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#Poe didn’t need to be a main character
yotasukes-toaster · 4 months
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ability sex : ̗̀➛ :: Black cat in the Rue Morgue
EDGAR ALLAN POE x gn!reader
cw. smut kind of mean!reader, basically hate-fucking, unrequited love (poe has a crush on the reader)- I made it so Poe can be inside of his own novels (idk if he can in canon), name calling
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“You wrote a non-mystery novel and you decided that, for us to leave, the main characters need to fuck?”
You watched as Poe trembled at the sight of your irritated expression, your eye twitching as you realised the situation that you were currently in with him. While you were stood up to your fullest height, your fists clenched tightly with your nails digging deeply into the palms of your hands, Poe was hunched over a little, his thumbs twiddling as he gave you an apologetic gaze like a toddler seeking forgiveness.
You and Poe had accidentally gotten trapped inside a novel he had been writing on the side. Believe him, he had zero attention of showing anyone the contents of the book- Let alone you, but it seemed that fate would not have any forgiveness for Poe as the stars aligned at all the wrong times. There was no loophole, no clever way to escape the situation without completing the set task— There was nothing that the author himself could’ve done except accept what kind of perverted things went on in his little, dirty mind.
“You’re a freak, Poe.” You let out, making sure that your despised was crystal clear in the hiss of your own words.
But there was no other way out. You knew that, and he knew that. Which is why you had resorted to reluctantly setting out to inch closer and closer to your freedom out of the confines of the book.
Poe had you bent over a desk, his large hands needily gripping the sides of your hips as he thrusted deeper into you each time. You had ordered him to fuck you this way so you didn’t have to look him in the eye, but it just meant that he had the perfect view of the way your shapely ass curved over as he bumped his own stomach against your back. There had been attempts to get closer to you in the midst of the moment, but you would just give him a small growl and a tight glare from the corner of your eye and he would understand the memo.
But it didn’t stop him from wanting more of you. His hands would often roam from your hips to curling around to hug your stomach, his thrusts becoming even more jagged as his breathing hitched. He was whining helplessly and leaning forward so his lips were inches away from your neck. He was practically begging to touch more of you with soft whimpers right against your earlobe, but you had never allowed it. All you two needed to do was fuck and that would be it, you could leave.
However, the feeling of him being inside you had been way more satisfying than you had anticipated. You didn’t expect the feeling to be so euphoric, and you didn’t actually expect him to be so… Big. Having your walls stretched out to accommodate the size of his thick cock was a sensation that was almost alien to you, and one your certainly did not envision with Poe. You had tried to suppress your moans as to not give him the attention he craved- To convince yourself that you weren’t enjoying it, but the way he had managed to hit your g-spot every time made it impossible not to let involuntary moans slip.
“(Y-Y/n)…” Poe moaned quietly against your ear, his palms slinking up your stomach to hold your chest instead as he leaned even closer to the side of your face, his lips practically brushing against the skin of your neck. “P-Please don’t hate me…”
“God, you really are— Pathetic…” You gulped as you let out your own flurry of breathy moans.
“You’re just so… P-Pretty— I couldn’t— Help myself…” He muttered softly, his tongue connecting with your neck, forcing a quick shiver down your spine.
“You’re such a perv, aren’t you?…”
“I am, I am…” He whined desperately against your skin, his lips fully in-touch with the exposed area of your neck. At first, he seemed unsure of the amount of contact he was allowed, but the way you exposed your neck even more to his lips showed to him that he had your permission. “—I-I’m such a perverted man…”
The sloppy sounds of his tongue, as well as the sounds of your slick coating his throbbing length through every desperate thrust, it was getting harder and harder to deny your pleasure. You felt like your legs were melting a little bit and you soon found yourself enjoying the fucking a little too much, to the point where you were actively pushing your ass further towards him to allow more of him to enter you. He seemed a little surprised at your actions, but welcomes them wholeheartedly.
“Don’t get your hopes up, P-Poe…” You gritted your teeth as you let out another whine. “After we get out of here, you’re never seeing me again…”
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authors notes: feel free to comment suggestions for this concept!
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nevess · 6 months
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[ we loved with a love that was more than love ] - Edgar Allan Poe
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🌱… description: You and Anakin are getting ready to go to bed. While you're finishing your night routine, Anakin offers to brush your hair.
🍵 … warnings: intense kissing? but other than that, none. Just Anakin fluff :p
🧳 … character/s: Anakin Skywalker x Reader
☕️ … word count: around 1k ; | date: October 3rd, 2023
🗞️ back to the main menu
a/n: more of this beautiful anakin x reader fluff cuz tumblr needs it!! Hope you enjoy it! <3 Disclaimer: i didn’t read it after finishing, so i apologize for any typos :p In other news, im looking for beta readerssss here's the post!
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The dimly lit quarters provided a temporary sanctuary amidst the ceaseless chaos of the Clone Wars. Anakin Skywalker and you, both Jedi Knights, had just returned from another gruelling mission, and the weight of the galaxy's conflicts seemed to bear down upon you. But in this quiet moment, as the soft glow of the room's ambient lighting bathed you in a warm embrace, there was a respite from the battles and the burdens you carried.
As you stood in front of the mirror, preparing to follow your nightly routine, you retrieved a brush from the small vanity. The daily toils and hardships had taken their toll on you, and your hair was a tangled mess. It was a small act of self-care, a moment of normalcy amidst the chaos, and it brought you a semblance of peace.
Anakin, who was only wearing his pyjama pants and a silk robe that matched those pants perfectly, watched you from the bed, his eyes filled with adoration. He admired the grace and strength that radiated from you, even as you prepared for sleep. He couldn't help but feel grateful for these moments of intimacy that you both shared, moments that allowed you to be vulnerable and real in a galaxy that often demanded more than you could give.
