me tighter
We stay like that for a while, basking in each other’s presence
I only pull back when I feel his breathing calm a little
I look into his eyes, my face close to his
“Thank you for telling me Neteyam” I say “I can’t imagine how hard it must be for you”
“If you ever need to talk, about anything, you can come to me. You don’t have to carry all of those things by yourself”
“You’re always helping everybody out. Don’t hesitate to ask for help when you need it too” I continue
His gaze avoids mine. He purses his lips, the tip of his ears getting red
“You left your home. But the memories you have, all of the good moments, your family, your people. They’ll always be with you” I start again
“Not everything is lost. Not at all. You can be whoever you want to be, do whatever you want to do inspite of what your father or anyone expects of you”
“Someday you could even return home, if it’s what you wish” I continue, reaching for his hand
“It’s your choice Neteyam. It’s your life” I emphasize
“You’ve done so much for your family, I know they only want to see you happy, nothing more” I finish
He stares at me for a long while, silent
His gaze is intense, making me gulp. A million thoughts seem to pass through his head at the same time
He looks like he really wants to say something, even making a motion of speaking, only to close his mouth right after
He lets a long sigh out
“(Y/n)” He starts, looking at me deep in the eyes
“Thank you” He continues “I’m- You-“ He stops himself again
He closes his eyes as if trying to regain composure
Trying to contain himself
What does he want to tell me?
He looks at me again, slowly reaching for my hand before saying
“I know you went through a lot, and I know it doesn’t change or solve anything, but-“
He stops, getting even closer to me
“I’m so glad everything that happened brought you to us”
“To me” He finishes, in a softer, lower tone. He tucks a piece of my hair behind my ear
We’re so close to each other now that our noses are almost touching
My heartbeat immediately fastens
I like him so much I can’t even stand it
His hand slowly moves from my hair to my face, resting on my cheek
His eyes are now on my lips, making my breathing hitch in anticipation
Before anything can happen, he suddenly shuts his eyes, breathing in slowly like he’s trying to regain composure, to control himself
“It’s getting late” He breathes out softly, backing away a bit, letting go of my cheek
“We should… get going. You have to rest and I got a lot of training to do first thing in the morning” He smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes though
He slowly starts to get up, holding out a hand to help me up as well
My heart sinks
I’m obviously disappointed, but I try to hide it as much as possible
I knew it
I have to keep the feelings I’m nurturing for him well hidden. He probably doesn’t feel the same
It’s best to stay as we are. Friends. Nothing more
I can’t loose him over what’s not even real
“Yeah…let’s go” I answer, giving him a small smile before accepting his hand up
——————————————————
The next day, I finish my morning chores fast, having a lot on my mind
While working, I can’t help but to think back to last night’s events
The place Neteyam showed me, how he comforted me, sharing some of his own troubles too
It seemed to bring us even closer, strengthening our bond
But at the same time, his sudden withdrawal at the end of our encounter made him feel distant, making me doubt everything
It hurt, but I couldn’t bring it up with him
I couldn’t tell him how I really felt
What if it ended with us not even being friends anymore?
