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thatforkedroad · 4 months

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Sun-hearted

[ao3] Anakin Skywalker is not human. The people around him try not to think about it.

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Shmi had always known her son wasn’t like her.

At first, she had assumed that the pregnancy had simply happened without her knowledge. Or that perhaps her mind had blocked out the event — a slave knew better than anyone how the brain killed the past to protect the present, to keep you surviving.

But the more she tried to dig up the memory-that-wasn’t-there, the more she ran through scenarios, the more she realised that nothing that made sense. If it had been… any of her theories, she would have known, there would have been evidence, Watto wouldn’t have been so angry when he found out. Eventually, she realised she had to give up logic alltogether. Anakin’s father was not something knowable to her. He (it?) had been something else. Something impossible.

A miracle.

The theory only grew more convincing as her pregnancy progressed. She began to sense things no human should have been able to. Objects falling before they’d even been knocked. Watto’s bad mood from two rooms away. Her baby’s strong soul, loudly proclaiming it would be a survivor.

She held her new sixth sense dear for those nine months she had it — but not as dearly as she held her baby boy, to whom the sense really belonged. Her darling miracle baby boy, who always knew too much too soon, who read intentions as easily as he read schematics, and whose quick hands and quicker mind did the impossible on Boonta Eve.

Slaves were supposed to cling to their miracles, so few and far between as they were. But a mother was supposed to do what was best for her son, and Anakin was her boy above all else. She let him go, hoping the Jedi would understand and care for his impossibility better than she ever could.

(And as Shmi died, she did not need Anakin’s sixth sense to feel the anger running through his miracle veins. She did not need it to know what would happen next, either.

She knew with all the certainty her slow-beating heart had that her son’s grief would raze the galaxy to ash.)

—

Obi-Wan knew Anakin didn’t fit in with the other younglings and padawans.

He wanted to believe it was just because of the boy’s upbringing, that it was only because he’d grown up in a much crueler, realer world to the others. Or perhaps it was because Anakin was already a padawan or because of how annoyingly easily it was for him to call the Force. Maybe they just heard the Council had tried to reject him. There seemed to be a few hundred thousand reasons that the children of the Temple would consider him an outsider — but one stood out like a sore and mythical thumb.

There was no Chosen One or such thing as a child born of the Force. There was certainly no chance that the other children (even the ones who tried to accept Anakin with open arms) could sense otherness in his blood. He was just like any other Jedi, if a little more reckless.

As Anakin and the other padawans grew, they grew together. He became like well-sewn patch on an old shirt — the difference was there, yes, but only noticeable if you were really looking. It was better for everyone if Obi-Wan stopped looking for the gap, so he did.

Anakin had never seemed to notice it, anyway.

(And as he watched Anakin’s slaughter of the Temple, the hot drowning of dread and horror and nausea was joined by a cold, parasitic realisation. The gap between Anakin and the other Jedi had never grown smaller; Obi-Wan had only grown more blind.

Jedi were taught from a young age that they could not hold or control the Force, that they were to let it flow freely else they would face the consequences. Obi-Wan had been a fool to think that something made of one half Force and one half heartbreak could be held any more than its parent.)

—

Anakin grinned, and Ahsoka felt every clone in the hangar’s mood lift. Ahsoka couldn’t help but smile in return — and then he cracked a joke, and the worry and grief of the battle became a distant, shrouded memory.

It always went like this. They came back from the latest campaign dirtied, injured, and with a tiredness that ached into their very bones. They all wanted nothing more than to eat and sleep and mourn and not talk to anyone for several hours. But then Anakin — still riding the high of a good fight — would clap Ahsoka on the shoulder, make a stupid comment to Rex, and everything would feel fine. Better than fine even.

Morale seemed so reliant on him that if her master was angry or sad or upset, so was the entire ship. When he was in a mood, meditation became impossible, no matter how at peace Ahsoka felt. She once considered that it was more than just moral, more than just his stupid jokes, but she had grown up in the Temple, raised on lessons of a Jedi’s few limits. A single man could not project his emotions onto an army.

Anakin just had a friendly smile, was all.

(And when Maul told her — warned her — of what her master would become, she did not listen. She could not listen. She thought only of his grin, and the sunny sureness in her chest that always accompanied it.

And so she fought for it again.)

—

Rex knew, theoretically, that General Skywalker was human.

He’d seen enough medical scans from Kix (on the unusual occasion that the general submitted to care) to know that Skywalker’s biology was just like any natborn human’s. He didn’t have strange-coloured blood or an extra eye and all his (mostly-intact) organs were in the right places. The records showed that he was completely, one-hundred-percent human.

Theoretically, this made complete sense.

