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#you shouting at me isn't a discussion or a disagreement it's just you being a Fucking Weirdo
theslowesthnery · 2 years
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got a “oh so anyone who disagrees with you is an anti?? :/// well i disagree with you and i’m not an anti so :////” and like
disagree on what? what is the discussion and/or argument that we’re disagreeing on? because as far as i can tell there isn’t an actual two-sided discussion here, there’s literally just me thirstposting about mohg and talking about wanting to kiss his cute nose and one or two anons going “how DARE you, a complete stranger, not vehemently hate content that WE say is BAD and not tailor your entire blog and online presence to OUR very specific preferences??? don’t you understand how traumatizing and harmful that is for us??? how DARE you just joke with your followers at us for being creepily obsessed with you and imply that we could just leave if we hate you so much???? you’re a teenager btw so let me tell you my thoughts on incest”
like. what
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utilitycaster · 5 months
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“Chaotic” players anon here, thank you for your response I appreciate the agreement in theory and disagreement in practice! I’ve been chatting about it with friends and I hard agree that direct communication prevents many problems at tables, I suppose I was coming at the issue of refusal to engage with a GM with the lens of “if this player runs a short campaign, they may come to appreciate a GM’s role more than their current point of view does”. I think these types of players view their games in the same way as people view one-shots (shout-out to the WBN fireside discussion on connection to the world and one-shots) and that while shutting down their refusal at the table can also work, I wonder would trying to lift them out of that one-shot mindset by asking them to run a short game that doesn’t allow for a one-shot mindset would challenge that mindset.
Hey anon!
This is actually a really interesting question that has led me to try and break down that sort of situation. I think there's a lot of reasons why someone might play that "chaotic" type of character and I think the methods of dealing with them probably need to account for that. I will freely admit I lean heavily towards the cynical "this person is being an asshole" side, certainly more so than Brennan (who I think is rightfully influenced by the fact that a lot of his 'problem players' have also been like, twelve-year-old kids at summer camp and often it is the adult GM's responsibility to make them care more) but that's probably not always true.
If the issue is the player doesn't feel connected to the world, then that's a conversation, and it could end any number of ways - maybe they need to reassess their character and build one more connected to this world; maybe the GM does need to communicate the plot and tie it into this character's backstory more; but also, maybe this just isn't the campaign for what they are looking to do, and it's a bad fit, and that's okay. I don't think that them running a game will necessarily help unless they're not sure what motivates them, in which case figuring out what story they want to run might help them realize what story they want to play.
If the issue is the player fundamentally sees a GM/Player relationship as a combative one, that's much harder and I don't know how to fix it. It might be a conversation, and it might be them stepping into the GM's chair for a bit to understand the considerations one must have! But also...especially when I got more mechanics questions I'd sometimes get tags and replies that really heavily indicated someone had had one bad GM and instead of saying "wow, that person sucked" blamed either the game for not shielding them from it or the institution of GM-ing and assumed this was just the norm. If that's the case, a talk might help if they are willing to trust you, but they might just need to take a break or find GM-less games. Which as you may notice is a running theme here: sometimes I don't think this player and this GM will be happy at the same table, and that's okay, and the chaos is happening because this is just not working.
If the player is just dedicated to an identity of "I'm chaotic and wacky!" that is definitely a conversation similar to the first but slightly more stern, and I think if they're the kind of person who can be snapped out of it by taking a spin in the GM role then sure, let them be on the receiving side and come back with a new perspective. But again, some people genuinely want to just be wacky, plotless, and chaotic, and I don't care for it but in the end they need to find a table that does want this.
Just all-around: If it's an issue of the player not realizing the effect this has on the GM and other players, a conversation might fix it and sitting them in the GM's chair, if they're willing, might give them an appreciation for what it means to be a GM and how you as a GM want your players to engage rather than ignore. But I do think one needs to keep in mind that this also might be a person who is just incompatible with what you want to do, and they'd be just as chaotic and plotless as a GM and see no issue with it.
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starwarstbbfan · 1 year
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THE BAD BATCH: THE RUNAWAY
Chapter 55 - A Distant Echo
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Hunter was on his way back to the Marauder after the debriefing when he passed Skywalker and Rex, seeming to be in a heated discussion when the latter flagged the Sergeant down. His antisocialness kicked in and Hunter had half a mind to pretend he didn't see the reg, but that wasn't reasonable, so he sucked it up, forcing a tiny smile on his face as he joined the pair.
"I was going to ask that your squad stick around for the rescue mission." Rex said hopefully, having been impressed with Clone Force 99's work and now feeling they'd be imperative to the rescue of Echo, whom he wholeheartedly believed was alive.
"Word is the Council isn't completely behind this mission." Hunter commented and Rex huffed but remained hopeful.
"I admit the idea that Echo is still alive is a long shot." The captain admitted, doing his best to keep his eagerness under check over the fact that one of his most beloved brothers might actually be alive! "I'm sure the Council will approve the mission." Rex said with certainty shortly after, though Hunter could hear just the slightest doubt in his tone, and the Sergeant felt a little bad for the reg Captain.
"Just remember the primary goal is to learn how the Separatists are predicting our strategy, whether it's Echo behind it or not." Skywalker reminded Rex, and the reg pursed his lips but nodded in understanding.
"Well, if you want my opinion, it sounds like a trap," Hunter admitted before letting a tiny smirk grace his features as he added playfully,"- but me and the boys will tag along anyway, if only to say, "I told you so.""
"Just make sure you're ready if we get the go-ahead from General Kenobi." Anakin told the Sergeant, who nodded.
"If you're certain he'll approve the mission, why wait?" Rex asked, some of his impatience slipping through his calm facade, "Let's get going." Rex looked ready to burst, yet the General cleared his throat, making the captain look at him questionably.
"First, we have that thing to do." Skywalker said vaguely, and Rex now looked more confused, as did Hunter, who raised an eyebrow at the General.
"Uh, what "thing?"" The reg repeated, not following.
" You know..." Anakin's eyes flitted towards the barracks then back at Rex. Realization dawned on the reg's features, then he coughed awkwardly.
"We don't have time for-for that, sir." Rex tried saying, and Anakin turned to face him fully and stare him down with his arms crossed.
"Yes, we do." The General insisted stubbornly. Hunter could sense an argument was imminent and decided now was a good time to escape.
"Well, I'll just let you two sort this out." He stated, taking a step back while pointing his thumb behind him, "I'll be waiting on the ship with the rest of the team." Looks like Calli is gonna get what she wants.
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When Tech commed Calli and told her they'd be joining General Skywalker and Rex on the rescue mission, Calli had to suppress a shout of triumph, lest she draw attention to herself from the regs. She'd wandered around a bit after her and Hunter's disagreement, and found herself by the barracks, being partially hidden from passersby as she sat against some barrels adjacent to the reg's sleeping quarters.
Despite doing her best to occupy her mind on other things, Calli's mind kept going back to Hunter and their disagreement, then by default the cause of it: Jace. She kept telling herself that their relationship was strictly platonic, and they had absolutely no romantic feelings whatsoever. She'd nor Jace had ever brought up what happened on Naboo - er almost at least and Calli preferred it never be spoken of. She thought it was for the better and that it wouldn't cause any problems. But now that they were in each other's presence in person again, the event was at the forefront of her mind, especially after her and Hunter's argument.
I don't care what Hunter said, I don't like Jace like that!
Just before Calli could get into an argument with herself - no she didn't have multiple personalities regardless of what Crosshair said (he liked to joke that she did) - she heard the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi and it made her shift so she could peer over the barrels, finding him standing in front of Rex who was guarding the barracks it seemed. The captain looked extremely nervous for some reason.
"Rex, where's Anakin? I need to speak to him about this mission." To Calli, Rex looked like a mynock caught in headlights - and she didn't know why. You could definitely say her interest was piqued as she chose to eavesdrop on the conversation. Even though they were a distance away, Calli could hear them clear as a bell.
"Well, General, he's, um..." The words died on the captain's tongue, and Obi-Wan raised his eyebrow at him and gestured to the building behind Rex.
"Well, he's inside your barracks, isn't he?"
"Yes, sir." Rex confirmed, being very hesitant to reveal this but he couldn't bring himself to lie to his superior. Obi-Wan could feel the anxiety radiating off of Rex yet was more suspicious than worried.
"What's going on here?" Call it intuition by the force or because Obi-Wan knew his former padawan so well, but he knew Anakin was up to something and had dragged his poor Captain into the middle of it.
"Oh. Nothing, sir. I was just waiting for the General... uh, General." Rex tried saying, yet his reassurance didn't sound very... well... reassuring - if anything it just made Obi-Wan more suspicious, and Calli more curious.
"You'll have to do better than that, Captain." Calli watched with mirth as the pair went back and forth like this for the next couple minutes. Obi-Wan would press for information and Rex would stutter out a vague answer, doing his best to not betray his general by revealing what he was doing inside the barracks. Obi-Wan, beyond exasperated now, asked the question that Calli had also been thinking throughout this whole ordeal.
"Then what is Anakin doing in there?" Obi-Wan questioned, beyond exasperated at this point with the conversation that has been going in circles.
"Ah, he's spot-checking my gear, sir." Obi-Wan's arms crossed as he gave Rex a look of skepticism.
"Really? Without you?" Rex began massaging the back of his neck anxiously, visibly sweating at this point.
"W-Well..." Suddenly the door behind him swooshed open, revealing Anakin and Rex breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing his General who appeared at just the right time, saving him from further questioning.
"Here you go, Rex." Anakin said cheerfully, tossing the captain's helmet to him as he walked past the pair, pausing to briefly wave his pointer finger at Rex, "And try not to break it again." Calli had to admit she was disappointed that Skywalker showed up, enjoying watching the show. Fortunately, Kenobi didn't seem to be willing to let his padawan go so easily.
"Anakin. About this mission, the Council thinks..."
"That it's a good idea?" Anakin interrupted cheerfully before nodding, "I agree. Let's get moving, Rex." Obi-wan shook his head as they walked past him.
"No, wait. That's not...".
"No time." Anakin interrupted again with a shrug, and even Calli had to admit he was being a bit rude. It was obvious Obi-Wan was frustrated at Anakin's behavior and it prompted him to say what he did next.
"I hope you at least told Padmé I said hello." This made Anakin stop in his tracks and the look he gave Obi-wan was enough to send a chill down anyone's spine - and it did for Calli. Kenobi knew about Anakin and Padme? Calli was still having some trouble processing the fact that a respected Jedi General was married to a Senator and yet Kenobi seemed to be less shocked by it than she. In fact, he didn't seem surprised at all.
Before Calli could ponder this any further, her comm went off and she didn't even have to look at it to know it was one of her brothers and such began making her way back to the Havoc Marauder.
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Usually when the Bad Batch worked with other people, it tended to get awkward - if the recent mission with Cody, Rex, Jesse, and Kix was any indication. But now that they'd gotten to know Rex, it was easier for the usually closed off and tight knit group to relax and actually put an effort into getting along with him. Plus, they'd met Skywalker on Taris (that mission seemed like a lifetime ago), so again, it made things easier.
Everyone except Tech, who was piloting the ship, hung out in the main hold, taking advantage of the five hours they'd be in hyperspace to relax before they landed on Skako Minor. Wrecker took the time to work his arm muscles by using the single power droid owned by Clone Force 99 as a weight - affectionately called 'Gonky' by the siblings. Sometimes he'd even have Calli sit on top of Gonky to add more weight, and with his enhanced strength it still might as well have been a leaf. This time however Calli refused when he asked, choosing to instead occupy herself by watching holovids on her datapad, situating herself as far away from Hunter as possible, still very much upset with him and doing everything in her power to make sure he knew that, as the second they reached the mission site she'd have to pretend everything was ok. When he tried talking to her once, she simply hmphed and gave him the cold shoulder, thus making things even more tense.
You know the saying that parents say? 'If you're going to act like a child, then I'm going to treat you like a child? Well, Calli was doing a reversal of that. If he's gonna treat me like a child, then I'm going to simply act like one. Calli was too upset to even care about the fact that her behavior might make the Sergeant look bad and embarrass him. In fact, Calli took her pettiness one step further, and pulled some strings last minute to have Jace join them on the mission, knowing it would bug Hunter.
~Earlier~
After witnessing the little altercation with Skywalker, Rex, and Obi-Wan, Calli suddenly thought of a way to get under Hunter's skin and chased after the Jedi and clone, as they were a few yards ahead of her and both were heading to the same destination. With some clever manipulation on the girl's part, she convinced the General that it would be a good idea to bring Jace along.
"We need all the help we can get and Jace works well with our squad. With him and a great Jedi like yourself, plus our squad and the Captain, those Seppies won't stand a chance." She said, appealing to Skywalker's vanity and it surprisingly worked, the General telling her to go get Jace and hurry back so they could leave. Calli had noticed that Skywalker's heart rate sped up and he seemed nervous when she chased them down, and it made Calli want to assure him that she'd keep his secret which might not actually be that big of a secret if General Kenobi and Rex knew (who else for that matter knew then?) but she chickened out.
Imagine Jace's surprise when he answered the door and saw Calli standing there, thinking she had left already. Calli didn't give him a chance to voice his shock though and grinned widely up at him, immediately putting butterflies in his stomach.
"Pack your bags, we're going on a field trip!" Calli exclaimed with enthusiasm that he'd never seen before (he of course didn't know exactly why she was so cheerful).
"Wha-?" Calli didn't give him time to process her declaration and walked past him into the smallish quarters, doing a quick scan with her eyes. It was nothing special. Two beds on opposite sides of the room with little nightstands next to each and a small lamp on both. Jace's lightsabers were resting next to it and Calli promptly went over and plucked them from the nightstand, half turning to toss them at Jace before picking up the satchel sitting on his bed next to his pillow, figuring it would have important things in there for him to bring. Calli threw that at Jace as well, and he barely had time to catch it before his cloak that had been neatly folded at the foot of the bed was also hurled his way, unfolding in midair and landing on his head, temporarily engulfing him in darkness. Again, Calli doesn't wait for him to get a word in, wrapping her non-robotic hand around one of his wrists and tugging him along, though she was quick to switch to the other when her real hand felt like it had burst into flames where it had made contact with Jace's skin, even though she'd been wearing gloves.
Jace at first willingly let Calli lead him, until it finally registered what she had said and done. He was quick to dig his heels into the ground and force the pair to stop. Calli looked back at him with faux innocence, like she wasn't aware of what was wrong.
"Ok, I need an explanation please." He said and Calli sighed like the young Jedi had asked her to do something strenuous but complied.
"You're coming with us on the mission." She explained simply, yet that answer didn't satisfy Jace, who shook his head while still looking confused.
"Master Windu didn't inform me of this." Calli shifted her weight from one foot to the other, debating whether or not to take the easy way out and lie. Despite being told that Jedi can't read minds, Calli still found herself skeptical about the fact and that prompted her to spill her guts.
"Well... He technically doesn't know yet," She revealed with a sigh, "- but Skyguy said he'd let him know... once we're in hyperspace."
"What's with all the suddenness and rush?" Jace couldn't help but ask, and when Calli didn't offer an answer his eyes narrowed in suspicion, "What's going on, Cal?"
"Nothing's going on." Calli insisted to which Jace gave her a deadpanned look, "Ok, look, would you rather sit around here bored and waiting for some action or come with me and help us take down clankers and whatever else stands in our path? I mean, we make a pretty good team." Jace had hesitated still, but when she said that last sentence, he found himself unable to deny her request to join, despite the nagging feeling at the back of his mind that there was more to this than just going to extinguish boredom. He had been dealing with boredom since they'd arrived, his Master was busy half the time so they couldn't train - well he could by himself but again that tended to get boring -and the normal daily list of tasks he had to complete each day had become tedious rather quickly as well. Slicing droids with his lightsabers actually sounded FUN. Calli was really rubbing off on him and he wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Jace chose to believe that his boredom is the reason he agreed to come along, and not because of Calli's statement that they made a good team.
~Present~
A part of Jace wishes he had stayed behind when he witnessed the tension between Calli and Hunter and the former's harsh treatment of her brother. He tried asking Calli what the problem was, but she didn't give him any details other than they had a disagreement about something. It's not like Calli could tell him what they were arguing about after all, since it involved the young Jedi. Although Jace couldn't help but notice a certain Sergeant's dirty look when he boarded the ship.
It remained relatively silent for a majority of the trip, but eventually Rex broke it.
"So, how many missions has your team been on, Sergeant?" He asked in an attempt to find out more about how the squad operated. The recent mission with the ragtag group of clones and watching how they worked made Rex curious to learn more about the team. Anakin looked up from Crosshair's fire puncher which he had been admiring to hear the enhanced clone's answer. Hunter chuckled, turning away from the computer screen to look at the captain.
"Honestly, sir, I've lost count." He admitted, waving his hand lazily, "All the action sort of blurs together."
"97." Callista piped in without looking up from her data pad, making everyone look at her briefly but she didn't provide any further detail. Of course, this included the missions they'd done before Calli joined the team, and she knew how many from the wall in their barracks on Kamino where Wrecker made sure to add tallies every time they traveled back there. Plus, Calli kept count of the missions since she joined by putting tallies on her shoulder pads. She has completed 23 missions so far.
"I know you work with Cody sometimes, but who do you guys' report to?" Rex questioned soon after.
"Hmm good question. Can't say I've got an answer." Hunter said, and Rex made a hmph sound, not satisfied with these answers but he didn't press any further. He didn't have a chance to anyways. Everyone was almost knocked off their feet when the Havoc Marauder suddenly lurched to one side. Tech's voice came through the intercom.
"We've reached Skako Minor, but it looks like it'll be a rough landing! Scar I could use your assistance at the moment!" Calli didn't need to be told twice, shoving her data pad into the nearest person's hands (Jace) and running to the cockpit. She took the co-pilot's seat and the pair worked in perfect sync, bringing their ship into Skako Minor's stormy atmosphere (it reminded Calli of Kamino if she was being honest, save for there was no rain, just thick orange clouds that lit up with each crack of lightning followed by a deafening roar of thunder that made everyone's ears ring (more so with Calli and Hunter) and the ship shudder. Even then, Calli didn't let it stumble her ability to copilot the Marauder and in no time, they landed on the surface with zero trouble.
Everyone piled into the cockpit while Tech and Calli powered down the ship.
"Rex, what do we know about this place?" Anakin asked the Captain.
"On this part of Skako, there's a race of locals, the Poletecs." Rex answered promptly, then adding with a small frown, "All we know is they're very primitive."
""Primitive" is being kind. My intel says the Poletecs worship flying reptiles." Tech inputted, having done research on the five hour flight here, not surprising to his squad. Calli had joined him a while, wanting to be prepared, more so than usual and despite her telling herself it wasn't because of Jace- of course it was because of him! She didn't want to mess up, the last mission they went on together still fresh in her mind.
Suddenly the room is engulfed in darkness when something landed on the front of the ship, causing everyone to jolt in fright as it - it being an animal with large talons, gigantic wings and a very ugly face - let out a vehement roar at the group who could only look at the animal with equal parts shock and slight fear.. Its claws dug into the viewport, and when the talons scratched the glass it resulted in an ear splitting shriek that made Calli's already sensitive ears hurt even more, plus the noise caused a chill to crawl down her spine and set her teeth on edge.
Just as soon as the animal appeared, it flew off, and Calli could just barely make out another figure riding atop it.
"What the heck was that?!" Wrecker exclaimed, leaning over the control panel to try and see if he could spot the creature again. Tech and Calli of course were the only ones with the answer. They weren't sure of the exact name of the species, as their sources of information didn't provide one.
"It's one of those reptiles." Tech said simply just as more sounds of the reptile crawling atop the ship could be heard. Two seconds later it began jumping up and down and shaking the ship, no doubt attempting to open it somehow.
"I want that thing off my ship." Hunter declared and he didn't have to say anything else, his siblings all jumping up and running into the lounge area where the rest of their gear had been left. Instead of her backpack, Calli strapped on the jetpack, something telling her she might need it if they were dealing with flying reptiles.
The two Jedi and Rex had followed the Bad Batch through the ship and looked at all the clones like they were crazy - and they were.
"Hold on! Hold on! Don't just run out there!" Rex told the group, yet his objections fell on deaf ears as the boys and Calli headed for the off ramp, the latter being the only one to reply, stopping at the threshold of the door leading to the exit to give Rex her signature crazy smirk.
"Oh Rexy, haven't you learned already that we don't let danger come to us? We go to it." With that said, Calli slipped on her helmet and continued the journey outside. The captain - and his companions - could only look at her retreating form with bafflement.
"Hey! Get off of there!" Calli heard Wrecker shout at the creature and its rider as she exited the ship and joined her brothers with the two Jedi and Rex closely behind. While Skywalker and Jace ignited their lightsabers Calli took out one of her DC-17's, and fired a couple warning shots at the reptile, hoping it would spook and fly off, yet it didn't.
"Hey, calm down!" Skywalker ordered after Calli had shot at the reptile, yet none of the Bad Batchers lowered their weapons, "We need to talk to them." Now that they were face to face with the beast, they also got a better look at its rider. Calli didn't know what the thin, lanky humanoid with vermillion colored skin, two beady eyes and a long narrow face that rivaled Crosshair's.
"Why?" Hunter questioned, this being one of the few times he preferred to shoot first and ask questions later. After all, the Havoc Marauder was more than just a ship, it was their home - their sanctuary from judging eyes. He wasn't about to let some animal tear it apart, and his siblings shared that same sentiment.
"The General's right." Rex said, backing him up. Just before an argument could ensue, two more of those reptiles with riders emerged from the haze, heading directly towards the group, Rex being the nearest to them.
"Look out, Rex!" Skywalker shouted, though it seemed pointless since he ended up pushing the clone out of the way before he could be snatched up. The two creatures circled back around, creating a distraction so the group no longer paid attention to the one on the ship, which had consequences. Taking the opportunity, the leader had his reptile jump off the ship and they made a beeline for the group, specifically the two with lightsabers. It succeeded in getting a hold of Skywalker, but just before Jace was also captured, Calli shoved him out of the way and large talons wrapped around her small figure and she was plucked off the ground so fast that it made her stomach lurch and if she hadn't grabbed onto her helmet, it might have flown off.
"Calli!" Jace and Hunter shouted at the same time, then looking at each other, the latter glaring at Jace even though it couldn't be seen underneath the helmet, and then looking away with a childish 'hmph'.
Tech, not the least bit panicked, flipped down his visor and used the thermal scanner to pick up the heat signatures of his sister, Skywalker, and the reptiles.
"I have a thermal reading." He informed, turning to face his brothers and looking knowingly at Crosshair, "Point-two-five east, elevation 175." To anyone who wasn't part of the Bad Batch, (i.e., Rex and Jace) this would have been pointless information, after all they can't chase the flying reptiles on foot!
"What are we going to do?" Jace asks in a panic, and Crosshair nudges him aside while walking over to Tech's side.
"Relax. I'll handle this." He told the teen coolly as he takes the blaster barrel off his fire puncher and replaces it with the grappling hook attachment, proceeding to lay the gun on Tech's shoulder, using it to steady his weapon as he flipped down the rangefinder on his helmet to pick up the heat signatures. Soon a grappling hook is fired and flies through the air, and Crosshair smirks triumphantly when the device attaches itself to the reptile's leg connected to the foot currently carrying Calli in its grasp. Before the ascension cable runs out, Crosshair hands the other end containing a hook to Hunter, and the Sergeant hooks it to his belt.
"What are you doing?" Rex demanded, though he had a pretty good idea and all he could think was that Hunter was insane!
"Going for a ride." Hunter replied in a smooth voice, his hands leaving his belt and grasping the cable just in time as he's lifted from his spot on the ground, leaving behind a baffled Rex and Jace, who could only watch with jaws dropped as the Sergeant disappeared into the orange haze.
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Up with the reptile, Calli saw the hook embedded itself in the reptile's leg and she could care less if it hurt him. Before now Calli had never had a problem with motion sickness but as they climbed higher and higher and the claw holding her hostage jerked her body this way and that, Calli's last meal threatened to make a reappearance, which wouldn't be ideal with her helmet still being on.
She struggled against the claws restraining her, trying desperately to reach for her knife or second blaster (the first one had been dropped when she'd been grabbed). Calli only managed to wrench her right arm free, but her entire person was outfitted with weapons. She hit the vambrace against her helmet to press the button that activated the flame projector, aiming it so the flames licked the reptile's leg.
The attack had the desired effect and the reptile let out a roar of pain. Calli is suddenly in a free fall as the flying creature released her from its grasp, and she could hear both Anakin and Hunter call out to her as she rapidly descended for the ground.
As she fell Calli maneuvered herself, so her body was right side up and just before she slammed into the rocky floor, she activated the jet pack that dramatically slowed her descent. Her boots just barely touched the ground and then she pushed off at full speed, making a steady incline back towards the reptile and her squad mate who was still dangling on the grappling hook. The fire had made the creature fly more erratically, which wasn't good for Hunter as he began swinging uncontrollably, just barely avoiding the steep, jagged rock formations as he fired a few blasts at the reptile, which only succeeded in making it more agitated.