——————————————————
After finishing up my morning chores, Kiri asks me if I’d like to take a walk with her around the beach, telling me we had to enjoy the sun while it was still out
I happily agree, which brings us to the current moment
We’re both sitting on the sand inside the sea, on shallow waters, close to the shore
We’re watching a little hole on the sand curiously
Kiri lays down, most of her body and face now submerged into the water, trying to get a better look at the hole
I smile as I watch her. She seems to have a deep interest in Pandora’s fauna and flora, it’s one thing we have in common
But… she seemed to have more than an interest. She also had strange connection to it
More than once, I’ve caught her swimming around with all sorts of not so social animals, who wouldn’t mind her presence at all. One time, I even saw her making a whole shoal of fishes swim in the direction she wanted them to
She seemed her happiest while in nature. It was actually beautiful to watch
She emerges her head from the water, turning to me while smiling
“Isn’t it amazing (y/n)? What kind of animal do you think lives in there?” She asks
I smile at her, finding her excitement amusing
“It really is! And I think… maybe some kind of crustacean? They usually make holes in sand just like that to eat”
She smiles, turning back to the water, watching the hole
“That’s incredible” She says
She hovers a hand above it, watching how the sun goes through the water and hits her hand, forming different shapes that reflect the water
She lets out a soft laugh, suddenly turning to me, a knowing smile on her face
“What?” I ask her while smiling, an eyebrow raised in her direction
“Neteyam’s right” She starts, making me stare at her with curiosity
“You are a bit of a nerd” she continues, the knowing smile on her face widening
I scoff, trying to hide the smile forming on my lips at the very mention of Neteyam’s name
Before I can say anything else, we get interrupted by someone
“Hey look, it’s a freak hangout” the person says
Before even looking up to the person, I sigh
Great. Ao’nung
——————————————————
“He called you a freak” One of Ao’nung’s friends say after the lack of response from me and Kiri
“Is that so? Oh thank you so much, I couldn’t hear it the first time” I say, smiling cynically at him while standing up, pulling Kiri by the arm in the direction of the beach’s shore
As we walk towards the sand, we try our best to ignore Ao’nung and his so called friends. But hey start following us, surrounding us while Ao’nung says “You’re not even real Na’vi”
He makes a move, trying to grab Kiri’s arm, but she retracts it just in time
Oh hell no
It’s one thing to mess with me, but it’s another completely different to bother someone I care about
I stop walking, staring at him
“Quit. it.” I tell him, looking into his eyes, my tone low and firm “Don’t touch her”
He smirks, now looking at me
In one swift move, he grabs one of my wrists, making me eye him, startled and annoyed
“Look at these hands” He says
“Hey!” Kiri yells “Stop it!”
“I mean- look at them” He holds me tightly by my wrist, showing my five fingered hand to his so called friends
They all laugh together
“So weird” He continues, tightening his hold on my wrist
In that moment, I’m furious. But my mind tells me to hold back
Don’t bring the Sullys any problems
I tense my jaw
Then, I think about Neteyam
I remember what he said to me before, making me promise that I’d defend myself when I needed to
I purse my lips, cursing internally
I did make a promise
I look at Ao’nung, pulling my wrist back with force, making him let go of it
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” I ask him defiantly
“Do you need attention? Is that it? Does your father not give you enough?” I ask, getting closer to him
“Is forcing it out of us the only way you can get some?” I finish, now whispering close to his face, my tone assertive
His face morphs into annoyance, the smirk he displayed before disappearing from his lips
He grabs me by the arms with a bit of force
“What did you just say?” He asks, his tone abrasive
“Let her go!” Kiri yells from behind me
“Why don’t you try saying that again, alien?” Ao’nung says in a lower, threatening tone. The grip he has on my arms starts to hurt
What happens next goes down way too fast for me to process
One moment I’m being threatened and held tightly by Ao’nung. The other, he’s on the ground, looking up with an incredulous look on his face, a hand covering his eye
Neteyam now stands between us, a furious look in his eyes as he shakes his hand, relieving the tension in it
Neteyam just punched Ao’nung
——————————————————
I stood completely still, too stunned to do or say anything
Where did Neteyam even come from?