And it made sense he would seem slightly off. Rex had spent the first decade of his life surrounded entirely by his brothers and Kaminoan scientists; his idea of a ‘normal’ person was someone who looked and sounded identical to him, not a tall, barely-tanned Tatooinian with the wrong accent. Even if it hadn’t been, Rex knew Jedi were different from your average natborn. They could do all these crazy things that belonged in storybooks and myths, not the battlefield. Swaying people, moving objects (or clone captains) with their minds, seeing the future — if Rex hadn’t been trained to do so, he wouldn’t have believed a word of it.

But if being a Jedi had been the reason, wouldn’t Rex have noticed the same thing with Commander Tano or General Kenobi? He understood that maybe Commander Tano wasn’t old enough to develop whatever it was General Skywalker had — but Kenobi was older, more trained in the Force. Surely Rex would have noticed the same thing, that same surely-not-quite-human feeling with him?

Maybe he just spent too much time around the General. Maybe this thinking was just a part of having a good natborn friend.

He hoped it was, at least.

(And when Rex heard of the attack on the Temple, he understood his hope was for naught.

He and his brothers weren’t an isolated incident, he knew; Ahsoka had felt the deaths across the galaxy. He had no doubt the clones on the battlefield cut down their generals — who trusted them like they trusted their own right hand, who stood alone in front of a one-thousand strong army — with an alarming ease.

But he heard reports of the Temple, of blue-painted clones massacring all there, and knew they couldn’t have done it alone. Only one Jedi was strong enough to take on a Temple of their own kind and win.)

—

Padmé wondered if her husband was made from the stars themselves.

It seemed like the only explanation, sometimes. How could anything mortal be so beautiful? How could anything born on solid ground hold that much love in its heart? He was impossible. He looked her in the eye and saw right through every mask she wore, saw that all she was at the core was an overworked girl from Naboo — and still beamed like she was the most perfect thing in the galaxy. He loved her for who she was, not what she could do for him nor for the stature of Amidala. That seemed rarer than stardust.

She would see him and her breath would catch with something that had to be more than love. He stood by the window and stared into the Coruscanti night like he could hear every thought in the city-planet, his golden-brown hair catching the edges of the hundred-colour lights. She ought to walk up to him, hold him, tell him she loves him and pepper him with kisses — but all she could do was stare. In those moments, he was perfect and divine, and she could not interrupt them with her mortality.

(And as Padmé lay dying, her life force dragged out by some dark presence, she thought of her star-husband. And she thought of the refugees she had once helped when their sun imploded. It should have been a lesson learnt; stars were beautiful in the night sky, warm in the summer, but dangerous. Able to end entire planets in their own cosmic pain.

Some small part of her knew this when she first said I love you. But she could not listen. She saw only the star-beauty in his eyes and all the love he held in his sun-heart.)

—

Anakin Skywalker had long questioned whether he was human or not.

But as Darth Vader looked down at his mechanical hands, heard his pressurised breathing, and ignored the pain that followed his every half-sedated movement, he found his humanity was no longer a question.

#anakin skywalker #shmi skywalker #obi wan kenobi #ahsoka tano #captain rex #padme amidala #star wars #fic #total write forever

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kagooleo · 1 year

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I did this one to celebrate Silver's bday back in 2021, a sonboy to me who deserves the world ;-;

#kagarts #rival silver #silver pokemon #trainer silver #pkmn #pkmn hgss #hgss #pkmn gsc #gsc #i think i've seen a lot of characterization of him that makes him like. edgy brooding and cynical #and yeah sure i half understand that given his whole story but i think a lot of ppl miss the whole like. growth part of his arc #learning to care not just for people that genuinely support him but his own team as well #competitive mindsets are temporary; love is forever to your team and your friends #but i think he can be a little rascal as a treat (a trait he totally didn't get from the rest of the quartet lmao)#don't enable me i could write an essay about him but i'm a full time student #character development good i definitely don't have a ton of headcanons stashed away with friends somewhere

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stellarspecter · 7 months

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okay i don't know if the hyperfixation will hold long enough for me to actually write this but au where everything is the same but the waylon house is just a bit more structurally sound. max doesn't die and is like 'thanks for this guys, is that the whole party or?' and everyone just sort of looks at each other like. well we don't want to anger him so what can we say but yes. and so the nerds and max end up hanging out for a night in the waylon house and the worst thing that happens is grace chastity is tempted to have a beer for the first time (she doesn't though. but with max offering it's very hard for her to refuse. or focus lol) max keeps giving them weird backhanded compliments like 'wow you guys are way cooler than you look, how'd that happen' which is not the best but it's way better than being beat up for daring to be in his line of sight, so they'll take it.

so they all hang out for the night, max is like weirdly chill and friendly, eventually he leaves and they're left standing outside the waylon house like. ?? what the fuck??? did we just befriend max jagerman???? the nerds are still apprehensive considering pete still has a black eye, grace is still boiling with religious zeal and repressed lust, and steph still doesn't really like him, but they can't help but remember how he said that trying to prank him was the nicest thing someone's ever done for him. and that just can't be true, considering he's literally the star quarterback and the main character of hatchetfield high, but.... the fact that he felt like it enough says a lot, doesn't it?

so they decide to leave the prank footage to gather dust and figure this was probably the best outcome they could have hoped for. who knows what they'll walk into at school tomorrow? maybe max will become a friend.