With a tender smile, he rose from the bed and approached you. "Let me help you with that," he offered, his voice a gentle caress.
You turned to him, surprised but touched by his gesture. "Anakin, you don't have to."
He simply shook his head, a loving determination in his eyes. "I want to."
You nodded, your heart swelling with affection for the man before you. A smile that reflected the immense love you had for him adorned your face as you handed him the brush, and as you sat down on the edge of the bed, he took a seat behind you.
With practiced care and tenderness, Anakin began to brush your hair. His fingers worked through the tangles and knots with such softness and care, as if he was scared of hurting you by pulling slightly, his touch sending a shiver down your spine that expanded through the rest of your body. The gentle rhythm of the brush gliding through your hair was soothing, a loving gesture that spoke volumes.
As Anakin continued he couldn't help but be mesmerized by your presence. You closed your eyes, surrendering to the sensation. The room was filled with the soft rustle of the brush and the sound of his steady breathing, a comforting backdrop to this intimate moment. As he works his way through your hair, he breaks the silence, his voice filled with both intensity and tenderness.
"Y/N," he murmured, his breath warm against your ear, "in the middle of this galactic storm, you're the only constant thing in my life. You're like a blazing comet streaking through the chaos, leaving a trail of light in your wake; a comet that leaves no trail of the agony that existed before her."
His words, filled with love and sincerity, warmed your heart. The connection between you both deepened in that shared moment, a testament to the strength of your love amidst the challenges you faced.
When he had finished brushing your hair, he set the brush aside and leaned down to press a tender kiss to your neck. His arms wrapped around you, pulling you close, and you melted into him.
You turned your body to face him, both still on the bed made your way to the center so you both could be in a comfortable position. His eyes were locked with yours, in a silent conversation between souls, no words needed. Your left hand is now placed on his cheek as the other one goes to the back of his neck to bring him closer. As Anakin’s lips brushed against yours the entire galaxy ceased to exist. 
The kiss deepened as his mouth pressed to yours with an intensity and passion that left no room, or doubt, he was in love with you; simply by the way your bodies reacted to each other. A fervent exchange of emotions that seemed to transcend the physical world, were expressed in this very moment. Anakin’s lips were warm and demanding, conveying a clear hunger for your love, a deep desire to hold onto this moment and make it last forever. 
His hands were both warm and possessive, one placed on your waist as he brought you closer to his own body, while the other contoured your jaw with his fingers with a gentle yet firm touch. With something so small as your bare skin being touched by him, made the world around you fade into insignificance as the electric currents of desire surged between you. 
Anakin’s breath mingled with yours a symphony of heartbeats and longing. His tongue sought entrance, and as your mouths danced together, the kiss intensified in emotion. Time seemed to stretch, allowing you to savour every moment of the kiss. The taste of his devotion to you, and the silent promises of a love that could conquer anything. In that kiss, you were lost in a universe of passion, where there was only you, him, and the overwhelming force of your love. 
When the kiss finally broke, you both were left breathless, your lips tingling with the lingering connection. Anakin's eyes locked onto yours, his gaze filled with warmth and longing as your breaths were ragged, and your heartbeats echoed in the silence that followed. It was you who broke the silence this time, your voice filled with emotion. 
"Anakin, I love you in a way I've never loved anyone before.” Your hand softly caresses his cheek as you continue talking. “It makes my heart beat from happiness to know I have you in my life, to have you as my partner.” You needed him to understand the intense feelings you felt when it came to him. So, before finishing, you cupped his face with your hands while smiling beamingly. “You're my strength, my protector, and the one who makes my heart race. I can't imagine my life without you."
"Y/N," he began, his voice a whisper, "you mean everything to me. When I'm with you, it's like the chaos of the galaxy fades away. You're the light in my life, the reason I keep fighting, and the force that keeps me grounded."  His fingers brushed a strand of hair from your face, his touch gentle. "Cherub," he continued, his voice growing more intense without raising the tone, "I would move galaxies, defy empires, and challenge fate itself for you. My love for you is boundless, and it will endure for all eternity." 
Both of you were completely wrapped up in each other... Your foreheads lightly touched and you could see Anakin's beautiful smile spread across his face. You would give anything for him to never stop smiling. His eyes shined like bright stars, and just knowing that you had something to do with it made you want to explode with excitement.
He made you feel safe in a world full of mistrust, he made you feel loved in a world without trust. Moments like these genuinely allowed you to not only feel this on the inside, but also encouraged you to show him with words and actions how much you loved him. Anakin Skywalker is a complex human being full of dissonances and contradictions, but you knew that he would give anything for your well-being.  You leaned in to capture his lips in another tender kiss, one that sealed your unspoken vows, a promise of love that transcended the trials and tribulations of your Jedi lives.
In that moment, you both knew that no matter what the galaxy threw their way, your love would always be a guiding force, a beacon of light in the darkest of times.
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© Nevess 2023. My original posts are not allowed to be edited, translated and/or re-uploaded on another account or platform without my permission, nevertheless, re-blogs are accepted and very appreciated.
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nottawriter · 3 months
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20 Questions More
This is a deeper and more detailed version of the 20 questions for AO3 fanfic writers. Thanks to @casualsavant for the tag.
