#what the fuck is a crest of miracles
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I want very very few things from 02: the beginning but if there’s anything I want it’s that they actually expand on daisuke’s whole miracles thing, like???? Idk maybe I’m insane but what the fuck does a crest of miracles mean, like Ik there are others that make almost no sense when talking about people (hope, light, destiny) but those we’re actually made out to be something relatively important, and maybe they did expand on it originally idk I’m just now rewatching the series but I’m seriously so confused on why it’s never made out to be so important like they have for other unusual crests, also I want more takeru and daisuke interactions, like Ik they aren’t super close but they’re literally reflections of the two most important characters in the og main cast and I feel like they should at least give them something that indicates that they care about each other, maybe this is asking too much of this movie but I have needs and Bandai might be able to fulfill them
#digimon#digimon adventure#digimon adventure 02#02: the beginning#digimon 02#daisuke motomiya#davis motomiya#T.K. takaishi#takeru takaishi#what the fuck is a crest of miracles#slight Daikeru ig??#Daikeru
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book recs: feb 2024
(disclaimer: I have spent nearly three months languishing and sullen with post-COVID symptoms and have read, over dec-feb, eighty-one books. this is a ruthlessly streamlined list of recs that does not include, uh, all the rereading of sarah maclean and charlie adhara and georgette heyer books.)
AT FIRST SPITE by olivia dade - what if I moved in next to the man who ruined my engagement to his younger brother, and tried to ruin his life by playing monsterfucking audiobooks really loudly?? a heartfelt and lovely romance that also expertly sets up a great small-town setting for an ongoing series.
THE REFORMATORY by tananarive due - historical horror based on the existence of a real school for boys, clear-eyed and brutal in showing the the effect of racist systems in the 1950s american south. compelling as hell. even if you're not usually into horror, I'd recommend this: the ghost aspect is light-handed and really not as important as the horror of what humans do to other humans.
SOMETHING WILD & WONDERFUL by anita kelly - this is a m/m romance about walking the pacific crest trail which made me see the appeal of very long walks. a miracle! it's gentle and emotional and well put together; the characters really grabbed me.
THE BELL IN THE FOG by lev a.c. rosen - the followup to 'lavender house', and somehow even better?? a historical mystery series featuring a queer private eye in 1950s san francisco who looks into crimes against other queer people. amazing queer history! ACAB! I hope there are fifty more books in this series.
FEAST WHILE YOU CAN* by mikaella clements & onjuli datta - beautiful, greedy, terrifying small-town horror that is also a fucking fantastic, gorgeously written sapphic love story. this one IS for the horror fans. it gave me the absolute creeps but I couldn't put it down.
LADY EVE'S LAST CON* by rebecca fraimow - I described this on bsky as 'if you like Leverage, space opera, old screwball comedies, and dashing sapphics who are at all times spiritually wearing a leather jacket: this one is for you' and I stand by that. huge amounts of fun.
LONG LIVE EVIL* by sarah rees brennan - I will be screaming from here until forever about SRB's first adult fantasy book. if you like the isekai'd-into-a-villain-character setup and want it to be hilarious, genre-savvy and wildly angry and clever, you will roll around in this like a blood-stained mud puddle and then beg for more.
THE LAST HOUR BETWEEN WORLDS* by melissa caruso - really clever and original fantasy about a woman on maternity leave who gets dragged into saving a cocktail party which is falling through increasingly murderous and bizarre dimensions. LISTEN, JUST GO WITH IT. it's a seriously cool adventure.
YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY* by cat sebastian - yes, it's another m/m romance about queer history in the mid 20th century, this one between a baseball player and the journalist assigned to write a story about his slump. made me care about baseball. cat is a genius.
*I read these as ARCs, they're not available yet but consider preordering or keep your eye out for them!
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Needed a hit of modern!wealthy!Steve that’s kind of an amalgam of all my favorites (wcil, dcmb, pbv, I’m looking at you 👀). Only alludes to smut, reference to rimming, and a whisper of dom!Steve. Otherwise just bunch of fluff. 2k
I’m just in a mood where I want to be spoiled within an inch of my life is that so wrong?? 18+ MDNI
Throbbing. Aching. Pounding.
Your head was on fire when you awoke—basted in sweat, somehow also shivering as you dragged yourself out from under the blankets you had twisted yourself up in during the night.
Steve’s bedroom was dark and cool as a cave, thermostat turned way down and the ceiling fan set to its highest setting, though it barely made a sound. Sitting on the bedside table was a chilled Voss water bottle and a small ceramic dish with some Advil in it that was beckoning.
It had been years since you were this hungover. Close to a decade, almost. You remembered the feeling well, though you were far less equipped to shake it off in your “advancing” age.
Eagerly, you took the much needed pills and gulped down the water. A shudder ran through you as you recalled how, in your twenties, you would cure a morning like this with bottomless mimosas. Just the thought made your stomach churn. It was a miracle you hadn’t thrown up.
You didn’t do this anymore. You went out, sure. You got a little tipsy and sometimes maybe that turned into a lot tipsy. You were supposed to be smarter now, though. Older. Wiser.
But when your old college friends called and said they were going to be in town for just one night—and you just so happened to be getting off work early, and you had the next day off…
What exactly were you supposed to do?
Evidently, the answer was mainline tequila and dance to 90s music until your muscles went limp—not that you even felt it with the liquor coursing through your body. All to end the night stumbling across the threshold of your boyfriend’s swanky penthouse at nearly two in the morning.
You only half-remembered getting to Steve’s, incapable of resisting the allure of him and his Savoir bed in your drunken state. You had sunk into the plump mattress and practically floated, weightless as you drifted off to sleep. Steve still refused to tell you how much it cost, fearful you would never agree to sleep in it again after you found out. But you’d googled it and holy fucking shit was he right to be worried. It was so nice, though—stuffed (apparently) with sheep’s wool, pure cashmere and Mongolian yak hair. Of all his rich guy stuff that both perplexed and allured you simultaneously, that one was your favorite.
The sound of Steve moving around in the kitchen as well as the clinking of his stainless steel cook-ware drew you out of hiding. You shuffled out of his room sluggishly, hugging your glass water bottle to your chest like a teddy bear.
“Hey, killer.”
Steve’s smile was so dazzlingly bright it actually made you wince. How did you not noticeyou were dating a damn Crest commercial? Grumbling your good morning, you squinted at the massive floor-to-ceiling windows of his apartment and had to resist the urge to hiss.
“Whoops—sorry, baby, hang on.”
He quickly tugged his phone out of his pocket and swiped his thumb across the screen, tapping it on some controls. There’s a soft electrical whir you know well, and the apartment goes from painfully bright to comfortably dim as his remote controlled curtains begin to descend. Rather than the blackout shades drawn in the bedroom, he’s opted for the regular ones so a bit of natural light can still filter through as he makes his breakfast.
Or, at least what you thought was his breakfast.
“I didn’t think you’d be up this soon,” he said with a chuckle, sliding a freshly poured cup of coffee across the counter to you.
“I’m not,” you muttered. “I’m pretty sure I’m dead and astral projecting what’s left of my soul.”
A steaming plate of eggs piled with cubed ham, green pepper and cheese promptly appeared in front of you as you took a seat at his vast kitchen island. It sits in a scrambled heap, not the pretty omelet you were guessing Steve had planned to present you with. But it looks divine regardless.
“Another failed attempt?” you chuckled, taking the fork he was holding out.
“I’m gonna get it one of these days,” he replies with an easy smile.
With an elaborate flourish you know is for your benefit, he slapped the dish towel in his hand over his shoulder and leaned on the counter as he waited to watch you take your first bite.
“Ugh,” you moaned as you brought the fork to your lips. “So fucking good.”
Your stomach quivered with relief at finally having something in it that wasn’t liquor, but you willed it to behave and hoped it would settle the more you had. Steve smirked.
“So, how much do you remember?”
The cocky smile on the boy’s lips tells you you should be glad your memory is hazy. The night was coming back to you in flashes, but they were blurred and jumbled.
You weren’t blacked out or anything, your friends would have never let you leave alone if you were, but you were definitely past the point of thinking even remotely rationally. Hence, why you’d shown up here when you found out Steve was still awake after having to get on a conference call with one of his company’s international contingents.
You remembered tumbling into a cab and the driver rolling his eyes when you slurred at him to take you to Steve’s house before prompting you for, you know, an actual address.
And Steve had helped you dress for bed, gently batting away your hands when you tried to paw at the waistband of his sweatpants. It only made you more determined, snaking fingers into his tousled brown hair or raking your nails down his muscled chest—stopping when you noticed one of them had broken and the polish was starting to chip.
You didn’t care, though. You were too hungry for him. Too fucking ravenous.
“You better behave,” he’d warned, eyes flashing with that look you loved. The one that made your insides squirm and your thighs press.
“Or what?” you’d teased, still toying with the drawstring of his thin sweats.
“Or you’ll be sorry.”
He tried to keep up his firm demeanor, but the little twitch in the corner of his mouth betrayed him. The words and his smooth, authoritative voice still made your heart race, though.
You loved it when he made you sorry.
Steve wouldn’t do anything, though. Aside from a few kisses he refused to deepen and a graze (or two) of your hand he let you get away with, Steve kept things very PG-13. He helped you out of your dress and brushed a soft cloth across your face to remove your make-up.
He got you into comfy clothes and swaddled the two of you in bed after you’d finished the Voss he added a Liquid IV to. They were supposed to be for the trail runs he liked to do on the weekends, but they were good to have on hand for nights like this. In seconds you went limp and pliant in his arms and fell asleep with him stroking your hair, his warm breath tickling the shell of your ear.
“I remember you taking care of me,” you said, giving him a sweet smile before you squished your eyes closed in shame. “And I know I was kinda worked up.”
Steve chuckled at that, taking a sip of his own coffee. “I noticed.”
A loud groan came out of you, though this one wasn’t from the pain in your head.
You’d conveniently left your phone in the bedroom, too embarrassed to even look at your text thread with him from last night. Because you did vaguely recall a slew of blue bubbles filled with increasingly lewd comments and promises of what you were going to do to him that you had no business promising in your current state.
You imagined they read like a horny haiku.
I’m coming for you, baby
Hahah that’s what she said.
Or…what I said?
Whatever
I need you so bad
Wanna kiss every mole on your body
I think your little hole misses me, wants my tongue again
Want you to fuck me until we break that 30,000 dollar bed
You wondered if there was a way to remotely delete texts? From your phone…from your brain.
Drunken you’s tendency to write sexts your pussy couldn’t cash was one of your least appealing qualities, in your opinion. You got yourself all riled up just to pass out within ten minutes. But it entertained Steve to no end seeing that side of you, so unlike the coy and demure front you usually tried to put up.
“I was kind of a mess, wasn’t I? I can’t believe I did that.”
“Hey, don’t start,” Steve cooed, coming around the island and coiling you up in his arms. “You work hard, you deserve to have some fun. And it’s your day off, who cares if you’re hungover?”
The smell of his aftershave filled your nose as he hugged you and his hands came up to cradle your face as he planted a kiss on your forehead, barely phased by how clammy it was.
“You know, we can cancel date night if you don’t feel up to it. Just order in? Watch a movie?”
“No, no need,” you said. “I’ll be okay. I’m already feeling better.”
A lie. But you at least felt like you might feel better soon, so that was something. And Steve had been looking forward to trying this restaurant since he got the reservation.
“Okay, great.” Steve smiled. “So we’ll have dinner at 6, then the show…I’m thinking maybe we’ll skip cocktails and do dessert at that little place you like instead?” he asked.
You hummed at the thought of a warm, gooey blondie topped with vanilla ice cream and maple syrup from your favorite dessert bar. Steve smiled and nodded knowingly as he started to gather his laptop and a few other things into his work bag.
“You want me to send the car here or to your place to pick you up?”
“Mine,” you sighed. “I gotta pick something else to wear now.”
A sour frown covered your face as you thought of the dress you had intended to wear tonight, but had wound up being drafted for your clubbing extravaganza. It was just too tempting, ready and waiting for you hanging on the back of your door when you rushed home to get ready for your impromptu plans.
It had ended up in a heap somewhere last night as Steve helped you out of it, his nose wrinkling when he noticed how it reeked of the Guiness some jerk spilled on you at the last bar you went to before calling it a night. And it wasn’t lost on you that it was missing now, probably having been sent out for drycleaning with some of Steve’s suits and dress shirts.