#and he does :)#nerdy prudes must die #npmd spoilers #npmd #i just. the brainworms. they're in me #if anything it would just be a oneshot i'm not trying to rewrite the show or anything #but like yeah max joins the friend group :)#do you ever think about how genuinely touched he was that they basically made him his own haunted house?#that shit was exposure therapy and they didn't even know it #and like dear god 'this is the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me'??? lines to go crazy about forever!!!!#bc like he's popular he's a star everyone knows him but no one's nice to him? do we know anything about his family?#and like obviously he's an asshole so like yeah why would people be nice to him if he's such a dick #but like.... consider this: babygirl #he was really endearing in that minute between being pranked and dying ok?#he was like a totally different person the minute the social pressure was gone #ok ok enough tag rambling. if enough people want this i will actually write it #*speaks

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skyward-floored · 2 months

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Impa breathes out slowly, shifting into a ready position as she faces down her opponent.

Volga stares back at her, firelight shining off of his spear as he also stands ready, and they move at the same time, Volga lunging forward as Impa raises her naginata to block him.

She succeeds, but doesn’t have enough time to even think of attacking back before he’s swinging at her again, spear jabbing quickly at her defenses. It’s all Impa can do for several moments to just avoid being struck, Volga’s speed greater than one would expect.

Sweat beads on Impa’s brow as Volga batters at her, her heart pounding as she narrowly avoids a swing of his spear. If he manages to land a solid hit, it’ll all be over.

Impa grits her teeth and finally manages to fight back, breaking out of the pattern she’d found herself in and thrusting her weapon at Volga.

Their weapons lock, the two straining against each other. Impa's arms shake as she strains against him, Volga’s strength impressive and much greater than her own. So Impa pushes for only for a moment longer before sliding nimbly out of the way, ducking down and swiping at him. Volga moves at the last second, smoke puffing from his nose, and the two whirl around each other in a dance of weapons, Impa trying to dart in and land a hit, Volga methodically blocking her attacks.

Sweat is pouring down her brow now, but Volga doesn’t look like he’s having an easy time of it either, panting as they both dodge and attack with equal frequency.

They're almost completely evenly matched.

Volga twirls his spear in a series of short jabs, and Impa lunges out of the way just barely too slow, the blunt end smacking her. An ache shoots up her side, but she isn’t badly hurt, and she notes the brief opening Volga leaves as he tries to get her while she’s reeling.

Impa avoids another thrust, and prepares herself for the next attack. She purposely leaves an opening this time, just large enough to be noticeable, and Volga takes it, lunging towards her with his eyes gleaming.

But instead of hitting her, Impa uses his momentum against him, twisting around at the last second and hooking her foot around his leg.

Volga stumbles, his eyes wide with surprise, and Impa whips around and knocks him flat on the ground with her naginata, whirling it around and pointing the tip at his neck.

He looks up at her and she looks down at him, both of them breathing hard, the smell of sweat and smoke in the air.

Impa smiles.

“I win.”

Volga snorts, resting his head back on the ground as he lightly pants. “Seems you still have some tricks I haven’t figured out.”

“Well I can’t reveal all of the Sheikah’s secrets,” Impa smirks, and Volga rolls his eyes.

Impa pulls her naginata away from his neck, and reaches down, offering him a hand up. Volga takes it, unlike the last time they sparred, and doesn’t immediately let go once he’s upright.

“Impressive,” Volga says, mouth twitching up into a smile. “Not many can momentarily best a dragon. Someday you might even properly beat me.”

“...Excuse me? Which one of us was flat on his back a moment ago?” Impa replies with a brow raised, and Volga tosses his head.

“I gave you a handicap. I used no fire, and never transformed.”

“We both agreed to not use any magic or anything of the sort before we started, we both had a handicap,” Impa says pointedly, and fights the smile that tries to form at the face Volga makes.

“...MaybeI let you win,” he huffs, and Impa can’t help her laugh.