1) How do you keep getting ideas for your ship / fandom? Supercorp brainrot… I see a picture or meme or video, I watch a movie or read a synopsis, I hear a song and it reminds me of them. They are ever present in my mind. I cannot escape (nor do I want to) and therefore, you cannot escape :chaos laugh:
2) Which authors inspire you in your fandom, and why are they so freakishly good? There are sooo many super talented people in the Supercorp fandom. I’m constantly impressed and overwhelmed with the volume of amazing content. There are the fandom favs: @lostariels, @jazzfordshire, @searidings, @lynnearlington, @coffeeshib, @mycatismyeditor, @lgbtimelords and @melui-the-bookworm, and there are personal favs: @snowydragonscave, @fazedlight, @casualsavant, @luthordamnvers, @gveret-fic, @briefunknowntrash, @cantdrawshaw, @karalovesallthegirls, @vox-ex, Veritas33 (AO3), @writershapeholeonthedoor… Sooo much talent. I just want to read all the time!
3) Aside from the characters of your main ship, who are the characters you love to write? I love all the side characters. I think the relationships in Supergirl are what make Kara and Lena so great and relatable. After Kara and Lena, I think I’m most comfortable writing Alex, but I enjoy writing almost everyone. My WHBL series is an ensemble-cast style story that is primarily Lena pov, but has other povs throughout.
4) Are there pairings or tropes you know for sure you’d never write about? Which ones? I’m not a fan of writing Kara or Lena outside of Supercorp unless in reference to their past relationships. I’m not sure if I would rule any specific trope out completely
5) What is your writing process and why is it cursed? Sav’s answer for this one is pretty relatable lol but uh… I typically put notes in my phone if I don’t have paper/pen handy. I use Excel to plot out timelines and chapters. I like to use color to show what I still need to write versus what’s done or what’s uncertain. I use a simple Word doc and typically write in story order, though if I write a scene I like, but don’t like it’s placement, I’ll cut it out and save it separately for potentially using later or in a different fic. I struggle with writer’s block, anxiety, guilty, sooo much uncertainty. It’s stressful and sometimes overwhelming… But I’m still here, so I suppose getting the story out into the world is all worth it in the end.
6) What is your favorite part of your writing process? I enjoy the research, having something completed and ready to post (if not the anxiety of actually posting), and I enjoy reading the comments
7) What’s the weirdest thing you’ve had to research for a fic? Um, probably sniper rifle stuff
8) Is there a particular writing rule you struggle with (grammar, spelling, tense, reality in general)? I catch myself switching tense all the time. I try to catch it all in editing, but don’t always succeed.
9) What was your hardest scene to write so far and why? Pretty much all of Evermore because it’s Kara’s dreamscape with mixed references to Wizard of Oz and Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven combined with The Adjudicator’s last scene. I think it actually came out well, but it’s really different and specific, so it’s gotten low interaction.
10) Have your characters ever done something you didn’t expect, changing your plot completely? 100%
11) If you could converse with any of the characters, who would it be and why? I would be in awe to meet Kara or Lena. They’re iconic and these huge symbols for so many feelings and thoughts I’ve tried to convey, but they’re also very relatable characters who’ve suffered through much. I hope I do them justice with my writing. I know others do it so much better... I would also love to meet Melissa or Katie. I hope they know how many lives they've impacted for the better.
12) What are some of the tropes or themes that you find yourself returning to in your writing? Originally, I wrote a lot of mental health themes and hurt/comfort, currently it’s fluff and smut or rom-com. I guess it depends a lot on what emotional headspace I’m in and capable of conveying. Almost always there’s some angst, but I gotta have a happy ending. Whether I’m reading or writing. A happy ending always.
13) What’s your most important resource as a writer? Talking with other writers! I’ve been so thankful to meet so many great ones this year <3
14) Can you share some of your strategies for editing and revising your work? I do many rereads, before and after I post. I will go back and reread before I add more to a story as well, esp if it’s been a while since I wrote for it. I’ve also gotten someone else to read over fics from time to time.
15) Which is worse: making the summary, picking the tags, or the anxiety when you post your fic? All of that gives me anxiety lol
16) How do you define success for your fanfic - hits? Kudos? Comments? Bookmarks? Or just if you like it? I try really hard not to define “success” when it comes to my writing. You never know what other people are going to like or connect with. First and foremost, I write for me. Secondly, I write for the enjoyment of others. I like to see kudos, but ultimately it’s the comments that are most encouraging. Seeing even just 1 person connect with a story that I wrote… there’s no feeling like that.
17) Do you have a playlist for your favorite character / ship? I don’t, but there are songs or artists I associate with the characters, esp Supercorp- Taylor Swift, Hozier, Lord Huron… Not the question, but there’s a video edit by @talconnect with Running with the Wolves that fits perfectly for Kara. https://twitter.com/TalArtM/status/1658567350046674967 I love it.
18) If fan art was going to be made from your work, which fic would you pick and which fan artist would you like to create it? I recently commissioned a piece for one scene in I Believe in a Thing Called Love and there are a couple of other scenes in that one that I would have done. Really, I would appreciate any scene though. It would be an honor to have someone chose one of my works for something like that and I would be stoked to see any of it.
19) How many WIPs do you currently have? Active WIPs: 4 (What Has Been Lost, Wouldn’t It Be Nice, I Believe in a Thing Called Love, and Tis the Damn Season); Mayhem WIP idea to be started soon. A few others always percolating
20) What’s your advice to new fanfic writers? I had no idea what I was doing or that I even wanted to write when I started. You can’t improve until you try. You can’t learn until you make mistakes. Just try. I’ll keep Sav’s advice as well: Write for yourself. Write what you’d want to see. You’ll get better at it over time.
My fics: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notta_Writer/works Tagging but no pressure: @itsalliebitheway @jetgirl1832 @flyingpotstickers @sneezewizard
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lieutenant-teach · 3 months
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Questions to Star Wars Sequels
Rewatched the Sequel Trilogy with actual knowledge about Star Wars.