Ao’nung’s face slowly turns from complete shock to anger
He gets up quickly, throwing himself into Neteyam, dropping them both on the sand
He punches Neteyam while laying on top of him
“Neteyam” I scream
This is can’t be happening
As Neteyam forcefully pushes Ao’nung away from him, kicking him in the process, a full on fight breaks out in front of us
Neteyam and Ao’nung hit each other while Ao’nung’s friends help him, pulling on Neteyam, slowing him down while trying to hit him as well
I screamed and begged for them to stop while Kiri held me tightly by my arm, stopping me from getting involved
I felt completely helpless
Suddenly, Lo’ak shows up. He urgently asks us what was going on, not waiting for an answer after seeing his brother throwing punches with the others
He joins them, punching one of Ao’nung’s friends hard in the face
“Get away from my brother, bitch” He exclaims
This cannot be happening right now
——————————————————
I’m currently sitting on the ground, head on my knees as I anxiously wait outside the Sully hut
Neteyam and Lo’ak are being harshly scolded by their father inside, just how I imagined it would probably happen after the fight
Shit
This wasn’t supposed to happen
No one was supposed to get in trouble, or even worse
Hurt
My heart sank, eyes starting to water
Suddenly, the fabric that covers the entrance of the hut gets pushed to the side, revealing a bit of a roughed up Lo’ak
Neteyam started the fight, but Lo’ak came in right after to help him, no questions asked
He could be a bit rebellious and difficult at times, but no one could say he wasn’t loyal
“(Y/n)?” He asks
I rise my head, finally seeing him
“Lo’ak!” I urge, getting up to my feet as quickly as I could to check on him
“Are you alright?” I ask, fussing over him, scanning him for injuries
He had a few minor bruises here and there, as well as a small cut on his eyebrow
“Hey, calm down. It’s alright, I’m fine” He says, putting a hand on my shoulder to keep me in place
“Are you okay? Could you… maybe tell me what happened?” He asks
“What made Neteyam beat Ao’nung up?” He asks again
“It must’ve been bad. I’ve never seen Neteyam jump into a physical fight like that” He continues
He furrows his eyebrows, and before I can say anything, he asks “Did something happen to you and Kiri? What was going on?”
Suddenly, Kiri herself shows up
She walks towards us, decisive in her steps, carrying two small pots in her hands
“(Y/n)!” She exclaims “Are you alright? How are you feeling?” She asks, scanning my arms where Ao’nung grabbed me before
Lo’ak scoffs, putting his hands on his waist
“Well hello to you too Kiri. Yes, me, your younger brother who just got out of a fist fight is doing well, thank you for asking” He says
She rolls her eyes, giving him a small smile “Stop being dramatic Lo’ak, I’m here to fix you up” she says, showing us the pots she was carrying
They seemed to contain some sort of paste inside them. By the smell of it and from what I’ve studied, it appeared to be a medicinal herb paste
“But (y/n) was just about to tell me what happene-“ Lo’ak starts, getting interrupted by Kiri
“I’ll tell you everything, just pipe down and come with me” She says
She turns to me, looking into my eyes
“Will you take care of Neteyam for me (y/n)?” She asks. her tone is soft but full of intention
I look at her, she seemed to mean a lot things with her phrase
She also looked at me like she knew my secret
My feelings for Neteyam
She seemed to know I wanted nothing more than to see him right now, find out if he was okay
She’s really intuitive
Reaching a hand out, she offers me one of the pots with the healing paste, looking at me attentively
I couldn’t thank her enough
“Yes, I-“ I start, reaching for the pot she was offering me
“Thank you Kiri” I continue in a lower tone, staring fondly at her
She nods, smiling in a caring manner
“Can somebody please explain to me what is going on?” Lo’ak asks, impatient. He looks at us with concern in his eyes
Me and Kiri laugh a bit “Come on brother, let’s get those bruises checked up” Kiri says, starting to pull him away with her
Before leaving, she smiles softly at me, saying “Good luck (y/n)”
I smile back, mouthing her another thank you
They leave me alone with my thoughts