“You're too honorable not to give it your all, Sir Dragon. Admit it Volga, my skill in weaponry bests your own,” she says teasingly, and though Volga looks away, it isn’t fast enough for Impa to miss the fact that there’s still a smile twitching on his lips.

“...Perhaps. Pity there were no witnesses to your supposed victory.”

Impa opens her mouth to argue, but closes it as she realizes Volga’s right. There’s nobody in the cave the Gorons have designated as a sparring area, probably because it’s rather late at night. They had no audience for their spar except for the small lizards that sometimes hide under the rocks.

Which unfortunately means Volga is correct.

Volga laughs at her expression, and Impa swats him on the arm, unable to stop her own smile.

“Well the next time I beat you, I’ll do it in front of an audience so that no one can deny my victory,” she says firmly, walking to the wall and placing her weapon against it. Volga does the same, and they lean against the rocks, both still catching their breath from their fight.

“I don’t plan on losing,” Volga says, looking over at her with a gleam in his eyes. “I won’t hold back.”

“I wouldn’t want you to,” Impa replies. “The only way to improve oneself is to train against a real challenge, and your style is quite unique. Before coming here, I knew very little about fighting techniques aside from my tribe’s, and that of the Hylians.”

“You’ve improved since then,” Volga says, watching a lizard skitter under a rock. “I can tell a marked difference between when we first fought and our spar tonight. You’re truly growing in your skill.”

He smiles again, and they look at each other, an odd sensation sweeping through Impa’s chest. It’s similar to the excitement she’d felt when she managed to knock Volga down, but not... exactly.

It’s certainly different from the annoyance and near hatred that she used to feel whenever she’d see one of Volga’s smirks, and she knows he feels the same, his grins less smug, his pride eased more to simply confidence when they’re together. Somehow they’ve become friends despite their less-then-friendly interactions at first, and Impa enjoys having another warrior around to talk to.

Especially because of the other feelings she sometimes gets when she looks at him now.

...Not ones I should be dwelling on, she thinks hastily.

“It’s rather late,” she notes with a clearing of her throat, and Volga nods. “And I unfortunately have a meeting in the morning.”

“My condolences,” Volga chuckles, and Impa smirks.

“Don’t be too happy. You’re supposed to be there as well.”

Volga grimaces, and Impa smiles, groaning a bit as she stretches. She’s going to be sore tomorrow, but the spar was more than worth it. Impa stops leaning against the wall then, retrieving her naginata in order to place it back in her room, and turns back to Volga to bid him goodnight.

And startles when he suddenly leans close to her, his blue eyes trailing along her face.

Impa blinks at his closeness, the heat that had just begun to leave her face returning full-force. She meets his gaze, and he looks back, a faint smell of fire and smoke coming off him.

Then Volga softly nuzzles his face against hers.

“Goodnight Impa,” he says in a surprisingly quiet voice, his breath against her skin making the hair on her neck stand up.

Then he pulls back, and leaves.

Impa watches him go with a shockingly warm feeling sweeping through her middle, and she raises a hand to the cheek he’d nuzzled against, her heart doing an awful lot of leaping around.

It must be a dragon thing, she thinks almost dizzily, her fingers cool against her hot face. Platonic, surely.

...Surely?

Impa stands by herself in silence for another few moments, trying to get her wits about her, and blows out a slow breath as a smile slips onto her face without her permission.

Then she leaves as well, glad now that nobody is around to see the color of her face.

...

The memory fades, and Impa looks down at the scale she’d been rubbing between her fingers, orangish-red and shimmering in the lantern light.

She holds it up and studies the small details she knows so well, the way the color changes when she tilts it, the faint warmth it gives off. She’s not sure why she still has it after so many years.

It’s not like it makes the memories hurt any less.

Voices drift past the half-open flap of her tent, and Impa’s ear twitches at the soft sound of Link’s voice, Proxi chiming in answer. Her son's quiet laugh reaches her, and the sound equally warms her heart and tears at the ragged edges of it.

Impa sighs as Link's footsteps recede, his voice fading away, and she looks at the maps she's supposed to be using to plan out a route.

She breathes out, running her thumb along the scale one more time, then returns it to the small pouch at her hip, closing it tight, and putting her thoughts from Volga.

It's harder then it should be.