Calli flew as close to Hunter as possible while also dodging the large rocks, being ready to catch him when he fell, which the Sergeant eventually did, as the reptile's erratic flying made the grappling hook become loose then fall off all together. Before Hunter could even press his fingers to the side of his helmet to comm Calli, whom he'd seen catching up to them, Calli had already swooped in and grabbed him by his backpack before he fell to his death.
"Woah! Don't drop me!" Hunter shouted, being slightly fearful that Calli might do just that since she was mad at him. After smiling to herself because of this, Calli assured him she wouldn't, and they continued following their assailants that still had the General in its grasp.
Eventually they reached a small village, and instead of making themselves known Calli stopped just before they entered the settlement, instead going over to one of the rock formations that gave them a bird's eye view of the area and where they wouldn't be spotted.
Calli stopped roughly twenty feet over the rock and without warning let Hunter go and he hit the stone in an inglorious heap, not having the time to maneuver himself to where he could do a barrel roll and wound up on his feet with his dignity intact. So, he laid splayed out on his stomach while Calli elegantly landed on her own two feet next to the Sergeant who lifted the upper half of his body to glare daggers at his sister through his visor.
"I thought you said you wouldn't drop me!" He hissed and Calli hummed thoughtfully.
"Did I? I can't remember." She replied, and Hunter grumbled under his breath before comming the others, telling Tech to follow his comm signal. Not two minutes later the Havoc Marauder appeared and landed next to the rock formation Hunter and Calli were on, and the rest of the Bad Batch plus Rex and Jace climbed up, joining the pair as they looked down at the village.
Rex flipped his rangefinder down and found Anakin still wedged underneath the animal's claws. "That creature still has a hold of the General." He told everyone and Calli gave Rex a deadpanned look from beneath her visor.
"Way to point out the obvious." Calli thought, or at least she meant to only think this, but apparently, she said it out loud because she now had six pairs of eyes looking at her. Calli could only shrug in response. Thankfully Rex drew everyone's attention back to him when he spoke.
"We're going in - but remember what the General said. No casualties, disarm only."
"We're on it, Captain." Hunter assured before pointing to the two strongest members of the team then to the round boulder that was nearby, "Wrecker, Crosshair, rockslide!" He ordered and the pair nodded, heading over to the decent sized rock. Everyone else slid down the rock as the boulder was pushed by Wrecker from its spot and sent rolling into the village while Calli chose to jump off the edge and using her jetpack to fly around, making sure that no one was really hurt by the boulder, which included picking up a couple of the aliens out of its path before they became pancakes.
Apparently, her efforts weren't appreciated by one of the sentients she saved, because one of them punched her helmet with the arm Calli wasn't holding and she shouted in surprise while also accidentally releasing her hold on the pair of them - thankfully they weren't that high up in the air, so the drop wasn't fatal. Once Calli gained her bearings and steadied her flying, she glared down at the one who'd punched her while crossing her arms.
"Rude! I just saved your life and that's how you repay me?!" She yelled down at him, even though it was likely her protests wouldn't be understood by the alien species. Instead of getting an "I'm sorry" or "oops my bad", Calli had arrows shot at her. She avoided the first wave of arrows and while they reloaded, she pulled out a blaster and shot the crude wooden weapons from the aliens before they could attempt to fire another round of arrows. While they fled away in fear Calli also left and went to join the others who'd succeeded in freeing the General and were now being yelled at by what Calli assumed was the leader of the village. Calli landed beside Wrecker, who alongside everyone else had blasters aimed at the Chief who raised his hands in surrender before saying something in a language that none of them understood.
"Tech, translate what he said." Hunter ordered his brother, who stepped closer while tapping something on his wrist gauntlet before flipping down his visor. Words appeared in both red and blue, the former being the words spoken by the alien and its translation into basic.
"He says he does not want our war on his planet." Tech explained, the words disappearing so he could look at the General while finishing, "That is why he took our leader."
"We didn't bring the war here. It was Wat Tambor and the Separatists." Anakin said and Tech didn't need to be told to translate this to the Chief, and he did. The way Tech spoke the language sounded average at best, and besides the word, "Separatists", though it was spoken with a heavy accent, Calli didn't understand a thing. The Chief looked at the clone with his head tilted, most likely surprised that a human was speaking to him in their unique dialect. Once Tech finished, Rex stepped forward and gave Tech more sentences to translate, taking the opportunity that the villagers were calm and willing to listen to them.
"Tell him we apologize for what's happened. But tell him the enemy is holding one of our men prisoners in Purkoll. As soon as we rescue him, we'll leave his planet, for good." More blue words appeared on the left side of Tech's visor, and soon after a full translation was provided, and he spoke again to the Chief. He had a harder time talking this time around, tripping over a couple words and at one point he sounded like he was choking, yet he pulled through. The Chief was even more intrigued and took two large steps with his long, gangly legs, putting him right in front of Tech, who's voice drifted off as the Chief peered down at him, specifically the visor with wonderment, getting into the clone's personal space bubble. Tech remained stock still so as not to spook the sentient, allowing him to examine his helmet.
A few tense and uncomfortable seconds went by before the Chief stepped back, then turned to face the villagers that surrounded the clones and Jedi, and he said something to them. Calli stiffened when they all began talking and her hand itched for her blaster yet waited for Tech to translate.
"The Chief says he will provide us with scouts and lead us to Tambor's city. From there, we're on our own." He informed, and everyone turned to General Skywalker to see what he'd say to this offer.
"Any help is better than no help." He said with a shrug.
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Like the Chief promised, he sent a couple scouts with the group and they led them up to a cliff, and beyond that you could see the outline of multiple towers, which one of the scouts pointed to while saying something that again no one but Tech could understand. The General nodded to the scout anyways and they left.
"Took you guys long enough," Calli commented from her perch on the top of part of the rock that stuck out from the cliff and roughly fifty feet above the others. She'd flown up ahead on her jetpack as opposed to climbing up like the others and had been waiting for twenty minutes for the others.
Her brothers simply rolled their eyes while Skywalker ignored her and looked towards the city with determination.
"Hope nobody's scared of heights." He said and one by one Hunter, Crosshair, then Calli all turned their heads to Wrecker, knowing that the gentle giant had trouble with high altitudes yet keeping their mouths shut. Wrecker puffed his chest out haughtily.
"Well, I'm not scared of nothing." He claimed, though when he looked at the edge of the cliff, his confidence waned the slightest, "I jus' - When I'm up real high, I got a problem with gravity." His teammates, minus Tech who was tapping away on his datapad, held back snickers and Crosshair would have verbally teased him if their genius brother hadn't interjected with bad news.
"Speaking of problems, I am no longer picking up Echo's signal."
"I - I don't understand. You said it was coming from this city." Rex said, sounding extremely agitated and Calli felt bad for the Captain.
"I can only speculate, but it is possible there's a latency issue with the frequency caused by all these," Tech waved a hand towards the sky, "-atmospheric disturbances."
"Or maybe they sent the signal to lure us into a trap. And maybe your friend's actually dead." Everyone looked at Hunter, who crossed his arms, "Well, I can't be the only one thinking of that." He spoke. The other male members of the Bad Batch seemed to agree with the Sergeant, and Calli couldn't believe it.
"Look, every mission could be a trap." Rex retorted heatedly while jabbing a finger at Hunter, and Calli could hear his heart rate increase as he grew more and more upset at the doubt of his companions, "This one is no different. I'm telling you - that signal is being sent by Echo himself! He's alive!"
"I think you're letting your personal feelings get in the way because you left him for dead at the Citadel." Crosshair said in his usual cynical way and Calli said his name as a warning for him to shut up, as his words would only make things worse.
"I had no choice. You hear me?" Crosshair just shrugged, remaining calm while Rex was basically ready to explode.
"Oh, I don't blame you. I would've left him for dead too." Crosshair remarked casually, and he turned away from the captain, but not before throwing another cruel remark over his shoulder, "Besides, he's just another reg." This comment was what made Rex snap. He lunged forwards and when Crosshair turned back around, he was met with Rex's fist. The captain unleashed all his fury on the sniper into that punch, but it wasn't enough, and while Crosshair stumbled back Rex didn't give him a second to collect himself, landing another blow that made Crosshair fall backwards and hit the ground.
Even though Calli had been the closest to Crosshair, she made no move to defend him, because his words not only hurt Rex, but her as well as it brought up some memories
"Hey!" It was Wrecker who stepped in, picking up Rex by the scruff of his neck and yanking him away from his brother before he could land any more punches. "Why don't you pick on someone not your size?" the bug clone said tauntingly while dropping the captain on his feet not-so-nicely. But Rex was not intimidated by Wrecker's size, and stepped up to him, glowering at the enhanced clone underneath his visor.
"You'll be a whole lot smaller when I'm through with you." Rex threatened coolly, shifting his fury from Crosshair to the one who'd stopped his attack. The two Jedi could sense an array of intense emotions radiating off the captain, while Calli didn't need the force to be able to tell that Rex was in great distress over the possibility of his former comrade actually being dead. It made her feel even more sorrow for him, and angrier at her brothers for adding to his torment by expressing doubt.
"That's enough!" Anakin barked, thankfully putting an end to the fight before it got any uglier, though in all honesty Calli herself was considering giving Crosshair, Wrecker, and Hunter each a punch herself. "Sergeant, take your men and scout the area for a tower entrance. Jace, go with them. I want to talk to my Captain alone." Hunter nodded and motioned for his squad to follow him with Jace bringing up the rear.
As they slowly made their way down the rock, Crosshair took off his helmet and clicked his tongue in annoyance when he saw the scratches on the visor from Rex's punches, the armor plate protecting the top of his hand leaving marks on the transparisteel.
"Can you believe that reg? Getting so worked up over nothing." Calli, who'd been walking behind Hunter towards the front, stopped in her tracks and faced Crosshair, her hands balling into fists. She spoke in a low, clipped tone, just barely keeping her cool as she was still seething from his earlier comments and the urge to punch him was still there.
"You call being hopeful over someone he cares about being alive and getting upset when someone says cruel things about the friend nothing?" Without his helmet on, Calli could see Crosshair when his eyes rolled.
"Don't tell me you actually care about this whole rescue mission." By now everyone else had stopped, Wrecker, Tech and Jace being behind them and having to, so they didn't run into the pair, while it took Hunter a few seconds to realize his squad had stopped. He rejoined the group and asked what the problem was, but Calli and Crosshair tuned him out. Calli took off her own helmet so her scowl could be seen as she responded.
"And if I do, why is that a bad thing?" Crosshair scoffed, only further adding to Calli's frustration.
"Please, he's one of a million regs."
"And?"
"And he's nothing special and isn't worth all this fuss. The Republic couldn't care less about one lost reg so why should we?" Calli could only stare at Crosshair in disbelief. And then the others began sharing their opinions, Tech being the first, looking up from his datapad briefly.
"While I don't quite agree with Crosshair's rather harsh sentiments, I also feel the need to point out that it's likely this reg is dead and like Hunter said before, this could all be a trap." Calli shook her head, refusing to accept it, but Tech wasn't finished, "And if he is alive, who's to say we can trust him?"
"I agree with Tech. The reg could be working for the Seppies." Wrecker added, voicing the other obvious reason since no one else was going to. Calli could only chuckle wryly while shaking her head.
"I can't believe what I'm hearing. If you all feel this way, then why even bother coming on this mission?"
"Because we were ordered to, and we always complete our missions." Tech said matter-of-factly, like it should have been obvious.
"And you would have given us hell if we didn't." Hunter 'muttered' under his breath, though Calli heard him just fine.
"Well excuse me for caring more about people than just about missions. I can't believe how cold and unfeeling you're all being. I expect this from Crosshair," Crosshair looked downright offended by this statement, "- but the rest of you? I'm-I'm embarrassed to even be related to you right now!" Crosshair made a noise of exasperation.
"Why does this even matter so much to you?" He asked, not understanding why Calli cared so much about this reg they didn't even know.
"Because it's just hitting me, with the way you're acting about Echo, that you probably didn't want to come rescue me when I was captured by the Separatists. In fact, if the Senator hadn't been with me, you probably wouldn't have come at all!" Calli knew she was right when Crosshair looked away and there was a slightly guilty look in his eyes that she caught before he hid his face from her view. Tech and Hunter looked uncomfortable as well, while Wrecker spoke up.
"That's not true Scar," Wrecker exclaimed, trying to diffuse the argument and reassure her, "- the rest of us wanted to come rescue you! Crosshair got outvoted."
"Oh, how touching!" Calli retorted, and Wrecker deflated a little at this, not liking it when Calli was angry at him, but Calli was too fired up to feel bad. She turned back to Crosshair and jabbed a finger at him, "You wanna know why I'm so bent on saving Echo? Because when I was locked up in a cell, all alone and being tortured, I didn't think that anyone was going to come get me." Calli's expression softened a little as she said the next part, "But you guys did. I've never expressed how much that meant to me." It was weird to talk about it, Calli admitted to herself. Even more weird to think about how much time has passed and how much has changed. Several emotions welled up inside her at bringing that time up. She felt tears appear in her eyes and wasn't sure if they were tears of frustration or just from being emotional as she relived the experiences and what she felt when the boys came to her rescue. Calli shook her head and forced herself to calm down before saying one final thing. "And yeah, maybe this whole thing is a wild bantha chase, but if it'll help give Rex some closure then it's worth it and I don't care what you guys think or feel about it."
The boys just stood there in silence, unsure of what to say or do. Calli didn't want them to anyways, and Jace seemed to pick up on this and suggested they get moving. They all reluctantly agreed, but the awkwardness between the boys and Calli was undeniable.
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Eventually the Bad Batch plus Jace followed Echo's signal which had started transmitting again and it led them to the bottom of what appeared to be a tower of sorts. It was hard to tell how big or how tall the building was with the sandstorm that never seemed to end.
Calli stood off to the side and contacted the General per Hunter's order to tell them their coordinates, then leaned against the metal wall, keeping an eye out for the pair. Just as Tech connected his data pad to the control panel and began having it to allow them entrance, Anakin and Rex rejoined the group.
"We're in business, General. Tech regained Echo's signal." Hunter informed the general and he pointed to the building, "It's coming from this tower." Skywalker nodded, turning to the goggled clone. "How's it going, Tech?" Tech didn't respond, being focused on his datapad. A few seconds went by, then the doors finally opened, and Tech stood up.
"Sorry it took so long." He apologized, and Anakin and Jace were surprised at this, as it only took Tech less than a minute to hack which is a shorter time than most can achieve. Hunter told Crosshair to go check out the interior. The sniper creeped in while holding his rifle up, ready to shoot if necessary. When he made it all the way in with no trouble, he lowered the rifle.
"Yeah, it's a lift." Calli couldn't hold back a scoff as she pushed herself off the wall and headed for the inside along with the others.
"Well, we already knew that." She said in a snippy tone, to which Crosshair glowered but remained silent as everyone piled into the lift. Except for Wrecker, who stopped at the threshold when it hit him what they were about to do.
"Wait, wait, wait. A lift?" He said before taking a step back and straining his neck as he looked up at the tall building, suddenly feeling queasy to his stomach, "How-How far up are we going?" Despite being angry at her brothers, Calli felt bad for Wrecker.
"Don't worry, Wrecker." Hunter simpered, "I'll hold your hand." Wrecker huffed and nudged his brother's arm playfully.
"Hey! Cut it out, Sarge. Just give me some droids to crush." Wrecker said as he stepped into the lift. Now it was already a tight fit with seven people inside, and four of them were in bulky armor which made it more uncomfortable. Still, they at least had some moving room. But once Wrecker was inside, everyone else was forced to squish together to make his bulky figure fit in the tiny space.
The doors closed and the lift began heading upwards. It was a quiet, awkward ride as everyone was uncomfortable with their close proximity to one another. Calli was smushed between Jace on her right, Tech on her left, and Crosshair was behind her, forced to be in a corner.
Crosshair didn't like having Calli's jetpack pushing against him and crowding him. He let out a frustrated growl when the lift jerked, and the force made Calli stumble backwards and further push him into the corner.
"Quit crowding me!" He hissed over Calli's shoulder.
"Oh, I'm sorry, why don't I move?" Calli offered with obvious sarcasm, not bothering to even look back at her squadmate.
"Ha ha." Crosshair retorted dryly, "The smallest of us should be in the corner!" He then declared. Calli's head turned sharply at him, her anger flaring.
"Make one more crack about my size and I swear I'll take out my knife and cut off your -"
"Knock it off, the both of you!" Hunter barked sternly, effectively shutting them up before either could say anything that would embarrass the rest of them. When those two were angry at each other, they could say things that would make even a sith lord blush.
Skywalker backed Hunter up by focusing the attention back on the present task. "Remember, this is a stealth mission. No blasting, no blowing things up. Nobody knows we're here."
"Yeah yeah, we get it, General Buzzkill." Calli remarked without thinking, and when Skywalker looked at her with an annoyed expression, she could feel Crosshair facepalm behind her, and then tried to back track, "Er, I-I mean sir, yes sir...uh...General?"
"Nice save." Crosshair remarked, thus furthering Calli's embarrassment. She was saved however when the lift doors opened, and they were met by multiple D-1 Series droids that turned to face them.
"Intruders!" One of the droids said in a monotone voice, and all the droids began aiming their built-in blasters at the group that had yet to react, "Attack!"
Wrecker didn't think twice to act, letting out a battle cry as he barreled out of the lift towards the droids as they began firing, grabbing one of the offenders and flinging it to the other end of the room where it took out two others in its crash landing behind some containers.
"So much for stealth." Calli said dryly as Wrecker grabbed another droid, swinging it around to hit multiple other droids, sending them flinging off the landing pad they'd stumbled upon, then proceeding to dump that droid and shoot multiple rounds into the head, when really only one shot was needed. Despite her comment, when the other Bad Batchers ran out to help their brother, Calli didn't hesitate to follow, save for stopping to turn to Jace and pointing to one of his lightsabers.
"Hey, are you going to be using that?" She asked, wanting to use it since she didn't have her electrostaff and Skywalker had said to be stealthy and in ways a lightsaber was quieter than a blaster. Calli's question though was more rhetorical, as she grabbed one of them anyways. She at least had enough manners to thank Jace before bolting out into the open, igniting the blade just in time to swipe it in front of her and cut off the heads of two droids that had attempted to attack her. Calli grinned as she watched the heads and bodies clatter onto the floor, sparks flying from them and the metal melting where the blade made contact.
Heh, I really like this thing.
While Calli wasn't whooping and hollering like Wrecker as he fought droids, she was definitely getting an adrenaline rush from using the lightsaber instead of a boring blaster to take down droids left and right. Jace could only watch alongside Anakin and Rex as Calli swung the lightsaber to take out three more unfortunate victims before barrel rolling to another to avoid being shot before striking right in the center of its chest plate.
"Uh... Is she allowed to do that, sir?" Rex asked the General, yet Anakin didn't really have an answer. He was mildly impressed by how Calli (or he only knew her as Scar) utilized the weapon, not showing any hesitation at all. Most people were weary around lightsabers, heck in the beginning he'd been nervous to use it, being raised to use a blaster. While Calli's form was bad - horrendous even - she still managed to effectively take down numerous droids without barely breaking a sweat.
Wrecker had just finished blasting holes in the final droid and let out an almost maniacal laugh while pumping his fists.
"YEAH! WHOO!!" Calli let the blade retreat back into the hilt and looked at Wrecker along with the others, though she could understand as she felt a similar high. Wrecker laughed again, quieter and more sheepish this time, massaging the back of his neck, "Uh sorry. I just got excited."
"I've still got a lock on Echo's signal." Tech announced to break the awkward silence that followed as Wrecker finally calmed down.
"All right, men. Let's hunt some droids." Hunter said and this got Wrecker all excited again.
"Now you're talking! Yeah!"
Everyone headed for the doors that would lead them further into the building. Jace fell into step next to Calli on her left and held his hand out expectantly. With a nervous chuckle she gave the lightsaber back.
"Heh, sorry. Guess I got a little carried away." She admitted while wringing her hands. Thankfully Jace wasn't annoyed.
"No harm done - except to the droids." Calli visibly relaxed, yet Jace couldn't help but make a comment about how Calli fought with the lightsaber, "Your form was terrible, though." Calli made a noise of surprise, then punched his shoulder playfully, temporarily forgetting about her enhanced strength and that Wrecker was the only one who could handle her punches, even the "playful" ones could cause serious damage. Jace let out a pained grunt as his shoulder exploded in pain and went to grip his shoulder while Calli's eyes bugged out when she realized what she'd done.
"Holy kriff, I'm- I'm so sorry!!" Calli whisper-shouted so the others wouldn't hear her as she freaked out over the possibility that Jace's shoulder might either be broken or at the very least dislocated. Is injuring your Commander who's also a Jedi illegal? Great, I'm going to jail!
"It's fine." Jace assured her through gritted teeth as the pain became more of a dull throb. He rotated his shoulder a few times to show that no permanent damage was done. Calli went from being mortified to embarrassed and chose to increase her speed to go join the adults just as Skywalker suggested they split up, as apparently Tech had lost Echo's signal and now, they had no way of knowing where he was.
"Okay, we're splitting up. Search every door. If someone finds Echo, contact the others. We go in together, just in case there's trouble." Everyone nodded before heading in different directions. Hunter, Tech, Wrecker, and Rex headed left while the rest went right.
They ran down the curved hallway that had multiple doors spaced out on the right side while the left had a half wall, the top being a window that looked out to the rest of the city. Skywalker took the first door they came across; Crosshair did the next while Calli and Jace continued jogging until they reached another door and Calli said she'd take this one. Jace nodded and told her to be careful before running off.
After punching the control panel that opened the door, Calli took out one of her blasters and held it with both hands in front of her as she began creeping into the section of the chamber this door opened up to. It appeared to be a room full of generators and machinery that powered the building, separated into sections that created a sort of maze. There was minimal lighting, and Calli quickly slipped off her helmet and clipped it to her belt, opting to rely on her enhanced senses to detect any droids that would try and sneak up on her in the darkness. At every junction she stopped and listened, and when nothing jumped out and fired, she would move forward.
Eventually her ears picked up the sound of creaking metal from above and two seconds later a droid dropped to the floor in front of the girl.
"Drop your weapon-" Calli shot the droid through the head before it could say anything else. Then a sound came from behind and Calli was quick to unsheath her vibro blade and without turning jabbed it into the droid that crept up behind her in an attempted sneak attack, twisting the blade to ensure it did maximum damage. Just then another dropped down near the first droid and this one began shooting without any hesitation. One of the blasts just barely grazed Calli's ear and she pulled the second droid that still had the vibroblade embedded in its chest in front before kicking it forward with her boot to slam into the shooting droid, and they collided and fell into a heap on the ground.
Calli quickly made her way over to the heap and wrenched the vibroblade from the second droid in order to stab the third one before it could regain its bearings, only she didn't stop after one. She repeated the action, unleashing all the pent-up anger this mission has brought upon her. Everything that she's kept bottled up just came crashing down on her and this time she couldn't just push it away. As the blade pierced the metal body of the droid over and over, flashes of everything that was wrong in her life right now came to mind.
STAB. Her frustration with how her team didn't care about a reg being potentially held captive and even worse saying cruel things about him.
STAB. She was angry at the fact she was angry over something that on a broader scale of things maybe wasn't something to be so worked up about. But this had been building up for a while, to where now Calli took offense to even the smallest offense.
STAB. One of the built-up frustrations was how Hunter kept making passive aggressive comments about her relationship with Jace, as did Crosshair.
Thinking about Jace brought on a whole new set of intense emotions and Calli's stabs became more aggressive and with less time in between each one. The fact that Hunter didn't trust her or believe her when she said there was nothing going on between them. That he kept giving her a hard time about it and just not letting it go just infuriated Calli. She was glad at least that Hunter didn't know about the kiss she and Jace almost shared back on Naboo. It was hard enough that Jace tried to bring it up the first few times they corresponded. Calli would immediately brush it off and promptly change the subject, wanting to simply forget about it and move on. Eventually Jace seemed to get the hint and stopped, Calli was relieved that they could continue being friends and not worry about ruining it with some itty-bitty romantic feelings that tried to get in the way.
Calli's temper flared again thinking about that last part. She tried to deny it, both to herself and everyone else; she didn't like Jace in that way. But, deep down, Calli knew the bitter truth and she hated it with a passion. Most people wouldn't be so bothered over the fact that they like someone, but Calli was. She didn't know how it happened, one moment they were barely acquaintances, then that vacation on Naboo happened and suddenly these weird fuzzy, bubbly feelings emerged and Calli wanted nothing more than to turn them off!
Calli wasn't sure how many times the blade pierced the upper metal body of the droid, all she knew was that by the time she finally stopped her breathing had become heavy, her jaw was clenched, teeth were gritted and all she wanted to do was scream at the top of her lungs. She didn't feel better in the slightest, and that added to her frustration.
Before Calli could wallow in her despair any further, she got a comm call from Jace, saying that Tech regained Echo's signal and gave her the location to meet them at. After quickly wiping her eyes that had become misty without her noticing, Calli went to free her vibroblade, only for the handle and blade to separate and the latter was left embedded in the droid. Her lips formed a pitiful little pout,
Aw man, this was my favorite knife. Can't one thing go right today?