Steve just smiled, his voice playful as his eyes twinkled.
“How about you buy something new instead?” he asked. “Go see my girl. Maybe she’s got a spare dress or something laying around.”
You rolled your eyes. His personal seamstress never had spare bespoke dresses just laying around. The twinkle in his eye made you guess, correctly, that he had already commissioned something for you weeks ago or had her tailor a piece for you he’d found himself.
“You did look good in the other one, though.” he mused. “I’m glad I got to see it.”
You sighed and shoveled down another bite of your breakfast. “I’m sorry I just showed up like that. I, ahh…wasn’t thinking super clearly.”
“Don’t be silly,” Steve said. “I’m always happy to see you. Plus it’s…it’s kinda nice when you get that way. All needy for me.”
His warm lips pressed against your throat, vibrating with a soft moan as he left a trail of delicate kisses up the column of your neck to the sensitive spot behind your ear.
“Just stay here,” he pleaded softly. “You know you like my bed better.”
A sigh released from deep in your chest and you melted into his touch as one of his broad palms coasted across your thigh, making your skin buzz under his hand. Hanging out here was sounding better by the second. You already had some clothes in the drawer he’d cleared out for you in his closet and you could get in and out of his place fine with the keycard he’d given you.
The amenities were awfully tempting. You thought of his sleek, modern bathroom that looked more like it belonged in a spa rather than someone’s home, complete with a seemingly endless array of aromatherapy products. You could continue your ongoing affair with his steam shower and the massage cycle in his bathtub. And his building had a rooftop gym that was basically private when all the other executives who lived here were off at work.
“Okay,” you sighed, playing up the dramatics with a flutter of your lashes. “If I have to.”
Steve chuckled at your sarcasm and gave your thigh a tight squeeze.
“Think you’ll get your nails done today?” he asked, remembering your adorably forlorn look when you noticed the break last night.
“Actually, I could,” you said, thinking. Your nail lady’s shop was only a few blocks from here.
Before you’d even answered, his leather wallet had come out of his jacket pocket and he was tugging crisp notes from the billfold.
“Steve, you don’t have to—”
“Baby, please?” he pouted, jutting out his plush bottom lip at you. “It’s for me.”
“How are my nails for you?” you snorted and tried to bite back a smile. It didn’t work.
“You need fresh claws if you’re gonna scratch my back up right,” he teased lowly, slipping bills into your hand. Way too much, way more than you needed to leave Mariana a great tip.
“So you can have a pedicure too.”
He answered the thought you hadn’t spoken and his mouth covered yours, cutting off any further protests with one last long kiss.
“See you tonight, baby,” he said. His lips skimmed your jaw and his voice lowered to a heated whisper in your ear. “And don’t think I forgot about making you sorry later.”
With that, he snatched up his bag and breezed out the door, leaving you breathless staring after him. And suddenly it wasn’t your hangover that had your stomach doing somersaults.
#steve harrington#steve harrington x you#steve harrington x reader#steve harrington x fem reader#steve harrington fanfiction#steve harrington one shot#steve harrington blurb#steve harrington fluff#steve stranger things
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Krypton lives please!
The boys both look tense, if in different ways. Kara wants to sigh. She'll need to call a tailor to come by; they can't run around the city dressed like this. Especially not Match, who isn't even wearing the El crest. Anyone who saw them would get the worst possible wrong idea.
Especially if either of them told said “anyone” Kal hadn't even thought to name them.
Kara doesn't even want to think about the mess that'd end up being.
Cloning is outlawed on Krypton for more than one reason, but against all odds this random scientist from some tiny backwater alien planet appears to have achieved both genetically and mentally stable results not once but twice, and it'd be an amazing masterpiece of scientific achievement if those results hadn't been forcibly aged into adolescence and told that they were weapons.
It's fucking appalling. Kara went Warrior when it was her turn to choose a guild, not Thinker, but most of the Els are Thinkers and she knows exactly what a miracle of science these two both are. Her father and mother and Uncle Jor and Aunt Lara and everyone else in the Thinker Guild all put together couldn't guarantee results like these two, and an Earth Thinker who'd never even seen Kryptonian DNA before Kal got to Earth just went and did it.
Half the Thinker Guild wants to pick the mind of an alien on the least creatively-named planet in the universe and half the Warrior Guild wants the specs for the “weapons” said alien cooked up over a long weekend, and everyone else on the planet wants to burn down Earth and lock down Krypton again.
Kara understands the sentiment, but also she will not be letting any of those things happen if she has even the slightest say in any of it.
“When's the rest of your luggage coming?” she asks without much hope. The boys both look puzzled by the question.
“Uh,” Thirteen says doubtfully. “There . . . isn't any ‘rest of’? This is all we've got.”
“We're acceptably equipped,” Match says neutrally.
Kara is going to take this all out of Kal's hide for every Nova Day for the rest of both of their lives. Maybe every Nova Day for the rest of Thirteen and Match's lives, even. She'll haunt him if she has to! She's not above a good haunting!
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You’re an Idiot Darling - Ch. 1
Rating: Explicit (18+ only) | Mando x Reader
series masterlist | AO3 Link
Word count: 2.7k
Summary: The Mandalorian needed you to fix the Crest, but then, he went and got stabbed. Now, he needs you to fix him up, too.
A/N - this is the first of a multipart Hurt/Comfort series. Later chapters contains smut.
WARNINGS for this chapter: Violence, no use of Y/N, knives, Star Wars guns, minor antagonist death, swearing, blood
Everything was cast in liquid gold. As dusk fell, the junkyard glowed. Piles of litter and scrap metal glimmered in the final rays of sun—drenched in buttery light.
Despite the scene, something else on the horizon had caught your eye. You rose, wiping the sweat from your brow. No way, you thought. There’s no way.
The Mandalorian’s beskar armor gleamed in the dwindling light as he made his way toward you. You grinned.
The setting sun rippled across the broad planes of him as he approached, and for a second you saw the same dark, intimidating hunter you’d met so many months ago. You remembered that day distinctly: scrambling out of your workshop as the Razor Crest all but collapsed into your docking bay. In your line of work, that was what you called a “crash landing.”
“Seems like spaceport control lets anyone on-world these days,” you called out. “Or did you just crash that kriffing ship onto my planet again?”
Predictably, the bounty hunter said nothing in response. You snorted, all too familiar with his deadly stoicism. After you fixed his Maker-damned ship that first time, he seemed to realize you had a knack for working miracles at a bargain price. So he came back a few weeks later—his nameless green baby in tow. Then, after a month, they came back needing fresh repairs.
And then, it happened again. And again. Until months had passed, and you’d both become part of each others’ routines. Trust didn’t come easy to Mando; distance and secrecy were just as much a part of his armor as the beskar itself. But after all this time, you’d caught glimpses of what lay beneath it all. It was…unexpected. Soft-spoken. Sarcastic. And stars, did the sight of it entice you to peel more and more of his rigid surfaces away.
Fuck.
You hated yourself for it. For these fat, kriffing feelings you’d begun harboring for the Mandalorian.
You had no idea what he looked like under there; you didn’t even know his name. And yet, this inane, cavewoman part of you felt a thrill up her spine each time he showed up in his piece-of-junk ship. You reveled in the easy banter that crackled between you—shivered at every accidental contact with his massive frame. The coolness of his pauldron on your bare shoulder, or the warmth of his gloved fingers on your arm: every morsel of his touch was engraved into your mind.
Stars, you just wanted to help him. Not with tools and scrap metal, but something softer. Warmer. You wanted to ease the tension from those hulking shoulders after a bad hunt, take all his stress, rage, and frustration away. You wanted the devastating strength beneath that armor to shift and quiver beneath your hands; the calluses from his blaster to scrape against your skin; that rough, throaty baritone to whisper your name, snarl praise right into your ear—
BANG!
You froze.
A gunshot had pierced the night.
In horror, you watched as half a dozen men leapt from the shadows behind Mando, carrying blasters. You grabbed your own gun, barreling toward him.
“Don’t!” Mando growled in your direction, but you weren’t listening. Six men—mercenaries, by the look of them—were converging on him. He was a frenzy of violent motion: his blaster in one hand and a wicked-looking vibroblade in the other. Darting back and forth, he slashed one man with the knife, then turned to shoot another point-blank in the head.
It was carnage. Chaos.
Amidst it, you caught sight of a small, glimmering object. Mando’s kid—his little floating crib. And behind it, a single attacker emerging with his blaster raised, aiming for its surface—
You didn’t think twice before taking aim and shooting the man where he stood.
The mercenaries went still, watching their comrade fall. You didn’t dare slow down. Even with the distance between you, you could see the taut silence that had overtaken Mando’s frame. You watched the slow shift of his helmet in your direction.
Then, you watched him realize the mistake his attackers had made. As the mercenaries stood dumbly in shock, Mando holstered his blaster. And with a lightning-quick flick of his wrist, he unleashed a bombardment of dart-like bullets from his vambrace. Whistling birds, you remembered. They were bullets made of beskar. Tiny, but just as lethal as the man that wore them.
They rained upon the mercenaries, dropping them like flies. By the time you came to where he stood, all six men were on the ground.
“Stars, Mando,” you panted, doubling over.
Stoic as ever, he loomed over you.
“You can shoot,” he said finally, the words deathly quiet. You turned your head to look up at him.
“Um. Yeah.”
“Is he…?”
“Alive. Only stunned,” you answered the unspoken question.
He said nothing for a moment. You flipped the blaster in your hand, flicking the weapon’s safety on before tucking it into the waistband of your trousers. The motions were easy and practiced. When you faced Mando again, you found him silently watching them.
“Where’d you learn how to shoot?” he asked.
“Uh,” you started. He was observing you with rapt curiosity, fixated on the gun currently sticking out of your pants. Kriff, why was he looking at you like that? “Don’t—don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter.” As a lone mechanic on a crime-ridden planet, you did business with enough seedy people to acquire a sparkling education in self-defense. Learning to shoot was a necessity, more than anything. But Mando seemed…oddly intrigued by this unexpected skill set of yours. The way he was looking at you right now—with that dark, keen interest?
Oh, stars. Cavewoman You stirred.
FOCUS, you screamed at yourself, shaking your thoughts away. Six men had just attacked Mando, and the logical part of your brain demanded to know why. “Mando, who the hell are these guys?”
“Mercenaries,” he replied, tart and abrupt.
Well no shit, tin can. You knew he’d given a half-answer on purpose—there was more he wasn’t saying. “But why exactly are mercenaries after you?”
He went silent. “Well?” you prodded.
“Well, what?”
Fuck. This was classic Mando. All terse replies and feigned ignorance when he wanted to avoid a question. But the fact that he was evading meant…something was wrong. What kind of trouble had he gotten himself into this time?
“No. We’re not doing this.” You shook your head irritably.
“Doing what?”
“This!” you snapped. “This beating-around-the-bush routine you pull when you don’t want to tell me the truth!”
“I’m not—” But Mando hesitated. Going quiet again, he gazed at you.
In the time that’d passed since he showed up, the sun had dipped fully below the horizon. By now, the sky’s reds and purples were fading into perfect black. He appraised you beneath the falling darkness, marking the indignant stare you were giving him. You watched him with scrutiny of your own, taking in the broad, shadowed expanse of his armored shoulders.
“Please,” you said suddenly, your resolve fracturing. For you knew Mando. When shit hit the fan, his first instinct was to push people away, especially when they wanted to help. It was the conditioned habit of a man painfully used to doing everything alone. After all the time you’d known each other, you tried to convince him he wasn’t alone. He had allies. Friends. And they could help him when things went wrong, if only he let them in.
“Please,” you repeated. “Just—just tell me what’s going on.”
Maybe he saw the anger bleed out of your face, or heard the tremor in your voice. Because when he looked at you this time, something in that rigid stance had softened. He loosed a heavy sigh. And then, impossibly, he spoke.
“I don’t know for sure, but…I think they’re Guild. And it’s not me they’re after.” His voice was a tight growl through the helmet when he said, “It’s the kid.”
Your heart dropped. Well, that explained why he didn’t want to tell you.