#hdw au #hyrule warriors #impa/volga #...ish anyway #legend of zelda #loz hw #fic #legend of zelda fanfiction #writing from the floor #Volga: 'kissing'? what is this 'kissing'?#Impa: *brain short-circuiting as she tries to explain*#Volga: *smirking cause he's just messing with her*#anyway oog it took me forever to get their characters down #I'm still not totally happy with them but I'm ok with it so I'm posting this #also sorry for the ending HAHAHA *cries*

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alister312 · 5 months

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fuck it, posting that one doodle i made for that ask from a few days back that i didn’t realize already had a stellar image in the ask

#this is not my Big Gregstophe Proposal Headcanon™️ but it’s something i could still totally see happening lmao #south park #gregstophe #christophe delorne #gregory of yardale #also MAN I haven’t drawn them in forever…… mostly sketching various fankids these days haha #also been writing a lot of fankid stuff recently. specifically my tophlovski/gregstophe/style divorce au w dani #someday I’ll have more time/energy outside of obligation writing to go back to wmcg…… someday 🥺#anyway this has been snippets of life updates in the tags w alister hope whoever’s reading has a good day 🥰

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jynjackets · 7 months

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I will forget my own name before I forget jyn caressing cassians hair in the elevator on scarif

#they’re so insane #this devotion and all of it paying off #they had each other do you understand????#i will never be over them #idk how you guys watch rogue one repeatedly when I have to pause every now and then #to throw up #nothing has such a chokehold on me #does the holonet understand that they’re together forever in the force???#do people in the star wars write fic about them???#chass na chadic totally did #there was the possibly they would die nameless #but no no legacy could compare to they way they looked at each other in that elevator #THEY HAD EACH OTHER #that’s all that ever mattered AND MORE THAN THEY COULD HAVE DREAMED OF #A LIFETIME OF PAIN AND THEY FOUND LOVE IN THE END #random rebelcaptain #so sick #rebelcaptain #rogue one

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pixellangel · 15 days

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"Don't you feel stupid answering these questions when you don't even know who you are?"

STORYTELLER SYNTHESIS SCENE 1 - A GIRL NAMED V

overview - masterpost - taglist

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Storyteller Synthesis is an indie cyberpunk RPG that I’m currently writing and designing. This is the first scene of the game, where we're introduced to our first party member - a girl named V. Please enjoy!

____

Onyxveil is a troubled city. The streets are covered in litter, the skies are gray with smog, and the only sources of light are flashing neon advertisements on walls. Within this bleak cityscape stands an equally troubled young girl, one with hot pink hair and an unfocused gaze. Just a few years ago, she experienced a horrific eve-

"Can you shut up and give the Player control already? Nobody wants your stupid expository speech."

...Ahem. As I was saying, just a few years ag-

"Why can't you ever listen? The Player isn't interested and neither am I. Get it over with."

Ugh. Fine. I came up with this whole summary, but if you're so ungrateful I GUESS I can throw it in as flavor text somewhere...

"Perfect, I'll make sure not to read it. Now get rid of this black screen so the Player can see."

Excuse me? I know what I'm doing.

"Sure. Just get rid of it."

Ugh. Fine.

[Now, in tile RPG format, we see the aforementioned girl from behind. She's at the edge of a rooftop, looking out into the smog-covered cityscape. The camera shifts downwards to show another person, one with a long, pale blue ponytail. The girl turns around and walks towards them. She keeps her distance, but begins speaking. Her character portrait shows a girl with purple, rectangular irises. Her hair is spiky and she wears some sort of strange cropped techwear hoodie. She looks dissatisfied.]

"So, "Sylvie." Long time no see."

> I could say the same to you.

...

"How long has it been now? Three years? Four?"

> Three.

Not sure.

"And how was your little warrior's expedition? Successful?"

Very.

> You could say that.

Not exactly.

"Good, good. Now, Don't you feel stupid answering these questions when you don't even know who you are?"

Wh- hey! I already told you not to go off script!

> I'm not sure.

Oh. Sorry, you don't need to answer that. Let me just fix this... small bug.

[The Narrator goes silent for a moment and the girl stiffens.]

There! Much better.

[The girl's character portrait is different when she speaks again. Her eyes are wide open with no shine. She has a wide, fake smile. Her hair spikes stand up a little less.]

"So sorry, SYLVIE! I don't know what came over me there. I'm glad your expedition went well! Woul d y ouu be wil lin g to h e-"

[She snaps out of it, shakes her head, and glares up at the sky.]

"UGH!! Stop doing that!!! I would literally NEVER talk like that. You of all people should know. Ughhh... anyway, Player, I'm not gonna keep up the "Sylvie" act. You aren't her and we both know it."

If you go off script again, I'll have to keep acting for you. Get back to the story or else.

"Shush. Player, follow me."

[The Narrator protests as the player follows the her down from the rooftop. The two come to an arcade, which the girl enters without hesitation.]

Ahem. Sylvie. You don't need to go in there. If you would just give me a minute, I can get her to come back out...

Sorry, this is going to take some time. Please be patient.

[The player enters the arcade anyway while the Narrator is distracted.]

"Hey. Glad you could make it."