1. Why copy the planet or Rey’s origin? Why not jungles or literally anything else? I said more in another post [link].
2. Why make stormtroopers brainwashed and taken from childhood? Now it’s unfair to kill them if they didn’t have any other choice. There were words like ‘reprogramming’ – reminds of clones. I’ve always thought that stormtroopers are soldiers who believe in the cause of the Empire\First Order.
3. Give more competence for Finn! Poe pilot, Finn fighter/shooter, Rey inventive brain and hand-to-stick fighter / later Jedi. Overall give decent character arcs for main heroes – Finn loses his arc from TFA in the next movies, Poe doesn’t seem to have one, Rey’s motives to become a Jedi are unclear. Main trio doesn’t feel connected – Poe doesn’t meet Rey until the end of the second movie, unlike in the OT (what they did to the OT characters, was covered million times by others, won’t repeat). Kylo could’ve been somewhat good as a villain, but he’ll always be compared to Darth Vader and lose – he’s not so impressive at all (his fits of anger made him look pitiful in my eyes). Their romance is toxic and doesn’t have any chemistry. I ship Finnrey, I see they really care about each other.
4. Characters speak with typical action blockbuster clichés – app.15% of actually meaningful to the plot phrases throughout the whole trilogy. Makes me miss the dialogues of the Prequels. The plots in general are so dragged out – the Lego game (!) is much more dynamic.
5. Why don’t you kriffing EXPLAIN all this shit about strand-casts in the movie??? Why must I read supplementary material to understand this? When I was watching, I couldn’t understand why Snoke is so deformed for a clone, and Palpatine’s cloned ‘son’ doesn’t look like young Palps in the slightest. AND THEN I READ WOOKIEPEDIA. I want to watch a movie and understand what’s going on in it! Not go looking for info somewhere else! (Won’t comment on an utter idiocy of making Rey a Palpatine.)
6. Usage of the Force through a hologram?
7. Sudden psychometry, just like with Ahsoka – useful to the plot. Sudden healing – why did Anakin worry so much? Apparently, if you really want it, you can do it.
8. Why do we need D-O droid? He brings nothing to the plot and quite irritating!
9. Why are there lots of Sith acolytes/apprentices/disciples? Wasn’t there the Rule of Two?
I give it – ‘I’m all the Jedi’ was cool, I liked it. It’s just the build-up to this moment was unearned.
John Williams’ score was the best part of the whole trilogy.
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endversewinchester · 6 months
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So, elaborating a bit further.
I don’t like the concept that people can become force sensitive if they think hard enough because that creates a massive hole in pre existing canon. If that’s how it works, then why didn’t the clones? Surely Rex, Cody, Wolffe and the others could have picked up on it after working with Jedi for years. Why didn’t Han? Why didn’t Poe?
I also don’t think Sabine needed an “upgrade”. She as the mandalorian she was established as was already good enough of a character. When the main live action series they have (Mando) barely features the force at all, it feels strange to turn characters force sensitive in order to give them highlight. Why?
But, for further clarification:
- I’m not against non force sensitives being trained in the Jedi arts (without the force). So meditation, specific fighting styles and the Jedi philosophy itself.
- I’m not against non force users using lightsabers. In fact I think it’s pretty cool. I loved it in rebels when Kanan tried to train Sabine.
- I don’t hate anything else about the Ahsoka show. In fact, I am positively ecstatic for season 2.
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avvxree · 8 months
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— bsd imagery: fish-eye
okay okay i know how we all meme about the fish-eye moments in bungo stray dogs (in the anime) bc it looks silly, but in a cinematic point of view it’s actually well used in my opinion! bear with me on that one
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so, i’m in a cinema course in college and the first thing we tell you is everything has a meaning when a director decides what to show on screen or hide from us and how they film it. ofc now it’s an anime, but the theory still works!
ex: not showing the face of a character bc they’re mysterious/hide something from the main characters (whether us, the audience, know about their motives or not) so they are physically hidden and feels distant from us in a way or zooming in on the face of a character to symbolize the reality of the events coming to them.
so, what the fish-eye does? what those it represents? (in bsd, at least)
i think it represents fear or disturbance that the ‘victim’ of the fish-eye feels at this moment, just by the context of how bones uses it in bsd, i don’t remember of a lot of exemples but here are some:
atsushi’s first appearance in the anime is literally a fish-eye (if i remember properly) and he’s in a moment of stress since he needs food asap or he’ll die of hunger
ranpo and poe’s when they saw the body fall of the building, they didn’t expect it at all and even if you saw many crimes, it can still be disturbing to see a man (who looks alive) fall down
[spoiler for ep 2 of s5] atsushi feels fear of fighting alone a very strong opponent and wants someone to be with him in that moment, a very hopeless feeling
plus, when we feel fear/disturbed, it can feel like reality doesn’t feel real too, fear puts you on survival mode and you will just seek a safe place and when we see something disturbing, you can feel off too… idk how to explain it very well but it visually represents how our perception changes once we are afraid or stuff like that. even in films, it is used to represent that feeling bc yeah it does make things look a bit weird
ANYWAYS, i hope my explanation was clear? i did my best lmao, all of that bc i wanted to understand why they used fish eye so much and that it must mean something yk, that’s all for meee
sorry for the grammatical errors i didn’t notice and left on this post, english is not my first language soo yeah pls be patient🥲
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mirkwoodshewolf · 10 months
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Siren song; Eddie Munson x reader Monster!AU
*Author’s note*
Okay so this was an idea that’s been popping into my mind. Not necessarily the fic idea overall but doing a MonsterAU! fic. Now while I do enjoy the vampire fics you need to think back to Eddie’s FIRST appearance in the series, the song is called “I was a Teenage werewolf” by The Cramps and c’mon Eddie FITS a werewolf to a T (the hair, the puppy-like energy but also occasional aggression) so in the end this fic was born throughout the weekend :)
So everyone is either a monster or mythological creature in this story and in this one dear readers you are a Siren. 