You’d fixed enough ships for enough bounty hunters to have a working knowledge of how they operated: bound by the Bounty Hunter Code, Guild members were forbidden from attacking each other. You figured that also forbade threats against each others’ adoptive children. Which could only mean…
“There’s a bounty on his head,” you breathed, the realization knocking the air from your lungs. Mando nodded gravely.
You stepped past him, rushing towards the floating crib that hovered a few feet away. Jabbing the controls at its side, you watched the lid slide open to reveal a familiar green face. The child cooed when he saw you, his huge, glassy eyes twinkling in the dim light.
“Hey, little guy,” you murmured, stroking his chubby cheek with your knuckle. He giggled at the touch, and you felt your heart clench. How could anyone send a hunter after him?
“Since when?” you asked, feeling Mando come up beside you.
“Months now.” You turned to find him gazing at the child. While the beskar revealed nothing, you imagined his features were drawn with concern beneath it.
Months, you realized. That could easily mean the entirety of the time you’d known the two. Sometimes, in these rare moments when another chunk of Mando’s secrecy fell away, you often felt unmoored: left wondering what else lay hidden beneath all his silence. You found yourself asking if he really even trusted you. If, after all this time, you even knew the bounty hunter at all.
But today, he’d already revealed far more than you were used to. Silently, you thanked the stars for it. At the very least, it was a start.
“I’m gonna hazard a guess,” you drawled, letting derision drip into your voice, “that these guys are the same reason the Crest needs repairs?”
He grunted an affirmative. Kriff, you didn’t like the sound of that. “How bad is it this time?” you asked, afraid to hear the answer.
A beat. And then—
“Bad.”
You sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose. Mando gave an apologetic little dip of the head. “Shouldn’t you be glad?” he chided. “It’s more credits out of my pocket.”
“Hard to be glad when I know I’ll be spending another sleepless night fixing that dumpster fire of a ship.”
Images of the Razor Crest’s decrepit engines and carbon-scored hull rose to mind. By now, you knew every inch of that damned ship by heart. The Crest was, frankly, an embarrassment. Just remembering the maddening details of her ancient schematics had your expression souring in distaste.
Then, Mando said, “Hey,” and your eyes snapped to him. “Be nice,” came his gruff voice through the vocabulator.
And suddenly, a slew of…other images rushed to mind. Memories of late nights in your hanger with the dark ship looming over you, and the Mandalorian pacing back and forth as you worked. You remembered lighting the fire when the open air got cooler—sitting with him by the crackling flame. Just talking. At some point, the curt, businesslike nature of your conversations had given in to rippling chemistry: the edge of your snark sliding perfectly against the wryness of his sarcasm. And though some part of him always remained distant from you, sometimes, a certain closeness bloomed beside the heat of the fire.
Your bare leg beside his armored thigh. The accidental brush of beskar on skin. That time he stood watching you repair the ship’s circuits, and leaned in to rub his thumb across your jaw. The way he froze when you jumped at the touch. And murmured, “Easy. There was grease.”
“We need to get back to my hanger,” you said, forcefully shooing the thoughts away. Focus—you needed to focus.
“What’s the damage to the ship?” you asked, turning from him and beginning to pace through the junkyard.
“One of the thrusters, her hull took a hit—comms were down, too, or I’d have let you know we were coming,” he said. Then, he paused, watching as you sidestepped around the heaps of junk metal and rummaged through a pile or two. “What—are you looking for something?”
“My rucksack,” you growled, rifling through the scraps. “Kriff, it’s around here somewhere.” It was the whole reason you were in the local junkyard in the first place: restocking your inventory of spare parts. You enjoyed mechanic work, but the job had a tendency to make one feel like a glorified Jawa sometimes.
“I can’t leave without it,” you said. “In any case, I’ll need some of those parts to fix the Crest, and….wait.”
Something clicked in your head. “Mando, if your comms aren’t working, how’d you know where to find me?”
You turned to find him following after you, the kid’s pod trailing close behind. “You told me about this junkyard once,” he replied. Yes, you had. “I would’ve checked the market next, then the taverns in town.” All the other places you’d ever mentioned to him, even in passing.
“Were you just…going to check everywhere till you found me?”
“Lucky first try,” he replied.
You scoffed. At his nonchalance—at the fact that he even remembered such tiny things about you. Then, you fought the warmth bubbling up in your chest at the sheer domesticity of it.
Your rucksack lay beside a heap of junk metal a few steps away; you made a small sound of relief, grabbing it. “Let’s get out of here,” you said, heaving the bag over your shoulders. “It’s already dark, and let me tell you, this side of town isn’t a place you want to be this late at night.”
“Which is why you carry a blaster.”
If it was supposed to be a question, it didn’t come out like one. As you walked, Mando was watching you with that keen curiosity again. You gave him a look.
“You know, Mando, all this disbelief feels a tad offensive,” you said drily, unable to stop the grin from spreading across your face. “Sounds like sexism to me. Pure misogyny.”
“Really,” he deadpanned.
“Yeah, really.”
He took a slow, careful step towards you. Your breath caught.
“That’s rich,” he said quietly, “considering how often you’ve used the phrase testosterone-fueled jackass as of late.”
You both stopped in your tracks. There was barely a foot between you now. His powerful shoulders were a wall of steel in your face. Shit, you thought, fucking shit. Because as Mando stared down at you with that little tilt of his helmet, you felt your blood begin to pound in your ears.
Your brain’s circuitry was frying. Switching off every thought but the sight of him, his heat, and his scent. Apparently, from this close, he smelled like gunpowder, warm leather, and musk.
You tried and failed to fight the needy, sordid thoughts that revelation brought to mind.
Maker, he was a jackass, wasn’t he. He was a complete and utter bastard for being so perfectly unaware of the effect he had on you. For months, the Mandalorian had been luring you into an unstable orbit, wearing your guard down while keeping all his armor on himself. He made you crave stupid, reckless things. And stars—sometimes, between the heated arguments and passing touches the two of you shared, you found yourself wondering if he craved those things, too.
It really couldn’t have been just platonic. Right? This strange, fascinated way he reacted to the sight of a gun in your hand—it…it wasn’t normal. But then again, there was no logical way that Mando was somehow aroused by seeing you get violent. That made absolutely no sense.
…Or did it?
You were this close to just asking him, honestly. But then, your gaze flicked up to his helmet. And the question died in your mouth.
He was motionless. The dark line of his visor was silently fixed upon something in the distance. In a moment’s notice, he went completely tense before you.
“What?” you breathed, feeling the air shift.
He said nothing.
“Mando? Mando.”
Talons of fear grazed their way up your throat.
“Mando!” you cried. You turned to follow his line of sight, only to find:
A bright plume of dust on the otherwise dark horizon. Rippling and writhing, it steadily moved closer. You had no idea what you were looking at—you only knew that it was gaining on you. Fast.
Then, you listened. You heard the telltale rattle of engines, rumbling through the quiet night. Speeder bikes.
Fuck. Fuck.
You looked closer, and sure enough: the glow of their headlights. More than twenty mercenaries riding speeders, hurtling right toward you.
thanks for reading! follow @eashn for more!
#the mandalorian#the mandalorian fanfiction#the mandalorian fanfic#mando smut#mando imagine#star wars#star wars fanfic#the mandalorian x reader#mando x you#mando x reader#din djarin#din djarin smut#din djarin imagine#pedro pascal#pedro pascal fanfiction#din djarin x f!reader
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I made a magic system that addresses sexual dimorphism: Part 1, a c&p Discord rant
(DISCLAIMER, I looked into fate lore some more so I do not know if I simply reinvented the wheel due to my lack of proper understanding. but I will still question about Natsu's choices, like why circuitry instead of the countless examples of chi pathways).
"Imagine if true magic is like going to the dmv that is the root that gives you a card that basically says "I can do this forever now" lol"
"The reason I hate Magic Circuits the most is because they aren't actually explained. instead, they are simply a power-level stupidity. That and the actual difference between magecraft and magic (yes I know about the root and the 7 and mystery and the fucking old man and the clock tower but that is NOT what I mean. I mean what is the difference between someone casting fireball with root-granted true magic and whatever eugenics bullshit magic circuits and mage crests is supposed to be).
I hated it before but this anger has been reignited because I figured out a way to make SENSE. This means my dumb head cannons beat out a dumb mushroom and his friend obsessed with blonde swordswomen.
Magic is inherent to all, mage circuits are simply a way to express the magic within (women on average have more magic circuits but this was originally for a personal setting so let us not get into that). The lack of useable magic circuits does not mean an inability to use magic however, rituals and worship could grant people the ability to cast minor miracles in the age of mystery. So church, religion, mediation, etc, that kind of stuff, creating the best spell of all time, hardening. Simply because less mage circuits means less of an ability to project magic meaning any magic cast was weak and close to the skin.
Magic itself is bargaining with the world, gaia and alaya. Due to humanity's collective lack of capability, humanity was allowed to use magic to its very limits if they didn't burn out their soul from using their mana wells for whatever spell they were trying to cast. Think of magic as cash a mage has to pay the world for an ability. Thus proper spells are born (the church had a form of spells but at a much smaller scale) to do wording shenanigans to let the world allow them to cast whatever spell they want.
Now mystery wanes, Alaya and Gaia now know of humanity's competency and can outright REFUSE whatever a mage asks. ("Go buy a lighter you nerd"). You can still try but it's not really worth of. Now personally I am not going to apply mystery as a concept to my personal setting becasue magiteck is fucking cool and fate doesn't allow it becasue the two concepts throw a hissy fit from being shoved together and Chaldea existence is an anomaly granted by a grail wish."
(P.S. I know about how Kiritsigu became a mage because his dad was a holy man)
(P.P.S. someone please send how Rin explained magic to Shirou because I am more of a wiki diver)
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Matching Crests to Survive Kids
So I’ve played about 2/4 routes now and have been in a digimon mood so I was thinking what crest would correspond to each kid. Those are my current thoughts and I know some of them might seem odd but here are my justifications (feel free to debate them tho):
Minoru w/Courage- I know he’s not the MC! But a lot of his character is centered around heroism and being brave despite how afraid you may be to face danger. So courage is the only option for him I think despite not being the MC. Digimon Survive is also trying to shake things up so not giving the MC courage seems like the play for doing that.
Takuma w/Friendship- With courage out of the way though I think that leaves our MC with Friendship. Because of the whole choice system basically being “how much do you care about your friends?” and Friendship is usually the second MC crest so making it now the main one instead of the second works.
Aoi w/Light- So I actually thought love was a better choice because she’s referred to as the mother of the group a lot but I don’t think anyone else quite matches light. I also vaguely know she has some sort of dark/villain arc in the wrath path? Which does kind of go with light and it’s relation to the dark ocean in 02.
Ryo w/Hope- The guy literally dies because he has no hope of leaving. And while I’m not sure hope is the right word for the reason he lives it is a major point in his survival.
Saki w/Love- Not gonna lie she’s the last one I assigned. I thought about sincerity because it comes up for her champion evolution and the whole keeping secrets thing but I think it matches Miu more. Also it mostly comes up because it brings to question how much she cares about people not necessarily to call her a liar. I also considered kindness because that’s what is being questioned during her champion evolution, and what Floramon says got her to mega, but Shuuji has a better case. That said feel free to make a case for a swap!
Shuuji w/Kindness- I considered responsibility first because that’s what is eating him up throughout the story but really what Shuuji needed to learn was just being fucking nice lol. Which is what Ken in 02 also needed to learn! And he got that crest so that’s what I settled on.
Kaito w/Responsibility- The man wants nothing more to protect Miu because as an older brother he feels responsible. That seems to be his whole character so not many other crests made sense to me. Maybe love because family? Which would then give Shuuji responsibility and Saki kindness but it felt like a stretch.
Miu w/Sincerity- Finally sincerity for Miu! She becomes a queen through lies. She struggles with getting Kaito to believe she can take care of herself. And she herself mentions that people don’t always believe what she says. Honesty comes up way more for her than Saki so I felt she took it easy.
That leaves out Knowledge and Miracles which I think go perfectly with Haru and Miyuki!