[The arcade is empty, save for the two of them. Most of the machines look like they're out of order. A few of the arcade cabinets are still working, though.]

"If you're waiting for him to talk, you should know he can't hear us in here."

> "He"?

"The Narrator. He's messing stuff up in Onyxveil, and probably in other cities too. If i had to guess, I'd say his other targets would be The Sunbasked Stratum and Karma Point. They'd be good settings for a story, so..."

> Why can't he hear us in here?

What is he trying to do?

Who are you?

"I dunno. My guess is that he never intended for anything to happen in this arcade, so it's barely more than set dressing. I've never heard him speak a word while I’m in here, though. It’s pretty nice."

Why can't he hear us in here?

> What is he trying to do?

Who are you?

"He's writing some stupid story. I don't know... it's hard to explain, and we probably don't have much time. All you really need to know is that he's meddling with reality for his own selfish reasons and not taking anyone else into account."

[Her face contorts in anger.]

Why can't he hear us in here?

What is he trying to do?

> Who are you?

"My name's V. There's nothing else you need to know about me."

> Who am I?

"You’re the one playing the video game. Obviously."

> That's not what I meant.

"Oh, you must want to know who's body you're in. It's another person from Onyxveil. Their name is Sylvie. They went out on some training journey a few years ago. I... haven't seen them since."

> ...

"It doesn't matter. I need your help, Player. I don't want to be trapped in this stupid reality where I'm a character in a story I never asked to be a part of."

> What do you want me to do about that?

"I want you to help me kill the Narrator."

[V looks determined, but angry. This Narrator person has very clearly wronged her in some way, and based on her face, it looks like it was extremely personal.]

> How are we meant to do that?

"I don't know all the details just yet. However, I think the most effective method would be for us to assemble a party of several people. More people means more firepower, and he already wants us to gather more allies to fight the robots that keep appearing in the city. It'll be easy to fly under the radar as long as we don't discuss it in front of him."

[She speaks quickly and confidently. It seems she's been thinking over her plan for a long time.]

> Do you know who we need?

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annabelle--cane · 7 months

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when people make uncharitable analyses of works based on blatantly incomplete information while presenting their takes as authoritative

#'this is laughably terrible writing because this thing in s4 totally contradicts a major s1 plot point'#THAT'S BECAUSE YOU SKIPPED S3 AND THAT'S WHEN THEY EXPLICITLY SET UP THAT THIS IS POSSIBLE 1000 DEVILS FOREVER!!!!!!!!#id in alt text #marina marvels at life

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dollsome-does-tumblr · 11 months

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Listened to J. Smith-Cameron’s interview on the podcast The Back Room with Andy Ostroy and there were a few RomanGerri bits in about the last 10 minutes, transcribed below!

JSC: “And then I remember [Jesse Armstrong, at the start of filming season four] saying in terms of the arc of the Roman/Gerri story that he makes this sort of spectacle of himself in his grief at the funeral and that then, though, Gerri and he have a poignant scene where Gerri tries to be nice to him, and that scene didn’t make it into the cut.”

the fact that this was literally the big thing jesse armstrong told her about roman and gerri’s arc at the start of the season .......... and then it got cut out ............ cool cool cool ... my supervillain origin story grows ever deeper ....... (i feel grimly validated in my season-long sense that the scene in 4.03 where she refused to comfort him was always supposed to eventually be bookended with a scene where she did, tho. 🥲😢)

and then this bit was in a lightning round where he asked her about how she thinks various facets of the show would go after the ending!

Andy Ostroy: “Do Gerri and Roman have any kind of sexual interaction again?” JSC: (pause; then, firmly) “Yes. I think so.” Andy Ostroy: “Good answer.”

good answer INDEED 💗

#she was also pro-roman going on dancing with the stars. somebody write that fanfic!#j. smith cameron #romangerri #roman x gerri #really love that good strong definitive 'yes' answer lololol #the romangerri news cycle simply never stops feeding us #also it's charming that jsc still doesn't totally buy that gerri is a sex symbol. girl. come on!!!!!!!#succession #forever mourning the scene that was supposed to be their last scene from the very start of the season ..........#maybe it got cut because then roman simply wouldn't have flung himself out into a sea of protestors

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thatforkedroad · 2 months

Text

the tearing at her soul

Summary: how Barriss Offee survives order 66

---

It doesn’t take long for the crying and yelping to blend into the background, as if they were as much a part of the prison’s structure as the metallic grey walls or the forcefield reinforced doors. There’s always something happening here, always someone remembering their old life or someone tempting the hand of an overzealous guard. Everyone — prisoners and guards alike — just gets used to the noise and keeps their head down.