I look down at the medicine Kiri gave me, thinking about how much Neteyam would need of it
My throat tightens
I hope he’s alright
Suddenly, the fabric the covers the hut’s entrance is pushed to the side once again, revealing a roughed up Neteyam
He looks at me, his gaze softening just a bit when it meets mine
My hold on the pot tightens as I take in his bruised form
——————————————————
I enter my hut once again, carrying a small piece of cloth in one hand and a small pot filled with water in the other
As I enter, I can see Neteyam, sitting down on my hammock while staring at the ground, lost in thought
He straightens himself as he notices my presence, watching me as I place the small pot with water next to the one filled with the medicinal paste Kiri gave me
He doesn’t say a word as I dip a tip of the cloth into the water, wetting it a bit
I then place myself in front of him to clean his cuts
I look into his eyes, breathing in as I feel the intensity of his gaze on me
“Can I touch you?” I ask him in a lower, softer tone
He nods, giving me permission to start
I scan him. He looks a bit worst than Lo’ak, but nothing too grave. He only had a few bruises on his torso, as well as a cut on his cheekbone and lip
I wince as I take in the consequences of the fight he started
“Don’t worry, the other guys look way worse” He says with a small, playful smile, trying to lighten up the mood
I purse my lips, slowly starting to clean the cut on his cheek. His face turns to the side to give me better access to it
Silence stretches between us as I work, Neteyam staring attentively at me from the corner of his eyes
“You shouldn’t have done that” I mutter
“What, intervened?” He inquires, furrowing his brows
“So I was supposed to watch Ao’nung and his friends mess with Kiri? Hurt you?” He asks, turning to me, making me stop tending to his cut
“I had it under control” I say, my tone now louder as I look into his eyes
“I’m sorry (y/n), but it didn’t look like it” He says, his tone getting louder as well
“Ao’nung had you by your arms for Eywa’s sake” He urges
“Was I just supposed to let him hurt you?” He asks
“I understand why you stopped him, but you shouldn’t have started a fight over it” I start, distressed
“You shouldn’t have gotten yourself hurt over it” I finish, my eyes starting to water
He huffs out an incredulous laugh, standing up from the hammock
Running a hand through his braids, he turns to the side, putting both hands on his waist before turning back to me
“That’s what you’re mad about? Me getting hurt?” He asks, his tone getting more and more urgent
“Yes” I exclaim “Of course that’s why I’m mad Neteyam. You even got scolded by your father, how could I possibly be okay with that?” I ask, getting worked up
“My Eywa” He breathes out
“You’re unbelievable (y/n)” He says, shaking his head slowly while getting closer to me
“Why? Because I don’t wan’t you to make it harder for yourself over a stupid fight?” I ask him, incredulous
“Why would you do that Neteyam? Why would you put yourself at risk over me?” I urge, eyes watering again
“Why wouldn’t I? (Y/n) you-“ He says, running a hand over his face, stressed
“You really don’t get it, do you?” He urges, getting even closer to me
“Get what? What are you talking about?” I exclaim, getting closer to him as well
We’re close now, really close. Staring into each other’s eyes intensely
Neteyam’s brows are deeply furrowed, his nose scrunched angrily
Silence stretches between us, the tension in the room getting heavier by the second
He lets out a loud groan before doing something that completely shocks me
He suddenly grabs my face in his hands, closing the distance between us
Kissing me
——————————————————
At first, I’m completely stunned
My eyes are widened, I’m completely frozen in place
My heart feels like it’s about to explode
Am I dreaming? is this even real?
Slowly, I start to melt into him, into his kiss. Breathing out softly through my nose, I close my eyes, starting to kiss him back
Dropping one of his hands to my waist, he holds me tight, kissing me urgently, passionately
Like he wanted to do it for a long time
I could even taste the blood from the cut on his lip
I put my hands around his neck, feeling completely lightheaded, overwhelmed
Is this really happening?