#I like this cats a lot but I really couldn't give any of them knowledge lol#I want to try making digifakes based on this so would love input on if these are good takes!#digimon survive#spoilers#pip blabs#digimon crests
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a study in kisses
I have 6 days until my deadline and I should be doing work, but alas, the gay pirates dragged me out of bed at 2AM to write this. Hopefully getting this out will tide over my fic writing cravings until I have time to sit down and write the dozens of long fics I have planned for this pairing. Stede/Ed/Izzy, but Stede/Izzy centric. As always, you can also find this here on my AO3!
-///-
The first time Stede Bonnet kisses Israel Hands it is a show. A fuckery, though with slightly more emphasis on the fuck than normal. The aim is quite simple and it sits in the form of the noticeable bulge in Edward Teach’s leather pants.
Their arrangement is still new, and the fragility of it is not to be underestimated. But it is Izzy’s job to make sure that Edward is content, and it is Stede’s job to make sure Edward is happy and the math was really always going to equate to three rather than just two. Just like Edward Teach was always going to be the pieces of ‘Blackbeard’, ‘the Kraken’ and ‘Ed’.
Their lives are lived in thirds that built wholes. But after a little explanation from Lucius, and a conversation that went as smoothly as pulling teeth with Izzy the arrangement has been formed. New. Fragile.
Beautiful.
When Stede kisses Izzy, in the captain’s cabin with Ed watching, it’s spur of the moment. Their current dynamic involves sharing Edward and doing their best not to break out into open fights on deck. But there was mischief tonight, open in Stede’s eyes and buried in the crook of Izzy’s smirk, and somehow it all came out in this.
Izzy is the third person that Stede Bonnet has ever kissed and he is just as unique in his approach to it. He does not kiss like Mary, whose lips were always chaste and closed. He does not kiss like Ed, whose passions are loud and deep. Izzy kisses with teeth. It’s a biting thing, there is a leather gloved hand fisted in Stede’s hair and a hand running like claws down his back. It is like their bickering, but there are no words needed. More efficient, Stede thinks, and almost has to break the kiss to giggle at the thought.
Edward actually moans watching it. There is no question as to if he’s enjoying what he sees.
When they finally break apart, Stede’s lips feel kiss bruised.
Izzy himself is red faced. There is something Stede can’t decipher in his eyes before they turn back to Edward. After a further moment of staring at that little ‘x’ just under Izzy’s eye, Stede turns back to Edward too.
“Good?”
“Fucking fantastic,” Edward breathes, like he’s just seen a holy miracle performed and not the two most antagonistic men on board the vessel (and the loves of his life) make out, “get the fuck over here both of you, now—”
Their attentions break from one another, then, and focus instead on Edward.
But afterwards, when everyone is sated and curled in the bed, Ed in the middle, Stede can still feel that kiss on his lips.
-///-
The second time Stede Bonnet kisses Israel Hands it is to save his life.
For all he’s been a pirate for nearly a year by that point, Stede had yet to face a storm of such magnitudes. The ship feels like it will be broken apart by the water that thrusts it high in the air with every crest. Everything that they are would be lost to whatever creatures live below, and nobody would ever find them again.
A likely outcome if they weren’t sailing with Blackbeard and First Mate Hands.
They are like nothing else, in this particular element. They are not Edward and Izzy, two individuals, they are Blackbeard. They are the singular legend born from a tempest’s lightening bolt. The rain spits on them in disgust but they are not deterred. They do not give in. They shout orders to a terrified crew and in their silhouettes, there is the promise of survival.
Stede is still not the best at hands on labour, though he’s better than he was. He’s helping Lucius secure the doors and trying not to feel useless. At his left, Izzy makes his way towards the anchor at the prow of the ship.
But even the best of sailors are servants of the sea.
Stede watches it happen almost in slow motion; he watches Izzy trying to put down anchor with Black Pete. He sees the thrust of the wave as it batters over the brow of the ship. Lucius screams Pete’s name, but Pete has found his gripping.
Izzy has not.
There is panic, deep and utter panic, like how he felt when a dozen English men stood before him as a firing squad.
Stede is already pulling off his jacket and stumbling forward.
“You’ll fucking die!” someone shouts. Jim, maybe. Buttons? It is so hard to hear anyone out here, the clouds overhead are too angry to let anyone’s voice be heard—
Besides, he’s not really listening.
There is a hand on his shoulder though, tugging him backwards. He wants to throw them off. That is a member of his Crew that just went overboard, and while many pirate ships might see their crew as collateral that was not how they did things on the Revenge. But the hands were insistent and firm and… Edward.
Edward with a rope in his hands.
It’s tied around Stede’s middle quickly. He might not be trained in most things where the sea is concerned, but he is at the very least a strong swimmer. He’s had private lessons since he was a boy, and most of them took place in the ocean, another one of his father’s brutal methods at training him to be a ‘real man’. He used to get sand in his hair too often, a texture that he didn’t enjoy at all.
But right now, he sends a ‘thank you’ to his father’s soul in hell that he gave him this one skill.
Stede trusts Ed is holding on tight to one side, and jumps in.
It’s cold. That’s the first thing. It’s fucking freezing. Chilling enough to kill. And the damn waves keep coming, blocking his vision. He could very easily die out here, and if the rope snapped he’d be gone for good.
But Izzy only just went over.
It’s a blur. A blur and he’s not too sure he’ll survive it, but eventually he’s got his hands around Izzy and he’s being pulled up. Izzy is heavy, and waterlogged, and it’s difficult to get a firm enough grip on him, but with the crews help they eventually are on the deck again.
And Izzy isn’t fucking breathing.
Edward is there. There is panic in Edward’s eyes. But Stede knows this one too, and so he’s already trying to breathe air into Izzy’s mouth, before he’s regained his own, following the rhythmic beats to Izzy’s chest that he vaguely recalls being taught at boarding school after one of the younger children fell into the lake and almost drowned.
There are ten seconds where it does not appear like anything is going to happen.
They are a dreadfully long ten seconds.
But then Izzy coughs, splutters.
Stede feels relief course through him.
“Get him into the cabin, now,” Stede sits back on his heels. The storm is still blowing, unrelenting in her assault.
“Stay with him, Stede. I’m needed up here,” and Edward looks, for a second, not like Blackbeard in command of the storm, but like a man who almost just lost the love of his life in a damn predictable boating accident. He needn’t have been worried; Stede is pretty sure that someone as annoying and stubborn as Izzy Hands will only go when the devil himself comes to collect him.
But still, the relief leaves a taste at the back of his mouth, it’s a physical thing, and it doesn’t leave him until Izzy is snapping at him about debts and stupidity and training the crew to manage a fucking storm right.
-///-
The third time Stede Bonnet kisses Israel Hands it is of his own volition and this time, there is no audience but the stars.
Stede has always associated moonlight with Edward. He associated it with the night they’d spent becoming a lighthouse when the moon wasn’t full enough to bring Edward’s original plan to pass. He associated it with the night Edward had let him hold the soft red square of fine silk in his fingers and Stede had put it in the lapel of his jacket. He associated it with the evening that Edward had confessed he’d been planning to kill him in a bathtub and watching it set that night while pinned to his ship’s mainsail.
Tonight though, there was no full moon. The moon instead was new. But the stars were much brighter, and they framed Israel in quite a gorgeous light. Easy to miss, at first, stars. At least, when you weren’t adept at navigating by them like those who had grown up on the sea. But no less beautiful than the moon. There was a metaphor in there somewhere, but Stede had more important things to do than find it.
“Fuck off, Bonnet,” Izzy had muttered, but there had been no heat to his words so Stede hadn’t bothered.
He’d been practicing with the sword. Stede knew what it was like to be on the end of that blade. He knew how skilled Israel was.
Apparently, it was because he practiced late at night. It was almost…romantic. Like a knight out of one of Stede’s books. Only with far less manners.
“Remember when I slapped my sword on your arse during our duel?” Stede asked, after a while of just watching.
Something passed Izzy’s face that might have been amusement. A raging success if ever Stede were to have one.
“You were a fucking imbecile,” Izzy concedes.
“Were?” Stede’s voice is teasing, “oh, Izzy, I didn’t know you—”
“Shut up,” Izzy responded, rolling his eyes.
“Make me.”
And the sword was put back in Izzy’s scabbard.
And then, Izzy did.
It was…unexpected, Izzy’s lips on his, but not unwanted. Whatever the fuck their relationship was, it wasn’t conventional, but Stede quite liked the freedom in ‘anything goes at sea’. It had given him Edward. It had given Edward Stede, and Izzy without guilt or need for classical monogamy. And it had apparently created…. this.
Izzy Hands was annoying, rude, stubborn and quite often mean. A Complete and utter arsehole, Stede would stick by that. But he was also…well. He was rather fetching with a sword, and Ed was gloriously possessive over him, and he had the driest sense of humour that Stede had ever encountered but it was there. Underneath it all.
Izzy kissed no less like a bite this way, but this time it wasn’t for anyone’s eyes but their own.
“I still fucking hate you,” Izzy muttered, against Stede’s lower lip.
“Liar,” Stede murmured back.
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The Owl House Season Three Thoughts
Probably my dumping ground for season three talks. *shrugs*
You can read my general thoughts on the first two season here: https://neoyi.tumblr.com/post/698412600252366848/neoyi-neoyi-neoyi-neoyi-neoyi
"Thanks to Them" spoilers.
It was abundantly clear by the latter half of season two that the creators had to introduce, establish, and progress major plots and character developments within the last ten or so episodes because of Disney's screw-up. It's a damn miracle it ran as efficiently as it did.
Apparently they had to alter the plot by that point, which does explain why it didn't feel overstuffed as I thought it would be. Sure, a couple of things feel clumsily inserted (the Collector's presence is an abrupt introduction than a gradual foreshadowing of What Was To Come), but for the most part, they altered its course pretty damn well.
Time will tell if Dana Terrance will be able to finish the show off given what little she was forced to work with (man, I do not blame her for feeling angry), but season three's opener "Thanks to Them" is a good indicator of what may be to come: simultaneously stuffing the episodes with as much content as they needed in the most economical way possible.
It's really, really, reaaaaaaaaaally evident in the beginning montage how many shit they had to squeeze in within just two minutes: Luz coming out to her mother, the kids trying to create a new portal door, the witch kids trying to blend into Earth and its customs, Hunter suffering PTSD and getting an Important Haircut to try and be his own person, the feckin' rain that the kids can experience without fearing for their lives?
All of these are worth their own episodes. We'll never get time for Gus to truly take in the human world. That's several episode plots right there. We'll never see Hunter gradually getting possessed by Belos with cliffhangers and plot twists that would have left us aching to know what happens next. We'll never get Camila and Luz having heart-to-heart once the latter comes out.
It's a really adorable montage of What Could Have Beens.
I want to believe Dana Terrance, knowing she owes Disney nothing now that her show is cancelled, means she's going to be like, fuck everything, and come right out, ON-SCREEN, to say that Luz is bisexual as fuck. I mean, what's Disney gonna do? Cancel the show some more?
This is so unapologetic, as it should be. (Also double props to Camila who wears a pride rainbow badge afterward. A++ mom.)
I love how far Vee has come that she's not only familiar with Earth custom and is able to guide the witch kids, but has developed a human identify of her own. She has to hide what she is to the public, but not who she is to people close to her.
Even their version of the Duolingo Owl is as persistently demonic as ours.
It's sweet to see the witch kids and Vee learning Spanish. Luz took the time to learn the Boiling Isle's culture, it would make sense they want to do the same with Luz's heritage.
Man, these kids have some choice fashions.
I forgot Hunter was trying to sew the Golden Guard's crest episodes back until I did a rewatch and got to that episode. So what a nice callback here where he's using Camila sewing machine to make more patches! I cannot believe this fucking kid made his own version of the Three Wolves Howling At Moon shirt. Of course he thinks wolves are Cool and Mystical. What a goddamn dork.
THE GODDAMN GIRAFFES. Like did it show off its true face because it recognized the witch kids as from the Boiling Isles? Surely, many humans have taken pictures of this creature that if it had made the same horrifying face, someone would have noticed and said something by now. (Then again, that shitty conspiracy guy was correct in his suspicion, sooo...)
Damn, these kids are fashionable as fuck.
Gooooood, this is such a cute, heartwarming scene. Every time something bad happens to this kid, I want to wrap him up in a blanket and give him hot cocoa. And now, he finally has people who would and likely has done that for him (Camila would definitely give him a blanket and a nice meal.)