So when Barriss Offee doubles over in pain with a phantom scream locked in her throat, the guards outside don't even react.

Barriss clutches — scrapes at — her heart as if that might ease the tearing at her soul. At first, she thinks she's dying. She must be. Someone has poisoned her food or pumped the air full of toxins or plunged a secret saber through her chest because there is no other possible explanation, not for the life-rending void bursting through every part of her. She is being autopsied and hollowed out from the inside out and all she can do is cry.

The prey-animal blood haze passes and Barriss realises she's not dying; the galaxy is. It is being burned to ash and she is feeling every second of its suffering and nobody but her even seems to realise. The pain is not hers but it is so very close and it is bigger than anything Barriss has ever known. She wants to warn the men outside that something is happening, something is coming, but her throat refuses to cooperate.

After minutes or hours or days, the pain recedes. It dribbles away, like a tsunami returning to its ocean, and in its wake there is an emptiness Barriss cannot name. She does not understand what is lost, not yet, but she knows that something in the galaxy’s structure has been shattered.

—

She was told, at the start, that this place was temporary. That’s why there’s so little in the cell, why she is kept in complete isolation. They were going to move her somewhere more secure soon, once they worked out the security plans. A few years ago, she would have spent mere days here. But the war gets in the way of everything — even transfers of dangerous terrorists — and so whatever they planned, it never happens.

In a way, they were right; she does eventually find herself in a new prison, but she stays in the exact same cell. She’s no longer in Republic prison on Coruscant; she’s in an Imperial one. The changes are gradual; at first it’s the name, next it’s the insignias branded on the walls outside her cell. She notices less and less of the guards are painted maroon, replaced with varying soldiers who have numbers, not nicknames.

It’s one of the new guards she works up the courage to finally ask what happened, what this new Empire is that she hears over the loudspeakers. He doesn’t beat or electrocute her like she expected; he seems more confused by the question than anything. He explains it as if he were explaining a sunset to someone who’d never seen one, like it’s something that everyone should know, something natural.

Distantly, Barriss thinks he must not know who she is — who she was. He explains in the bluntest, blandest terms and does not make a single comment when he gives a name to the night of her greatest pain.

The Purge, he calls it. A dark and glorious birthday for the fledgeling Empire. With their strongest enemies dead, the Jedi betrayed the Republic and tried to assassinate the Chancellor — now Emperor. He lived and ordered the loyal Grand Clone Army to enact justice on its so-called peacekeepers. The Jedi are gone and they said the war’s over, but there are still Separatists. There are still campaigns in half the galaxy, but they don’t have rations or power cuts anymore. Aside from that nothing has changed under the Empire, he tells her, before he remembers himself and tells her to quiet down and step away from the cell door.

Barriss barely hears the command over the thunder of blood in her ears. Nothing has changed. Everything has changed and she had no idea. She didn't agree with what they had become in the war, didn’t agree with the idea of Jedi generals and commanding warriors, but this…

She knows in her hollowed-out heart that this is not true. The Jedi were made into soldiers, not power-hungry assassins. They could not have fallen this far, not yet. No Jedi would… They were only trying to free themselves from the thing that was eating them, corrupting them like a bled-out kyber. Could nobody see that?

Barriss shook her head. She knew the Jedi would fall to the Republic one day, she just… didn’t expect it to happen like this. She expected years of solid decay, like the rotting of a living corpse, until the Order could no longer recognise itself. She thought its death would happen over years, maybe even decades. Yet all it took was one night and a knife in the back.

And now everything she fought to save is gone.

Part of her hisses how dare you mourn, after everything you did to them. How dare you mourn, after everything you did to her.

She wishes she could listen, but her grief pushes far heavier than her guilt. Instead, she tugs at the torn bonds in her soul, reaches through the empty expanse where ten thousand lives once sung bright, and calls. She calls and calls and screams and howls and calls.

Nothing calls back.

Soon enough, she begins to mourn herself. Every time she hears a too-heavy footstep, her heart spikes in panic. They’re coming for her too. The Republic used the Jedi for their power and the Empire killed them for it. Barriss might not be a Jedi now, but she was raised as one. She has that power. She is a threat. She is a loose thread and she must be cut.

They’re coming for her too. It’s only a matter of time.

—

She thinks she is less a person and more a thing by now. Hollowed out by isolation and preparation and an overwhelming knowledge of things she should never have had to understand.

At first she is resigned. She sits and she waits and she watches the door, flinching every time a new food tray clatters in. All she registers is the fear of footsteps and the electric-fast beat of her heart. There is no room in this small, dark cell for anything but panic.

She continues in this state, somewhere between life and death. She eats only when her stomach calls louder than her terror, moves only

It’s soon. It has to be soon.