Warnings: violence, swearing, flirty Eddie, some fluff, angst, suicide (mentioned by side character no one in main story).
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Taglist:
@plethora-of-things​
@waddles03​
@psychosupernatural​
@jd-johndeacon-or-jackdaniels​
@queen-paladin​
@gay-and-ready-to-cry​
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Being a siren is difficult as it is, but being a teenage siren at a school filled with other mythological and monstrous creatures is another thing.  I had transferred here after I was forced to move due to my mother’s passing so I live with my cousin Robin (who is mermaid. Don’t believe what the humans tell you, Sirens and merfolk are related. Distantly but we’re in the same family), and being the new creature in town is tough.
Especially when people give me a hard time about my selective mutism.  Now some maybe asking what is that? Well basically I’ve always hated the fact that whatever I said, I’d always put people under my spell.  It was like they were forced into being my friends or whatever when all I want is true friends who love me for who I am and not just my siren song.  So I’ve chosen to never again speak to anyone except Robin (since sirens can’t affect other sirens or merfolk).
Soon most of the student body stopped pressuring me or just chose to ignore me.  All but a select few of students, namely Eddie Munson and his pack of werewolves. Well werewolves (Frank, Gareth and Jeff), a dragon (Dustin), faun (Lucas), and a satyr (Mike).  Eddie being the leader of his pack he was the first to welcome me into their humble school and offer a seat at their table if I ever needed one.
He was sweet, charming, adorable, handsome, caring. Okay so yeah I’ve fallen for a werewolf sue me! But the thing about Eddie is that he’s an observer.  He understood right when Robin explained to him that I wasn’t much of a talker, he never questioned it.
And bless him he thought it was because I was deaf (since I speak through sign language) he even learned it for me.  It wasn’t until I wrote down and explained to him that I wasn’t deaf, I just choose to not talk due to the siren’s spell.  God was he adorable with that blush of his.
From then on he and I have been the best of friends but I would never, ever, ever, ever admit my feelings for him.  He’d never look at me the same way ever again and the one true friend I’ve made here will be out of reach forever.
I was at my locker switching out my books for my next three classes as well as grabbing my lunch when someone came behind me and scared me with a playful ‘woof!’ I jumped against my locker but didn’t turn around cause I knew who it was.
I turned and playfully slapped his leather jacket arm and signed to him.
‘I hate it when you do that Eddie!’
“Well too bad cause I love it. Oh you’re so easy to scare it’s adorable.” He teased with a pat to my head.  I shoved his hand away and slammed my locker shut.
‘So what brings you to my locker-abode this time? Forget to do your American-Gothic assignment again?’
“No this time I was fairly interested in what Edgar Allen Poe, the King of gothic poetry had to say. No what I wanted to ask was if you were busy tomorrow night?” I tilted my head in confusion.
‘Not really. Robin and I were planning a girl’s night in with Nancy and Vickie. Why?’
“Well I was just going to ask if you wouldn’t mind meeting me at Skull Rock?”
‘Skull Rock? Isn’t that your—’
“Shifting place? Yeah.” Oh my god.  To werewolves, the most sacred thing to them is their shifting place.  Close to every full moon, all the werewolves of the town will go to their spots and start marking it up with claw marks on trees, clothing tied to trees, or rubbing their scent glands up along rocks to show other werewolves to not enter within the perimeter of their shifting territory.
‘I—’
“It’s okay if you don’t. I totally understand I just…..You know what forget I even asked. It was a stupid idea and I shouldn’t have…..” I took his hands before he could run and told him.
‘I don’t mind. Besides Nance and I will end up third and fourth wheeling Robin and Vickie.’
“You’ll really come?” I nodded with a soft smile.
‘But can I ask why tomorrow? Isn’t tomorrow a full moon?’ he looked around cautiously which had me confused.  Normally Eddie doesn’t care about anyone eavesdropping on our conversation but he seemed worried about something.
“There’s rumors going around about werewolves being attacked mid-change by some vampires. You remember when Enid didn’t show up to Greek Myth vs History class earlier this week?” my eyes widened.  “I don’t know why they’re doing it but I—I usually tend to strike first and ask questions later when it’s…..my time of the month.” He grumbled as he kicked his foot across the cobble-stoned floor.  “And I’ve already gotten two strikes against the Vampires, one more and they’ll have me be put down.”
‘So you want someone to keep an eye on you? In case anyone comes around?’ he ducked his head and hide his face behind his hair bashfully but also shamefully.  I reached up and brushed his hair away before lifting his chin up.  ‘I don’t mind Eddie. But—will I…..you know?’
“Be safe?” he answered.  I didn’t mean to be judgmental.  I know how werewolves get when they transform and it takes a while for their human side to connect with the wolf’s mind.  
In some cases, they are too wild to be around which is why those that are, tend to go out to the woods near Lover’s lake (which is where Eddie turns).
“Don’t worry princess, I know the wolves who turn out there are pretty wild. But I’ve gotten better with controlling my other half. In fact I’m able to focus and see just shortly after the pain dies down. Before it took me an hour or two to focus after my change.” He took my hands into his, “But just in case, you can always stay on top of the rocks. They’re plenty high enough for you to avoid me if you don’t feel comfortable.”
‘I’ll be there Eddie.’