This is probably the safest Hunter's been since he found out about Belos. And even before then, his entire life was built to be a soldier and personal assistant to a kingly figure. I don't know how Belos treated him, but I doubt it was the kind of warm and sincere comfort Luz, her friends, and her mother has been giving him since their time on Earth. I don't think Hunter has ever had to experience just lying in bed, reading nerdy books and relating to its characters, and sewing just because he wants to sew the things he likes and not for the role Belos gave him since birth.
He's finally found an identity for himself, free of Belos. And it's because he IS Hunter, and not Phillip's brother-clone, that he's able to free himself from Belos' influence at the end. This kid went through the best character development in the entire damn show and he's a dumpster fire who deserves hugs and cookies.
Ahh, I see Luz has good taste in indie games.
Masha's non-binary colored nails are on point. Did they always have them in their first appearance or was this added for season three? Need to check sometime.
Ahh, THIS explains why Flapjack was drawn to Hunter.
So this episode completely recontextualized the relationship between Luz and Camila and I was not prepared for it. I just thought Camila didn't get Luz, tried to figure out a solution, and handled it wrong.
I was not expecting Camila to have also grown up as a nerd, outcast and bullied in her youth, with fears of her daughter going through the same. I wasn't even sure if Luz's father would have even played a part in their story or was just background, but he did and now we get why their relationship was slowly starting to falter because grief fucking sucks and it causes you to cope in different, and sometimes not often good ways.
It's heartbreaking to see Camila, who so loved Luz's eccentricity, cave into the criticisms of judgmental adults. Given she's always stood up for Luz in the latter's youth, I think she collapsed and just gave up when her husband died.
Meanwhile Luz had an outlet brought about by her favorite book series (now much more meaningful because it came from her father), but overcompensated and unintentionally caused problems in school and her social life.
It explains a lot of the earlier hints in previous episodes where we see Camila still embracing and amused by Luz's creativity, but also contradicting it with concerns against it. Everything makes sense now and together, they can finally work to heal and grow.
I love how blatant the animation took a huge bump up for the Witch kids vs. Possessed Hunter fight. I'm especially impressed by Possessed Hunter's lip sync. The way his mouth moves is particularly nuanced compared to the usual way its animated.
I honestly thought they got James Baxter to guest animate. It just feels like he'd be the guy who would do stuff like Willow grabbing one of Possessed Hunter's arms and twisting it around like that, but apparently someone else animated this? Whoever you are, I salute you.
Man, I thought Belos was paste by "King's Tide." Sure, there was that hint when one of his goop landed on Hunter's shoulder that brought him to Earth, but I was maybe expecting one of those Last Remnants Of Him With No Mind To Take Final Revenge kinda thing.
In any case, it was important for him to come back so Hunter can finish his personal journey. He had to be the one to fight and tell Belos to fuck off and finalize himself as an individual person.
Okay, so I first thought it was cheap that Flapjack revived Hunter. You'll have to forgive me, I tend to be weary of Cheap Deaths and tend to approach them with great caution. Then I remembered that Belos regularly absorbed palismens in order to keep going. It's probably how he's lived for centuries.
Pailsmen can do that. They can GIVE life to humans/witches. Hunter's situation is the complete opposite of how Belos handled it where Flapjack willingly gave his own life instead of having it taken away from him.
Man, I was not prepared for them to kill off Flapjack! And like Hunter has his eyes. So is Flapjack a part of him now? Are all magic-users bonded to one palismen in their lives or can they get more? Is that it for Hunter? No more familiar for him? Why does palismen have the ability to give their lifespan? Is it just in their nature to help their creators? There's a million questions I have on palismen biology, but I digress. Somebody get Hunter hot cocoa and a blanket, damn it!
Amity is a patient girlfriend. I think Luz has lied or kept like three major secrets from her (and her friends) by now.
Awwww yeah, Camila is coming to the Boiling Isles. This is the absolute BEST solution to anything because she's gonna wreck shit up!
I like that the show validates Vee's decision to stay out of the battle. She's still working through her trauma and deserves a safe spot to cope and live.
I did kind wished they left out the car keys joke at the end. It's cute, but a mild mood killer.
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There’s nothing ironic about show choir (8/30)
AO3
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Prompt: Lyrics
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BAZ
It’s a miracle that Rutaceae hasn’t figured out our plan. All of Vitis is in agreement about this. We need the original songs to be a step above Rutaceae and people admire me for the plan.
It’s been three weeks. Three weeks of me ignoring Simon while also writing a song about him. That’s another reason Rutaceae cannot find out about the whole original song thing.
He’s making it hard, though. Rutaceae doesn’t know what Vitis is planning, but according to Agatha, they know we are planning something. As a result, Simon’s stalking me.
He did this as well in our fifth year. That’s when he first became lead soloist after the previous Rutaceae lead soloist graduated. I don’t know what he was trying to gain, since Dev was lead soloist that year (may my ears rest in peace) (I love my cousin and he can sing okay-ish, but he is not a belter), and yet he chose me to follow around.
Which only led to me realising that I am in love with him.
Honestly, whatever relationship I have with Simon is incredibly complicated and it is a goldmine for lyrics.
I know I am the one who came up with the original songs plan, but I am not a writer, so I need all the concentration possible, but Simon makes it so difficult.
“What are you doing?”
I look up from my notebook.
Simon’s standing in the doorway.
“I live here, remember?” I deadpan.
“Yes, but you’re usually not… here.”
It’s true. We’ve been living here for over seven years, but we both avoid this place like the plague. It’s very hard to miss that we share the room, though. My wall is filled with violet banners, flags, crests and pennants with the Vitis logo. Simon’s wall is filled with the scarlet Rutaceae variants.
(Agatha hates it and wonders why we also have to take the rivalry outside of choir.) (Does she not see that there is no ‘outside of choir’?)
“I need to be alone,” I say. I close my notebook so that he can’t see what I’m doing, but he can see that I am writing something.
“Are you…” Simon tilts his head in confusion and fuck, it is adorable, “Journaling?”
“Yes,” I lie.
Simon frowns.
“You’ve never done that before.”
“It’s a new habit,” I lie again. Fuck me, even though we aren’t in our shared room a lot, of course he knows I have never journalled before.
Simon looks unconvinced.
“Alright,” he eventually says and to my surprise he sits down on his own bed.
I raise an eyebrow.
Is he staying here?
“A little privacy, please, Salisbury,” I say.
“I have a name, you know,” he mutters, “And no worries, I am going to read. Not your stuff. I have a life of my own.”
“Right,” I say and I turn away from him. This is a recipe for disaster.
--
End notes: Just imagine the Naranja and Uva Academy crest for the logos of Rutaceae and Vitis. That’s what I do as well. Honestly, there is a lot wrong with Pokémon Scarlet and Violet performance-wise, but design wise they went hard.
#carry on countdown#COC 2022#carry on#simon snow series#snowbaz#holy fuck I wrote#2022#multichaptered
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What are some of your most unforgettable experiences on rollercoaster or rides in general?
I had stacks of paper fast passes for all of the parks when I worked at Disney World, so one night I made it a point to time out a ride on seven dwarfs mine train during the fireworks. I was in the back row cresting the big drop off of lift 2 right as the big finale started, Jiminy Cricket saying "see what a little wishing can do?" With the massive bouqet of fireworks just starting to rise into the sky as we dropped and it was just fireworks all around us for the whole second half of the ride. Literal miracle that happened, like absolute MAGIC. Unparalleled.
One time at Island of Adventures, I was hanging with a crew of friends, and we went to one of the in park bars for a quick beer. We got chatting with this older couple that we discovered had been visiting their daughter on the college program, and we were like "omg we work for Disney too!!" SO they bought us a round of drinks... and then we bought them a round... and then they bought us another round... and then shots got involved.... we were about to leave when the confessed they were trying to work up the courage to go on Hulk, and we said that's where we were headed, come with us! On the way, one girl in our group recognized a guy she had talked to once on tinder months ago briefly, who was a vip tour guide on his lunch break, and he was like "fuck it, I'll walk you all up the exit and get you in right away". Reader, let me tell you, I've never been so fucking drunk on a roller coaster, and that is one hell of a roller coaster. We ended up doing it twice in the back row and I just about crawled off of that ride. We parted ways after that but they had a fantastic time, and so did we. Nobody threw up, too!
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for ronan (about both whumpees): 🏷️🚪🏃
for izaak: 👕🐶🚪🏃🤔
From this ask game!
Ronan:
🏷️ - Does your Whumpee have any markings that make it clear who they belong to?
"Well, I found that abhorrent brand on Henley's chest that I'm not best pleased about. That's not staying, I'm getting rid of it. Another man's mark on my property is absurd. He'll bare my mark soon enough; my family crest. Izaak too. They're my property.
🚪- Is your Whumpee allowed any sort of privacy?
"Do they really need any? Deserve any, even? They get the door locked, left alone for however long I'm sleeping at night and that's it, if they want their precious privacy. I watch the security footage in the morning to make sure no dodgy shit or scheming has been going on...I guess even then that's not privacy, is it?
Can't be too careful at the end of the day. They'll only abuse too much freedom and trust."
🏃 - What would you do if your Whumpee ever tried to leave you? Or what have you done if they’ve already tried?
"The key is to corrupt their thinking and make them believe that in some warped way... what you're offering them in captivity is an immeasurable gift. In comparison to what you could do.
And that's why if either of the little brats tried to escape, I'd send them to the brink of death. I don't even want to hear the pleas for mercy or to spare their life, I just want to know that they nearly went there - they nearly reached the other side for a brief moment. Drag that fear out of them where only that clouds their judgement and they couldn't fathom ever doing it again. Because staying means less pain."
Izaak's answers below :)
Izaak
👕- Is your Whumpee only allowed to wear what you choose? If so, what do you normally choose?
"He gets what he's given and he doesn't get to complain. Some owners would leave him with nothing. I won't splash out unnecessary money on a pet, he gets hand me downs and old clothes I'd bin otherwise. They're mostly torn apart, ripped and too big for him but he's got clothes at least.
I don't really allow him to wear tops or jumpers unless it's freezing cold. I find it gets in the way if he needs to be punished. Easier to have quick access to him."
🐶- Do you use a collar and/or some kind of leash on your Whumpee? Why or why not? (I'm answering this one from current Izaak perspective <3)
"He was my pet. Of fucking course he had a collar and leash. It was a thick, black leather collar with a large D ring on the front, and the leash was just to either keep him in place or drag him where I wanted to take him. None of that electric shock stuff, that's cowardly. Owners that use those are amateurs, can't even train their pets without some little device doing all their work for them.
I'd like to point out he cried like a bitch and tried to put his collar back on when I was prepping him ready for Ronan to collect. Heartbroken that I was taking it away from him."
🚪- Is your Whumpee allowed any sort of privacy?
"The teeniest bit. I don't wanna see him change, or clean, or any other grody crap. I leave him to his own business for that, I'm not his carer or his babysitter.
Other than that, I do watch him like a hawk. He won't try anything, I'm certain. He's well past that shit but... I won't let my guard down enough to give him the opportunity".
🏃- What would you do if your Whumpee ever tried to leave you? Or what have you done if they've already tried?
"He has tried. And failed. Back when he was still new and learning. I'm pretty sure he's got the scars to prove it, physical and mental. (A/N: Not gonna go too much into detail bc I may be delving into this for chapter three <3).
I promised him if he ever tried to run again, I'd paralyse him any whatever way I deemed fit. Whether I needed to break his legs, fuck around with his spine, dose him with paralytics. And I swore to him that I'd go after his family so even if by some miracle he made it? Where would he have to go back to... he'd be stuck."
🤔- How do you think your Whumpee really feels about you do you? Do you care?
"He's told me time and time again how he hates my guts, wants to see me keel over and die - blah blah blah. I couldn't give less of a shit. He's too scared to tell me that anymore and that's all that matters. As long as I've got myself a well-behaved pet, that's all I care about."
#SECOND TIME POSTING THIS IS THE CHARM 💀#And im so sorry but theyre just -#theyre just both horrific people...#ty for the ask 🥰#answered asks#a taste of your own medicine#whumper ask game#possessive whumper asks
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TIMING: A few nights ago
PARTIES: @deathisanartmetzli @reformed-teentective
SUMMARY: Metzli and Poe go on a run together.