She barely sleeps, but she dreams one night. It’s the first in months that doesn’t jolt her awake, heaving in a cold sweat. She dreams of the gardens, untouched by death and war, a calm in the middle of the chaotic city. She dreams of the Temple’s quiet, of her master’s instruction, of an orange-skinned and pointy-toothed grin. She dreams.

She wakes up feeling — feeling, how novel! — a half-washed heartache. She knows they are dead. She knows she will never enter that Temple again, never hear another lesson or another sweet, honey-like laugh. She is going to die like them, this much she knows. But that morning she decides she will face death as her people did, with dignity and in strength. She runs through stances holding nothing. She meditates and ignores the Force’s black silence. It does not make her feel any less a ghost, but it ties her down. She memorises the guards’ shift changes and their footsteps, one-two-heavy down the hall.

She does not hope. She does not expect anything to come of her memorisation, but there is nothing else to do but listen.

—

In the end, all that memorisation is for nothing.

She blinks against the hallway light when they finally open her cell, wincing at the change in environment. A prim officer holding a datapad comes into focus, followed by a small squad of troopers.

Barriss stills. She thinks this is it. They’ve come for me.

But the troopers keep their guns across their chests. The officer clears his throat and reads a command; you’re being transferred, he tells her. She blinks dumbly.

The officer’s mouth flattens in a mix of disappointment and boredom. She half-thinks he’ll repeat it — slower, like her brain has turned into the sludge they feed her. But he wants to get the job done; he silently gestures and two troopers move forward to cuff her routinely. They guide her out the cell and into the hall that she hasn’t seen in full in four years.

The officer leaves the group as they turn down the hall, and she realises there are only four guards surrounding her. All they have are guns and flimsy white armour, shinier than the clones’ armour ever was. Have the Jedi been dead so long that the Empire has forgotten their danger? Or is it only that Barriss has been buried too deep for them to remember her or what she was?

She risks asking them where they’re taking her and she’s met with unsure silence. They’re just grunts, she supposes; the new Empire does not need its cogs to understand the machine.

She considers waiting for a shipyard or a secondary location, but she has waited years for this opportunity; she will not waste it looking for a better one. The Republic forced her to be a warrior and the Empire forced her to be something craftier. She waits only for the bell that calls a shift change. THe flimsy guards fall like cards under the Force and she is gone before any alarms so much as think of blaring.

She’s sure they notice something soon enough, but she's fled through the city before and this time there are no vengeant Jedi masters to find her. She steals a cloak from one stall and a headscarf from another, and blends right into the busy Coruscanti night.

It takes little more than a nudge of his mind to convince the harbour master that she's meant allowed in, and more importantly allowed onto this cargo transport. She’ll switch ships at the next spaceport, stay running until her legs can’t take her any further.

In the later hours of travel, as the cargo around her shudders through hyperspace, her mind wanders to the negligence of her escape. Ahsoka has — or had. Ahsoka must have rejoined the Order after Barriss confessed and Ahsoka was exonerated, she and her master were probably executed too. But Ahsoka has-or-had friends in the Senate; she knows-or-knew all about bureaucracy and the drawn-out processes of politics, even if she claimed not to understand it when she tried to explain them to Barriss. Ahsoka would have known a thing or two about how an organisation could forget a prisoner like this. If she were here, sitting next to Barriss on this cargo carrier headed to who-knows-where, she would be theorising rapidly, her hands and eyes flitting about like living static.

Barriss’ smile at the thought dies as fast as it appeared. It doesn’t matter that she’s free; she’s never going to see Ahsoka’s smirk or wild hands or hear her laugh again. She and her master were fast and bold Jedi, but they were closer to their soldiers than most. They never would have seen it coming.

Barriss had tried to tell Ahsoka that she was too trusting.

But she doesn’t want to admonish her friend or try to blame her or even roll her eyes at her. Barriss misses her friend. Misses her more than she thought her heart capable of, and alll she wants to do now is apologise. Or frame her better, so Ahsoka could have survived in Barriss’ place instead of being shot in the head by her own troops. Ahsoka deserved better.

But instead, it's Barriss who is sat in the shadow of a cargo crate headed to who-knows-where. A new plan forms alongside her directive to run. She must not take great risks and she must hide — but that does not mean she must be useless. She will help weaken the Empire, bit by bit, bolt by bolt, until it is weak enough to stab in the back.

She no longer wonders why the Force gave the burden of survival to a traitor like her. The Jedi taught against revenge, taught of peace and forgiveness, yet it is too late to save these teachings. It is far too late to save them.

But Barriss is certain, more than she has ever been of anything, it is not too late to avenge them.

#barriss offee #total write forever #fic

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