Not able to part with her beloved weapon, Calli pulled the blade out before making her way to where the others were. Turns out she arrived just in time too, as a bunch of droids were closing in on them. Calli immediately sprang into action, throwing the blade in her right hand at a nearby droid, sparks flying as it went down. She then chucked the handle at another, and with her enhanced strength the force was enough to knock the head off the droid and render that one useless also.
Now Calli had the attention of a few other droids and those she swiftly took down with her DC-17's while the rest were taken out by the others. There was a brief period for everyone to catch their breath and Calli got a better look of where they were at. The door where Echo supposedly was beyond that was in an arched alcove like thing adjacent to the hall and at the back of it were large double doors. Calli became hopeful that they'd find Echo, after all these doors were locked while the others weren't and that's only necessary when you're guarding something, in this case a prisoner of war.
More blaster shots forced everyone to hide behind each end of the alcove where there was a small wall that would shield them.
"Tech, open that door for Rex!" Anakin shouted over the blaster fire.
"Yes, sir!" Tech responded before hurrying over to the circular control panel next to the doors and getting to work. Calli followed to provide cover while he worked, Rex joining her a second later. Calli had seen Hunter say something to him beforehand, and wished she'd been able to hear because her curiosity was burning. She did however get an order to go with the pair once the doors were opened and Calli didn't protest, wanting to see first-hand if this whole mission had been worth it or not.
The doors led them to a small room with another set of doors at the end of it, and past that was a large circular room. Rex and Calli walked ahead of Tech with their blasters raised, taking slow, careful steps down a ramp, the rest of the metal floor having wires and lights intertwined, and with the large gaps in the metal they would likely get stuck.
The ramp ended and they stood before a large chamber of sorts, and even with all her armor on Calli could feel the coldness radiating from it.
"I don't like the look of this." Rex stated unsurely, and Calli found herself nodding in agreement while Tech got to work on the circular console in front of the chamber to try and get it open. Calli holstered her weapons and a heavy weight settled on her chest as she gazed upon the machinery that began making hissing noises and emitting clouds of smoke as Tech began the unlocking sequence, and from the way he swiftly typed in commands and pushed a series of buttons and levers, you'd think he had dealt with this type of technology before.
"I'm definitely picking up a life-form in there." Tech informed while he worked and that spark of hope was back, "It seems to be a stasis chamber. I think I can get it open. Calli, pull those two levers down slowly when I tell you to." Calli went to where Tech pointed and grasped the two levers, looking at Tech expectantly while her heart pounded at what might lay beyond the frosted doors of the chamber.
After pressing a couple more buttons he gave her a nod and Calli had to take a deep breath before gently pulling the levers downwards and she heard more whirring of machinery and from her peripherals to the left she saw the doors to the chamber swing open and a wave of frigid air made a chill go down her spine, only for it to happen again when a body fell out of the chamber. Even though Calli had her suspicions about what was inside the machine, nothing could prepare her for seeing a sickly pale, lifeless form to fall out of there, only it only made it about a foot out as it was attached to several hoses that prevented it from fully dropping to the floor, and somehow the fact it hung out like that made it even more terrifying. Calli let out a yelp and jumped back in fright, accidently bumping into Tech though truth be told she was tempted to grab onto his arm like a small child for comfort after that heart-skipping scare that probably took a couple years off her life.
Rex's horrified expression was hidden beneath his helmet, which he was thankful for. "Echo." There was sorrow in Rex's tone as he took in his vod's state. His skin color was no longer a warm tan color like the rest of the clones', and his entire lower body was now made up of cybernetic components, along with the lower half of his right hand, which was now replaced with a scomp link like most droids possessed. Echo's eyes were open, yet unfocused, and moved as if he was reading something.
The sadness was temporarily pushed aside, and Rex jumped onto the console to grab his vod and free him from the chamber. "Tech. We gotta get him out of here. Figure out how to unplug him from this mess." Rex gently wrapped his arms around Echo's waist and took off one of the hoses but found that the others wouldn't budge, they did however have some length, so Rex was able to pull Echo the rest of the way out of the chamber and place Echo on the ground with his back against the console.
Once Echo was settled, Rex took off his helmet so he could look at Echo more closely, and the despair and shock was clear as day on his features.
"What have they done to you?" Calli, having recovered from her mini freak out, crouched down on the other side of Echo and began spouting off her observations, not realizing that Rex wasn't really looking for an answer at this time.
"It looks like his lower torso, legs, and right arm were replaced with cybernetic implants and these tubes and stuff were probably there to keep him alive while in the stasis chamber-" Calli finally glanced at Rex and saw the "what the heck" look Rex was giving her and pressed her lips together briefly in embarrassment, "Oh, that was a rhetorical question wasn't it?"
Their attention was brought back to Echo when he began stirring and some of the cloudiness left his eyes. He jumped, then began speaking, his voice hoarse from not being used for who knows how long.
"We-We have to get to the shuttle to escape the Citadel." He mumbled out, then his face became panicked, and he held his human hand up, "No! I'll go first." Calli deduced he must be reliving his final moments before being knocked out or whatever. Rex said his name in an attempt to get his attention, but Echo continued to talk as if the rest of them weren't there. "No! No. No."
"Echo, it's Rex." The captain said, a little louder this time, "I'm here." He assured. Echo said 'no' one more time before slumping back against the console. He remained silent for a moment, and Calli saw his eyes clear up entirely and he became aware of his surroundings, specifically the ARC Trooper kneeling in front of him.
"Rex?" He said weakly, "You, you came back for me?" It was as if Calli was looking into a mirror, flashes of her saying almost the exact same thing to the Bad Batch. She couldn't describe the feeling it gave her as she watched the two brothers interact.
Rex nodded sadly, with regret in his eyes. "Yes." He said in a soft voice, "Yes, I did." It took Echo a second to process this, still being very much out of it. Eventually more questions spilled from his mouth.
"What... What happened?" he asked, his eyes glancing around at the unfamiliar surroundings, "Where am I?" Rex reached out and gently grasped Echo's human hand in his own, ignoring that it felt like an ice cube.
"It's okay, Echo. You're safe now." Rex assured in a soothing tone, and he placed his free hand on Echo's shoulder. "Just sit tight, trooper. You're going home."
○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○
AHHHHHH, I'M SO HAPPY THAT ECHO'S FINALLY HERE!! I'M SO EXCITED TO WRITE THE INTERACTIONS BETWEEN HIM AND CALLI!! THEY'RE GONNA BE CYBORG SIBLINGS!!!
I hope you liked this chapter!!
~B.C.
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ladysternchen · 10 months
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Melian and Thingol for 5, 12 & 17?
Thank you, you're making me very happy with that question! :D xD
5) Do they argue often? If so, what do they argue about? - No, they don't, as they both dislike conflicts in general and also are so close mentally that they know each other's motives generally too well to really argue. That does NOT mean that they don't disagree on matters and discuss things. Also most of the time, arguing just isn't worth it. They deal with so many problems and disagreements of others day in, day out that arguing in private would just be too much. The one exception was when Beren first came to Menegroth- there it was Melian who shouted at Elu for quite some time, and kept her grudges concerning the matter for quite some time (you brought that upon yourself, no deal with it). 12) Do they have a difficult time when separated from each other, or are they fairly independent? - Definitely having a difficult time. Being separated from one another is like a physical wound to them, which is again in part just their characters and for another the nature of their union, which is closer than most unions among the Children or the Ainur. They can only truly be whole with the other. That makes their being parted through Elu's death so horrible for both of them. It's not that Melian grieves Elu more than Lúthien, but his death left her maimed as nothing ever could have done. Same for him. 17) How well do they communicate? Are they open with their feelings/thoughts or more reserved? Why? - Now, that is a bit more tricky to answer, because in a way, it's yes and no. Were they an elvish couple, they'd communicate just fine. Were they both Maiar, even more so. But they're not, and that's where the difficulties are- because they are so close and know each other so well that they sometimes outright forget that they still are entirely different beings. That tends to happen to Melian more often than to Elu, as she perceives things differently. She, after all, has heard the Music, she 'knows' things that Elu doesn't, while at the same time, she lives and feels as an elf, which means that while she knows things in her heart, she still can draw the wrong conclusions. (Melian always KNEW Beren and Lúthien had to be, and so didn't even think of the consequences. Elu saw naught but the downsides of that relationship and acted accordingly, which again completely took Melian by surprise. That was the total breakdown of communication already in advance- Melian told Galadriel of her foresight about Beren, but she did not tell Elu- because it totally slipped her mind that he needed to be told. So once they get to the confrontation, it's much too late already, and they're in a situation they can't get out of. Melian as a wife could have taken Elu aside and explained. Elu as a husband could have waited 'till he could think straight again. As King and Queen IN COURT they could not do that. So she tells him to stay his hand, which he does, he doesn't kill Beren, nor does he send him to his death. Beren is free to go, as long as he keeps well away from Lúthien. Elu never even considers Beren ever succeeding, whilst Melian KNOWS he will, and thus knows that Elu proclaimed his own death sentence with setting that bride-price.). As for the second part of this question, as for sharing their feelings: they do, in general, unless they think that sharing their feelings would burden the other. Elu doesn't talk about how badly he's actually doing after Lúthien's choosing mortality (I've already lost us our child, I will not burden you with worrying about me as well) and she in turn does not openly tell him how much she fears for him but just silently tries to protect him as best she can.

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amysubmits · 2 years
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Amy, I read your blog with interest. I am in a 24/7 Ds relationship too. My question is how you maintain your dynamic during times of stress or arguments between the two of you (if you do). Its a strong part of my kink desires that when issues arise, we address them with Ds (by spanking or other means). This makes the dynamic 'real' for me - and thats important. If every time we argue the Ds dynamic goes out the window and I get shouted at, that makes the Ds dynamic seem like a fantasy, and that cheapens it for me. Would love to hear how you and your partner maintain Ds dynamic and use it to resolve real world issues or irritability, insecurity or other things that create arguments.
Hi :)
We might just be of different perspectives on this one, but I'll share my perspective and experience in case it helps.
We have several goals or ideals for our relationship that we try to make mesh all together. We want him to be the leader, we want him to have the final say on most things. We want to have me maintain a solid voice within our relationship, to not be "smushed" by his dominance/authority within our dynamic. We want him to have control through me offering it very willingly, rather than through it being obligated or being a default enforcement of superior/inferior roles. And we want both of us to feel lots of respect from each other.
For us, making all of these ideals work together means that using punishment to resolve disagreements wouldn't work. That would feel like a lack of respect for my opinions, and like he was smushing me by using his power to just decide he is "right" and I'm wrong and that's that.
We feel that way because if we have a disagreement and he uses punishment in response...how does that change my mind or convince me that he is right or anything like that? I don't think it would...I think my opinion would remain unchanged, I'd just stop voicing it.
What we do instead is we just try to talk things out...mostly like any other couple would. The difference is that if we both hear each other out fully, and at the end of the conversation we still disagree, CD's view is the one we go with unless it's an area that he doesn't have control.
When we disagree, I do sometimes struggle with feeling like I'm not being submissive or like I'm being a bad submissive. I think that's a bad/incorrect instinct, though, so I try not to let myself really soak in those instinctive feelings when they come up.
CD encourages me to speak up if I have any questions or concerns about how he's leading, and even to disagree with him as he feels it's important for me to maintain that sense of self. He doesn't want to always "win" disagreements or have me pretend that I think he's always "right". He's aware that sometimes disagreements are tough and I need to feel like my thoughts, feelings, beliefs, concerns, etc are heard before I can submit sometimes, and even then I may no 100% agree with him even when I submit to his decision. We are different people so it's just natural for us to have different ideas or beliefs sometimes. Me respectfully disagreeing with him isn't a threat to his dominance/leadership.
In a way...I think being able to discuss differing views but then me still submitting to do things 'his way' if we continue to disagree can be super powerful submission. It shows that I truly trust him to make hard decisions, and that I know that if he makes a decision and it doesn't go as planned, he'll take responsibility for the outcome. It's a huge sign of trust and respect.
I think when submission happens really 'easily' that feels really nice and submissive, so by contrast when submission is harder (like it happens after addressing a concern or having a disagreement) it can feel not-as-good or maybe even bad by comparrison. I don't think that it 'feelig' less submissive means it IS less submssive. As I said above, I hink it's actually a more powerful form of submission in a way. I think sometimes there's a difference between practicing D/s and feeling it, at least feeling it in the way most of us like to feel it like "Yes, Sir 😍" type feeling it.
In my view, a key part of making it possible to submit through disagreements is how the disagreement is handled. We have to really prioritize staying calm and respectful to each other for it to work. If either of us are too emotional to handle a disagreement in a calm and respectful way then we'll delay the conversation until we can do that.
Hope something in here helps. :)
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gunsli-01 · 1 year
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Gotta be real I've been having a crap time for a minute now. From being harassed by a psychiatrist (for literal months) to everything that happened over the past nine years. Like I can only name a handful of good things that have occurred but there's been good things. I won't be discussing them here to not ramble. Just want to say Trevor Noah's shout out to black women saying if you want to know what America is like talk to black women cause they don't have the leisure to fuck around and find out is very accurate.
This year and every year I've wanted something that my Healthcare rightfully should and luckily eventually after several years of searching did turn out to cover testing for autism. Then went under months of testing from a black female psychiatrist. Something a lot of people online say is that finding a psychiatrist similar to you is fulfilling and i know a lot of people don't want to hear this but it was not. I didn't fuck around and find out at every angle where I saw an abuse of power I noted it. When this psychiatrist withheld my diagnosis forms from me despite testing being complete I noted it, when she angrily started editing my disgnosis forms on her computer cause she thought I was being uppity I noted it. If I had issues I made sure I had a detailed record of them and kept everything related to going there. I did not fuck around and find out and I'm happy for the experiences in my life that told me not to. Because if I did fuck around and find out I very well could've been institutionalized over a disagreement with a power hungry ableist psychiatrist.
If and when I go ableism is a problem I'm not saying it from a distance. I'm saying it as someone who grew up with asthma who kept trying to figure out if they had autism until they did. Then immediately after discovering they had it and adhd yep we're triple a in here now apparently. Was immediately considered a child despite being an adult and as though my personal statements on any issue concerning my life were unimportant, harassed, belittled, and infantalized for months as someone refused to give me documentation I needed to leave the situation. Then after I got that and left this psychiatrist tried to send the police to my home by fabricating a state of emergency and claiming I was suicidal so they would technically have the right to. That's the type of shit that can happen when black women fuck around and find out. I've told family about this and reactions have been very telling it's not that's horrible it's oh of course well you should've figured that would happen, that's how it always is, at least you know what this field is actually like now.
I'm far from thinking that mental health isn't important or something that should be sought after. Simply because it's proveably true that it is important and a necessity that everyone should have access to and feel safe accessing. I'm just stating that for some people even those sorts of places aren't safe. I thought it was for me and through experience I now know it isn't. I now know that at the end of the day the luxury to fuck around and find out isn't one I ever had. The only reason I'm here right now is because I did not fuck around and find out. Even when extending the benefit of the doubt I kept a record of these things. I looked into how to report this behavior if it came down to that which it obviously did. I made back up plans for back up plans even going as far as to get a telehealth therapist at the same time as pursuing testing with this person in case things did not work out with one of them and if it didn't work with either of them down the road I would simply leave.
That's the type of mentality you get when you know you don't have the option to fuck around and find out without it severely negatively impacting or ending your life. People might say why were you so paranoid about getting therapy and testing but I know if I wasn't I would simply no longer be here to the capacity I am right now and that's the problem not how I chose to cope with it.
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floating-mid-air · 3 years
Text
The Princess of all Saiyans
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 Masterlist
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Hey Everyone! It's been a while. My life's been kind of hectic the past couple of months. Long story short: I Graduated from Highschool this year, so I was busy with everything having to do with that. Then my summer job sadly prevented me from writing as well. And then I started College, which was a big change for me. For now, there are no more chapters in my life opening or closing. Now I'm finally in a place where I feel comfortable continuing this book again. I could've honestly been writing during all of this chaos. But I wouldn't have been pleased with the quality of my writing. I'm really excited to get back into the swing of things. I don't think this chapter panned out the way I originally planned, but I'm still happy with it. As always, I hope you enjoy it. And if you have any comments or concerns, feel free to let me know. My inbox is always open!
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Chapter 11
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You've been walking for quite some time now, and the experience has been excruciating. You haven't been in this much pain since you and Raditz were on planet Telia, ten-something years ago. Those damn underlings were able to get a good sneak attack on you. Though you can't say, you let them get away scot-free. You made sure to make their entire dreadful race pay for that injury. You and Raditz had covered up that incident, much like you're doing with your current injury.
"So---" You can hear Goku talking to Krillin from just slightly left of you. "Did you guys find the senzu beans?" Wow, Kakarot may be the least subtle creature you've ever encountered.
"Ya." Krillin chuckles. "All four of us were in pretty rough shape." Goku glances at you with a worried look on his face. You glare at him as Raditz eyes the two of you skeptically. He knows something's off between the two of you. Maybe something serious did happen while you and his brother were trapped together. 
A bit more time has passed, and you've been trying your best to keep up with the others. But it isn't as easy as you thought. You're now trailing behind the rest of them, with Raditz turning back to look at you every so often. The largest Saiyan slows down to catch up with your slower pace, now walking beside you.
He turns to you, whispering in a low tone. "Something's off." Raditz can no longer stay silent about his concerns. First, it was the strange vibes between you and Kakarot. And now it's your out-of-character demeanor making him uneasy.
"About what?"
"You. Typically you walk beside your brother, and when he doesn't let you, you make sure you're always only a few paces behind. But right now, you couldn't be more content to trail everyone. Plus, you're far too confident to not be in the very front." Raditz has been around far too long for your liking. Damn him. He knows you far too well, and you hate him for it.
You roll your eyes at him. "So this conclusion of yours is based on the way I'm walking? I'm tired. When I fought, Burter, that physically drained me. And then I got trapped in a ditch with your moronic brother, that mentally drained me. I'm exhausted, Raditz." 
"It's not just the way you're walking. It's your mannerisms as well." He points at your side. "Your hand hasn't moved from your side from the moment I first saw you."
"God, Raditz." You scoff. "Stop overanalyzing everything."
"Getting defensive now? That's your M.O whenever you're hiding something." He looks back and forth between your face and your hand that has remained glued to your side. The gears in the older Saiyan's head slowly but surely turning. " Y/N, are you hurt?" 
"No." You snap your eyes shut, biting your lip hard enough to draw blood in an attempt to suppress a wince of pain. "I'm fine."
He tilts his head at you. "Y/N, I know you claim otherwise, but I'm not stupid. I know you're in pain."
You chuckle softly in a self-pitying way. "Am I that easy to read?"
Raditz shakes his head, smiling to himself. "No, I've just known you for a long time now." He returns to his serious demeanor, his gaze returning to the area of your wound. "How bad is it?"
"I barely feel it at all. Though, climbing out of that ditch must have reopened the cut."
Raditz snickers. "You're a bad liar."
"That's strange. I've been told in the past that I'm quite good at lying."
A smirk spreads across Raditz's lips. "Well, you apparently aren't when I'm involved."
The larger Saiyan glances at the back of your brother's head. You respond with a glare, firmly pulling on a large chunk of his hair. You know what Raditz wants to do, and it's not happening. "Don't even think about it."
"I-I think we should tell him Y/N."
"No." You let go of his hair, tapping his chest with extreme force. "You're going to keep your big mouth shut. Vegeta will freak out. You know how irrational he gets."
Raditz decides to let you have your way--- for now. The man can't help but wonder why you're so stubborn, but then again, his nature isn't much different from yours.
With every minute that passes, your condition only seems to worsen. Your eyes even start to droop. "Y/N?" Raditz turns to you, his features beginning to fill with worry. He places one of his large hands on your forehead. You're burning up. "You have a fever. Your wound must be infected."
"No." You shake your head in disagreement, almost like a child. As your mental state becomes more and more delirious. 
"Vegeta!" Raditz shouts, gaining your brother's attention.
"Fuck you, Raditz! You're such a blabbermouth!" You shout at the larger Saiyan in front of you.
"What's wrong this time? Is my sister trying to pull you into another one of her elaborate schemes?"
"Y/N's hurt--- bad." Vegeta's eyes widen, and not even a millisecond later, he rushes to your side. "She has a fever. I think her cut is infected."
"Where is it?" He crosses his arms at you, noticing your hand placed firmly on your side. He moves your hand out of the way with ease, lifting your armor. "How did this happen?"
"Burter nicked me during our fight. It's no big deal."
"No big deal? It's infected, you stupid woman!" He turns his attention to Kakarot. "Did you know about this?"
You snicker. "Oh ya, Vegeta. I get hurt, and the first person I run to tell is Kakarot." Vegeta's fists clench at your sarcastic remark, turning his fit of rage back at you.
"You know, in certain situations, you're more prone to infections. And a planet like Namek checks all of the boxes! You know you need to be more careful. Damn our mother and her faulty genetics!" Sadly that's a trait you had inherited from your mother. On most planets, you'd be fine, and injuring yourself would be no big deal. But Namek has specific conditions that result in you being more vulnerable. 
"Raditz, pick her up." Raditz picks you up, giving you a piggyback ride. You wrap your arms around his neck, giving yourself better balance. Vegeta glances up at you. He looks even madder than usual. "With the condition, you're in, you will not be fighting. You will stay away from Jeice, and you won't even enter the same proximity as Ginyu. Do you understand me?"
"But--"
"No!" His voice booms, gaining the attention of every creature for miles. "I'm not kidding around. Do you understand me?"
You bite your lip, tilting your head downwards, avoiding your brother's gaze like the plague. "Yes, Vegeta." Vegeta returns to the front of the group, his mood sourer than ever.
As Raditz begins to walk, he starts talking to you again. "Are you mad at me?" You don't verbally respond. Instead, you claw into his shoulders, your nails digging into his flesh. "Fuck. I'll take that as a yes."
"You're a tattletale."
Raditz chuckles. "No wonder why Vegeta babies you. You'll thank me for this later, you stubborn woman. And I've kept your secrets before, handfuls of them, actually. Like what happened on planet Telia----" Raditz realized the grave mistake he had just made, mentioning that incident in the presence of the very being you worked so hard to hide it from.
You slap the older Saiyan upside the head as Vegeta turns backward, a scowl plastered on his face. "What happened on plant Telia?" It was a rhetorical question, mocking both you and Raditz. "Oh, the three of us will be discussing this in length later. Because it sounds to me like you both lied to me on that initial report." You and Raditz gulp, you've heard that tone from your brother millions of times now, and it has never once become any less terrifying. 
"Oh, lighten up, Geta." You groan. "That was like, what? Around thirteen years ago?"
"The amount of time that has passed matters very little to me. As I said before, this is a discussion for later."
A few more hours have passed, which honestly feels like days at this point. And considering Namek's strange day cycle, it very well could've been. "How much farther?" Your question was clearly directed at Vegeta. And at this point, you're not even sure he has any idea where you're headed either.
"I don't know why you're the one complaining." Raditz huffs.  "You're not the one doing all of the walking! And if you ask him that one more time, I'm going to drop you." Ok so maybe, that wasn't the first time you've asked that question today. Or the second, or third, you're very bored. 
"Man Raditz." You roll your eyes, which are barely open at this point. "You sure complain--- a lot."
"You were just complaining." The long-haired Saiyan grumbles. 
"No, I simply asked Vegeta a question. There's a difference Raditz. I know it's hard for your feeble mind to understand." When you're sick, you tend to act, oh what's the word? Bitcher than normal. And that's saying a lot.
Raditz clenches his jaw. "Vegeta. I need a break from your sister."
"That's how I felt ninety percent of the time I was stuck in a room with you, Nappa, and Cado. And you didn't see me running to wine to Frieza about it."
Before Raditz can retort, your brother interjects. "That's enough! From both of you!"
Krillin, Gohan, and Goku have identical bewildered expressions on their faces. Krillin turns to Vegeta, lowering his voice to a whisper. He doesn't want to be the next victim of your wrath. "Do they always fight like this?" The human finds this perplexing. Back on Earth, the pair seemed inseparable. They appeared to be the Saiyan equivalent of what on Earth would be considered best friends.
Vegeta lets out an exaggerated sigh. "Yes, but typically it's more playful in nature. When my sister is sick, she becomes even brattier than usual."
Vegeta's warning to both of you seems to have fallen on dead ears. Because your quarrel has not ceased, in fact, it has only elevated. "I will drop you, you royal brat!"
"I dare you to you second-class runt. I could still kick your ass even in my delirious state. I wouldn't even have to try very hard."
"I'm considering----"
Before Raditz can even get three words out, your bickering is once again interrupted, and not by the person you may think. "Enough!" Gohan shouts. You honestly forgot the others were here for a moment."If you two keep fighting like this, you're going to get all of us killed!" You and Raditz stare at the boy in shock. It's been a long time since the two of you have been yelled at by a child. The last time being when you were children yourselves. Vegeta hasn't changed much since childhood. He's been bossing you around and shouting at you since you were children, but I'm sure that's not very surprising. 
"Ya, and I can take Y/N---- if you need a break." Goku rubs the back of his neck, chuckling sheepishly. "Not that I want to hold Y/N or anything."