“Thank you angel.” I scrunched my face in disgust at the nickname which made him laugh.  “Sorry angel.” I stuck my tongue at him before shoving him.
‘You know I hate that nickname.’
“I know, sorry angel.” I let out a groan and walk off but he quickly pulled me back towards him, our bodies close together and I could already hear my heart racing in my chest as I stared into those deep brown eyes of his.  I also heard his heart starting to pick up as he kept me close to him.  Wait was he—?  “I’ll see you in class sweetheart.” He then gave me a quick peck on the cheek before leaving me there breathless.
Around the full moon, Eddie and all werewolves were more affectionate or aggressive (depending on who you ask).  And sure he’s given me quick pecks on the cheek before but this time based on how fast his heart was racing and just feeling the sweat that comes from pheromones he—no he couldn’t be. Could he?
After school, Robin and I were hanging around with her best friend and former Vampire king, Steve Harrington at the apothecary where he and Robin worked.
“He seriously said Vampires are the ones attacking werewolves?” Steve asked me as he was typing up some medical records for their boss.
‘That’s what he said.’ I signed to him.
“He’s not lying. And Enid wasn’t the only werewolf to be attacked. Last month both Jacob and Paul were also attacked. Hell Paul was nearly torn to shreds. Had to get a blood transfusion and everything.” Robin said.
“I mean I know the bad blood between werewolves and vampires has lasted for centuries hell maybe even more than that. But even I know better than to attack a mid-shifting one.”
‘Well Steve you may have that respect but there are some vampires who don’t. Like that douchebag Jason and his lot of vampires. They’re always giving Eddie and his friends a hard time.’
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it was them.” Said Robin. Oh god I hope not, that’s the last thing Eddie needs. “But you should tell Steve what Eddie told you next.” She teased as she poked my side with her well-manicured mermaid nails.
“What?” Steve asked fully turning his attention to me. I glared ar Robin who merely shrugged before I said.
‘He invited me to help keep an eye on him as he turns.’ Steve’s eyes widened and he opened and closed his mouth a few times before saying.
“You’re telling me; that Eddie Munson, a werewolf, invited you to his shifting spot?” I nodded.
“I told her that he loves her. No one is allowed to be near a werewolf’s shifting spot, especially during the full moon.” Robin teased as she leaned in close against my back.
‘And I told her that I’m just helping out a friend.’ I signed shoving against her to get her off of me but she came right back.
“A friend whom she loves so deeply for.” She poked my cheek to which I gave her a bite and she took back her finger and rubbed it.
“You have been fawning over Munson since you came to live here.” Steve said.
‘Who’s side are you on!?’ I asked him with a glare.
“No one’s side but I do hate watching you pin for your wolf boy. Why not just go up and tell him how you feel?”
‘You both know why.’ I sighed solemnly.  Robin came back and hugged me from behind.
“Listen cuz, did it ever occur to you that maybe Eddie loves you not just for your Siren looks? I mean really, you haven’t said a word to him since you flew into town.” I glared at the flying remark she made. “And still that boy has been gaga over you. I mean c’mon! He invited you to his shifting place for Poseidon’s sake!”
“And to them that shit if like sacred ground or whatever.” Steve finished for her.
‘And what if I do finally start talking to him? Or even say that I love him? How will I know what he feels is real and not just cause of my siren spell? Can you both guarantee that much?’ at that they didn’t know how to respond. ‘Didn’t think so.’ With that I chose to return home and get my homework done then just go straight to bed.
The next day went by like every other school day, classes went by as normal and when the final bell rang everyone was either at their lockers getting their stuff together or racing immediately out of the campus grounds.
I walked out of the school and headed towards the parking lot where I found Eddie packing up his van and making sure he had everything for the night.  I heard his sniff the air and he turned to me and smiled.
“There you are. I was about to come get you.” I shrugged. “Now you sure you don’t mind hanging out with me until night fall? I can always pick you up at your place.”
‘No, like I said I don’t mind. Plus Robin and Vickie just left together and you know how those girls get when they get the house to themselves. I’d rather put myself under my own spell than hear them go at it with each other.’
“But you can’t deny they are pretty cute together.”
‘No question. I’m glad my cousin was able to find someone special.’ If only the same thing could be said about me.  Eddie tilted his head and asked me.
“You okay? You look like you’re gonna cry.” I reached up and touched the corner of my eye and felt a single tear.  I wiped it away and took a deep breath before signing to him.
‘I’m fine Eddie. So do we just head over there now or is there some kind of routine you do before you go there?’
“I was thinking we’d head over to the Green dragon for some food. Heard the halflings have got a new special on their menu.” Oh I did love going to the Green dragon.  Ever since moving here, I found that if I wanted to go for some good quality food and the best ale in town, it’s the Halfling’s pub the Green Dragon.  I swear those creatures make the best dishes known to any creature, hell their meat pies alone could slay dragons and best harpies.
I nodded frantically which made Eddie laugh and he offered me the first step into his van before he drove us over to the Green dragon.
As we sat down at our table, I was working on my Myth vs. History assignment while eating my potato stew with a side of fresh warm biscuits. I looked over to Eddie and saw how he was still working on his homework but he had yet to order anything except water and ale.  I reached over and tapped his arm and asked him.
‘Are you not hungry?’
“One downside to being a werewolf is that I can’t eat anything before my transformation. Not even a nibble of food. Due to the change in our organs don’t want to end up hurling my guts out again. Learned that the hard way before I was taught by my uncle.”
‘It’s that painful?’
“More or less. Basically our human organs have to shut down in order for them to grow into our wolf ones. Bones snapping in and out of place and our bodies morphing and changing. Very rarely do the movies the humans make get it right. It gets pretty graphic so, if me telling you this has changed your mind you can easily turn back now. I won’t get upset.” I took out a sheet of paper and quickly wrote a message to him and pushed it towards him.