WARNINGS: None!
With each passing day, it was growing easier to feel like a person. Thanks to Dr. Sheppard’s treatment, Metzli had taken to exercise and hobbies a little too far before, but they found a balance. One that was tipped over by their curiosity. They had found a random bone in the middle of a trail they were running on, and just like clockwork, their luck had turned as they were giving the item a sniff. A bonedoggle, a beast they weren’t familiar with spotted the vampire and greeted them with a growl. “Oh fuck.” They muttered, taking a small step back as the beast replied with a guttural bark. Saliva dripped, viscous and unsettling. In a blink, the canine disappeared into the dark—which should’ve been impossible. Vampires could see in the dark with ease, but it was as if the dog had fell into some sort of portal. And indeed it was. For the dog leapt from out of the darkness, sending the two rolling, fighting for dominance.
Metzli won momentarily with a kick, sending the bonedoggle backwards, still holding the bone in their hand. With the moment of reprieve, they scrambled to their feet and booked it down the trail, away from the beast. Plenty of distance, they thought, was put between the two, and when they checked, the front of them was rammed into something. Whatever it was, it exclaimed, but Metzli couldn’t care less. The bonedoggle could be heard only paces away, forcing them to immediately tumble back to their feet and continue to run. “Good luck!” They shouted, picking up their speed and passing on the burden to a stranger. Better him than themselves, they thought.
Another sleepless night meant another late night walk. Poe had formed a habit of this. The past few years held a lot of memories of late nights stalking around town, sitting in his car or falling over fences. He wouldn’t exactly call those good memories, but for better or worse the habit had stuck with him. Now he found it hard to get to sleep once the sun fell, usually electing to sleep during the early hours of the morning instead. At least until his dad woke him up to help with the food truck or his step sister’s stupid cat woke him up by sleeping on his face. This wouldn’t be entirely bad if it wasn’t for the fact that he usually coupled this insomnia with strolls around the streets of White Crest in an attempt to tire him out. When he felt that urge to start digging into things sometimes just walking around the town would quench that thirst, if only temporarily.
Tonight had been one of those nights, but apparently it was about to be anything but normal. The sounds of a struggle from a block away drew Poe around the corner and under a street lamp. Just a few down, on the edge of the light he saw a struggling figure rolling around with some kind of animal. His glasses didn’t work miracles, and it was hard to tell exactly what it was from the distance he had between them, but he wasn’t inching to move closer either. Part of his brain told him to turn right back around and sneak away. Call animal control or something from a safe distance. Another part told him to find a middle ground, that an added voice may scare the animal off. He took a single step forward, trying to figure out his game plan when the person found their footing and launched the creature off of them, pretty far too. “Shit” was the only word he could find to describe the scene.
Luckily for that person, they had found their way to their feet and were now running, right in Poe’s direction actually. “Woah. Are you ok-” he started asking as they got close enough, but the person flashed by them in an instant, completely leaving him under that street lamp as that… thing barreled towards them. “Oh you asshole!” Poe yelled as he also turned to run, only to have the dog bite out at his ankles, stopping Poe in his tracks and knocking him face first into the pavement.
Hearing Poe reprimand them was pretty amusing, even affording them a laugh. But, something urged Metzli to slow their sprint. They were trying to be good, weren’t they? Self-preservation, putting themselves first was what mattered most and came the easiest to the vampire. Regardless of the absence of their soul, they were different now. They had to be. “Dammit…” they grumbled, knowing they had to be selfless. Probably get injured and ruin yet another good set of clothing in the process. They just hoped it would be fun. “¡Ay! ¡Malo perro!” Metzli exclaimed, spinning their hips around and darting back in the direction of the soon-to-be victim. Quickly, they unholstered their knife, gripping it with unrelenting purpose as they gained on the scuffle.
Bodies collided with a yelp from the bonedoggle, a knife digging in between ribs and yanking a shard of bone with it. Metzli growled and swiped in front of them as they separated and rolled away, defensively standing in front of Poe. “Get back!” The beast growled, frothy drool cascading down its jowls, motivated by its clear ire. It didn’t look right, none of it did, and Metzli already knew they were in for a hell of a fight. One they didn’t ask for and didn’t want to partake in. They thought maybe Poe could repay them with a taste for their troubles. He smelled human and they were saving his life. It stood to reason that there could be a payment. Heroes got paid, didn’t they? The smart ones did at least. “I would start running if I were you.” They swiped again, lunging over and over to dissuade any want to pounce on the prize it sought after. “¡Córrale!” They commanded with a snap, as if he’d understand their Spanish. “Get to it! This thing ain’t one for pets and belly rubs. You can thank me later!”
Poe’s face collided against the pavement, sending his glasses off his face and sliding across the blacktop. Face down, Poe couldn’t see the creature looming over him, but he could definitely feel it. Its paw pressed against the back of Poe’s thigh, claws pressing through his jeans and digging into his leg, and he felt the back pack that he was wearing pull from him as the creature bit into it and tried tearing it away. Poe took the opportunity to slide his arms free, crawling from the back to try to put some distance between him and the monster, but was surprised to see the mysterious person from before rejoining, blocking the path between Poe and the monster.
Without his glasses everything was blurry, but Poe could make out the figure vaguely. All fours, dog like, but seemingly bigger and more grotesque. Poe hadn’t quite made it back on his feet yet, instead twisting his body to get a better while he lifted himself off the ground with his palms. He tried looking around for his glasses, but he found it hard to focus on anything but the person standing directly in front of him, towering over Poe as he continued to kneel on the street. Eventually, Poe gave up and climbed onto his feet, just in time for this person to start yelling at them about running and warning them that whatever this was, it wasn’t friendly. “I don’t even know what the fuck that is!” Poe yelled back, but he couldn’t argue with the person’s advice. “I think we should both run!” Poe tried, tapping at the person’s shoulder before turning away from the monster and hoping to make a break for it.
All the vampire could do was blink and grunt as they moved, a little bewildered at how Poe struggled. He was looking for something, and that something nearly got crushed beneath a sneaker. “You’re an idiot.” Metzli blurted out, continuing to swipe at the dog as they registered the glasses and grabbed them. “Here!” Poe wanted them to go with him, and in retrospect, it was actually quite admirable to stay in a situation that was too big for one’s pantalones. He was a human in front of a dangerous beast, ignoring another monster’s commands. So, naturally, Metzli thought that made him a stupid human. A very stupid human.
“I don’t know what this is either, but I can handle it!” A swipe. “Just…!” Another swipe. “...Run!” But then they tumbled backwards and growled alongside the bonedoggle as it tackled and bit at Metzli. For a few moments, they struggled, plunging their knife into the gaps between ribs. Well, that was useless, wasn’t it? There was no purchase to be found in flesh, nothing for their knife to properly plunge into. The pair angrily growled and snapped, two animals fighting for dominance una feral scuffle. Animalistic traits demanded fear, but none could be found in either party. It was a fruitless tactic on both ends.
Kicking as hard as they could, Metzli sent the bonedoggle flying in the air, darting their gaze to Poe with blood-red eyes. “Okay, we’re running.” Without any approval, they hoisted the young man over their shoulder and sprinted through a blur of trees and lamp posts. They could hear the saliva that dripped from the dog’s jowls as it rumbled several barks and growls, running right at the vampire’s heels. “Okay! So!” They yelped, adding more speed to their run. “Uh, I’m Metzli, and that’s a really mad bone-dog-thing! I’m gonna keep running and then you’re gonna owe—” A branch crunched, but not just any small branch, it was a big one, and several shards of bark broke free from it as Metzli tripped, sending both of them harshly to the ground.
Poe would have taken the insight personally if there weren’t more pertinent matters at hand. Luckily, one more problem was solved by this mysterious stranger when Poe’s glasses were shoved into his hands and Poe quickly adjusted them back onto his face, thought he wasn’t sure he should have. Once his eyesight was corrected, he could actually see the dog- or whatever the fuck it was- clearly. And if he hadn’t already been like ninety-eight percent sure that the supernatural existed, he sure as hell had to be convinced now. Either that or someone spiked his dinner with something strong as hell.
Unsure if it was adrenaline or if Poe was actually going into shock, he actually took this news of a bony, supernatural dog pretty well. “I thought you had this handled!” Poe yelled once the dog tackled the knife wielding stranger back to the ground again. He was pretty sure that he should step in to help, but apparently this person really did have this handled, because they kicked the dog off of them after a few seconds and jogged over to Poe, scooping him up and taking off towards the treeline.
“I fu-cking-de-test-this!” the inflection shifting with each step as Poe was carried through the woods. Metzli was the name of the savior. Or at least the attempted savior, considering Poe wasn’t convinced either of them were getting out of this unscathed. As Metzli ran through the woods, Poe faced the opposite direction and spotted as the dog closed in behind them. As Metzli yelled, Poe was ready to cut them off to warn them about the dog until it leapt forward, farther than any normal dog could, and tackled them. Poe hit the ground on his side, rolling a few feet before being stopped by a tree trunk. “God damn it” Poe muttered under his breath, regaining his breath and climbing up onto his feet just in time for the dog to do the same. He grabbed the closest thing he could find to a weapon, a big branch and swung at the dog, knocking it sideways slightly without actually doing any damage. “Shit. We’re totally going to get eaten by bones aren’t we?” Poe questioned, standing by Metzli and waving the stick wildly in an attempt to ward the dog off. “You don’t suppose it likes fetch do you?”
There wasn’t time to answer snarkily to Poe’s statement as Metzli ran as hard as they could. Truth was, they didn’t care that he didn’t like being bounced around like a bag of potatoes on the vampire’s back. They were doing him a favor, and the idea that he wasn’t filled with gratitude was a little irritating. Could they do anything correctly? Was their pursuit to mimic having a soul pointless? As much as they tried, they couldn’t feel anything but irritation for the young stranger. That and desperation were the only things that filled them as they tried to be a hero, to be something other than what they were forced to believe their whole life.
Maybe Emilio was right. Maybe—No. He couldn’t be right. They had to make it work somehow even if was for them. Metzli was doing something good despite having something to prove. So they snapped out of it, not letting Emilio’s violent words win as the canine caught up effortlessly. It pounced, catching the pair as its target and sending a breathy grunt out of them. Teeth sank in immediately upon purchase and they yelled out in pain. Black ooze seeped out of their wound, thick and opaque. “¡Chinga tu puta madre!” Their free hand searched for their blade while the other gripped bone to keep jowls away from them. With nothing to be found, Metzli took to ripping out bones and tossing them away in hopes of a distraction. They groaned, not seeing a change in target. Trying Poe’s suggestion for fetch didn’t do any good. “¡¿Qué quieres?!” Shifting their weight, they managed to find their way atop the bonedoggle as it snarled and snapped towards its own back. They slammed the creature against the ground several times, growing annoyed. Their hold was strong enough to keep it in place for the time being, but they knew it was only a temporary fix. Eventually their strength would wane, so they had to figure out how to stop the beast.
“I don’t know what this fucking thing wants! It just started chasing me after I picked up this stupid bone.” Metzli nudged their head towards their back pocket, straining to keep the dog in place. Saliva burned their hands and the bite wound they had already acquired burned the same way. They’d have to let Macleod look at their wounds later. She’d probably know how to keep it from getting infected. But that was a matter for later. The bonedoggle was getting harder to keep in place. “Grab my knife, grip it tight with both hands, and…keep it up. I can’t hold this fucker down forever, and I don’t know how to kill it.”
Despite the near death and still possible death experience, all Poe could think about was that he definitely owed Metzli an apology for calling them an asshole. And he definitely owed them, which was a concept Poe was very unhappy about. He hated owing people favors. Which definitely shouldn't be the thing he was most worried about at this moment, but he was just going to blame adrenaline for that.
Metzli continued to grapple with the supernatural dog creature, which definitely piqued Poe's curiosity. The monster had tackled Poe exactly twice since the chase had begun, the first being right as Metzli passed by, and the second while he was being carried through the woods with Metzli. It was possible the first attack had been the dog actually leaping for Metzli and getting Poe instead, right? There had to be some reason why it seemed so attached to them and not Poe. Either that or the dog didn't think Poe would taste good, which was actually quite offensive.