"No." You rapidly shake your head. "Raditz, I'm sorry. I'll be good now--- I promise."
A wicked grin spreads across Raditz's lips right before he grabs your hands with his larger ones. He loosens your grip around his neck, moving your body with ease, scooping you up into his arms. Every step Raditz takes toward Goku seems even more antagonizing slower than the last. Until he's standing directly in front of his younger brother. He elevates his arms slightly, dropping you right in front of an unsuspecting Goku.
Lucky for you, Goku has sharp reflexes. That allows the Saiyan to catch you easily. Raditz look's his brother dead in the eyes, his typical arrogant grin still on his lips. "She's your problem now, Kakarot." Raditz gazes downward to look at you. "Stop pouting. Maybe next time, you'll be nicer to good old Raditz."
A low growl echoes in the back of your throat as you glare daggers at the Saiyan standing before you. "Ya, or maybe next time, I'll rip out your tail and strangle you with it!" The only thing that's stopping you from lunging at Raditz is Goku's firm grip holding you in place.
Rather than arguing that the entire group has become accustomed to, the whole area has become dead silent. You're no longer pouting. Instead, you are glaring at the man who continues to carry you bridal style. You've never liked being held like this. It makes you feel weak like you have no control over your own body.
What makes you even more irritated, Is how Goku reacts to your death stare. He just grins at you. Does he just never get angry? What kind of Saiyan is he? It fills you with so much anger that someone as dopey as Kakarot has Saiyan blood flowing through his veins. 
You clench your fists. You just wanna punch Kakarot so badly. He just has such a punchable face. If you could take away his cheery personality, he'd actually be quite attractive. Wait--- what the hell are you thinking? Kakarot is stupid and way too friendly for you to ever think of him in that way.
 You move your fist up, finally giving in to your urges, attempting to punch the man holding you. Probably not your wisest moment, but your brain isn't functioning normally right now. Goku catches your hand with ease. His reflexes are unreal, or maybe this fever has you more sluggish than you believed. You'd prefer to think that it's the second option. He chuckles to himself. He's still not upset. What the hell is wrong with him? "Come on, Y/N. You gotta be quicker than that." He's challenging you. How Saiyan like of him. You seem to always be able to find specks of Saiyan nature in the cheerful man. And those are the aspects you actually like about him. 
Your eyes begin to once again feel heavy as your eyes droop shut, just before you fall asleep in the arms of your enemy. 
Twenty-Something Years Ago:
You're sitting on your bed, sitting crisscrossed, a book laying open on your lap. Since your father is currently off-planet, you can read all you want. You're enamored with your newest book. It's all about a topic referred to as diplomacy. It's fascinating and has many concepts that are entirely foreign to you, yet at the same time, some of these ideas are also familiar. 
As you read, your door slams open, but you pay the interruption almost no attention, not even bothering to look up from your book. Honestly, the unwelcome intrusion has you more angered than anything else. "God, Vegeta." You roll your eyes. "Haven't you ever heard of knocking?" Something's not right. When Vegeta usually bursts into your room, he's automatically shouting at you.
Out of pure curiosity, you look up from your book. However, standing at your door, you don't find Vegeta. A boy with a very similar appearance but with a much smaller stature stands in your door frame. He's out of breath, desperately huffing for air. "Tarble?" You furrow your brows at your brother, launching off your bed to get closer to him. "What's wrong?" You have this sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. Your twin has never behaved in such a manner before. 
"Captain--- Captain Ginyu is here." Tarble is shaking, his eyes watering slightly.
You scowl ever so slightly. "But Ginyu's not scheduled to be on planet Vegeta any time soon." 
"It's--- It's a surprise visit. What do we do, Y/N?"
You contemplate for a moment before your features fill with alarm. "Tarble? Where's Vegeta?"
His lip quivers as he looks down at the floor. "He's with Captain Ginyu."
"Damn it." You mutter under your breath. Diplomacy is a skill you need right now. And Vegeta doesn't have a single quality that a diplomat possesses. Your elder brother is more likely to unnecessarily provoke the Captain, putting your entire race in hot water with the Frieza Force. 
You rush over to your bedside table, rummaging through the drawer. Once you have your scouter in your hand, you run back over to your brother. "Stay in here, and use this to channel our father. Let him know what's going on." You push past your twin, about to leave, before Tarble's voice calls out to you.
"Wait, Y/N!" You turn back to look at him. "Where are you going?"
"I have to go stop our older brother from doing something stupid. Everything will be fine, I promise. Just calm down and do as I said." And with that, you take off, praying that Vegeta hasn't already done something rash.
As you sprint down the halls of the palace, you run face-first into the torso of a large body. "Princess?"
You look up at the bald Saiyan, the one who's supposed to be at your brother's side at all times. Since the future king of planet Vegeta needs to be protected. "Nappa, Where is my brother?"
The imbecile scratches the back of his neck, contemplating much longer for your liking. "I'm not sure. I haven't seen the runt in quite some time. You should probably ask Vegeta." 
You scowl at the Saiyan. "Not Tarble, you fool! I'm asking you where Vegeta is!"
"Oh, Why didn't you just say so?" It's taking every ounce of restraint you have in your body to not viciously attack Nappa. "He's just outside of the palace." 
You run through Nappa, intentionally knocking the large Saiayn onto the floor. His stupidity lost you precious time. It was quite an amusing sight, though. A mere child, being able to take down one of your father's best warriors. 
You arrive outside of the palace, your eyes landing on your target. This is the first time you've ever seen Captain Ginyu. Sure, you've heard stories of the purple man. And much like your people, Ginyu is just as bloodthirsty and just as ruthless. Much to your surprise, the Captain doesn't have an army behind him. This was just before the Ginyu Force had formed. All Ginyu was at this point in time was a captain of one of Frieza's many armies. 
You walk over to them, now standing at your brother's side. "Captain Ginyu." You speak with your hands, an exaggerated smile appearing on your lips. "To what do we owe the honor?"
The man looks down at you, clearly analyzing you with his scouter. "Well, if this isn't a surprise. I think this is the first time I've had the pleasure of meeting you, Y/N." Ginyu extends his large hand out to you, causing Vegeta to feel a great deal of alarm. Your brother's body has gone tense with an apprehensive look on his face. But when your older brother looks over to you, there isn't even a glint of fear in your eyes. You're calm, almost as if one of Lord Frieza's deadliest warriors was not standing before you. You accept the Captain's hand, presenting him with a short but polite handshake. "Your father doesn't like showing you off much, does he?" 
You chuckle softly. "My father likes to hold his cards close to his chest. I'm sure a man like yourself is quite similar." Sucking up to Ginyu is not your favorite pastime, but it needs to be done. And every Saiyan on this planet knows your big brother is far too prideful to do it himself.
Ginyu looks between you and Vegeta carefully. For someone so highly regarded by Frieza, he sure isn't subtle. He's trying to read your facial expressions. Unfortunately for him, your father has raised you both much better than that. A poker face to you feels more natural than a genuine expression. "Speaking of your father, where is he right now?"
"He's of---"
You quickly cut Vegeta off. "He's in a meeting. That's why our father sent me out. He wanted you to know he sends his regards, but his hands are tied at the moment. He will be here at soon as possible. I hope my brother and I can suffice your needs in the meantime."
Captain Ginyu eyes you skeptically, tilting his head at you ever so slightly. "That sounds serious. I hope it's nothing too pressing."
"Of course not. It's nothing my father can't handle."
You're about to continue your schmoozing, but you're stopped by Vegeta aggressively yanking on your arm. "We need to talk-- in private."
You grimace at your brother's words. He just always has to make everything that much more difficult for you. You turn back to Ginyu, offering the man a cheerful smile. "Will you excuse us for a moment? We'll be right back."
Vegeta drags you around a corner, concealing you both from Ginyu's prying eyes. "What do you think you're doing?" He huffs at you in a whisper. "I had everything under control."
You snicker, crossing your arms. "You were just about to tell Ginyu that our father was off-planet. It sounds to me like I got here just in time to prevent you from making a grave mistake."
"I don't see why that matters."
"And that's the issue, Vegeta. Now we don't have time for this. Let's go." You turn back around, walking back over to Ginyu, Vegeta trailing not far behind. "I'd like to apologize for my brother's rudeness, Captain Ginyu." You shake your head but with a slight smirk across your lips. "All Saiyan men are the same, and my brother is no exception. They're incredibly thickheaded and quite savage. I'm convinced they don't even realize what brutes they are." You watch your brother ball his hands up into fists from beside you. It fills you with an immense feeling of joy knowing you're getting under Vegeta's skin for once. You turn back to Ginyu, plastering that disingenuous grin on your face. "Now, how about we give you a tour of our wonderful planet?"  
You and Vegeta have shown Ginyu around almost the entirety of your planet, and you must admit you're beginning to grow worried. Luckily you've managed to hold off any more questions about your father's whereabouts by charming him with various facts about planet Vegeta. But to be honest, you're not sure how much longer you can hold up this charade for. You've exhausted pretty much every idea that you've been able to come up with.
"Captain Ginyu!" Your father's brash voice invades your ears as you turn around to finally see the man you've been anxiously waiting for. You've never seen your father walk in such an urgent manner, and it's pretty funny watching your twin struggling to keep up with your father's pace. 
Your father places himself between you and Vegeta, ruffling your hair affectionately. You look up at him. "How'd your meeting go?"
Your father meets your gaze, catching onto your deception almost immediately. "It went very well. Thank you both for keeping Captain Ginyu company in my absence, but I think I can handle it from here." He directs his attention back onto Captain Ginyu. "Now, how about we discuss you're abrupt arrival somewhere more private."
The two men exit your field of view, leaving the three of you alone. Tarble, in his typical fashion, glues himself to your side. "What the hell was that?" Vegeta spits out with venom. "Where was your pride? You were basically groveling at his feet."
You furrow your brows at him. "I was doing what needed to be done. And if you think our father isn't currently doing the same thing, you're a bigger fool than I thought."
"I know our father is being more agreeable with him, but not at the cost of his pride."
"It's always about pride with you." You step closer to Vegeta, closing the distance between you. "Your pride today would have cost the loss of countless lives today, Vegeta."
"Then so be it. If there are Saiayn's that inadequate on our planet, we should probably just exterminate them now. It'll save us the hassle later on."
You snicker, shaking your head at Vegeta. "Some King you'll be." You turn to your twin. "Let's go, Tarble. I have no desire to be near our foolish brother right now."
The conversation between Captain Ginyu and your father was brief. It was a very anticlimactic ending to the naked eye. The briefness of this encounter only set off more alarm bells in King Vegeta's head. It was clear to the man that Ginyu's excuse for being on his planet was bullshit. He's just not quite sure what the captain's intentions were, but he sure as hell is going to find out.
As soon as Ginyu left planet Vegeta, he promptly set course for his next destination. He's headed straight to Lord Frieza to report his findings, and he's eager to do so.
 Ginyu arrives on the planet in record time, heading straight for the throne room. Ginyu kneels before Frieza, waiting for his boss to speak. "Captain Ginyu. You're sure back early. I trust you were able to gather enough information on the young prince."
Captain Ginyu nods enthusiastically. "Of course, Lord Frieza. The Price was exactly the same as the previous data we collected on him. He's powerful and quite intelligent for a Saiyan. Though, he did inherit that nasty temper from his father."
Frieza sighs. "How disappointing."
"But I did discover something that you may find interesting, Lord Frieza."
Frieza tilts his head at the man. He can't help but feel intrigued. "Go on." It's not that easy for him to find an advantage over those monkeys, so he'll take any information Ginyu can give him, no matter how minuscule. 
"Y/N--- King Vegeta's daughter piqued my interest greatly. She's not even close to as strong as her brother, but she's remarkably clever. She's very good with words, she knows how to manipulate people. I'd say she might even be better than King Vegeta himself."
"Now, that is fascinating. Good work, Ginyu. I'll look into the Princess's abilities more in-depth later. You're excused."
-
This is just something I felt the need to clarify: So in this chapter's flashback, Vegeta is around three, and Y/N and Tarble are about two. In my head, I picture children on planet Vegeta behaving like miniature adults. My idea is once they leave their chambers (the tanks they are raised in to get their basic Saiyan instincts under control), their minds are fully grown, but their physical growth is quite delayed. That's why they curse and stuff. I have a minuscule window of time to squash in all of my plot ideas. So this was the best way to do so.
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twin-books · 2 years
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Your post about that moment in Syren, plus all the salt fics I've seen caused by that episode as well as Chameleon made me realize that a big problem with the ML fandom is their Never Live It Down attitude.
On one hand i understand, there are moments and episodes in the show that do make the characters look bad and it can be irritating when the show and certain parts of the fandom glosses over them, but on the other hand, the fact they keep bringing it up these moments again and again and again, most of the time without either the context or the nuance these moments have, or sometimes making up headcanons to make these scenes worst than they actually are just makes me want to shout at them to get over it!
I'm glad you read my post. And yes, a big issue with the miraculous fandom is not letting go. On both sides, really. It's not just salt.
Multiple times I have seen salt die down for something but someone into sugar just has to go on and on about how much they hated that take which sparks it all over again. Which is why I also tried to point out sugar people as well and how I'm bothered by the discussion in general.
It's also the lack of any compassion with people that even slightly disagree with you in this fandom that very much bothers me. I joined a survey recently of someone doing results on miraculous stuff and the person gathering the results was so snide and rude when it came to takes they didn't personally agree with. I understand being bitter about the number of toxic salters but nowadays the miraculous fandom just brands anyone who happens to dislike a character they like as a toxic salter. No one wants to hear them out and people constantly make fun of them. It's awful. It's absolutely awful. It's awful to even think I used to be a part of this and didn't even realize it. Had an incident not have happened with my friend I wouldn't have truly known how bad and toxic this blatant flaw in the miraculous fandom is. If you say you hate Adrien? You're attacked. They don't want to hear you out. You're stupid. And if they find your reasons "stupid" they just consider you toxic. If you say you hate Marinette? Guess what? You're stupid. It's such a horribly toxic take but no one points it out because no one likes salters right? Some of my close friends are salters. They are not terrible people. I don't always agree with their takes and yeah, frankly I don't always see where they get their opinions from but I respect it. Because they're allowed to dislike characters and things that I like.  But then of course, there is real toxic salters out there like those who stalk your blog and look for any little disagreement with their ideals to pick at and harass you with. That or they just have a very unhealthy take which makes you more worried for them than anything. And yes, that is awful... but we just love to mistake that as the majority, huh? People always complain it's just the salters who can't let things go. But it isn't and that's the huge issue here. We're constantly bitter. We're constantly feeling the need to defend characters for issues that happened years ago against people with takes that may or may not have changed. We constantly feel the need to belittle people who disagree with us and it's frankly sickening. Yes, salters bring up scenes with no context or nuance but guess what? So do sugar people about salter's takes. Hence why I tried to make it very clear in my post, "Feel free to correct me. Maybe I'm missing something." The huge problem with the miraculous fandom is they can't let go, they can't spare an ounce of compassion to listen. And they can't just block people and move on if they would rather not hear it. They just have to keep calling each other stupid, mean, racist, sexist, awful... it goes on and on. Yes, I'm sure there are some people like this in the fandom but often times the terms are just tossed around. What I wish miraculous people could understand is... the writing in this show isn't good. It isn't. We can't kid ourselves and pretend it is. We can enjoy it, still, of course. But people have every right to complain about it. And even if it was good writing, people still have every right to complain. People have different tastes. People have different ideals. That doesn't make them terrible people. This fandom has just hurt my friends and myself quite a bit. It makes it very hard to enjoy the show anymore simply because sharing an opinion in this fandom is almost like a death sentence. I get both takes usually. I can usually see what salters are upset with as well as sugar people. I just don't get why we have to be such jerks to one another. I don't think I will ever understand. It's such a waste of energy and all it does is make this fandom more and more bitter. I have watched my friends go from small complaints to downright rage mostly because of how this fandom has treated them. Though I suppose that's the same with every fandom, isn't it? That's just the sad reality... ain't it?
Well... I'm going to keep trying to give people the benefit of the doubt, try to hear them out and help them out if they need. Hence why I made a salt server designed for people to vent freely without having to worry about such a terrible backlash. I'm not perfect and I never will be but I don't ever want anyone to feel the way I and my friends felt so if I can at least try to prevent some of that... I think that’s good enough. I think everyone in this fandom is lovely (with the exceptions of a few actual harassers), I just wish... we weren't so bitter and I wish we could just let go. Staying angry forever isn't good for any of us. I just wish I could hug everyone but I sadly only have two arms and not everyone is gonna want my hug which is fine. They are allowed to feel however they want. I may not always like it but that's okay. They don't have to always like me either. We're flawed, we're human, we're different. It would be no fun if everyone thought and felt the same. And at the end of the day... this is all just fiction but the people behind the fandom... they’re real. Let’s treat them like the real people they are. I thank you for coming here with a very healthy vent and you're very nice. It was wonderful to get such an ask and I'm sorry for the rant. I would love hear from you again. Have a lovely day. <3
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imtryingmybeskar · 3 years
Text
Part 14 of Fugitive. Quite a bit of deviance from what has gone before. Much plot, many darkness.
18+, 12k words.
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"Cyar'ika...please..." A cruel smile curved your lips as you heard the Mandalorian's plaintive cries. They soothed your tormented soul like a balm after so many years of being denied. "You cannot do this. Please. Listen to me." The seemingly sourceless orange light splayed across his beskar like an oil slick fire.
You frowned and advanced on him, hissing. "I cannot? You do not tell me what I can and cannot do." As you reached him, he fell to his knees, the T shape of his visor fixed on your face.
"Please do not make me do this, cyar'ika," he begged as you heard the click of his blaster cocking.
"You think you'll...what? Shoot me? Kill me?" your words were icily mocking as you tore the blaster from his grasp and hurled it away without ever laying a finger on it. "You cannot kill me. You cannot harm me. As you say, I am your beloved. You love me." As you spoke you lifted the helmet from his head and dropped it on to the dusty black earth next to him as you looked down into his face. His nose and mouth were leaking blood and his lip was puffy and bruised. "As well you should," you added, bending down to stroke your hand through the hair at the back of his head and grabbing a fistful roughly. You planted a bruising kiss on his mouth and his lip split anew, the iron sweetness of him coating your own lips. His eyes were huge and staring, but his fear was being tempered with anger now. That too was as it should be.
"I love you. Not...this. Whatever this is. This is wrong." Bestowing another smile upon him, you released his hair and brought your hand around to cup his chin instead, speaking so softly and so, so dangerously.
"Wrong, Mand'alor? Are you quite sure about that?"
"I am not the-" But his denial of who he was drowned out by the gasp of pain he emitted as you flooded his mind with images. Of him sitting upon the throne in the royal palace of Mandalore, the Darksaber in one hand and his beskar spear in the other, the very picture of a warrior king. Of a war room filled with Jedi and Mandalorians alike, plotting and strategising their slaughter across the galaxy. Of legions upon legions of fanatical Mandalorians, loyal only to Din and cutting swathes through stormtroopers in a riotous orgy of blood and smoke...At this last you felt his mind rebel and struggle against yours, like a moth battering itself against a lamp. "No...," he managed to spit feebly.
"No?" you asked gently, your voice honeysweet and kindly as you withdrew from his mind and let him get his breath back. "But isn't it a glorious future? You and I working together to rid the galaxy of the vermin that plague it? I know you want to make them pay. For what they did to your child. For making you the Mand'alor in the first place. For Alzoc-" You knew what he was going to do before he did it. So predictable. His hand reached for your throat and closed around it as he stood, but you had already compensated your breathing and the gesture did little except excite you. His limbs were shaking with rage, as well as from his ordeal and you smiled sweetly at him. "You see?" you scraped out, "You do want this. We can set Mandalore aright again. Together. Husband of mine." His hand relaxed its grip a little, but his fingers were still around your neck. He swallowed as if something bitter were trying to force its way up his throat.
"The woman I married would never say such things, never force me to see such things. You are not my riduur." And suddenly his other blaster was in his left hand and pointing directly between your eyes.
You snarled at him, an animalistic noise of purest hatred, "You are weak, Mandalorian. You have betrayed your Creed countless times. And I know that you could never-" Suddenly the world went white, then dark, and you knew nothing more.
***
Seventy two hours earlier
***
"Din, you have to stop!" You were desperately trying not to giggle and encourage his behaviour. "I told you, either I do the ritual here or I go to my room in the Academy alone and do it."
"But mesh'la, how can I concentrate on anything else with you like this?" he said pleadingly as he gathered you into his arms.
"Like what?" you asked innocently, even though you knew perfectly well what. After you had taken shelter in the ship, you had set your robe and clothes to dry and sought out some fresh ones. Apparently you had gotten behind on laundry and had very little that was clean besides underwear, so had asked Din to borrow a spare undershirt and he had obliged. It wasn't often that you wore his clothes, but you loved having the scent of him so close to you all the time. The trouble was that you didn't have any clean spare trousers and now found yourself trying desperately to relax your mind and body when you could almost feel the heat of his gaze as he watched the bottom of his shirt grazing the tops of your thighs. "Would you prefer me naked?" That was the wrong thing to say. Or, possibly the right thing. Apparently the only thing more arousing to Din than you in his clothes was you out of them. He ground his erection against your stomach and kissed you.
"Always prefer you naked," he murmured against your lips.
"Are you going to make a liar out of me?" you asked, smiling. "I told Luke you made me a better Jedi. I also said we wouldn't be doing this here and yet..."
"And yet," he echoed, his nose stroking over your cheek. "Since you've already broken that promise once, would it be so terrible to do it again?"
"Absolutely," you answered. "But I can never resist you, Din Djarin. You know that."
Two hours later, you were finally sitting calmly and meditatively in front of a small bowl of water and a lit candle - the reflection of the candle upon the water helping to clear your mind and soothe your spirit. Recalling your meeting with Paz Vizsla, you went through each stage of what led to your anger at him, analysing and considering all possible angles to avoid a repeat of such behaviours in the future. At the core of it was your attachment to Din, your desire to never see him be hurt or damaged. You had to be mindful and better at managing your emotions surrounding him, else it would be increasingly easy to act that way again. The candle suddenly flickered although there was no draft that you could feel, and you could see a darkness swirl within the bowl. It...had to be a trick of the light. The bowl was white, there was nowhere that the darkness could be. Still, it was there and as you concentrated on it, you thought you heard a noise. A low level thrumming like machinery, but punctuated by the occasional voice calling, shouting in distress, screaming...
"Mesh'la?" Din's voice struck through your mind like an arrow, and his hand on your shoulder shook the dream from you instantly. "You fell asleep," he said needlessly, a smile playing about his lips. You looked down at the candle and bowl. The water was clear and ordinary, the candle not burned down by much. You couldn't have been asleep for more than twenty minutes. "Are you okay?" he asked when you didn't reply to him.
"Yes, fine. Just a strange dream. And apparently I'm more tired than I imagined." Din helped you to your feet. "Can we go back to the Academy? We need to speak with Luke again." His face took on a stony, annoyed countenance. "I know, I know. But we do have things to talk through. Not least the Council's discussion about you and I. Luke...he is a good man. Please trust me on this. And when you feel ready - if you feel ready - you can talk to me about whatever it is that has made you so...well you know." He nodded and looked into your eyes, his own softened and filling with love as he beheld your face.
"I do trust you. Of course I do. And I trust that what I need to tell you will not change us. Its just-" he swallowed thickly, "-its hard to say out loud after so long." Your arms came round his back to hold him close and you felt the understanding pass between you, strengthening you both individually and together.
Once your clothes had (mostly) dried, you got dressed and Din gave a low hum of approval when he saw that you were continuing to wear his undershirt. "You look far better in that than I do," he remarked and you kissed him happily before handing him his helmet. He held your hand on the approach back to the Academy, seeming to want to be as close to you as he could after your disagreement, even through his coverings. Just as you were about to enter through the main doors, Tolea came out to you.
"There you are," she smiled. "I've been looking all over. Luke said there is to be a "Council meeting" after the evening meal?" You could almost hear the quotation marks around 'Council Meeting'. "There's hardly a Council to speak of!" Her eyes fell to where yours and Din's hands met and she raised an eyebrow, more suggestive than questioning. You set about introducing your fiancé and your friend properly. He seemed inclined to trust her as when you gave his name as "Mando", he interjected with his real first name and held out his hand to clasp hers.
"So, a Mandalorian, hey?" she teased. "You always did have a thing for them!" Your eyes had gone wide at her words and you could feel the heat rise in your cheeks as you saw Din's helmet turn to face you in the periphery of your vision and heard what sounded like a laugh swiftly muffled by a cough.
"I did not have a "thing" for them," you spluttered indignantly. "I was just interested in the history of the Mandalorian Wars!"
"Yeah, yeah. But the armour helped, right?"
"Tolea!"
"Alright, I'll stop," she promised, her hand coming to pat your shoulder in a good-natured way. "I actually just wanted to see if you would come and spar with me? I'm a little rusty and it might be a good learning experience for the Padawans."
"I will, if you never mention the word 'Mandalorian' in front of me ever again," you joked. She bowed to you in a mockery of a solemn promise and turned away to walk you around the building to the outside exercise yard. Your cheeks were just beginning to cool when Din's faintly amused voice spoke softly to you.