I won’t leave you. I had wrote.  I then held out my hands, palms up and he smiled softly at me as he placed his hands into mine.  Our hands grasping each other’s as I rubbed the back of his hands with my thumbs comfortingly.
“You’re the best (Y/n).” I smiled again and squeezed his hands more as I looked into his eyes.  God why is it that he can make brown eyes look so beautiful and at the same time adorable? Is it because of him being a werewolf? Or is it just his natural cuteness?
We continued our homework while I finished my supper and it was just two hours before sunset so Eddie decided it would be a good time to drive up towards Lover’s lake and head over to Skull Rock.  When we got there and I followed behind Eddie, I took notice of his nails grew into his 4in claws as he began marking various trees.
“Usually I have to do this only once a month but with the werewolves trying to push into other’s territories with these attacks, now we have to enforce it. And I’d rather you not have to deal with two shifting werewolves.” I nodded in understandment.
About 15 minutes later after walking deeper into the woods, we pulled some bushes aside and there it stood, Skull rock.  Like the name says, it’s a giant rock in the shape of a skull leaning against another rock that formed a small cave-like structure inside to hide under.
“And there she is sweetheart, Skull Rock. My home away from home every full moon.” We walked towards it and I took notice of the giant claw marks that had faded in the past and some fairly recent markings.  Eddie tossed his duffle bag into the little cave underneath the rocks and I asked him.
‘Can werewolves keep their clothes on when they turn? Or do they have to go shirtless before they turn?’
“That fucking bitch Meyers really oversexualized us to no ends in her damned books.” He muttered shaking his head.
‘I’m sorry if I offended you.’
“Oh no, no, no, no you didn’t say anything wrong (Y/n). It’s just they glorified it as some sort of sexy thing and they made it look so quick and easy. And the end result was just dire wolves. No, no, we don’t look like that. I’d say the closest thing to an actual werewolf in Hollywood is ‘An American Werewolf in London’. Though some don’t get as bulky, we all have different shapes depending on our own bodies. Take Enid for example, you know how she has those highlights in her hair?” I nodded. “They appear in her wolf form.”
‘Do you have any distinct features?’
“Well you can thank these luscious curls,” he said dragging his hands through his hair.  “It make my wolf form have a mane-like appearance around my neck. Enid says I must be part manticore or something to have a lion’s mane like that. Imagine me being a full manticore, pretty metal if you ask me.”
‘As metal as that sounds, I think I like you better as a werewolf than anything else.’ Eddie just stood there and looked at me.  Oh shit please don’t tell me I might’ve revealed my feelings for him by saying that.
Suddenly he stabbed himself in the heart with his fist, throwing himself down to the ground and lay there still and limp.  I quickly raced up to him and shook him awake but he didn’t move. I tapped his arm and shook his back but nothing seemed to stir him awake.
Then with a sudden roar he grabbed me and pulled me into his lap and began to tickle my sides.  I began laughing as I tried to free myself from his grip but he held firm.
“You can’t say adorable things like that without repercussions sweetheart.” As my laughter rang through the forest, I was almost tempted to finally speak out just to tell him to stop but that lingering feeling of him falling under the siren spell was strong.  So I merely batted at his hands and just whimpered as loudly as I could to get him to stop until he finally relented.  “Has anyone ever told you that you have an amazing laugh?”
I looked up at him as I tried to catch my breath.  He stroked my hair out of my face as he continued.
“And I’m not just saying it. I always thought it was quite beautiful. And I wondered if your voice was anything like that.” My heart sunk. I got off his lap, no he can’t be telling me these things just to get me to talk.  “Hey, hey wait hold on. You didn’t let me finish.” I turned to look at him and signed to him.
‘I’ve told you why I can’t talk to anyone Eddie!’
“I know. And I’m not trying to force you to. I swear on my uncle.” When a werewolf swears on a member of their pack, you know it’s a serious vow they’re making.  “I won’t deny I’ve always wondered what your voice sounds like. Not because you’re a siren but because you’re you. But that doesn’t mean I’m gonna force you to talk, I’d never do that to you. You can talk to me when or if you ever feel comfortable with that.”
My heart grew heavy at his confession.  I’ll be honest there have been times, especially recently where I have wanted to talk to Eddie.  To finally tell him hello and how much he means to me.  But because of what’s happened in the past, especially with relationships, I fear he’ll be just like all the others.  
Once the siren song takes full hold of him, he’ll grow too attached to the point where he’ll end his life if he never has me in his life again (yes I had one boyfriend in the past where he actually killed himself just because my mother didn’t approve of him).
I felt him lift my chin with his index finger and thumb so that I could look into his eyes.
“All I’ve ever wanted was for you to be comfortable around me. And if you not talking to me is what’s comfortable to you, I’ll respect that decision. But I’d also like you to know that you don’t have to be afraid if you ever do wish to talk to me.” My mind debated long and heavy on all that he just said.  I kept a firm gaze upon him as I softly licked my lips and slowly opened my mouth.
Suddenly Eddie’s head turned away and sniffed the air. His eyes narrowed as he was on alert now.
“Someone’s here.” He sniffed the air again.  “And it’s not werewolf.” I tensed and looked around. “Get up on top of the skull, now!” I quickly raced up and crawled to the top of the skull-like rock while Eddie stood guard from the ground, his wolf growls softly coming out of his throat.
The forest was eerily silent except for a couple snaps of some twigs and the rustle of some of the bushes.