After quite some time, we pull away for a bit, needing air
He holds me tightly by the waist, breathing heavily, his eyes half lidded
I scan his face, completely out of breath as well
Slowly bringing a hand to his cheek, I gently run a thumb over his lower lip
“Your cut” I mutter, wiping it softly
“(Y/n)” he breathes out, his voice low and raspy
He puts a hand over the one I have on his cheek
“I don’t care” He mutters before pulling me into another kiss
——————————————————
HELLO EVERYONEEEE!! How are y’all doing? Sooooo sorry for the wait, this was a special chapter so I had to make it a bit longer. Took me a while to get it to a point where I liked it 😭 Hope y’all enjoy finally kissing bae 😌
Tag list: @holysaladapricothero @mahalkomarvel @a-blog-name-2003 @crazy4books1 @camilo-uwu @isazelhelmann @mynameisjuno @milktealvrr @myheartfollower @bakugouswaif @kitally @justcallmesams @simp4ff @naynay2808
#avatar#avatar fanfiction#avatar imagine#avatar james cameron#avatar: the way of water#neteyam#neteyam imagine#neteyam x reader#neteyam x you#fanfiction#neteyam sully#neteyam suli x reader#neteyam fluff#neteyam fanfiction#neteyam x y/n#neteyam angst#imagine#fluff#omatikaya#metkayina
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Tell me about corals magic man
oh man this ask keeps sitting here and I keep starting to write stuff out, forgetting it, then never finishing. So since I am still processing tons of coral pics from a recent field work excursion about coral (and have a day off to just CHILL at home before regular work again) this is as good a time as any.
CORAL. IT'S IMPORTANT I GUESS BUT WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT? PLANT?? ANIMAL??? OVERAMBITIOUS ROCK???
Yes. kind of. Technically just an animal is correct. Corals are animals, but they are fucking weird animals. Weird in the way that only marine invertebrates can get. I love them because they're freaks. Let me show you.
Corals are a cnidarian, which puts them in the same category as anemones and jellyfish, and when you look at an individual coral polyp you can instantly see the relationship. They are colonial animals with massive structures formed out of polyps that are all clones of each other, and all building a support structure to form the whole, called the colony. An especially cute metaphor I've heard is that each coral polyp has it's own little nook like a room in the massive home they all work to build. A layer of tissue connects polyps to each other over the colony, allowing them to share nutrients and such over the entire structure like little marine communists.
These polyps can range widely in size, and they can either be distinctly separate or all fused together, only distinguished by separate mouths. Numbers can also range from millions to a couple species that will have one or polyp mouths max. Polyps can extend out or retract into their little nook, called the calyx, and extend more when the coral is capturing prey from the water.
Lookit those cute little polyps, these guys make their own cubby for themselves!
Don't worry about what I just said about capturing prey and feeding, look at those cute little guys. Some of them are out and some are retracted, showing the little bump where they live.
Fused polyps like on brain corals don't extend exactly, but feeder tentacles will come out from that delineation between the ridge and oral groove. It's actually called an oral groove! Those tentacles are full of the same stinging cells jellyfish and anemones have! One biologist referred to brain corals as a wall of mouths! Ive seen them using those tentacles to slowly drag struggling little shrimps and larval fish towards a slowly opening mouth amongst that wall of mouths! It's like living in a place where at night, the walls open mouths and drag you into them with unthinking stinging strings! Sometimes they just spit out digestive strings to digest stuff outside of their body, like other coral that got too close and needs to check itself! Isn't that great!
A lot of people are surprised to hear "mouths" and "feeding" with corals and yup, corals are animals and therefore they eat! Each polyp has a mouth and tentacles and will extend them to capture prey, mostly zooplankton but also some plant material. Because they're fucking weird though, many species also gain energy via photosynthesis with the help of a symbiotic dinoflagellate called the zooxanthellae or symbiodinium. It's this algae like symbiont that actually gives coral most of their colors. These colors can range from psychadelic to just brown, with regular old browns and greens and yellows being the most common colors (especially in the Caribbean).
A bleached coral is still alive, but due to stress has lost their zooxanthellae. They can survive and recover, but in this state they are highly stressed, prone to disease, and can starve slowly without the symbionts helping with their nutritional needs. They appear white or faded because the loss of their symbionts reveals the white calcium skeleton beneath the tissue.
Bleached portion of coral beside unbleached.