"A "thing" hmmm?"
"Oh don't you start," you urged, holding up a warning finger toward him.
"Well....I can see it, that's all I'm saying." He paused briefly. "And there was that "thing" with Fett too." Apparently Tolea's hearing was excellent because at this she rounded on you, her face gleeful as you turned to Din, horrified.
"DIN!"
"Excuse me, what? Boba Fett the Bounty Hunter?! The one with the armour, yes? I just want to be clear!" Din's rumble of laughter at your face and Tolea's delight made your heart give a sudden squeeze. It had been so long since you had been with friends that you knew and trusted, and even though they were currently ribbing you mercilessly, you were so grateful to have them both in your life again. Your voice was teasing as you made your rejoinder.
"I'd be careful if I were you. You just asked me to spar and told me you were out of practice. Such a shame, what accidents can occur," you said breezily to Tolea. "As for you," you narrowed your eyes at Din and gently poked your finger at his breastplate, "Copaani mirshmure'cye, vod?!" He laughed at your meaningless threats and caught your hands before pressing his helmet to your forehead for the briefest moment.
"I should not have taught you that one," he said softly. "I mean...I beg your pardon, verd." Tolea was looking between you both, a little bemused.
"I'm going to assume you said something disgustingly private and leave it at that," she ventured.
"Close. I was threatening to smack him in the face. That's kind of Mandalorian courting, isn't it?" you teased.
"Excuse me!" he exclaimed, ruffled. "I'll show you Mandalorian courting!....That...wasn't supposed to sound like that," he added in a slightly defeated tone as both you and Tolea roared with laughter. The good natured teasing between the three of you lasted until you were almost at the exercise ground.
"Okay," Tolea breathed. "We have to be calm and act like actual adults for the children now." She tried to make her face solemn, but giggled slightly when she caught your eye as you were trying to do the same thing. "I missed you," she said as she patted your shoulder again and the warmth of your friendship sloshed between you like a tropical ocean wave. You managed to collect yourselves enough to greet the children with a modicum of decorum. Din settled himself on the edges of the training ground, a little apart from the Padawans - you assumed so as not to distract them. It worked, for the most part, although eyes would occasionally stray to where he stood, monolith-like in his size and stillness.
"As some of you may know," Tolea began, gesturing at you, "we both trained together at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant before the Empire came. We have spent many years apart, but the bonds of kinship as Jedi remain strong, as well as the bonds of friendship." She smiled fondly at the Padawans in front of her. "We would often practice our Forms with each other and train together. Hopefully, our bonds will show through there as well, despite the time apart." She took up her initial stance opposite you, and you followed her lead. As she ignited her lightsaber, you blinked in surprise.
"Yellow? That's new." Tolea smiled.
"I lost my lightsaber that night but I rebuilt it when I came here. There is an ancient Temple not too far from here. I found an old and broken lightsaber within it and was able to rescue its crystal and purify it as my own. It felt like it was meant to be mine, even more than my old one, somehow."
"We shall see how it serves you," you replied with a smile. "I'll go easy on you and spare you the double blade, for now." Tolea tutted at you, but there was warmth in her eyes. You began by slowly demonstrating various aspects of the Forms and explaining how to incorporate Force abilities within some of these aspects, but after a while the joy of training with your friend again overtook the teaching somewhat. It was as if everything else fell away and for a brief time you were both ten years old again, with so few responsibilities, delighting in your new lightsabers and your abilities. Tolea was far less rusty than she had lead you to believe and before long the sweat was running down your back. When you came to a natural break, you begged a few minutes and she gladly acquiesced. It was at this point that you noticed that the number of people observing had swelled considerably. Master Kholi had come to join you with his group of students and was looking with approval at yourself and Tolea.
"This is good to see," he commented. "I myself was never very skilled with weapons. I was a Healer at the Temple and never had much time for them. I am glad the children can learn from such as yourselves." He glanced over to Din who was holding Grogu protectively, the child's back against his chest. "I see the Mandalorian seems more inclined to stay. This too is good. I will see you both at the meeting."
Tolea and yourself set to pairing the children up according to ability. There were practice sabers for the very youngest that were little more than padded sticks and these were distributed. With Din holding tight to Grogu there was an uneven number, so Tolea herself matched with Loro. As you approached Din and Grogu, you could hear his soft words spoken toward the child.
"...know everything about how to defend yourself. We will make sure of it. You will be a great warrior one day. Like your buir." With these last words, he raised his helmet to you, and you realised he wasn't talking about himself. A surge of pride and love roared through you and as you came to Grogu and kissed his head, he reached out to be held by you a while. You took him and cradled him in your arms, so that he could continue to observe the training going on around him and stepped backward a little so that your back was resting against the right side of Din's body. His hand came discreetly to the small of your back and stroked you softly. "You were amazing, cyar'ika," he said softy. "I pity the person who gets in your way."
You beamed at his praise. "Perhaps you could teach the children too. I don't think many of them know how to handle a blaster. I'll raise it at the meeting." You turned around to him and could see his helmet tipped questioningly at you. "I don't know what the others will say, but to me it seems silly to have an expert in weaponry here and not take advantage of it. Your lessons saved my life many a time."
"Teaching children? Do you really think I'm suitable for that?"
"Absolutely. Why wouldn't you be? I had never taught children before I came here. Just...be yourself." You looked across at the training yard at the students. "See, you already have a fan," you added, amused. Alikas was watching you and Din and when she saw you looking, she waved at you, the distraction causing her opponent to be able to knock her training saber out of her hand. She scowled at him, reached her hand out to raise it from the ground and retrieve it, and redoubled her efforts in sparring.
"That one reminds me of you," said Din, and you could hear the smile on his lips through the beskar. "Fierce and unafraid to speak her mind."
"And this one," you said, planting another kiss on Grogu's head, "Reminds me of you. Stubborn and very cute." He chuckled and reached out a finger for Grogu to grasp.
"Where do I sleep tonight?" he asked softly. "And where do you?"
"I think that will depend on what is discussed later. We will have the evening meal first, and then it will be the children's bedtime." At your words, Grogu turned his head toward you with a hopeful coo, and an image came unbidden to your mind. "I'm sure there will be eggs for you, little one," you assured him.
There were indeed eggs, along with fruit and meats and bread and vegetables and a type of savoury pastry you had never had before, but you took to well. The mood at the table was jovial and light, despite the fact that Luke was nowhere to be seen. Alikas displaced you by sitting next to Din before you could this time, and she and Grogu giggled happily together as they shared in their meal. Once Grogu had eaten his fill and was merely playing with his food, Din tasked her with watching him while he gathered a plate of his own to eat. The child nodded solemnly at the request and Tolea squeezed your arm in a silent promise that she would watch over both children. Just before he left, Din took a small silver ball out of a tiny pocket on his belt. Grogu babbled a long stream of happy nonsense and reached for it, using his power to take the ball from Din's hand. Din huffed a small laugh of contentment and stroked Grogu's head softly before picking up his plate. You led Din out of the dining hall and to the right, down one of the corridors of the quadrangle to one of the classrooms where he could eat his meal in peace. After removing his helmet and sitting down with his back to the door, he attacked the food with fervour, having had nothing since breakfast and once his immediate hunger was sated, he stared around at the pale blue walls surrounding him and the windows that looked over the grassy plains.
"Why do you have such a big space for so few?" he wondered aloud.
"Partly because we are hoping that we will not be so few in the near future," you smiled at him. "But also because this structure is part of something more ancient. Certain planets have more of a connection with the Force than others. Or at least, the Force flows more freely through them. This is such a place and is one of the reasons Luke chose to found the Academy here. Other Jedi came here before us and also settled. Some of their buildings survived and were in turn built upon. You paused, then said more softly, "I wish you could have seen the old Temple on Coruscant. It was a thousand times the size of this. The amount of times I got lost, even after having lived there for years...And it was so beautiful. Vaulted ceilings that were so high you could barely see them, or it felt that way. carvings and tapestries of Jedi past everywhere. And a serenity that permeated it. As soon as you walked in you felt more at peace with the galaxy." You only realised that you were staring out of the window, when Din took your hand. You had been looking at the plains but actually seeing the slanted sunbeams coming through the windows of the Temple and hitting the marble floors.
As you came back to yourself Din said softly, "It was your home. You've told me that it was before, but I've never really seen you speak of it as such until now. I'm sorry I cannot offer you a place like that to live."
"Don't. I just need you. The ship feels more like home with you in it than it ever did when I was alone." You stroked your hands over the stubble at his jaw as you spoke and he moved his cheek against your hand, almost burrowing into your touch. "I love you, Din. I don't tell you nearly enough." His eyes met yours and they were soft and warm with his matching adoration of you. You leaned forward to capture his lips with your own and as you did, heard a slightly embarrassed cough from the direction of the door. You raised your eyes to see Tolea standing there.
"Sorry," she grimaced. "Its just, the children are about to prepare for bed and I thought you might like to say goodnight." Din put his helmet back on and stood, gathering his plate and cutlery as he did so. "Here I'll take that," she offered. "You go."
Instead of sleeping in one room, the children were now divided into three dormitories, and Loro had his own little room to himself next door to the younglings. It was strange to see how much had changed in the relatively short time you had been away. Grogu shared a room with Alikas and a little boy called Dann. Even if Luke hadn't mentioned Tolea's biological children, you would have recognised those eyes anywhere. As you went to tuck the children in, Din hung back a little by the doorway, clearly still unsure as to whether he should be there. But when Grogu reached for him, he went immediately, stroking his fuzzy little head and covering him over with the blankets in his crib. "Goodnight, kid," he murmured. "Sweet dreams."
Din and you went your separate ways shortly afterward - he returned to the Haldon while you joined the other Jedi in Luke's study. Luke looked pensive and a little worried as you entered and he immediately asked you about the Mandalorian.
"He is troubled. Less by what we spoke of and more about something deeper, something from his past. He has not spoken to me about that yet, but he is also concerned about the alliance you spoke of. Din has no desire to be the Mand'alor. He obtained the Darksaber almost accidentally. He wishes a peaceful transition of power to the Mandalorian who does wish to rule." Tolea and Ka-Moon both looked a little confused about what you were saying, so you set to telling them an abridged version of what had befallen the day that Luke had taken Grogu. "We have plans to meet with Din's people. After that we will have a better idea of how to proceed. He does not want another civil war amongst the Mandalorians, especially since they are already so few. But the Mand'alor must be determined by combat. There seems to be no way to reconcile these things. An overt alliance with the Jedi at this time would muddy the political waters even further and bring undue attention upon us here," you concluded.
"I understand his reaction a little more now. And yet a reluctant ruler can sometimes be the better kind. He does not seek power for himself, or for its own sake. What about the one that wants the throne?"
"I know little about her, other than Din considers her honourable. I trust his judgement." Luke nodded, looking thoughtful again. Tolea piped up, a little hesitantly.
"I don't mean to detract from the seriousness of the situation, but if he did choose to take the throne does that mean you would be a...queen?" You smiled at her. It was a question that had passed through your mind but that you had paid little real attention to.
"I don't think it works that way. There is only one ruler of Mandalore. There are few shades of grey in their society. I think I would be viewed as his consort, but would wield no actual power. That's if we were married, of course." The unadorned mention of why you were here caused a slight tension in the room for a few seconds before it relaxed and released, the bubble burst by your simple words. No one seemed surprised by your declaration and your suspicion that the others had at least sensed the feelings between Din and yourself seemed to have been proven right. That was if Luke hadn't just told them both outright.
"I am personally unsure about the wisdom of doing away with such rules," Ka-Moon said, a little stiffly. "We all know where such attachment can lead."
"So much has changed," countered Tolea. "The dangers of allowing attachment to drive emotion are still present, but how can we be away from the rigours of Temple life for almost twenty years and then return to that life as if nothing were different?"
"We cannot," agreed Ka-Moon, "But nor should we let go of everything that made the Order what it was."
"I agree," Luke chimed in, "But we should find a new way forward. The Order fell in part because it was not responsive enough to change. I believe we need to be more flexible in how we operate, now that we are so few."
"Forgive me, but you were not there. I do not believe you have sufficient knowledge of how the Order used to be run to be able to criticise it in such a way."
"But we all were," you interjected, "And Yoda himself trained Luke, and I agree with him."
"You have a vested interest in this particular discussion," pointed out Ka-Moon gently. "I am not dismissing your view, only pointing out the circumstances surrounding it."
"Then I too must have a vested interest," said Tolea. "Since my children are here. Would you have us leave, Master Kholi? If we are adhering to the old ways, the children should not be in my presence." She sighed. "We cannot go back. We must build what we can."
"Bringing force sensitive younglings to be trained is far different than seeking marriage. The children are already here, we cannot deny them. We need to nurture them and their abilities. Ratifying marriage within the Order is new territory and possibly dangerous."
"The Mandalorian and I will continue to live as we have," you pointed out. "Whether we speak the words or not, he is my husband in my life, in my heart."
"So what difference does it make?" asked Ka-Moon.
"Precisely," you answered.
The debate stretched. Tea was made and drunk and made again. The light had almost totally failed and only a few streaks of pale green across the blue of the sky to the north showed where the sun had been by the time a decision was made. Ka-Moon was still not entirely happy, but had come around to the idea of forging a new path for the Jedi. Afterward he confessed that his own heart ached for a past love that he had been forced to give up in service of the Order and you understood his reluctance a little more. When you had suggested that he go and seek him, as you had Din, he gave a sad smile and shook his head. "He died fighting the Empire a long time ago. But I wish you and your Mandalorian much happiness in your life together." You were grateful for his kind words and told him as much.
"So...how do we go about this? I mean, can we do this here? Soon?"
Luke smiled a little at your eager impatience. "I don't see why not. If you can find somewhere you want to conduct the ceremony. What will the ceremony be, anyway?"
"I don't even know. There is a very brief Mandalorian ritual but as to what I am bringing, I just don't know. I would like to have you all there, though. My family in attendance and to witness." Tolea was overjoyed for you and hugged you close with tears starting in her eyes as she did so. As the meeting broke up, she caught your hand in her own.
"Come with me, I want to give you something." Curious, you followed her to her chambers - which were dark panelled but hung with beautifully woven and brightly coloured tapestries all over, giving the impression that you were walking into some sort of botanical garden. She rummaged around in a trunk at the end of her bed and finally emerged with a folded garment in her arms. "This was-" she began before her voice cracked. You stroked her shoulder, encouraging her to go on if she could. "This was the dress I was wearing when I met my husband. Well...he was never my husband under the law. He died before...But I was going to use it for my wedding dress as well. If you like it, I want you to wear it."
"Tolea I...that's so wonderful of you. Are you quite sure?" She nodded, sniffling a little.
"It was supposed to be a wedding dress. It should be a wedding dress," she said, simply. "Try it on, we'll see how it suits you and if we need to adjust it anywhere." You gently shook the dress out. It was long and flowing, made of some material that seemed to catch and hold the breeze within it, and a beautiful lavender colour that rippled as it undulated gently. Tolea helped you put it on and aside from some minor adjustments to the waist, and the sleeves being a little too long it fit almost perfectly. Her eyes welled up again a little as she took in the sight of you and you thanked her profusely as you embraced. "I can't believe I have my friend back and now you're getting married? It's so strange! Do you remember those nights we couldn't sleep and would talk about what it would be like to have a "normal" life? We never expected we would actually do it!"
"I remember both of us being giggly over Master Kenobi," you said, laughing. "We weren't exactly model Jedi, even back then!" Tolea laughed and rummaged in the trunk again, coming up with a small sewing kit.
"Let me just adjust this a little for you. It will be finished by tomorrow." She took her measurements and made her markings and you gave the dress back into her capable hands before putting on your usual clothes. "Go tell Din the good news," she smiled as she shooed you gently out of her room.
Even though the hour was late, Din had not closed up the ship, clearly expecting that you would indeed visit after your meeting. As you approached, you wondered why he had not come out to meet you, as the sensors in his helmet would have told him of your approach in good time. Reasoning that he had perhaps become weary of his beskar again and was hiding out in the ship, you all but ran up the incline of the entrance ramp, calling him as you did. He was not in the hold and there was no reply. You opened the door to the room you shared, but he was not there. You couldn't hear the shower running in the fresher either. The elation you had felt was souring to anxiety in your stomach as you climbed the ladder to the cockpit where you found Din's hulking form slouched in the pilot's chair, his helmet thrown carelessly to one side and his right arm dangling loosely over the armrest, the hilt of the Darksaber in his hand. He did not turn at the sound of your approach and a brief moment of terror seized your heart when you thought he might be unconscious, or worse.
"Din?" you called again as you came up to the back of the seat, and this time he stirred a little, though his eyes never left the view from the cockpit window. "Din, what's wrong?" you asked as you came to his side and touched his elbow. Finally, he dragged his gaze to you. His eyes were lit with the same wildness that you had seen when he had kissed you in the rain but it was wrong somehow, muted, dulled, and sickly. A thin trail of dark blood leaked from one nostril.
"I can hear it," he frowned, his words slightly slurred and coming slowly. "Is this what you hear? How can you bear it?"
"You can hear what, Din?" you asked, trying to keep your voice calm as you pressed the back of your hand to his head. His brow was both cold and slick with sweat.
"Everything," he panted. "Why can I hear it? I...I can feel it." His eyes grew suddenly wide and fearful, something you had never seen before and which chilled you to the bone.
"Din, you need to come with me," you said firmly. "You're unwell. Master Kholi will look over you and then you will be fine." This last part was more for your benefit than for his. There had only been one other time when he had acted in a similar way, long ago when you had first travelled with him, before you had ever known him fully. It had been such a silly mistake. As you had chased your quarry through a jungle landscape, he had tripped over a root and fallen headfirst into a bush. You had teased him mercilessly about it for the rest of the afternoon and all seemed well until the next morning. It transpired that as he had removed his beskar for the night, a thorn that had snagged on his clothing had scratched a jagged line onto his skin, its swift poison working its way through him as he slept. Even through his delirium he had managed to put his helmet back on before you found him. It had been his last rational thought for several days.
The beautiful depths of his eyes grew cloudy with confusion at your words. "But...you asked me. If I could feel it. And now I can."
"Its okay, kar'ta." you murmured soothingly to him. "Come with me, everything will be-" A thought struck you like a thunderbolt. "Din," you whispered haltingly, "Do you mean you can feel the Darksaber?" In reply he held the hilt limply up toward you, almost as an offering. It seemed to take all of his strength to make that simple movement. You gulped as you reached for it with trepidation, wanting to take the burden of it from Din, but not wanting you both to be afflicted with whatever it was that was happening. As your fingers closed around the hilt, a wave of sound and emotion hit you. Terror and abandonment and rage and screaming madness and the same thrumming that you had heard earlier as you had meditated, stronger this time and more defined as a heavy thumping the longer you held the hilt. As blackness crowded the edge of your vision, you dropped it to the floor of the ship. Din made tiny anguished noise at the sight and reached down weakly to grasp at it again. "No!" you exclaimed sharply as you pushed him gently but firmly back into his seat. "Leave it there!" You kicked the weapon away out of the reach of you both, the terrifying cacophony blasting through you for a second time as your boot connected with it. Din lay back into the pilot's chair, his chest rising and falling rapidly as if he couldn't quite get enough oxygen into him. Quickly, you used the communication array to contact Luke, silently offering a prayer of gratitude when he answered almost immediately.
"What's wrong?" he asked. "I sense-"
"Get Ka-Moon and come to the ship. Din is ill. Please hurry." Luke disconnected at once and you turned your attentions back to the man in front of you, kneeling down beside him and taking his gloved hand in yours while stroking the sweat soaked strands of his hair back from his forehead. "Kar'ta, they will be here soon and we will make you feel better, I promise. Can we take some of your beskar off? You might be more comfortable when they arrive." His attention seemed to have meandered back to the cockpit window. You stood and looked outside yourself, but could see only the darkness of the plains ahead. Only starlight existed out there to illuminate anything and it wasn't enough. Bending back to Din, you began to remove his pauldrons. He did nothing to stop you, but nor did he assist. You weren't entirely sure he was able to move to help, nor that he was even aware of what you were doing.
Your mind was turning furiously, trying to piece together what had happened. Clearly he had been well enough to get up the ladder to the cockpit in the first place, so this was a relatively new affliction. But you had been at the meeting for hours. Who knew how long he had been here in this state? The thought of him experiencing the torment you had heard and felt for that long made you choke back a sob that tried to make its way up your throat, and you forced your mind back to rationality with some difficulty. When you had been on Artorias and had begun teaching him about lightsaber forms, you had asked him if he could feel anything from the Darksaber, if the crystal within it spoke to him as your lightsaber crystal spoke to you. He had replied in the negative. What had changed? Location was the most obvious answer. This planet was strong with the Force. Was it possible that he had a degree of Force sensitivity but that it took a planet like this for it to be strong enough to be noticeable? Or was the Darksaber reacting differently and not Din himself? You had held the weapon previously and had felt nothing like what you had just experienced. As your mind whirred you were removing his thigh armour and this time he moved his legs up a little, you believed in an attempt to give you easier access to the fastenings. Your heart gave a hopeful leap at this and as you pulled the beskar away you cradled his face and looked into his eyes. They were still hazy, with pain or confusion you couldn't tell, but his attention was fixed on you now, and he held your gaze. Both of which you took to be good signs.
"Its okay Din, it will all be okay. I love you. I love you so much. We will make you better, I promise. I'm here with you and it will all be okay." You were babbling a stream of near-meaningless nonsense, for your own benefit as much as his. You heard Luke's voice and footsteps approach up the incline of the ramp and pressed your lips against Din's briefly, thinking (hoping?) you felt him try to reciprocate. You stroked his face softly before easing him forward from the headrest and placing his helmet back on his head, calling to the Jedi below as you did so.
The next couple of hours were a nightmare whirlwind for you. Ka-Moon made his basic assessments of Din, but was hampered by the fact that you refused to allow him to take his helmet off. You had no idea what choice Din would make in this situation, given that Luke had already seen his face, but you were determined to err on the side of caution and to retain his dignity for him as far as possible. Din seemed to be able to move a little more as the minutes ticked by and eventually could stand, aided by a person on either side of him, though he seemed to have lost the ability to speak when you took the Darksaber from him. Getting him down the ladder was problematic to say the least. While his hands were still able to grip the rungs sufficiently, you ended up helping to physically move his legs while Luke was on standby to catch him, with the Force if necessary. Mercifully, there was a floating stretcher waiting in the hold and as you helped Din to lie back on to it, he groped for your hand and squeezed it when you gave it to him. It was a pitiful fraction of his usual strength, but it bolstered your courage and gave you hope in your heart. You ached for him, that people were witnessing his physical weakness and for the first and only time you hoped that his wits hadn't entirely returned, to spare him his shame. As you had appraised Luke of what you had experienced, he had wrapped the Darksaber in a thick woollen blanket that you had provided, taking care to only touch it with his gloved mechanical hand and looking grimly thoughtful as he did. Tolea was there to greet you at the door of the Academy again and she accompanied you all to the medical bay. Ka-Moon swore that he would not remove Din's helmet but requested that he be allowed a degree of peace to run his tests. You knew it was the best thing to do, but were also having trouble leaving Din's side. Much as you trusted in Ka-Moon's healing capabilities, you couldn't help but feel that somehow this was your fault and that by leaving Din alone you were compounding your mistake. Only when Din managed to breathe a shaky "Mesh'la" to you before stroking his thumb clumsily over your cheek did you feel he was recovered enough for you to be just outside the room. You kissed the top of his helmet and pressed your forehead against it before you left, accompanied by Tolea and Luke.
"What's happening? Did you feel anything from the Darksaber? How can I help him? What can I do?" you fired these questions in quick succession at Luke, your voice breaking on the last one. Tolea came to you and hugged you close.
"I have a theory," Luke began haltingly, "But its not complete...Tolea, tell me again what you saw when you went to the Temple." Tolea let you go and turned to face Luke, but before she did you saw the look of trepidatious realisation on her face.
"The Temple where you got your crystal?" you asked, frantically.
Luke nodded. "I don't know if you remember but just before you left to find Din, I mentioned that I thought I had found reference to an ancient temple nearby. When Tolea arrived she volunteered to go and find it if she could."
"There was something...bizarre about the place," Tolea said, her eyes a little distant. "The further in I explored the more untouched it looked. As if one day everyone had just flown away and left. I found a few useful things scattered around - datapads and the like. The only ruination I could see had been caused by the weather and so was mainly on the outside. Until I reached what looked like the meditation room. There were...bones in there. A lot of them. All jumbled up. And scorch marks from weapons on the walls. Its where I found the lightsaber that I took my crystal from. There were a few of them scattered around, but I was drawn to that one in particular..."
"Did you feel anything from the Temple?" you pressed. "Anything that might explain-" you broke off and gestured helplessly at the room behind you.
Tolea shook her head. "You were always the more perceptive of us," she answered. "I felt nothing but the sadness and emptiness of yet more death around me."
"I need to go there," you said instantly. "If it might help-" Luke held up a warding hand.