At some point, the dog had gotten a hold of Metzli, and Poe could see dark blood escaping from the bites in their leg. It was so dark it was hard to tell how bad the wound was, but Poe shook the thought away to focus on more pressing matters. Poe found Metzli’s discarded knife, but didn’t really have any ideas on how to use it. There wasn’t much to cut or stab at. “Wait- what did you say about a bone?” Poe finally asked, their earlier words finally clicking with him. It was a shot in the dark, obviously, but Poe found the piece of bone sticking out of Metzli’s back pocket and grabbed for it, holding it in his hands for a long moment as he considered his options. He couldn’t see much, not with the trees blocking out the only source of light they did have. So instead of trying to find an open space, Poe settled on the next best thing. He shoved the bone into the open dog’s mouth. Then he readjusted the knife, trying to prepare for a plan b.
“Hey! That’s my ass!” Metzli attempted to buck away, but doing so would force them to let go of the canine, which was something neither they or Poe wanted. They nearly growled with their teeth bared in a threat, but then the bonedoggle huffed, sounding like it was relieved. “What in the fuck?” With the beast calmed, Metzli was able to slide of its back with ease and no sign of a simmering threat. Somehow, Poe had managed to turn off the heat and quell the waters of the anger that the vampire had caused. It actually looked happy, and started to walk in circles as it gathered what other bones Metzli had managed to pry off. The more it placed, the more boost it had in its gait.
Metzli began to scoot backwards, trying their best to make their way out of a situation they shouldn’t even have been in, but then the bonedoggle’s head snapped toward them. “Oh come on. I don’t have anything else!” It growled, slowly, wickedly walking toward them, and Metzli swallowed. Their black blood stained the ground and they just knew more was about to be spilled. That was until they saw where the dog was looking. “Have it!” One final bone sat next to them, and they quickly threw it to the beast with a sigh of relief. “Thank fuck.” Falling backwards into the grass, Metzli finally relaxed despite the searing pain all over their body. As long as the crisis was averted, they didn’t care what happened next. Except that they got what was theirs and got on with their night. “Give me my knife back! You don’t need it anymore.”
Poe stood silently as he watched the creature finally calm down. Metzli climbed off of it and the dog began to almost calmly collect the remaining bones around it, all signs of aggression that had been there just moments ago now completely gone. Poe thought it was too good to be true. That one wrong movement would set the beast off again. That was probably why Poe didn’t move at all. Just watched in awe as this creature that shouldn’t even exist collected pieces of its own bones and then waltz over to Metzli to nonverbally request the return of the final piece lying next to them.
“I can’t believe that just happened.” Poe finally spoke once he was convinced that the monster wouldn’t be returning. In a lot of ways, Poe’s entire world had just shifted, though it wasn’t exactly due to anything he hadn’t already suspected. And here he was, calmly mulling over the ramifications of seeing a dog without flesh and accepting it with nothing more than a sigh. Metzli distracted Poe from thinking too hard about it, demanding the knife back. At the mention of it, Poe felt his fingers twitch and tighten around the hilt of the blade. He didn’t even realize that he had still been holding it. “Right uh- don’t worry I don’t want your knife anyways.” He handed it back over towards them, barely paying attention to them as he was still staring off in the direction the creature had left. “I guess I owe you a thank you” Poe mentioned, briefly breaking his stare to look over at the person who had tried to get Poe away from the monster. “So thanks. The name’s Poe, by the way.”
It wasn’t until that exact moment that he remembered that Metzli had actually been attacked by that thing. “Oh shit. Your leg.” Poe finally, finally snapped back to reality. “Is it okay? Do you need me to like, drive you to the hospital or something?”
The dog was finally yards away and Metzli relaxed into the grass, rolling their eyes at Poe’s disbelief and subsequent gratitude. ‘I outta fucking bite you and take that as a real fucking thank you.’ Metzli groaned to themselves, grabbing the knife and shuffling to their feet with a struggle. It was a shitty attempt to hide their eyes and fangs, but they didn’t want to deal with the responsibility of explaining the supernatural. They just wanted to get home and eat before the idiot beside them became a late night snack. “No hospital. Get away from me and go home.” They began to limp away slowly, doing their best to ignore the beating heart growing louder in their ears. God, they wanted to just let their vampiric senses take over, but that wouldn’t be right. Being a decent person was really unfair. “Next time, don’t fucking walk around at night…idiot.” With their hands curled into fists, they walked home. At least there, they didn’t have to hide. At least there, they could eat. At least there…they weren’t a complete monster.
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I have received a request, by @ladyofspiders, to go on a little ramble about how the partner bonds in Digimon work. She’s known me long enough, you’d think she’d know better, and yet. So strap in y’all, this is gonna be fun.
~~
First thing we have to do is we need to make sure everybody is on the same page with what we’re discussing, so, here’s what things are.
Digimon- a specific variety of being from a world attached to our own, species are created from data generated by our world. Can typically take on new species through evolution forward and back between six/seven power stages. Species taken can change and each individual species has a long list of other species they can become. Are formed out of computer data with their personalities and other individual information stored in a central Data Core, though talk from the minds behind the at-this-time-unreleased Digimon Survive imply that this is just the modern take on a far older form of creature
Digital World- the world occupied by the Digimon, heavily tied to computer systems and formed from computer data. The extent to which reality and physics as we know them applies tends to vary, both in general and from area to area, and everything from plants that grow cooked meat to fields of stoplights to oceans you can breathe under and more are possible. May or may not have it’s own consciousness or be under the control of a ‘god’ Yggdrasil. Like the digimon, recent information implies the Digital World as we know it may be new take on much older location.
Partner- a sapient non-digital being (typically human but I write scifi-fantasy so-) tied in some way to one or more digimon. On at least one occasion siblings have bonded to the same digimon, and multiple digimon bonding to one partner isn’t uncommon and practically the norm the the videogames. In the shows, individuals who work with more than one digimon may or may not have a ‘main’ partner (for a comparison- think Ash and Pikachu vs Ash and everybody the fuck else). We’ll get into the two major varieties in a moment.
Digivice- a piece of unique tech carried by the partners of digimon, often but not always having originally been a piece of technology owned by the partner and transformed when the bond between them and their digimon was solidly formed, that serves typically various functions depending on the series in the franchise, including tracking other digivice holders, opening up the option of using outside items to aid in various situations and/or temporarily upgrade the digimon, and better facilitating the power exchange between partner and digimon. Names, forms, and capabilities vary between series.
Crest- A representation of the dominant trait from which a Partner derives power, in series where they exist. There are nine crests in show canon (Kindness, Light, Love, Sincerity/Purity, Reliability/Sincerity, Courage, Friendship, Knowledge, Hope) and two restricted to specific videogames (Fate, Miracles)
Real World- the actual physical world as compared to the Digital World. The two are typically heavily tied, with problems in the Digital World sometimes shown to have very real effects on the Real World ranging from mucking with computer systems to causing sever issues with the weather. As a rule, works that involve saving the Digital World will also involve saving the Real World, as threats to one quite easily become threats to the other.
So, those are some Digimon Basics. You’ll notice a number of ‘depending on’, or ‘may or may not’s in there, and that’s because the anime alone is on it’s seventh or eighth universe, depending on how you count the Adventure reboot, and none of them function exactly the same. In one universe you may have evolution being the main goal of all digimon, while in another it just happens casually over time. In one two or more digimon merging together to become something new (DNA Evolution) may be something very rare, while in another multiple digimon merging their power could be the common way to receive a temporary upgrade. This is also part of why the types of partners get their own little section, because there’s .
That being said, the two common types of partner
Tamers- non-digital beings bonded with one or more digimon through at least one’s active choice (typically boths’ mutual decision, but not always). Often in the games and in the Tamers show have a strong focus on helping the digimon involved reach their full potential as far as power. The level of bond between tamers and individual digimon can vary from ‘this is business’ to ‘you are quite literally the person who made me and I love you’.
Chosen- what everyone thinks of when they think of the digimon-partner bond. Non-digital beings bonded with one digimon (there’s been a case of someone bonded to two, but only one so far and it was twin digis, so-) by outside forces. This can be fate, this can be the Digital World going ‘that one, make a digi for that one’, but whatever is going on it’s always a case of the digimon and non-digi being assigned each other, bound by fate and the fact they are more or less made to get on with each other. Chosen typically are attributed one or more crests.
Very similar, very different, but the key factor is the ‘why’ these bonds are formed the way they are and what the non-social benefits are to either side.
These bonds typically are formed either during times when the Digital World specifically needs heroes (more typical for Chosen) or when digimon are making more excursions into the Real World than is normal (more typical for Tamers). For the ‘hero’ side, this situation normally involves the non-digi being brought into the Digital World, where the digimon serve as protection and a guide. For the ‘excursions’, the bond normally forms after the digimon arrives in the Real World, where they proceed to act as protection against other digimon who find themselves there.
“But Achi,” I hear you ask me, “what’s the big difference between our friendly digis and the hostile digis?”
Well, my loves, you have the typical ‘so-and-so is an asshole’, very classic antagonist motivation, very good. There’s also ‘so-and-so doesn’t know what they’re doing is bad’, generally due either to cultural differences or simply not knowing how humans work. But you also have one other major risk. One that’s shown in multiple series but I think was displayed best in Young Hunters.
Digimon are very strongly effected by the emotions of non-digital sapients. We see multiple digimon in various series who seem to form a sort’ve partial bond with individual humans experiencing strong negative emotions. These bonds, when they’re shown, lead to this digimon taking action to try to make things better for the humans in question, often in a way that ends up harmful to others (”oh, you need to be top of your class? okay, I’ll just kidnap everybody with better grades!”). But why does this happen? What’s going on there that messes with shit?
They aren’t just effected, digimon can and do derive power from things like emotion. That’s why Chosen are chosen, and why bond with Tamers are in some series actively sought. The big power boosts that allow individuals to evolve to higher levels are usually temporary, but given it normally takes ages to reach those same levels of power without a partner, especially in times of great trouble the benefit outweighs the lack of permanence.
If you’re sitting there thinking ‘wow, it really sounds like the non-digis are very cherished batteries’ that would be because they are. Don’t get me wrong, humans seem to be better at plotting and thinking than your average digi, but even that’s mostly because the franchise focuses on the humans, let’s be real. Still, the major job of the humans is to act as support and sources of power for their digimon. In some universe they can even use their digivices to give their partners upgrades, to unleash powers from artifacts, or to give their partners access to forms of evolution that would otherwise be unavailable to them.
So, recap, what does each side get out of this bargain besides friendship? Digimon: power enough to protect themselves, their companions, and often their world. Non-Digi: protection for themselves and others from the dangers digimon and at times the Digital World itself can bring, the ability to save their world from whatever the threat of the series is.
This is also why, in works with Chosen, you see such a strong focus on crests. They represent and can help channel the power inherent in the traits they represent. Someone with the crest of Friendship derives power form their bonds with their friends. Reliability derives power from their trustworthiness and dedication. Knowledge derives power from their ability to process and utilize information. And so on. Typically in works with Chosen the bond and affection that exists within an partnership is enough to get a digimon into the lower stages, but it’s this power that needs to be called on to reach the highest ones.
There is a downside though, to this whole thing, and you can maybe guess it by going back to to where we start this part of the talk.
We’ve seen how these positive traits and emotions grant power. We’ve seen how emotions in general grant power. We’ve seen how being effected by the negative emotions of non-digis can lead to digimon doing bad things.
Let’s talk ‘dark evolution’, which we’re going to call ‘dire evolution’ here because I’m trying to move away from stuff associating ‘dark’ with ‘bad’.
Partnered digimon derive power specifically from their partners and their bonds with them, which is normally a good thing. Great thing. But when the feelings they’re pulling from are negative... Rage. Hate. Guilt. Suffering. Stress. When the emotions they’re drawing power from are wrong, or when evolution is forced, is when dire evolution happens.
When this happens, the digimon in question moves forward into the next power stage, but into a form they normally wouldn’t, normally one counter to the one they would be expected to take. For a canon example- MegaloGrowmon dire evolving into Megidramon, supposedly one form of the counterpart to his ‘proper’ final stage of Dukemon. This would be fine and dandy if not for the secondary effect of dire evolution- digimon who’ve undergone it go straight up feral. This is only temporary, lasting until the power boost wears off, but given just how dangerous digimon can be... Yeah. Not fun.