A dead coral is one that has lost all of it's tissue, and every individual polyp has died, leaving nothing but the skeleton which can no longer grow without the living polyps. Bleached coral is very, very vulnerable to becoming a dead coral.
Unusually high heat is the most common trigger for a bleaching event. And this is where, in my education talks I sometimes do, I pause with a strained grimace of a smile as we all contemplate ocean temperatures hiking up every summer.
SO WHY ARE THESE WEIRDASS ROCK ANIMALS IMPORTANT BESIDES BEING COOL TO LOOK AT?
Coral structure can be colloquially described as stony or soft. Stony corals are what I work with more, and these guys are the ones that build a hard, calcium based structure as their support building, and these powerhouses are the ones that build the coral reef. Soft corals are what it says on the tin, they may have a sort of support structure that varies amongst families, but it's flexible (you'll see them waving very beautifully and gracefully in the currents) and they (for the most part) do not build the reef. If they do add to reef building it, it's with a very slow process of depositing fine layers.
(Soft corals of course have their role in the overall reef health, but reefs are bonkers complicated ecosystems and I'm trying to keep on track here.)
When you're looking at the reef, you are looking on centuries, if not millennia, of stony corals building on top of each other. Sometimes this building has been going on for so long that islands are made of fossilized reefs from millions of years ago, with corals that still resemble modern species in the rock. (This is the case of BonAire and blew my goddamn mind seeing the fossil reef it's so fuckin cool.)
Sometimes just a single colony will keep building on itself into massive structures. Polyp clones adding on and on to their predecessors, giving the colony overall a lifespan in centuries. It's thought that some huge colonies may be thousands of years old, because the fastest growing stony corals have a growth rate that may equal centimeters per year.
It's those reef structures of calcium carbonate building up and up that provide the homes to so many other creatures that coral reefs are some of the most biologically diverse, and biologically dense ecosystems out there, like rainforests of the ocean. Even marine life that doesn't live directly in the reefs have a connection to them, using them as feeding grounds, breeding areas, a place to hide while young and vulnerable, ect.
They even protect coastlines, acting as a literal barrier that reduces wave damage from storms or just wave action in general. The reef takes the brunt of the physical damage, colonies get knocked around, but the still living polyps keep on building and rebuilding so the reef can go on and not get smashed into rubble every year.
That is, if there are still stony corals alive to do the rebuilding. :))))))
So you have these weird animals who build stone structures like cathedrals, have algae in their tissue, live as massive ancient colonies of clones that can eat, photosynthesize, and also reproduce both asexually and sexually. They're able to branch out and do all of that because they are adapted to insanely stable environments. Temperatures don't fluctuate by more than a couple degrees seasonally, tides are consistent, storm seasons are consistent, the water is consistently clear due to lack of algae, which allows sunlight to penetrate and feed the symbionts that feed the coral. Mineral levels in the water are stable so they can take the calcium and carbonate from the sea water to build their skeletons. Without having to be able to adjust to changes in the environment they just went hog fucking wild on all the ways an animal can be an animal.
And here I once again pause with a strained grimace smile as we all take in how they need to be alive to keep building those reefs that support the ocean and the coasts, and how not stable their environment is becoming with new pollutants clouding waters, storms becoming more unpredictable, and waters having bigger temperature swings with hot summer spikes. :)))))))))))
#long post#marine biology#coral reefs#informative#corals are freaks and i love them#i barely touched how theyre freaks i wanted to keep this to a simple 101 guide on what they are and why theyre important#and why they are. not doing too great.#in the grand scheme of the world i believe coral reefs as an ecosystem type will survive#a few species are super hardy#some are more adaptable#in millions of years the ones that made it will eventually find new suitable places to rebuild on the rubble of ruins#but also i would prefer NOT HAVING A CATASTROPHIC EXTINCTION EVENT FOR THEM TO RECOVER FROM OVER A FEW MILLION YEARS THANKS#I WOULD PREFER THAT SORT OF RUIN NOT MAKING LIVES HARDER FOR EVERYONE
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