"I know its not what you want to hear," he cautioned, "But you must be patient. Do not rush in until we have more information." He spoke more loudly over you as you began to protest, "I know you want to feel like you are doing something. But he needs you here. Once he is back on his feet, you know he will follow you wherever you may go. And without knowing more about what has happened here, you might just be leading him into more danger." He was right, you knew he was right.
"So what can I do?" you whispered miserably.
"You can help me with my research. The Darksaber is a unique weapon in the galaxy as far as we know. And so much of its history is lost. We will start with information on its creator, Tarre Vizsla, and then-"
"Vizsla," you murmured. Luke looked at you, puzzled. "Vizsla was the name of the Mandalorian I met. The one I...lost my control with." Had it really only been the previous night that you and Din had been wrapped around each other in the magnificence of that bed? It seemed like weeks ago. "I knew I recognised the name, but I couldn't think why. I have read about Tarre Vizsla before. Do you think it is relevant?"
"At this point, I don't want to rule anything out," Luke said grimly.
"Can you spare a datapad? I don't want to move too far from here."
Luke's eyes and voice softened a little as he replied. "Of course," he said. "I'll upload everything I have been able to find out about this planet and the Darksaber and I'll bring it to you." Tolea was the one who actually brought you the datapad. She came to you twenty minutes after Luke had departed and she also brought along water, some fruit and a couple of large colourful patchwork cushions that you recognised as having been on her bed earlier.
"In case you want to be a little more comfortable," she explained as you gratefully accepted them. There were no chairs in the corridor and the toll of the day had begun to make itself known to you. "No news?" she enquired, her eyes flicking toward the medbay door. You shook your head wordlessly, not trusting yourself to speak at that moment. She brought you in for a hug again. "Everything will be okay," she soothed as she stroked your hair. "He is strong. He will be just fine."
"What do I-" your voice broke and you stopped to take deep breaths before continuing. "How do I tell Grogu?" you whispered miserably. "He's only just got Din back and now..." Tolea took your face in her hands and looked into your eyes.
"You won't need to tell Grogu anything because Din will be fine," she insisted. You nodded sadly and Tolea sat you down on one of the cushions, positioning herself on the other opposite you. "Can I ask something?" she spoke hesitantly and you nodded for her to continue. "What did he say to you in there? That word that made you come away." You felt your eyes well up and had some difficulty controlling the spasms of grief that passed across your face. "I'm sorry," Tolea apologised hurriedly. "I shouldn't have-"
"It's ok," you said, your voice a little wobblier than you would have liked. "It's Mando'a. He called me 'Mesh'la'. Its his name for me, when we're together. I don't think he's ever said it quite that publicly before. It means 'beautiful'." And for some reason, that was the word that broke the through the dam you had tried so hard to keep strong. Tears flooded down your face in a silent stream as Tolea held you against her shoulder, stroking over your back through your shuddering breaths.
Once you were calm, you insisted Tolea go to get some rest. It would already be a challenge to focus on the datapad in front of you, when Din was so close and yet so out of reach. You didn't want to hurt Tolea's feelings, but you did not want an additional distraction to your task. She left, but only once she had extracted a promise from you that you would call her if you needed her for anything. Once you settled back down on the cushions and began to read, you realised that much of Luke's research was more of a reminder of what you had already known than anything new. Tarre Visla had been the first Mandalorian to train as a Jedi on the Temple on Coruscant. He had created the Darksaber as a way to marry his Mandalorian and Jedi identities and it had later become a symbol of power among Mandalorians, Vizsla himself using the weapon while he was the Mand'alor. After he had died, the Jedi had brought the Darksaber back to the Temple and it had been kept there until members of House Vizsla had taken it back and used it to unite the Mandalorian clans. That had been during the fall of the Old Republic, over a thousand years ago and its history was shrouded in mystery for many centuries thereafter.
More interesting was what he had been able to discover about the Temple that lay not far to the East. It had been a Jedi stronghold towards the end of the Jedi-Sith wars, around the same time that Vizsla was alive, and although it was small it was apparently of some strategic importance to both sides. There were reports of frequent Sith attacks, all of which seemed to be successfully repelled by the Jedi stationed there. However, the last report that Luke had been able to find had some interesting details that caught your eye. The Sith that had attacked on this occasion were bolstered by a cell of highly trained fighters that had managed to withstand the Jedi offensives, even though they themselves were not Force users. And there was a mention of a "Hunter" that stalked the plains, picking off any unwary Jedi that strayed too far from the confines of the Temple. The very last line of this account was a desperate plea to Coruscant for extraction, with a warning that the Temple was now unviable and a line that sent a chill down your spine; "They did not conquer, they did not have to. They were always here. They will always be here."
As you pondered the implications of those words, the door behind you opened and Ka-Moon's kindly face looked down at you. "Come in," he invited, and you scrambled to your feet to do just that. Din was sitting up on one of the beds, his back to the wall and with one leg on the bed and one on the floor, as if he were about to attempt to walk. His remaining beskar, cape and gloves were piled on a chair near to the bed, but his helmet was on. "Don't let him do too much," Ka-Moon was saying as you made your way across the floor to Din. "He needs rest. I will be back shortly." You thanked him a little distractedly as he withdrew from the room, and then turned your attention fully to Din. He moved to take the helmet from his head and you gladly assisted him. He looked exhausted, but much more himself and you couldn't stop the tears that spilled from your eyes as you bent and kissed his lips tenderly.
"Kar'ta," you whispered, as you gathered him to your chest and pressed him close. "I was so worried. I thought...I thought I had lost you."
"Never," he replied, his voice a little raspy. "It will require more than that to take me from you, cyar'ika." You took his face in your hands and scanned him, even as he wiped the tears from your cheeks. There was no evidence of physical hurt to him, even his nose had stopped bleeding. His eyes were his own again and that pleased you more than anything.
"What happened?" you asked as you sat yourself on the bed, holding his hands in your own. "What do you remember?" He was shaking his head at the questions.
"Ka-Moon asked me the same and I will tell you what I told him. I went back to the ship to attend to my weapons and beskar while you were in your meeting. I did so and took a shower afterward. That is all I remember." You frowned.
"You don't remember getting dressed? Putting your beskar back on? Going to the cockpit?" He shook his head at each question as you fired them. "When do your memories return?"
"I have flashes but I don't know if they are real memories or not. I remember taking my helmet off but I don't remember why. I remember a voice. Not yours. But a woman's. And...other noises." He visibly shuddered and then pulled himself together. "The sky. The sky was on fire. I remember your face. You took some of my armour off. And you held my hand. I remember reaching out to touch your face. Then everything seemed to settle in my head but you weren't there anymore. I've felt more like myself again for half an hour or so."
"Do you remember what this woman you heard said?" He frowned, his eyes focused on the floor but not really seeing it.
"She wanted something from me. I don't know what. I can't remember what she said, but I remember her hatred. Its still in my mind, like a bad taste I can't get rid of." He shook his head as if to dislodge what he was feeling.
"Are you in pain?" you asked him gently.
"My head hurt. He gave me something for it." He paused. "What happened to me?" You explained the situation from your point of view. When you came to talk about the Darksaber, Din almost absent-mindedly groped behind his back to feel for it and you gently took his hand in yours again.
"Luke has it. It seems to be connected with what happened but we aren't sure how yet." As you continued with your story, the crease between his eyes deepened until he was fully frowning at your words. You made sure to skate lightly over how much assistance he had required from the ship to the medbay and he didn't seem much inclined to ask. Your story ended with what you had read on the datapad and your own conclusion that you had drawn. "I have to go to the Temple, to investigate."
"Mesh'la-" he began, warningly.
"No, Din. I have to go. I need to stop this ever happening to you again, and for that I need information."
"Then I come with you." He made as if to heave himself off the bed, but you halted his progression gently with one hand.
"You need rest right now. I will not be going any time soon. I still need to see if Luke has discovered anything new." Din reluctantly settled himself back against the wall. When you spoke again, you did so hesitantly, not wanting to make him relive his traumatic experience quite so soon, but also needing answers only he could provide. "I know you say you remember nothing," you began, "but you said to me that you could hear the Darksaber, that you could feel it. Do you recall taking it out? Or using it? Or anything unusual about it from this evening?" Din frowned again in concentration and you squeezed his hand to remind him that you were there and he was safe. He spoke haltingly when he replied.
"When I cleaned my weapons, I held the Darksaber and switched it on to check it was all in order. But I remember that clearly, there was no voice then, nothing was wrong. It was all as it should be. I think...the Darksaber was the way that the woman could speak to me. But I don't know why I think that, I just have a feeling."
"Trust your feelings," you urged. "And let me know if anything else comes back to you. But for now, you must rest." You moved to the other side of the bed to settle next to him. "I am here, kar'ta," you murmured, as he lay down on his side and faced you. You kissed his forehead and held him close and within no time at all his breathing was deep and even as he fell into a deep sleep of exhaustion. After you had moved carefully and quietly back out of the room, you found Ka-Moon and informed him of Din's helmetless and sleeping state, promising him you would return shortly. Then you made your way to Luke's study where you were not surprised to find Tolea assisting in the research he had promised.
"I couldn't sleep," she confessed. "Not when everyone else was awake and doing something." You nodded and squeezed her hand gratefully before sitting in a chair next to her and putting forward the theory that had started to come together in your mind.
"I think that the Darksaber was here on this planet before, a thousand years ago. There is a mention of what sounds very much like a mercenary band of Mandalorians in that information you gave me, Luke. And a reference to a Hunter picking off Jedi, which may also have been one of their number. If Mandalorians and the Sith were working together here, is it not possible that the Darksaber was...infused? With some kind of memory perhaps. If one of the Sith were that strong, could they have done such a thing? And now that the weapon is back here, the echoes of it are strong enough to reach out and try to connect with us. If Din has any Force sensitivity it would explain why he was affected so badly. With no training to shield him, his mental defences would be minimal. I know its not a perfect explanation, but I think it fits a lot of the pieces together."
Luke seemed to ponder what you had proffered in silence for a time. "I have heard of artifacts and weapons retaining an essence of their owners, if their owners were sufficiently powerful in life," he mused. "I am troubled greatly by all of this. Not just because of what has happened to Din, but for the future of the Academy. I thought I felt a darkness...somewhere. I thought it was the remnant of what had happened between you and Vizsla, but now I begin to suspect it is something more. I have had dreams here and there ever since Tolea got back from her exploration, and I should have paid them more attention." He slapped his mechanical hand on the desk, and rose to pace the room.
"When you held the Darksaber, did you feel anything from it?" you enquired.
"No. And that troubles me too. How could someone who is not Force sensitive as far as we know hear it and I not? Unless..." he trailed off and turned to you. "Unless whatever was possessing it had got what it wanted. If possession is the right word. There's still so much we don't know."
"Which is why I need to go," you insisted.
"I will go myself," Luke said. "You are too close to this. If something is targeting you or Din, you need to stay far away from there. And I will not go until I am sure I have learned all I can about this situation." He spoke more softly toward you. "Go to him. Its the best thing you can do right now. And if you can, get some rest. We will resume tomorrow morning."
"The children-" you began.
"The children will be fine," Tolea interjected calmly. "And there is no sense in worrying about them or Grogu right now. Din may well be fully recovered tomorrow. Give it a night and see." You looked between she and Luke, feeling somehow that they were ganging up on you, even though what they were saying was perfectly logical and, you suspected, the right thing to do. You nodded and rose to leave the study.
"Before you go," Luke added, "Could you make out any words in what you were hearing when you held the Darksaber? Anything that might help?"
You shook your head slowly. "I don't think so. It was like a wall of sound. Of screaming in pain and anger and a weird thumping noise. But I should tell you something else that happened to me earlier." And you proceeded to inform him of your dream that you had had while meditating. "I don't know if its related, but the thumping kind of sounded the same and it seems like too much of a coincidence to not be linked."
"Agreed," Luke mused. "Go. I'll catch up with you tomorrow."
As you made your way back to the medbay, your mind was spinning once again. It was logical that Luke be the one to investigate the Temple, but something didn't sit entirely comfortably within you at that notion. You couldn't identify why, but you had a deep feeling that you should be the one to sort this mess out. Din was the most important part of your life and you wanted to be sure that proper justice would be done for the hurt he had suffered. Not that you didn't trust Luke, but you felt that with your additional investment in the situation, perhaps you would be more motivated to get answers. There was a part of you that wanted to just go, leave, fly off in the Haldon and fix it now, now, now. But you resisted the impulse. Din needed you and he came first. When you re-entered the room, Ka-Moon seemed to be running some tests, Din was sat up on the bed, his face covered once again.
"Well, the good news is that you are in wonderful physical shape," he was telling Din as he removed a sensor from the end of his finger. "And if you say you feel fine there isn't much more I can do for you at the moment. I would perhaps ask that you remain here overnight..." He trailed off as Din shook his head.
"I don't like hospitals," he grunted. "I won't get any rest."
"I'll be with him," you told Ka-Moon. "We'll go to my chamber here so we will be close by if anything happens." He inclined his head at you in acquiescence and moved off. Din reached for you as you approached and you took his hand and helped him to his feet. He was quite steady and apparently didn't need to lean on you. "Do you feel okay?" you asked. He nodded, but kept hold of your hand as he gathered his belongings from the chair.
Your chambers had remained almost untouched since your departure many months before. The droids had been in to clean and air the room and fresh bedding had been put on, so it wasn't dusty or dank, but it did have that sense of being unlived in that places get after a time with no one moving around in them. You lit the lamp by your bed and its soft yellow light permeated the room. Din shut the door behind him and deposited his clothes and armour on top of your dressing table, topping it with his helmet and then taking some time to look around him. The space was sparsely furnished and decorated. Everything that had meant the most to you, you had taken along with you upon your departure. Not that there was much, even then. The walls were dark panelled, similar to the room Tolea inhabited and this gave the room a cocoon-like quality. Strip lights were embedded in the walls, but you chose to leave them unlit - right now you wanted to make the room as conducive to sleep as possible. Some hangings in purple, pink and blue decorated the wall behind your bed. Their colours had reminded you of sunset on Naboo and you had bought them on impulse some years before. You had rescued Tolea's cushions from outside of the medbay and you stacked them neatly next to Din's armour before moving to the window and closing the curtains.
"Wait," Din instructed before you could block out the outside world entirely. He came up behind you, slid his arms around your waist and rested his chin on your shoulder, nuzzling his cheek against yours as he did and pulling you flush against his body. "I want to see the view."
"You can see much more of it when its not the middle of the night, Din," you smiled.
"Perhaps I meant the other view," he murmured as his finger snagged on the neckline of his undershirt, hanging so much more loosely than your usual garments and giving him an eyeful of your cleavage. You smiled fondly at his persistence and impetuosity.
"You just had quite an ordeal. Is this really the first thing you want to do?" you asked, half expecting it to be a rhetorical question. He held you even tighter to him and you were astonished to feel his breath hitch a little behind you. You tried to turn to him, to see his face and take him in your arms, but he held you firmly against him.
"I...just need you, cyar'ika. I do not know what happened today and that scares me. That is twice I have been afraid today, and twice I have told you so. What is happening to me? I do not think this place...I do not think it is for the likes of me. Perhaps there is a reason that there were no other Mandalorian Jedi. Maybe these worlds are not supposed to mix in this way." It shocked you, the uncertainty in his voice. It was so unlike Din to sound unsure. Even when he had no idea what he was doing, he would plough on ahead and try until he got the result he wanted through sheer force of will and bloody mindedness.
"You have me, Din. Always," you reassured him and all at once you remembered that amidst all of the worry and trauma of the afternoon, you had still not given him the good news. You squeezed his arms tighter around you and turned your face toward him, your lips brushing lightly over the tip of his nose as you added "If you still want me forever."
You heard the initial confusion in his voice as he said "Of course, why would I-" and the sudden joy that infused his words as he realised what you meant. "We will marry? You will not have to leave the Order?" He turned you to him as he spoke and held your upper arms. You smiled your answer at him and his lips crashed excitedly against yours. "Can we-I mean...I still don't know if you have a ritual to follow. But I want to do this. Now, if we can."
"Right now?" He nodded and cradled your face in one of his hands.
"I need you," he repeated.
"Don't we need someone to officiate? A witness?"
"Usually the head of the Clan is the one to hear the vows. I am the head of the Clan. I am...well, I am head of all the Clans..." he trailed off In a slightly embarrassed way and then continued swiftly as his eyes darted back to you. "We can reaffirm in front of the Tribe when we see them. We can do whatever ritual you wish in front of your Order. But I have been without you as my riduur for long enough. Besides, I wish to look upon you with my own eyes when we are joined."
"Yes," you whispered joyfully. "Let's do this." His smile was like the sunrise as he leaned forward to kiss you softly.
"I must teach you the words first," he smiled. He did and you spoke them slowly together, promising unity in all things, to share your lives in love forever and to raise Grogu and any other children you might have as warriors and looking with love and devotion upon the other as you did. He kissed you again afterward, the beautiful swell of his lips tenderly caressing over yours, the promises that had fallen from them captured between you in unbreakable bonds.
"My riduur," you murmured as you pressed your cheek against his chest, hearing the thunder of his heartbeat and his arms encircling you. "My love."
That night you held him. He lay on your bed with his back to you, looking out over the inky blackness of the planet's nightscape. One hand was around his stomach and curling up to his chest, stroking over his marred skin, and the other was softly stroking his curls while you placed occasional chaste kisses across the top of his back and shoulders, inhaling the heady masculinity of his scent as you did so. Your leg was hooked over his, resting against the sturdy muscle of his thigh and he stroked you there softly, seeming to just want the reassurance of your proximity. Long after he fell asleep you remained awake, your mind still unable to settle after the trauma of the day and the exhilaration of finally being joined with Din in all ways. He stirred a little, a small grunt emanating from him as he twitched in his sleep. Perhaps he too was reliving what had happened. You sent soothing, calm, loving feelings toward him and held him closer and he settled again, breathing a deep sigh and muttering nonsense to himself. Just before the dawn quite made itself known, when the sky was still blue enough to see the stars you succumbed to your weariness, slipping into a dreamless, formless unconsciousness but safe in the knowledge that Din was with you, now and always.
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alatismeni-theitsa · 3 years
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Do you have any sort of, words of encouragement, for a Greek-American who is struggling to learn Greek? My family is pretty connected to our heritage but I was never taught to speak Greek. I am an adult now, and I know I'm at an incredible disadvantage trying to learn a new language. The most discouraging thing is when I try to pronounce a word with a sound that isn't really in English (like γ) and I KNOW I am not saying it right, but no matter how hard I try I can't pronounce it correctly.
Hello! I'm very sorry for delaying this answer for some days, but as we see here, Zeus was fucked this week 😅
I will pin my answer so you can see it when you return, and the rest will be under the cut.
I believe there are MANY reasons for hope in this situation. Of course it feels very discouraging that you don't know the language already and you might feel left behind in this process. Plus, learning a new language is not an easy thing to learn. But worry not!
You are grown, and that means you can learn a language better and with more consistency and discipline. Have trust in your skills as an adult. What is more, you have grown up around Greek speakers and you will pick up certain things faster.
You are not alone in feeling this way. Most of the world has to learn a second language (and a third, as it's usual for many) and that would be the language most dominant in the wider area. Almost every person in the West who is not an English speaker has to learn English and learn it well, otherwise we feel embarrassed every time we try and form a sentence. For example, we apologize to each other about our accents in English German and French, even though we speak Greek.
Surely there are some differences between your situation and ours, but I mentioned this to show you that most people will be very understanding with accents because they have the same struggle. I mean, I'm not going to make fun of someone for having an accent in Greek when I sound like a demented chicken in German, despite taking years of lessons 😵 I have more confidence in my English but even now that I'm writing to you in this language I have to quadruple-check my sentences and phrasing. The amount of times I apologized in advance for my accent to English speakers is higher than my credit.
I relayed your situation to other Greek speakers and non-English speakers, and ALL agreed the accent is not anything they would pay attention to and told me to write you that you shouldn't feel bad about that. I did that because I knew they would have words of encouragement for you. And it turns out they believe exactly what I'm writing in this answer.
Accents are natural. You cannot expect not to have an accent when you have been speaking a different language all your life. Beating yourself up for having difficulty with the Greek pronunciation is like beating yourself up for something normal like walking or laughing when hearing something funny. You lack practice with the pronunciation due to circumstances beyond your control. You are doing what you can to change that, and every small win is worth celebrating!
I found this post the other day:
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The notes? The likes?
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And NO disagreements in the comments and reblogs for OP’s statement! Look how many thousands are supportive in this! (And that’s a small fraction of people who understand accents are natural.) And some of the responses:
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Sure, some mention they have met native speakers who made it more difficult to feel comfortable with their accent and phrasing. But those people are assholes in general, and not the people you want to surround yourself with. If a relative expresses disgust about your accent remind them you didn’t have any control of how much and how well you were taught Greek when you were a kid, and then tell them that if they are a true friend and relative to you, they should support you in your journey. And even if you had some control and chose not to learn, you are learning now. So they should leave their resentment behind because, honestly, what do they have to lose from you learning the language better??
For the embarrassment you feel for yourself: you wouldn't make fun of a Greek for having trouble with the “r”, "s", “ch”, and possibly the "h" when speaking English, so extend that kindness to yourself when you speak Greek. Not to mention that with enough practice and time you can nail the accent!
Worst case scenario, if the accent never leaves, that's no problem whatsoever. Anyone who thinks badly of you for your accent is probably a PoS and they don't deserve your time. No matter where you are from, if they make you feel bad for having an accent in Greek, block them from your mind forever.
But chances are that (from experience) if anyone laughs with how you said something, I guarantee they are not laughing at you but because of how strange the sound or phrasing was. The person doesn't think badly of you because of this. Making mistakes of any kind when learning a language is very natural and it's something everyone must accept. If you are not willing to make mistakes and expose your language vulnerabilities to people who know the language better, might as well not try improving at all.
If anyone corrects you, they are not doing it out of pity. The majority of Greeks do it because they are very happy you speak the language and want you to be even more fluent. Like, they are doing it as an act of backing you up, they are feeling like they are giving you that extra XP to reach the next level! Others - like me - get that rush of happiness when they get to share their language with others 😁
I remember a guy on Tiktok who was learning Greek and ordered a coffee "without sugar" in a Greek cafe but instead of saying σκέτο ("without") he said σκατά ("shit"). I mean damn that was funny! I remember it weeks after I saw the video of him telling that story and it always cracks me up. Do I still appreciate him the same as before and follow him? Absolutely! He just had an unfortunate - and funny - incident, not something that lessened his integrity as a person.
From tiktok again: An American girl wanted to pronounce γύρος correctly when ordering it, and she was mumbling to herself on camera: “yeero, yeero, yeero!!” When her time to order came she shouted “May I have a gairow? FUUUUCKK FUUCK FUCK I SAID IT WRONG” 🤣
Another example is Athena from the Bachelor 2! She has given some gems throughout the show because she doesn't know the language that well, but everyone still loves her because she spreads positivity and is so cute!! If we, as viewers, disliked her it would be because of her character, not because she doesn't know the language well. And if some of the other girls in the show don’t take her seriously is because she laughs too much and mentions feta too often, not due to her Greek level of literacy. Athena, even when she is hurting someone else’s feelings, is always so genuine and you just can’t be mad at her!
I really can’t stretch enough how people laugh at the mishap, not the person! Please don’t feel discouraged if you ever see a Greek laughing with the pronunciation of an English speaker when it comes to Greek words (which I have done as well) because we never laugh at the speakers. We don’t even know them! We might laugh at one mistake but then instantly want to become this individual’s friends because we think they are amazing (see the three examples I mentioned above, the sugar guy, the gyro girl and Athena). Because that’s the normal thing to do; laugh at fun stuff and not judge people for their small mishaps. (In a casual setting, and not to an uncomfortable degree ofc!)
There are so many things to a person other than their accent and the accent becomes old news really fast. What remains is how the presence of a person makes you feel and if they are a good individual. If an English speaking friend says yatakai instead of γατάκι that opens the way for sooo many jokes! Greeks will laugh, do some YATAKAAIIII screams - ninja style, and then continue being friends with that person!
Greeks makes these mistakes as well... A Greek once said "arrive arrive" (φτάνει φτάνει) instead of "enough" when an English speaker was filling his glass. A Lower English degree caught fire that day 🤣 I have many bad examples of Greeks’ mistakes in English but I can’t remember a lot. But I’ve seen many videos of Greeks mocking themselves for how they sound in English. You can take a look at Tsipras’ (our former prime minister) mistakes on youtube if you are feeling brave 😂 (Ο Τσίπρας μιλάει Αγγλικά)
So, own your possible mistakes, laugh at them and move on because everyone makes them and we better have some good while we are struggling!
(( For the record, we are not making fun of Tsipras because of his accent, but because 1) he doesn’t know γρι English and yet he rarely brought a translator with him in international meetings with world leaders, 2) he could absolutely not hold a conversation with negotiating or discussing 3) he didn’t take steps to improve or fix the situation (like bring a translator). 4) Instead, he chose to torment us all with mind-numbing hours of reading English texts and making other world leaders struggle to explain to him what they meant for the nth time and meetings move at a snail pace.))
Alright, now that I cringed with the memory of Tsipras speaking English, I’ll go though the recommendations for improving the Greek pronunciation.