But, since we’re hear and talking about Tamers the series, we may as well discuss another sort’ve evolution that was introduced there- the Biomerge.
This form of evolution does as it says, merging digimon and partner together into one, more powerful, being. This is more dangerous for the non-digi, since they’re right up in the fight, but allows for more power than would be available otherwise. And once you get into the really powerful opponents? That’s important.
And that should be a basic overview of the hows and whys of the bonds between digimon and their partners. There’s some small details not in place (digimon made for Chosen will actively seek theirs out whether they know why or not, for instance), mostly because there’s no place to slip them in and they are minor, but for the most part this should work as an introduction to the basic information, suitable for anybody not looking to throw themselves into the depths of digi-hell.
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Her head ached. Her side hurt. Her throat was dry and her stomach folded in on itself. The song-- the fucking song-- still echoed in her head after two whole days, threatening to push her to the brink of insanity.
She wished she could remember what had happened the whole day before, but it only came to her in flashes of blurry color and light, dazed stumbling through the park, suddenly finding herself with her cheek pressed into the sun-warmed pavement, the sharp taste of blood on her tongue. For a while, she hung there, suspended between consciousness and unconsciousness, before slipping into the darkness.
It was a miracle she wasn't found by another tribute and killed on the spot, but it seemed during her altered state she had wedged herself underneath the metal plating making up the bottom of one of the rides. When she'd woken to the sound of birds the next pale morning, at first she wondered if she died, it was so unnervingly quiet and dark. After she wiggled her way back out, it took her a moment to realize why-- all of the rides had gone dark and still, save for the occasional creak in the wind.
Farina stumbled toward what felt most familiar-- the small "forest" section, near the castle. Though they hardly had forests back home, she did have plants, and she knew plants. Plants were safety, plants were familiar.
She quickly identified some mushrooms and dandelion leaves, making extra sure to triple check the mushrooms for signs of poison, despite the urge to throw all caution to the wind first. Neither tasted particularly good, they were bitter and difficult to chew, but she hardly noticed. There was just a little morning dew on them that did little sate her burning thirst, but it was better than nothing, she supposed.
The world seemed to tilt and roll still as she walked, and her feet kept stumbling beneath her, as though she were a newborn fawn. Was it the lack of everything getting to her? Or was it the echoes of the horrible ride in her head still affecting her?
The song's intensity crested in her head. She shut her eyes and pressed her fingers to her temples, attempting to banish it.
She kept walking, foraging as she went. She ate another mushroom. She chewed some leaves and applied them as a salve to a scrape on her arm she had no recollection of, then the bruises around her wrists from straining at the restraints on the ride with Linden for good measure. She had no idea if it would help, but the cool feeling against the swelling felt nice.
She nudged a plant with her toe, thinking it looked something like a root they had back in Nine, when it occurred to her she'd seen a river. Immediately, she set out in the direction she remembered it being, with the intention of hunting for some tubers there, surely there'd be something edible.
The trees cleared-- instead she was greeted by a vast, empty plane of cracked, drying mud, and the grasslands Mack had mentioned sprawling beyond. She squinted, but was unable to make out any of the mutts she had gone on about-- certainly no giraffes. She scoffed to herself. Maybe it had actually been bullshit all along.
Shocked, she stepped closer to investigate, then experimentally put one shoe on the dry riverbed, then another. The dirt crackled beneath the tread of her shoes, small puffs of dirt releasing like sighs and dashing any of her hopes for plants or even some drinkable water.
What had she missed while she was out?
#self para#mtotask#just sortof establishing she lost her shit all of day 3 from IALP#since all my threads are now day 4
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Chapter 1 Before The Storm
Before she could open her eyes, she knew she hurt all over.
The aches and pains had settled deep into her bones, rattling around her frame with each deep breath she took.
Shaking the cobwebs from her mind, she opened her eyes, holding back the bitter cries as she tried to sit up.
The dark visor of her mask tinted the scorching sun, as she took in her surroundings.
The Bounty she had been after; she had heard rumors about him from the local town; he was human, old… had put up more of a fight than she had thought.
The bastard was tough, she gave him credit where it was due; but as she scanned the sands, she spotted him. The mangled, bloody body of the bounty lay a few hundred feet away from her.
But another body lay just beyond his, and he had met a fate worse than death. Rey, a fellow Bounty Hunter, had been caught in the crosshairs of the blaster fire, dumbfounded and without protection.
He always was too slow on his draw.
His neck had been sliced open drained nearly of all his blood as it splattered across layers of sand before she could even get to him.
The heat of the sand began to slowly sink into her flight suit, burning her pale skin.
It was becoming un-fucking-bearable.
“Shit,” licking parched lips, she stood on wobbly legs dusting the sand from her battered clothes.
The Bounty was at least three times her size in weight and height; the scent of iron still painted in the faint distance as she spotted the still oozing wound seeping from his chest.
Dammed bastard was going to bleed from here to her ship.
-
She sighed, cursing the Maker for ruining her day.
Coming to terms with her fate, she discharged her grappling hook wrapping it tightly around his ankles.
If anything, she could drag the fucker, like a ragdoll.
Grabbing the beeping tracking fob from Rey’s pocket, she slid it into her jacket and began the hike back to her ship.
Four fucking hours. What had been nothing more than a brisk fifteen-minute hike through the sands; now had turned into four fucking hours of blistering hell on The Maker’s Ball Sack.
Coming over the crest of the hill, she caught sight of the reflection from her ship, as the dying suns of Tatooine were slowly turning into nightfall of sweat and stillness.
“Home sweet bloody home… Wouldn’t you say, dear?” She eyed the corpse of her latest kill.
“Not much of a talker, are you?” She moved on, adjusting the strap to her shoulder, “Don’t worry, I could probably talk enough for the both of us, not that it will do me much good anyways, probably just means I’m going crazy…” Tapping her armguard, she entered the code unlocking her ship and watching as the hatch opened.
Tossing the bounty into the carbonite, she closed the hatch and made her way up to the cockpit, she took a seat in the pilot’s chair, letting out a heavy sigh, as the tension of the day drain deep into her bones… turning her attention to the control switch, she contemplated… her hands hovered over the map, her eyes straining heavily, hand twitching with anticipation.
She knew the coordinates like the back of her hand. But fuck she didn’t know if she could face him. So many years had passed since she had last seen her husband… Word had traveled quickly that she had been killed during a hunt for a Bounty.
Funny, how life likes to kick you when you’re life seems to finally be going right. Her hands twitched into a nagging cramp, the leather of her gloves crinkling with how tightly worn her hands clenched. Her breathing felt unsteady; her heart was beating like a drum of war – it echoed so loud, it started ringing. She wasn’t ready for this. Even if she had escaped by some miracle, she was a different person now.
She was drowning in blood; nightmares of those she had killed before she ran still haunted her after so many years of trying to justify her wrongful doings.
“What the fuck am I doing?” her lips trembled with wet tears. Taking off her helmet, she ran unsteady, battled worn fingers through, greased filled crimson locks.
She couldn’t calm her mind.
“Shit!”
She screamed a vicious cry, slamming her hands down on the control panel.
-
“I need to talk to Greef Karga,” She walked into The Bounty Hunter’s Guild’s Cantina, eyeing the human and Twi’lek Hunter.
They eyed her with curious eyes but didn’t think anything of her, pointing to the far end table. She already knew where he would be; old habits die hard, and he never gave up his spot. She just needed to play her cards right.
She needed to drop off the bounty and get the hell out of here, to hell with the credits, she had enough credits from, her days running through space as from another life.
“And just who are you beautiful?” Karga wasn’t one to shy away from flirting, it wasn’t often a stranger who walked into the Guild’s Cantina.
“Name’s May,” she tossed the tracking fob down, “Bounty’s outside.” Karga sat forward, eyeing the tracking fob, “I don’t recall giving you this bounty, and I know every one of my bounty hunters. I gave this tracking fob to Rey; you want to tell me what happened?”
She sighed, “He’s dead, and your bounty killed him. I put him down before he started killing the town.”
“Nice work Little Lady, I’ll have my men collect… Rey always was a son of a bitch, was always too cocky for this line of work, how about I offer you his job instead and the credits are yours?”
“I don’t want the job, and I want you to give the credits to a Bounty Hunter by the name of Mando.”
“You know Mando?” She shrugged, turning to walk away, “Tell him, they’re from an old friend.”
“I didn’t realize Mando had old friends.”
“Thanks for your time, I better be going.”
“Mando!” Karga greeted The Mandalorian, “Seems you’ve been busy.”
Mando tossed, several Bounty tracking fobs down on the table, “What else have you got?”
Karga nodded to his men to unload the cargo of Bounties.
“Before I show you, your next job. I have a little gift for you,” he slid a bag of 100,000 credits towards The Mandalorian.
“What’s this for?” Mando seemed confused. “There was a girl who came in here the other day, she took down Rey’s Bounty.”
Mando was silent for a moment… “The outlaw Vain?”
Karga nodded, “He took out Rey, but she was able to kill him… I offered her the position and his credits, but she didn’t want neither, said to give you the credits specifically… said it was from an old friend and then left.”
“Did she give a name?” Mando seemed intrigued, who just gives up 100,000 credits?
“She said her name was May, a pretty little thing from what I could tell… But I was only able to see her eyes… But look it’s probably nothing, probably just some girl you helped save, don’t overthink it too much, enjoy yourself a bit, and now are you ready for your next job?”
Mando felt a tension creep up from the base of his spine, rolling like a heat wave as he stared at the pouch of credits.
“Yes.”
-
In the distance she watched him, in the shadows where most did not walk; where she could admire her beloved from afar and freely cry years’ worth of broken promises.
She had lingered far too long for her liking in a town she couldn’t call home anymore.
But she had to see him.
Even if he didn’t know it.
She had to know; he was safe.
Even if lingering where the bounty was high on her; she was willing to risk it all, she would die happily knowing she got to see him one last time. The small voice in the back of her mind wouldn’t shut up, until she saw him.
He walked with purpose, with a tension on his shoulders that carried from years of years of Bounty Hunting; his right shoulder an injury she knew cursed him from time to time. He protected that side more than anything. That’s why she always guarded his left.
But it was that flicker of dancing movements that caught her eye; something so small to an untrained eye that it seemed like a gust of wind to most. But she knew better.
Someone was watching her.
Someone was watching him.
Her eyes grew wide with a fear that could cripple the galaxy; her hand reaching for her blaster, trembling.
She was willing to risk exposure for his safety.
Mando moved through the streets, paying vendors as he gathered supplies for his next hunt. Why hasn’t he noticed them? She didn’t want to cause a scene, but the shadows began to move closer; looming in the darkness of each vendors shaded area.
Yet Mando did not sway from his resupply.
“Shit,” she bit down on her lip, drawing blood to the surface. Jumping from her hiding spot, blaster drawn and at the ready she raced back into the streets, adrenaline pumping into her muscles to get to him in time.
“Mando!”
She screamed into the streets, drawing her weapon, as the shadows emerged from behind stone walls.
The Mandalorian turned at the sound of the chaos, as people screamed running from the masked woman whose blaster was pointed at the Bounty Hunter. Drawing his own blaster, Mando was ready to defend himself against the unknown assailant. But when she fired, she did not hit beskar. A grunt drew Mando away from her, as he watched a dark cloaked figure dropped at his feet. Turning back to his now savior, he watched as the masked figure retreated running at a high speed.
He gave chase.
“Wait!”
He tried to call out, but it was no use, the distance only grew between them. Mando stopped, catching his breath. That’s when he spotted it.
A shimmer of silver buried in the sand, discarded with haste… Or broken off in a chase.
He picked up the silver, dusting off the sand, revealing a beautifully crafted set of wedding bands, the rings were rough around the edges, worn and battered from years of wear and tear; the smooth and nicked craftsmanship from the unsteady hands of a nervous Mandalorian who crafted these rings with all the love in the Galaxy.
The details had vanished, the engraved lettering so far gone, he could barely make out the words symbolizing his love for the woman who captured his heart all those years ago.
There was no mistaking it.
He could spot these rings out of a thousand of the most precious gems.
He looked, watching as the shadow of his savior became nothing more than a speck of sand blowing in the wind.
Was this the Maker’s way of laughing at Mando for the loss he could never replace; or did the Maker have something far worse in store for him?
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