1) Go to my resources for learning Greek (#learn greek) where I have many videos where you can hear the sounds individually or withing other words very clearly. Easy Greek on youtube has excellent videos about pronunciation!
2) Seek practice as much as possible. Some Greeks switch to English when they hear an English accent to make the conversation smoother for the other person. If Greek speakers insist on talking with you in English tell them that you would wish to speak in Greek. I've seen that people often mirror the accent of the native speaker when they speak to one, so this might work for you as well with hours of practice. If no Greek speakers are available to you now, you can find Greek Americans online – or go to their festivals – and start talking to them.
3) Listen to Greek podcasts, songs and shows. (In my blog you’ll find them at #greek youtuber #podcast #greek tv #greek movie #short film #greek music). You know when you hear a catchy foreign song and then it’s stuck in your head and you say all the words perfectly without even knowing what it means? Well, this helps with pronunciation!
4) If you had Spanish in school or have Spanish friends mimicking the Spanish accent might help you. (Our accents are extremely close! The Spanish are the best at Greek pronunciation, and vice versa!)
5) Find sounds in your native language that sound close to the sounds you want to say in Greek. In German lessons I had trouble with “ch” in certain words because I made it sound like χ and it was horrible. My Greek teacher told me to remember how χ sounds in χήνα (it sounds a bit flatter) and make that sound when I encountered “ch”. It worked actually!
To people who have English as their native language I often suggest they remember the sound of w for γ because, although not used the same in the word, at times they have the same intensity. Γ is pronounced more “to the front” of the mouth, so if you can bring that sound forward in your mouth you’ll be very close, if not accurate, to γ. (But don’t bring it too much forward, sometimes it can sound like a “y”, unless you are saying a word where γ sounds like “y”).
Greeks pronounce σ more closely to “sh” than to “s”, so you also might want to keep that in mind since σ often distinguishes the Greek accent in English for me :p
That’s all! If you have more questions or want to tell me anything else about your experience with learning Greek, feel free to send another ask or a DM!
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toastling · 2 years
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(previous anon here) hmmm i wouldn't say night and day.... as you said, they had flaws and so do we... i think that just because we got past some important milestones people forget that it's ok to debate and reinvent the way things are, in my perception (at least thru what ive seen around, both irl and online) things are just naturally progressing... when a group gets past the immediate dangers we get more time to discuss things and such
There's discussion and then there's policing each other's identities and oppressing each other in the same way the cishets do. These past couple years especially, I haven't seen much (good faith) discussion as much as I have increasingly radicalized factions shouting at each other and making the other out to be the devil.
I got an anon earlier who told me they hoped I died in a particularly violent manner solely because I'm trying to promote a mutual respect for individual experiences and interpretations, even ones we may not personally agree with. This sort of violent rejection is not uncommon. You see it all over the place now, people getting hate simply for promoting inclusivity, as if it's a poison that will destroy us, and not the one thing that can truly unite us.
This isn't discussion, or debate, it's just more violence. People aren't allowed to disagree anymore without one side being somehow morally repugnant. I was told by a former acquaintance our disagreement was very much intentionally disrespectful because I dared to suggest a trans experience based off euphoria as opposed to dysphoria, free of suffering, was a valid one. How twisted is that, to insist misery is a core facet of what it is to be trans? To resist so strongly against anybody who may feel differently?
This is the kind of thing I'm talking about, and rebelling against. This infinite abyss of intolerance. Maybe I'm wrong - maybe things weren't as rosy in the past as some of the elders I've spoken to have told me. But there's no way it could've been worse than this.
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valeriethepussycats · 3 years
Text
Inside Out
Chapter 6
Pairing- Loki x Reader
Warning-cursing
Your thoughts and other characters are in italics.Flashbacks are in bold.
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Back on Earth, Darcy paces around her apartment as Ian is sat watching the news on TV. “Y/n not answering her phone. Jane isn't called me back. Erik isn't calling me back. Stupid SHIELD isn't calling me back!”
“What's SHIELD?” Ian asked.
“It's a secret.”
Darcy leaves a voice message for Erik. “Uh...hey, Erik. It's Darcy again. Uh...Thor came back, he took Jane to Asgard and um...I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do.” As Ian is watching the news they start reporting about Erik being arrested at Stonehenge.
“Something else went missing this week when Astrophysicist, Dr. Erik Selvig, notable for his involvement in the Alien invasion in New York streaked nude across Stonehenge..
“Darcy, you really need to look at this. Your friend Erik, what was his last name again?” Ian wondered.
Darcy looks at the news report on TV.
“...disrobed and began shouting at visitors at the historic site. He was later taken into police custody for psychiatric evaluation. The police are still refusing to confirm...” Ian presses the pause button on Erik's face from footage taken at Stonehenge, Darcy sits in dismay as she looks at Erik's face on the TV.
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In Asgard,
Thor and Y/n is sitting at a table.
“You’re brooding.” Y/n announced. “What are you thinking about?”
“You’re the mind reader.” Thor teased.
Y/n looks at Thor with a cocked head then gasp. “ You want to take Jane to the Dark World to get the Aether out of her.”
“Shhh, it’s the only way.”
“You’re also thinking I can help with the Aether.....How?” Y/n asked.
“You have the ability to stop even slowly time down you can slow down the Aether’s control on Jane.”
“I can’t come with you, Thor.”
“What...why not?” Thor questioned.
“Thor, this is what Loki wants he wants, me to leave Asgard.” Y/n explained.
“Why would he want that?”
“He doesn’t want to.....watch me die.”
“That’s understandable.” Thor mumbled.
“Do you feel the same way Loki does? Should I not be here?” Y/n asked but before Thor could answer, Heimdall walks up to them.
Thor exhale deeply. “You’re not in Odin's war council?”
“The Bifrost is closed by your father's orders. No one is to come or to go.”Heimdall takes off his helmet and places it on the table. “We face an enemy that is invisible even to me. Of what use is a guardian such as that?” He sits down looking defeated.
“Heimdall, it was literally invisible go easy on yourself.” Y/n said as she lays a comforting hand on his shoulder. As doing so she stars to to see..different pictures of worlds. She takes her hand off of Heimdall’s shoulder and the picture stop. “Weird.”
“Malekith will return, you know this. I'll need your help.” Thor replied.
“I cannot overrule my King's wishes, not even for you.” Heimdall answered.
“I'm not asking you to. The Realms need their All-Father strong and unchallenged, whether he is or not. But he is blinded, Heimdall, by hatred and by grief.” Thor explained.
“As are we all.”
“Well I see clearly enough.”
“The risks are too great.” Heimdall disclosed.
“Everything that we do from here on out is a risk.” Y/n said looking at Thor.
“Your going to help me?” Thor asked.
“I’ll find my way back to him.” Y/n proclaimed with a smile.
Heimdall hesitates before replying. “What do you require of me?”
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“What I'm about to ask of you is treason of the highest order. Success will bring us exile and failure shall mean our death. Malekith knew the Aether was here, he can sense its power. If we do nothing he will come for it again, but this time lay waste to all of Asgard.”
Thor is holding a meeting with Sif, Fandral, Volstagg, Y/n, and Heimdall. “We must move Jane off world.”
“The Bifrost has been shut down and the Tesseract locked away in a vault.” Sif shared.
“There are other paths off Asgard, ways known only to a few.” Heimdall revealed.
“One, actually.” Thor disclosed.
The others suddenly realize he means Loki.
“No.”
“Oh this is gonna be fun!” Y/n said with a broad grin.
“Y/n....” Thor started.
“Oh no you got this Thor.”
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Thor walks up to Loki's cell where he is standing looking well kept and clean.
“Thor, after all this time and now you come to visit me. Why? Have you come to gloat? To mock?” Loki wondered.
“Loki, enough. No more illusions.” Thor stated.
Suddenly Loki's cell is transformed, the illusion is lifted and we see that Loki's cell is a mess, everything has been thrown around and he's sat on the floor, looking unkempt and messy, in the other corner of the cell. “Now you see me, brother. How is Y/n? She won’t see me because....we had a disagreement.”
“She’s fine.”
“No quakes? No abnormal weather?” Loki asked.
“Heavy rain.”
“Good.” Loki said with a note of relief. “Her powers are truly something else...I fear I can’t be the man she needs me to be......she told me I was her happy ending.” Loki said with an Inappropriate laughter. “What did I do to deserve that?.......go ahead I’m asking you.”
“Nothing.” Thor answered.
“Nothing.” Loki agreed. “I do not deserve Y/n or...mother.” Thor walks up to the other side of the cell to be closer to Loki. “Did she suffer?”
“I did not come here to share our grief or giving you advice. Instead I offer you the chance of a far richer sacrament.” Thor made known.
“Go on.”
“I know you seek vengeance as much as I do. You help me escape Asgard and I will grant it to you, vengeance. And afterward, this cell.” Thor remarked.
Loki chuckles. “You must be truly desperate to come to me for help. What makes you think you can trust me?”
“I don't. Mother did. Y/n do. You should know that when we fought each other in the past, I did so with a glimmer of hope that my brother was still in there somewhere. That hope no longer exists to protect you. You betray me and I will kill you.”
Loki smiles.”Hmm. When do we start?”
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
Back to the meeting with Thor and his comrades
“He will betray you.” Fandral proclaimed.
“He will try. Loki will not try anything with Y/n there.” Thor noted.
If he does I’ll just kick his ass again. Y/n thought.
Loki and Thor walk out of the Asgardian prison. “This is so unlike you, brother. So clandestine. Are you sure you wouldn't rather just punch your way out?”
“If you keep speaking I just might.”
“Fine. As you wish. I'm not even here.” Loki said using his diversion tactics, turning himself into an Asgardian guard. “Is this better?”
“It's better company at least.” Thor admitted.
“Still, we could be less conspicuous.” Loki turns back into himself but turns Thor into Sif. “Hm, brother. You look ravishing.”
Thor looks down at his body then replies in his own voice. “It will hurt no less when I kill you in this form. What would Y/n think?”
“Very well. Perhaps you prefer one of your new companions, given that you seem to like them so much.” Loki then turns himself into Captain America in his full Captain America costume. “Oh, this is much better. Woh. The costume's a bit much, so tight. But the confidence, I can feel the righteousness surging. Hey, you wanna have a rousing discussion about truth, honor, patriotism? God bless Amer–“
Suddenly Thor grabs hold of Loki puts his hand over his mouth and pushes him against the wall making Loki turn back into himself. “What?” Thor looks to the side and they see two Asgardian guards walking away. “You could at least furnish me with a weapon. My dagger, something!” Loki exclaimed
Thor looks at him and we hear a noise like a sword being drawn. “At last, a little common sense.”
Loki then looks down then holds up his hands which now have iron handcuffs on them.
“And I thought you liked tricks.” Thor laughs and turns to walk off.
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
Back at the original meeting Thor was holding with his comrades.
��Well, what then? Your lovely mortal is being guarded by a legion of our Einherjar who will see you coming from miles away.” Fandral reckoned that.
“I won't be the one who comes for her.” Thor looks over to Sif.
Jane is sat in her guarded room when one of the guards enters. “I'm not hungry.”
Suddenly Sif comes up behind the guard and knocks him out, she looks over to Jane.“Good, let's go.”
Jane and Sif meet up with Thor with Loki standing beside him, Jane points to Loki. “You're...”
“I'm Loki. You may have heard of... “ suddenly Jane slaps Loki hard in the face.
“That was for New York.” Jane voiced.
Loki smiles and looks at Thor. “I like her.”
7 notes · View notes
herstarburststories · 4 years
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Brutal (Dean Winchester x Reader)
✾ A/N: More Dean x reader content, but angst this time! Reposting because I had to edit a few things. Gif's credits on it.  Based on the song ‘from the dining table’.
✾ Summary: Unlike her boyfriend, Dean Winchester, the reader wasn’t raised as a hunter. At first, it seems like a hard but worth it job. Unfortunately, you didn't have in mind how brutal all of it could get.
✾ Words: 3k.
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"YOU ARE NOT YOURSELF ANYMORE, DEAN!"
The discussion over a delicate subject at the dining table was blossoming into something bigger. (Y/N) was on her feet, shouting at her boyfriend with a shaking voice; a manner that was very uncommon. You were used to Dean being stubborn, and you were not behind him in this aspect which caused a few disagreements here and there. That certain argument, though, was definitive in every meaning of the word.
"I HAVE ALWAYS MADE IT FUCKING CLEAR WHAT THIS LIFE WAS, (Y/N)!" Dean snapped back, anger dripping from his words like venom. He was hurt. How could you say that he was becoming a cold-hearted person? You, of all people. "IF I DON'T KILL IT, IT KILLS ME! THIS ISN'T AN APPLE PIE LIFE, AND YOU KNEW IT WHEN YOU DECIDED TO STAY HERE!"
"I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT VAMPIRES OR POLTERGEISTS OR WENDIGOS, DEAN! FUCK!" Your usual efficiency with words was starting to tangle with desperation. Dean didn't even see the problem, for God's shake. How could you keep this up? "I'M TALKING ABOUT THE PEOPLE! I SAW YOU KILL FIVE POSSESSED PEOPLE TODAY!"
"DEMONS!" He groaned and slapped the table. You jumped in surprise, making him regret getting out of control and coaxing a softer, calmer tone from his mouth. "I killed demons, not people."
"The demons were possessing them, and you killed them off without any regret. You didn't even take a minute to consider other options."
"What other options?" he questioned, obviously upset. What the hell were you doing? Becoming the devil's advocate all of sudden?
"Using the demon-killing knife to stab a non-vital part of their bodies? Maybe an exorcism?"
"None of those options would end the problem permanently. Do you have any idea how many sons of a bitch came back from hell to get Sam and me? It's them or us, (Y/N). And I will always choose us." Dean was aware that you weren't raised in this life like him and Sam, but this conversation was becoming frustrating and confusing. You were training to be like them. You went to hunts with them. You... You supported him. At least, you did last time he checked. "The human is long gone when they get possessed. Dying is the best thing that could happen to them after that."
You were supposed to be an easy case that turned out to be more complicated than previously expected, what meant both of them staying a little longer in the city, you catching feelings for Dean and vice-versa. After all you had seen, you knew that normal life was a long lost memory that you didn't wish to visit, leave alone live in. Hauntings, traveling across the country, having no banal responsibilities-- that seemed like the kind of dangerous fun you had been looking for your whole life. Then, you came with them. Killing things had never bothered you-- they weren't actually alive, for starts. Until you saw how cold Dean looked when he killed off possessed people-- the humans that were still in there somehow. And he kept doing it as if it were the only option. Of course, this job and violence walked side by side, but not unnecessary lethal choices. Dean certainly shared his portion of brutality, which wasn't tiny, but you would never picture your boyfriend as uncaring. Not until you watched five bodies piled up together, burning. What about the chance that those people should have gotten?
"Are you even listening to yourself, Dean? What if Sam had thought like that when you became a demon!?" Apprehensive, you tried to make him understand what was wrong.
Dean clenched his jaw before his answer came out, "Those are two different things, (Y/N). You know that."
"I..." You flinched, taking a deep breath and letting it out. You shut your eyes before opening them with a determinate glare, locking your gaze with his green one. "I can't. I said I would stand by you through anything, but I can't let this slide. Not like this."
"Because I killed a few demons?" The older Winchester grinned wryly. He was furious, scared by the possibility of you leaving him, and injured by your words. What else could a wounded animal do besides attacking? "I survived, (Y/N). I've killed many others, and I'm not fucking sorry for it. They had it coming. You knew that was my life, and you chose it. What are you going to do now? Play the coward? It's a dirty, fucked up job, but someone has to do it, and you knew that."
Offering a sad smile, you walked towards him and lifted your hand to claim his cheek only for him to pull away from you. Your heart ached, but you needed to do that. Stick to your morals and beliefs.
"I love you." And you did, you truly did. Unfortunately, blood was as normal as water in his mouth, and you couldn't help but remain nauseous after what you tasted. "But there is a better way. Maybe not perfect, but another decision. And if you can't see that, if you can't see why I find it wrong to just rush around with the knife in every situation--" Your voice almost broke. "Goodbye, Dean."
You turned around, passing away from the man you loved before another speech stopped you.
"I bet you regret leaving your home to run away with me now."
You didn't take two seconds to reply, and you desired that he could understand how hard it was for you too. "I would never regret you."
No ray of sunshine licked Dean's face to wake him up. Fortunately for the Winchesters' disorganized sleeping routine, the bunker prevented the sun from invading the window-- a perk of living almost under the land in a bunker.
Instead of a normal reason to emerge from his rest, Dean's eyes fluttered open from an annoying migraine. Perhaps he went a little too hard on the alcohol yesterday, but that was the last thing that mattered. Besides, even if it was an abnormal sensation, he wouldn't trade it for sake of 'drinking like a normal human being', as (Y/N) had teased him so many times before.
(Y/N).
It took two seconds after recovering consciousness to think about you.
“Where are you?” he said in a whisper, playing with himself to the silent walls. Dean laughed with his own brand of self-deprecation-- a learned cruelty to dilute the tug of his emotions before the eldest Winchester had to get up. He knew exactly where you resided and why you were there. He decided against feeding his masochism for once, not glancing at your side of the bed.
To face the light fixtures above him only made his current situation more depressing, just like the hints of paint that (Y/N) had once thrown there. Dean Winchester knew pain like no other; hell, purgatory, an emptied childhood, watching his mother seal a deal with a demon, living with the fact his father had gone to hell to save him, being right in front of Sammy when he died, all the bloody deaths he’d lived through again and again-- the list would go on. He could probably drown in an ocean of his deceased loved ones’ blood and swim there for hours until he reached its edge.
Most of the time, the life of a hunter was synonymous with tragedy.
Therefore, Dean was very experienced when it came to suffering. He even shared a last name with a rifle, for God’s sake. Destruction was stained in his bones. This time, it was a different kind of torment.
His heart had been broken before, sure. He wasn’t in his early twenties, neither was he a saint. Dean was aware that a break in relationships could be devastating.
But again, this time, it was different. (Y/N) had not only broke his heart. You ripped it out and threw it in the trash as you walked out the door without looking back. His trust was in your pockets, and the beliefs clinging to the divine sensation of your touch that left with you.
Dean Winchester was hopeless. Deciding not to mourn for a bit, he closed his eyes from the melancholy. It wasn't a hard job to fall asleep once more. People in his job were always heavy-eyed.
Forty minutes passed by the clock until the Winchester roused again. This moment felt missing without you snuggling up to him or kissing his neck between foolish giggles or even pushing him out of bed when you felt like playing the prankster.
There was no valid reason to remain where he was, glaring at a stupid ceiling that held nothing but an old light you installed together and memories. The yellow and blue paints still held firm where you’d spattered them, jumping in the bed together with your hands drenched in the colors from a gouache paint container just because you’d found the tins somewhere in the bunker. You and Dean became a tangled mess of greens, dirty with paint and kissing. How many sexual encounters happened here, he thought, glaring at this ceiling that looked like three-year-old Sammy’s art project.
The green-eyed man never thought he would feel nostalgic about a stupid ceiling. He had to get out of that room.
Finally raising from the mattress, Dean yawned as he padded towards the kitchen. He didn't mind checking what time it was, knowing he needed an alcoholic getaway. The Winchester sat down, sharing a bottle of Whiskey with his shadow. How distracting it was to make his throat burn when an unpleasant thought attempted to take control of his head.
If he had dared to look through the room, Dean would have noticed the clock's arrow pointing at 10:50 am.
By noon he was already drunk, which took a lot of effort since his tolerance to drinks was a bar high set. Dean groaned, displeased. The buzzy feeling of befuddlement hitting him certainly helped, but he could still affirm that he had never felt less cool. His body was starving for something that wasn't there anymore. Dean's feelings were all over the place, and he didn't have the energy to pick them up at this point.
"I can't believe you are drinking already." Sam sighed, making himself known by Dean in the kitchen. In response, all he got was his brother holding the glass up and drinking all of its bronze liquid. "It's barely noon, Dean. You-- Wait. Are you drunk?"
"Don't start, Sam." He groaned, holding his own cheeks with fingers as his hands slid down to his chin. The gesture was a habit of Dean's when he was fed up with something.
The younger one offered him an indignant glare, which was soon replaced by empathy and sorrow as he watched Dean. His brother was broken. (Y/N) running away from them had really taken him down. Part of Sam was hurt as well-- after all, you were his friend and confidant. But, in all ruthless honesty, he couldn't speak out and point fingers at you on that. Not about the whole situation, at all.
Yet, if Sam was feeling abandoned by his friend, he could only imagine what Dean would be experiencing. You had been a hint of happiness in the middle of misery and combat for Dean. It had been so long since Sammy saw his brother like that, so very long. Suddenly, it disappeared like smoke. And the worst part was that he understood your side. Deep down, the long-haired man knew Dean did, too.
Trying to knock sense back into his brother, or at least a bit of normality, Sam spoke, "You can go out and buy some whiskey. Your bottle was the last one."
"Yeah, right." His voice was impassive, almost serious for such casual conversation. He got up, going to the table to grab Baby's keys.
"Hey, Dean..." Dean turned around to face his brother. Sam’s expression was cautious, voice soft when he continued: "If you want to talk about it, I'm here. It could help."
"I'm pretty sure you heard the screaming yesterday, Sam," Dean replied dryly, an unsettlingly wry smile surfacing. His walls were up. It was an old defense mechanism. "There is nothing to talk about. She left. The sooner we can accept it, the sooner we can move on."
"Move on? You want to move on?" he questioned suspiciously, eyebrows arching to match his inquiry.
Dean didn't answer. He only picked up the keys.
"Dean--"
"Yeah, I think we are out of eggs, too," Dean interrupted. He didn't need to talk about it. Not now. "Whiskey and eggs, got it."
Any other remarks from Sam were ignored as he walked through the door, trotting in direction of his beloved Impala. An old song on one of his cassettes was the soundtrack to his five-minute ride to the nearest store.
Dean went searching for eggs and whiskey, adding a lemon pie that smelled better than himself-- not that it was difficult considering he hadn’t showered since yesterday. The store’s cashier swiped his credit card and offered a polite farewell that was replied with a nod. Everything seemed so normal in the most boring ways.
In the parking lot, a familiar face appeared for the first time in a year. It was Thomas-- a hunter that Dean, you, and Sam had come across during a job in New Mexico.
"Winchester!" The blue-eyed man smiled, making the scar near his lips more evident. Being thrown out of a window left marks sometimes. "It's been too long, dude."
"Cavill." His lips curved into a small smile as he greeted his friend. Laying his green eyes on him, Dean couldn't avoid noticing a familiar shirt. Fuck, he must be hallucinating or thinking too hard about foolish subjects. "Where have you been?"
"Burning bones, decapitating vamps. Same old, same old." Thomas waved his hand, banalizing the supernatural routine as if it were nothing but another Sunday. For them, this was true. "I saw (Y/N) yesterday. She seemed fine. Separate hunts to take different cases?"
His blood burned through an emotional fever in realization. It felt like the boil was intense enough to melt his bones if he remained in front of the other men for too long. Thomas had never been subtle about finding you attractive, and neither was his constant flirting when your cases collided. It didn't help that you and Dean weren't together back then, even though the tension was obvious for anyone. The Winchester gripped his grocery plastic bag harder, offering him a sarcastic smirk.
"Something like that." He reached the car door and pulled out his keys. The familiar red flannel, your meeting with him-- it was so obvious it was basically written all over his face, and sadly, Dean could read it well. Fuck, he wanted to drop his purchases and punch that smile off Thomas’ face. That man probably had more of what was once his. “Gotta go. See you around.”
Sliding in the car to leave this conversation before his treacherous mind could reach more detestable conclusions, Cavill answered, "If you need help, give me a call.''
Dean mumbled something but didn't care enough to give him anything beyond a nod while the Impala finally drove away from Thomas.
At that moment, he wished a bit harder that Ellen was still alive or that another bar like hers existed. The hunters’ bar was full of people who understood that death was a part of the job. Somewhere he could swallow barrels of alcohol, play darts and tell bloody stories about his world-- about the quintessential things he did to get despair out of his system to the point that he felt comfortable on his own skin again.
So, that was it? You didn't just leave him and Sam, but you also accused him with all certainty you had of being a cold killer, and then you slept with the first man who showed up? Who was also a fucking hunter? Why the fuck didn't you tell him how you felt sooner? He wasn't an angel-- he would be even more of an arrogant asshole than he already was if that was the case, but you knew it all along. He didn't deserve anything good in his life. He should've seen it coming.
Dean pursed his lips, deciding for another ride to a normal bar. Home and all the beautiful, tragic ghosts inside could haunt him later.
It didn't take him long to park near an establishment. For once, he noticed the strong grip he held on the steering wheel, knuckles strained whiter than usual. He let out a tired sigh, glaring at the entrance of the place before grabbing his phone.
No calls from you. No text messages from you. Just the feeling of being a thirteen-year-old boy again, just like when he was waiting for Mary to send him a sign that she was all right.
Shaking his head in disbelief, Dean put it back in his pocket and made his way to the bar. No 'welcome' board light was shining yet, and he doubts anyone but he and the owner would be there. Once he got in, two guys were sitting in a table far away, and a girl was entering the bathroom. The bartender stood behind the bar, watching some game on the small television the place provided.
"Whiskey. No ice." His words came out harsher than he expected. The guy didn't seem to notice or care, simply nodding his head and turning around go get his client's order. One more time, Dean took his phone and stared at it. There was nothing but a text from Sammy that he quickly replied to, frowning in disappointment. It was rare for you to be the first one to break after a fight, but that was more than a stupid argument. You had left. You had fucking left. And he was the only one to blame.
Such a miserable routine kept its course. Dean would drink, check his phone, and hurt himself with his own thoughts. The night came with lurking shadows, and he couldn't care less. It seemed like the ghosts had replaced the bunker for his company. He didn't want to believe you would come back because hoping and being destroyed again was too much to bear with right now. Dean couldn't even breathe properly at the thought that he would never, ever see touch you, tease you, or be with you again. You had him wrapped around your finger since the very first day until you cut your hand off and left him. You left. How could you have left? But then, how could you had stayed if you had it all in your mind before?
Someone sat beside him. Still, it didn't catch the Winchester's attention until he heard her voice. For a flash of a second, he thought it was you. Dean looked up instantly, only to find himself incredulous.
The woman in front of him looked so much like you. She could easily be mistaken for your sister. Hair, eyes, voice. Everything but the lips were so similar. The unknown girl kept her gaze on Dean despite his strange reaction to her. Repeating her former words, she asked, "What are you drinking? Seems good."
Yeah, she wasn't (Y/N). You could tell what he was drinking from miles away, just because you knew exactly what he enjoyed. In addition, you’d seen his preferences so much that you’d memorized it all without even trying.
She looked like you, though. A lot. The earlier jealousy mixed with a dangerous quantity of alcohol and anguish made his decision. Move on, just like he told Sam. You didn't call him. You weren't coming back. That was your choice. He had to shut up the little hopes in his mind.
Putting up his best sultry smirk, Dean pushed the glass on the table towards her as he answered: "You tell me."
Two hours later, he was tilting his head to the side, watching the woman in his sheets peacefully taking a nap after a long run. Her hand covered most of her face, pillow carpeted with her messy hair.
"Wake up, (Y--)" Dean restrained himself from finishing that sentence. He almost said your name. It was hard enough to keep the woman's name, which he had forgotten by now, on his tongue during sex-- he wasn't going to give in at the end of it. Clearing his throat, the hunter started waking her up again. He needed to go.
In any other point of his life, he would've considered that night a success. A hot girl was sleeping beside him after he had a great amount of old whiskey. Sammy sent a text about a new case, and he had pie waiting for him in the car. At any other moment, that would be enough to put him in a good mood all day. In any other age, that would be considered a good day. No one died, he had sex and food and was about to hunt a thing and blow whatever it was up.
But you hadn't called.
It was probably a good thing in a messed up way. It was tranquil. There was no arguing, no fighting, no hurting from either side. That kind of hurt was quite similar to being comfortable, in a tremendously distorted way that he didn't wish to feel, like not putting medicine on the wound and just allowing it to heal by itself-- yet, occasionally scratching it. The idea of a comfortable silence was so overrated. Dean would rather be screamed at by (Y/N) by now than whatever this option was.
The woman woke up and left a note with her phone as she abandoned the room. Crumbling the paper, he threw it away and touched his face. A deep breath was taken.
He had work to do.
Maybe one day you'll call me
and tell me that you’re sorry too 
But you never do
194 notes · View notes
icecrystaldragon · 3 years
Text
𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐞 - 𝑨 𝑾𝒂𝒓 𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒉𝒖𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒔 𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒕 𝑫𝒓𝒂𝒈𝒐𝒏𝒔 / 𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑰
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💙𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧💙
For the lads that may perhaps be curious of Frosttale begun with a few unleveled scenes.
I wanted to make sure the story itself has more deep emotions ,much compatible and incompatible forward actions. A bit of vengeance may be added to the story. I hope you lads enjoy!
𝑨𝒔 𝒅𝒓𝒂𝒈𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝒐𝒏 𝒔𝒖𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒂 𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒐𝒎 𝒐𝒇 𝒊𝒄𝒆, 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒅𝒖𝒄𝒊𝒏𝒈... 𝒂 𝒎𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒅𝒓𝒂𝒈𝒐𝒏 𝒏𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒅.. -𝒄𝒓𝒚𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒂- 𝒂𝒔 𝒔𝒉𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒅 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒏𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒅.. -𝒄𝒐𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒍-
<🔹️💠🔹️>
The Ice dragon family as they live in the ice kingdom, king coastal, declared and announced "All dragon of Ice must live freely as they will live by peace to all humans. Two living Beings will unite this world!" The dragons shout as the cheered excitedly.
As one young Ice dragon in his room, as he heard the result of what his father said. He sit up worriedly, then his mother as she notice a sound from him. She walk towards to his room to check on him then peeks and questions as she says his name "Crystal? Is everything alright? You don't seem to happy." As her son responded "I.. N-no." The dragon queen was concerned of the result as she looked at her son shaking in fear.
She was worried and choses to sit next to him as she kindly placed her hand on his cheek "it seems you have a different mindset that tells you that it isn't a great idea to chose.. isn't it?" She answered his thoughts.
Crystal knew that she was thinking about his thoughts and looks away for a moment and replied "what if... the humans refuses to see us that we can be innocent...? They wouldn't take the chance to give us a shot.. what if." he closes and clutches his hand tightly and shuts his eyes in fear "I.. don't want to lose you, m-mommy.." his tear rolls down on his cheek as dragon queen looked to his very concerned and very worried as him.
She hold the back of his hand as she calms his son into a lower level "my son... thinking with a but of worryness that can cause your stress to rise... let me tell you this, sweetie. when I was your age... I met your father, and he wanted to follow his dream by being something that no dragon chooses. A king. King of the ice kingdom. He wanted to declare that all humans and dragons may live together in one. I was also worried as you are.
But I did met this one human child that was very kind.. they didn't seem to harmful. It told me that they are innocent and they intraduced their self. There name was... frisk'. They answered theirselve to me that they will always choose.. [MERCY]." Crystal looked at her and relaxed his hand as her mother his still holding the back of his hand.
Crystal replied to her backstory "So... not all humans sees us the wrong way...? They may see us that we are innocent too..?" As crystal clearly ccorrected her answer from her backstory as his mother replied "indeed, my son" she smiles and lets go of her son's hand. Crystal calmly and looks up to his mother "mom..?" As his mother replied "Yes sweetie?" Her son hugged her tightly "thank you..." his mother smiled looking at his son as she hugged back "You're welcome... my son".
🔹️𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲🔹️
A child named frisk' announced as they told the results about the ice dragons that they will make peace To all humans.
Their parents made a disagreement that they see dragon not innocent and very harmful. Their father added "Do you really think all Ice dragons Can be innocent like us? All dragons are truthfully harmful and completely against all human beings!" Is father gave out a false answer. Frisk Was unhappy that their father refuses to believe that all Ice dragons are innocent,
Even their mother agreed to his thoughts about the Ice dragons. Frisk choses to prove them that all Ice dragons are truthfully Innocent as their mother added "There may not be a way frisk... I refuse to see a dragon intraducing theirselves to a child like you.
Now it time for bed." Frisk was unhappy as they walk upstairs to their room as their parents have a conversation about the results of the dragons forwardly coming as his father was thinking "we need to bring a stop to this... I refuse to see our child our there with a dragon". As his mother agreed "I have an idea then... I will alert and warn the ones I know as they may help us with the plan" she replied and holds out her phone.
🔹️A𝘁 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗸'𝘀 𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗺🔹️
Frisk was very Upset and worried at the same time that they wanted their parants to see that all Ice dragons are not very harmful.
While they were thinking, they pause as they heard their parants have a discussion about stopping the Ice dragons. Their mother answered to her friends "please, do you have a way to remain the dragons from not entering our town?... Really..? Perfect... sounds very perfect! Thank you." Frisk was very curious as they wonder what the plan was.
Their mother walk towards their father as she gave out her result to him "me and my friends has a solution to keep all of the dragons out of the human side. They are going to call someone that works for the president.
Sent them every result about the Ice dragons entering. We just need to wait until what they may replied" their mom told their father the entire plan as he agreeded every plan she has received to him. Frisk was very worried as they do not like where the plan is going.
After a while frisk was laying by their bedroom door as their parants doesn't hear anything from them thinking that they are asleep. While frisk is still peeking as they are trying to hear what their parants are planning as the next result awaits.
Their mother walked forward to their father as she told him the next plan result as she told him "the plan will be an higher level of success. We plan to bring vengeance to them. Have war against them. We strike them down at once!" As she explained and their father agreed as he replied "that sounds... like a wonderful plan! We will not let this pass by us. We will make sure no dragons enter!." Their father added.
Frisk begging to get very shocked in fear as they are really afraid that they may not see the dragons dragons again. This leads to humans create war to all Ice dragons. Frisk choses to figure a way to stop them from ending all of the Dragons.
🔹️𝗠𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗜𝗰𝗲 𝗞𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗱𝗼𝗺🔹️
One of the Ice dragon were levelheadedly flying for a bit as a human seek one as they is a arrow to target at the Dragon. The human shoot the wing that is part of that dragon as it falls on ground and the humans quickly hides. Coastal the Ice dragon king Was adding snow to on the corner of the Kingdom as he heard a fall. He looks over to it as he sees a dragon injured as he gasp.
He ran over to it as he looked at the wind and questioned "what happened?! Who did this to you...?" As the injured dragon replied "it was... a human..." Coastal frozed as he paused and repeated what the dragon said "A... Human..?" At that moment, he knew he has chosen an umverted choice of declaring of bringing peace to humans. This leads an unlevel path.
🔹️𝗔𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗼𝘆𝗮𝗹 𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗹🔹️
Coastal was still shocked a little from the devastated human harmed a dragon. Crystina thought that all humans would be nice but it was a bit of false answer. It tells her That her son was right.
As Coastal thought as he committed "I do not understand... I thought all humans would see and treat us different. kindly.." One of the dragon guard came into the Royal hall as it alerted to the king "Your majesty! The humans! They're attacking Us!" He cried out to him. Coastal replied "I see then... Forgive me for this but.. you must tell evacuate the ones that Are not A part of the fight. The ones that are in the battle... you need to get the battle Dragons in it" has he gave him an order.
The dragon guard replied but what about the ones that are not a battle type..?" He worriedly replied as coastal answered "tell them to return back into the kingdom immediately! Now go! Quick!" He gave the dragon guard an order.
The dragon guard flies to the battle as he quickly gets the battle dragons. The dragon queen was very worried about her son that he may get shot or stabbed so she run into his room as she checked on him as crystal is shaking in fear.
The human knight pulled their sword out of the dragon king's chest as he falls holding his chest where is stabbed at the heart as the human knight replied "worthless dragon...". Crystal shouted "Dad!!" He tried running to him as the dragon queen grabbed her son's wrist as she replied "my child wait! You must not run forward! The human is going to-" As her soninterrupted "b-but what about dad..?!" He tears up as he is very worried as his mother replied "listen, i-i want to save him to, but you need to stay away from the human! I will take care of." As the dragon queen gets immediately stabbed by the human knight with a sword.
Crystal frozed in fear as he tears up even more. He shouted I'm fear "M-MOM!!!". The human knight pulled their sword knight out where they stabbed the dragon queen as falls on her knees and on the ground. She caugh as things started to get very blurry to her eyes.
Crystal holds her hand as was tearing while shaking "M-mom.. n-noo.. please.. don't leave me..." as his mother couldn't see and cough blood out and replied slowly "m-my child.. i-. you.. need... to leave..p-please..." she slowly fainted but holding her last breath for her last words as her son replied "N-no.. I can't and won't leave you... y-you are dad... are everything to me. ll" He cries a little as his mother replied "p-please... m-my son... a-a and.. before... you.. do... i..." she close her eyes as her breath as slowly drained as she says it one final time "I love you" as she has fallen dead as crystal answered repeatedly "mom...?"
He shakes her needing to wake her up "mom..?! Mom?! MOM NOO!!!" As he lays his head on her arm covering his eyes as he sobbed. As the human was about to finish off crystal as the human knight shouted "say goodnight, dragon!!" As crystal covers his eyes in fear waiting until his death passes
The dragon guard used his ice breath on the human which it pushed him away frozenly As the dragon guard landed and run to crystal as he sees the king and queen and killed. He gasped "oh no...." he gets very shocked as he looks around seeing human knights and dragons battle and he looks at crystal.
As he commented "this isn't good... Son crystal... you need to leave... far away... this place isn't safe for you." He have him a order as crystal replied "I.. i-i.. can't... ... don't.." As he is shaking in fear, loosing hope as the dragon guard answered "I know that you plan not to leave your parants but... their.. mh... look son crystal.. I miss the king and queen too.. but you need to leave... it's for your own good and safety.. don't worry about us.." the dragon guard summons an ice sword and replies to him "we will take care of it... No go! Quick!!" He sends crystal. Crystal starts running and flies far away from the kingdom as possible. This leads him somewhere different then the his home.
The human knight see son crystal flying away as the human knight commented "oh no you don't dragon... you're not leaving this time!" As he aims at crystal ready to fire. The dragon guard uses ice breath at him from firing at crystal "leave him alone!".
🔹️𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗦𝗼𝗻 𝗰𝗿𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝘀 𝗳𝗹𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆, 𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱🔹️
Crystal felt like he was very help and has no where to go. He stared to get very tired and tries to focus on flying as he accidentally lands of tiredness. Crystal started to lose more hope as he tries to look for a place or shelter to stay in for a while as he sees a mountain of snow.
Crystal looked at the mountain of snow as he walks up there slowly as he is very tired. After a while of him walking he gets very close as he stepped through the snow as the rest of the snow falls through the hole as crystal also falls in. He shout in fear "AAAHHH!!". He tries to open he wings that he falls very slowly while his wings are opened and landed on the ground.
His first appearance is now in the the beginning of the underground. He struggle to get up as someone popped up from the ground as his name is.. -Flowey. Flowey the flower. crystal looked at him as he gets a little scared. Flowey introduced himself "howdy! I'm flowey! Flowey the flower! You're new to the underground of snow and ice Crystals as I can see!" He giggled "hehe! You seem very confused! Not to worry! Good thing someone Ought to teach you how things works around here!"
Crystal looked at him in confusion and intraduces himself "o-oh! H-hello! Um... i-i am crystal d-dragon". Flowey begin to giggle "hehe! Golly! A dragon in the underground? I never seen on before! Well crystal... I am going to teach you how this works around here! For a start, here!"
Crystal began to feel something from his chest as he sees his soul glowing light blue as he commented "w-whoa..!" As flowey commented "See that heart? That is your SOUL, the very culmination of your being! Your SOUL starts off weak, but can grow strong if you gain a lot of LV." Flowey explained as crystal added "my.. LV?" As flowey replied "That's right! What's Lv stand for? Why.. 'Love' ofcourse!".
Crystal commented "love? I can love everyone!" Crystal excitedly wags his tail. Flowey added "Now now dragon, no need to get too excited! You really want some love? Hehe... here!" Flowey unlevelly and immediately summons his pellets as he grows his vines from ground as it grabs crystal arms and legs.
As flowey answered "I will endlessly give you much love!!" Flowey began to laugh evilly As crystal struggle in fear as he added "W-what..?! This isn't love..!!" He struggle as flowey answered "Hahaha!! Don't you get it?! In this world... it's killed out be killed!!" As he aims his pellets at him and shouts "Now die!!!".
Crystal shout and cries out "Aahh!! Someone please, help me!!" As Snow of Ice wooshed in hits flowey as he shouts "Aagghh! Ugh.. you coward.." *flowey Barries back in to the ground. The vines and pellets disappear while crystal is shaking as he opened his eyes and sees that he's gone and comments "h-hello.?".
He heard footsteps coming towards him as he sees someone as they come forth. Crystal gets scared as he covered his eyes again as the it stops in front of him. As she makes her appearance to him. By she as Caretaker herself -toriel dreemurr
She had replied "Young one..?" She kneeled down as she holds out her hand and gently puts her hand on crystals head. Crystal stops shaking as he uncovers his eyes and looks up to her as he is a bit afraid,
She looks over where flowey almost ended crystal's life "What a terrible creature, torturing such a poor, innocent youth... do not be afraid small one. for I am toriel Caretaker of the ruins."
She introduces as crystal looked up to her and replies "h-hello! I am crystal! Ice crystal d-dragon." He nervously introduces and added "y-you... seem.. n-nice. Y-you won't hurt me like.. flowey a-almost did...?" As the caretaker replied " a-ah? I would never torture a innocent young youth like you, my child."
She smiled as puts her paw on crystal's head as she gently rubs it. "come now. This way the puzzle awaits us. You must prepare for this, but fear not small one, I shall protect you as I must. We shall move onward to your arrival".
Crystal already began to trust her as he smiled a little and feels very safe next to her and responded "t-thank you..".
The journey of Frosttale had finally begun
-To be Continued-
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willel · 4 years
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(Part 1) I think I mostly agree with you here, I'm just not making a distinction based on intent. You're comparing Joyce to Hopper to show how much better she is for the way she handled it but i don't think that's the point. Joyce still lost her cool, still shouted at Jonathan in front of a crowd of people, she is still capable of melting down even if it's for the right reasons or for the right end game. And this is especially if El escalates it (which she tends to do).
(Part 2) I love Joyce a lot but she isn't perfect and I don't want her to be. Her being level headed and handling everything after Hops death in S4 as the patient supportive mom with just some tiny arguments here and there isn't realistic to me. This is gonna be arguably worse for her than when Lonnie left now she has an extra mouth to feed. I would love an exploration of her behaving a bit badly because of all of it piled on her. It could be a good opportunity for some growth for them all
Ok, I wrote a long comment, but to be honest? It just felt like gibberish. I’ll try again to explain my point.
I am cool with drama. We need it for character developments. Arguments, misunderstandings, mistakes, disagreements, they’re almost necessary in every story to make the plot move forward.
Can I imagine Joyce and El getting into some shaky territory? Yeah, of course! El is on an emotional roller coaster and doesn’t have all the necessary tools to handle it. Joyce isn’t a saint (but actually she is) and I don’t expect she’ll be able to handle all those emotions and outbursts 100% correctly all the time. It’s unfair to her.
So let me dive deeper into where this rant actually came from. It’s related to topics I discussed before.
There are people who want El to not get along with the Byers at all, and not because it makes sense, or because conflict is needed for the story, or so the characters can grow.
These people blame Joyce for Hopper’s “death” and for her deciding to move her and her family away. They use El to as their vehicle to express their resentment.
“El hates Joyce for taking her away from Mike. It was so unfair to take her away from her friends. El is totally going to blame and hate Joyce when she finds out it was technically Joyce that killed him. I can’t wait for Hopper to come back. Urg, Joyce is so clingy, El is gonna get so annoyed with her and run away back to Hawkins to live with her friends.”
My issue with these people is, they hate Joyce (probably all the Byers to be honest). They aren’t suggesting these ideas because they want Joyce and El to grow closer or work out their issues. They don’t want El fitting in with the Byers at all. They just want the characters in constant conflict as some sort of revenge against a lady just trying to protect her kids as best she can.
I have never advocated for perfect happy friendly everyone’s riding on unicorns and singing in harmony kind of story except in relaxing fluff fanfiction. I love the grungy emotional sub plots. My fic (which may never be released lolololol) is full of it. I love it. But I love it because it leads to stronger characters and relationships.
El and Joyce getting in a spat over Hopper’s fate? Hell yeah! But unlike certain people, I don’t want that argument to end with them hating each other. I want it to end with them eventually talking it out and growing closer.
El and Will being awkward weirdoes unable to have a conversation with each other even though they’ve lived in the same house for months?? Sure, why not. I did write a fic about that and I love all the complexities of it. But no, I don’t want this to happen just so the never ending Byler vs Mileven crap continues into another season like some people. It should happen so that their characters can grow and learn from it and form that brother and sister duo I so crave.
(lol, I can’t even imagine El and Jonathan getting into a spat. Ok, I can imagine a scenario now that I just thought of something, but no thanks)
There’s simply no way Joyce and El are going to hate each other. Despite all the drama between Hopper and El (throwing books, breaking her things, yelling, screaming, hurtful words), they don’t hate each other and that made them grow closer.
There’s no way an altercation like that could happen like that between El and Joyce, imo, and yet people really think not only can it happen, but that it will cause them to hate each other.
I hope that makes more sense. The original answer was 1015 words, this one is about 550. Lol
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whumpbby · 4 years
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This is so ridiculous!! As if filtering things out on ao3 isn't even easier since they released the exclude function!!! Speaking of experience! I've so much shit that's not to my taste filtered out!! And the batfandom is amongst the better ones (I've been in) about tagging things. Yes, I've stumbled on fics that had shit I didn't like and that fucked me up for a few days, but that's on me for being lazy and not reading the tags, not the author! This people would not have survived the ffnet days!
The latest argument I saw before blocking the whole thing for my peace of mind was that there is SO MANY iterations and different pairing variations you can't block them in one go. Which just means that yeah, you have to spend a while on blacklisting and every time you come across a new no-no tag you have to add it to the list. That sometimes the porny summary is short and you read it by accident - so the best solution is for it to not be there at all. That it's a work in progress you have to keep at. Like, you know, something that is important to you personally.
I don't mind tagging my ships as batcest, but even if I do, it won't help the op, because this isn't the underlying issue there. Op doesn't want to see incest/explicit material in 'public spaces' (sic) and so tags/ratings/summaries have to hide it from them. The author is asked to feel shame for their work because is about a "bad" subject someone may find unpleasant.
And, as the situaton in the post went from "tag better" to "this should not be visible because it's BAD and TRIGGERING!" very fast, I can reliably predict that this envelope will travel. There was an attempt at "I will fight for your right to write it" but the underlying message is clear "but not where people can see it!"
And I understand, incest is a dodgy subject. It will always be, because it can't be removed from it's heavy load. It has to be treated with caution.
On another hand, tho, walking into a part of the fandom that is fairly well managed on that front with a "no, you move!" and a moral outrage at the ready and a smoking gun of a "I'm a survivor" to boost your arguments is a tired tactic no one will react well to.
So, the op is a survivor of something. I am sorry they are. So am I. So is another person in the discussion who came into it with much more grace and courage than both me or op could freaking attempt. But our opinion doesn't matter, we have to move, op is in the right and will shout louder to let everyone know.
I am not taking it.
My triggers are mostly tactile and audiovisual. And I mean triggers, not squicks. They make me suffer real physical and mental consequences that sometimes last for days.
I get triggered by touching things. By hearing certain sounds. Sometimes by thinking about them. I've spent the first 20 years of my life suffering panic attacks I could not define or predict, I had no idea they were panic attacks at all and because I couldn't explain them to my parents, they couldn't help me in any way. I've spent these years terrified of my own body. To this day I don't know what is the cause of it all, because a lot of things happened to me, could be anything.
I have learned how to survive them and pull myself out, and nowadays I know what to avoid. Asmr content sends me into an uncontrollable rage and panic - so I avoid the whole section of YouTube, because it's in my own best interest that I don't make my day crap. Not all asmr content is tagged as asmr, so I am vigilant, finger on the trigger ready to book it or silence the video. Always. Because its in my best interest that I am. Because some authors are not aware their content is asmr and YouTube gives no fucks about you not wanting to see something. Things that I can't touch without shaking and wanting to exit my own skin are normal everyday items, some are safe until I pick them up - thickness, texture, that kinda stuff matters. I have learned to work around them whenever possible, even some are things I still have to handle because I am an adult with a job and can't ask colleagues to carry stuff for me.
Things I can't look at are always somewhere on the Internet, most of them seem safe until I look. I am trying to be prepared.
You know what would make my life easier? A comprehensive system of excluding stuff that triggers my anxiety that requires of me only that I pay attention and keep an eye out and update accordingly and back away when I have to.
And I'm not trying to make an argument of "it could have been worse for you!" to invalidate the op's issue. It can always be worse, for anyone. I am saying it all to show that I understand the helplessness one may feel when they have to take all these steps to protect themselves and things are still not 100%. And I am still of the opinion that there is no tool good enough at any job that it will replace the work I have to put into keeping myself safe. Demanding of others to accommodate me won't help me, because it will never be enough. Arguing strangers into making my life easier will not help me, it will only end up in an argument.
And it sounds pretty logical to ask people to tag their chancy content, right? Morally sound to the point where disagreement seems like a crappy thing to do. Of course you want to help people who need it, right? You don't want to trigger anyone on purpose, right?
But this is a platform with already established system in place that works in a way it's intended for these avoiding and searching as long as you work with it. Op is demanding that strangers calibrate that tool in their stead and that will not work, it will never work well enough, and so it will forever be a point of tension and disagreement. The goalpost will always be moving, because there will always be another thing, another person who doesn't know or care, or forgot, etc. Another person whose needs will stand in opposition to the first with the same right to be catered to.
It's not a kind idea, but no one on the Internet owes anyone nothing more than a bare minimum of common courtesy, if even that, regardless of their circumstances, because it's not a "public space". You can't trust strangers to take care of you or work with you, or handle your tools. Can't browbeat them into wanting to.
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