“Just the wolf freak we wanted to see.” Oh god no! Robin was right.  Soon coming out of the bushes was Jason Carver, the current Vampire king of the school.
“Back off Jason, you really don’t want to be here.” Eddie warned.
“Seems you don’t get it, do you freak?” suddenly surrounding the area were his vampire lackies; Andy, Chance, Patrick and Eric.  “You furball-freaks have been taking up our forests for too long, and we’re finally taking them back!”
“Since when do these woods belong to you?” snapped Eddie.
“For as long as Vampires have settled here. It wasn’t until your tribe of mutts came in and took it from us!” snapped Chance as he cracked his knuckles.
“I don’t want to fight.” Eddie warned them again.
“Too bad loser, cause you’re gonna get one. Less you wanna wolf out early and take us all at once.” Challenged Andy, Jason’s right hand man. It was then Patrick took notice of me and he said.
“And it seems we’ll have to entertain our special guest.” It was then the boys took notice of me.
“Well, well, well, the Siren without a song. Well at least for long, once we’re through with this freak, let’s say we make her sing for us boys?” grinned Andy.
“You lay a hand on her and you’ll regret it!” Eddie growled fearsomely.  Suddenly he cried out in pain as we all heard his bones beginning to snap.
“Well look at that boys? Seems the mutt’s got a little crush on the siren. Hate to break it to you mutt, but you’re way out of her league.” Jason and his boys soon began to close in around Eddie.
As night soon began to settle in and the full moon began to rise, Eddie let out another cry of pain as he wrapped his arms around his stomach.  I watched as Jason threw the first punch knocking Eddie to the ground before he delivered a hard kick to his chest.
“C’mon wolf-boy. Wolf out!” mocked Jason.  Andy then took his turn as he kicked Eddie in the back.
“Wolf out! Wolf out! Wolf out!” the vampires soon began chanting as Eddie’s hands began to twitch and grow hairier with his transformation.  I then saw as Chance actually stepped on Eddie’s hand mid transformation and he let out a cry of agony.
I growled and soon stood up on top of the rocks as I let out a scream which caused the vampires to look up at me.
“Oh don’t you worry beautiful, once we’re done here, you’ll be next. We’ll get you to sing nice and good for us better than this mutt ever could.” Jason said with a sickening grin.  As I heard them laugh and high-five their leader’s disgusting suggestion, I opened my mouth and began vocalizing.
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The sound of my voice immediately stopped their celebration as they looked at me.  I revealed my black wings and flew down to the ground as my eyes glowed bright red as I put them under my spell.  I moved my hands down my body seductively as I walked up to Patrick and stroked down his face.
His eyes soon shining red as he was fully under my control as I then moved to Andy as I sang in a higher key.  I got almost close enough to kiss him but I shoved his limp body aside as he had that dopey grin on his face that most men get when they hear the song of the Siren.  I then went over to Chance and got down on my knees in front of him.
You would think I’d be giving him a blow job when in truth I went to grab his ankle and literally snapped it in two with my brute strength.  He let out an agonizing scream and fell to the ground cradling his broken ankle like a baby as I ended the song with a powerful vocalization before I gave the command.
“Tear yourselves apart Vampires.” In a flash Jason’s friends turned to one another and did as I had commanded.  Snarls, hisses, and blood splattered everywhere as they began to tear each other apart.  I turned to Eddie who sat there with a dazed look in his eyes while his body continued to transform.
I sighed solemnly, he had been put under the spell as well. I knew that frozen look anywhere.
“Come back Ed…..” I told him but I was suddenly ripped away from him and pinned against the rock.  A furious Jason stared me down baring his fangs as he held me by the throat. But how? He should’ve joined his friends in trying to kill each other.
“Seems like another trouble-maker is stirring our nick of the woods. I’ve heard plenty of mermaid songs but you sirens are another beast.”
“How—are you able……”
“To resist your song? Simple answer, earplugs. I knew that freak would ask you to come out and be his bodyguard. The bastard’s been marking you ever since you flew into town.”
“He’s more of a noble creature than you’ll ever be!” I choked out.  He slammed me against the rock so hard that I felt it crush underneath me. Tiny specks of rubble fell around my head.
“How’s about I rip those vocal cords of yours? Then you’ll really have no voice when I drain every last ounce of blood you’ve got.” I felt his nail grow as they began to pierce my throat and he slid his thumb across it giving it a little knick as I felt blood trail down my collarbone.
Just before Jason could even take a bite, a large figure tackled him off of me and I let out a gasp of air before coughing harshly. I turned to see a werewolf rolling with Jason as the two fought for dominance over the other until Jason was thrown against a tree, snapping it in half as he fell to the ground with the werewolf standing over him.  It turned to me baring it’s large fangs at me but I remembered what Eddie said.
The lion-like man around his neck as the moon shone on his dark brown fur (the same color as his hair).  He huffed as he looked at me and I said his name.
“Eddie.” He let out a grateful huff and he almost seemed to smile at me.  That’s when I noticed Jason starting to get back up.  “Eddie watch out!” with a single sniff, he snarled and turned back towards Jason.
“You mangey, flea-ridden bastard. You’ll pay for that!” Eddie let out an aggressive roar as he slammed his front arms down challenging Jason the way I’ve read that werewolves challenge each other.  Jason let out an aggressive his as his fangs grew larger and the two of them charged head on at each other.
Animalistic snarls and growls sounded through the forest as each monster threw the other across the forest.  Both were equal in strength, speed and power but soon Jason got the upper hand when he knocked Eddie against Skull Rock and repeatedly began to punch and slam Eddie against the rock.
I went over to Eddie’s bag and quickly dug through it and saw that he had a syringe with dead-man’s blood and a machete.  I grabbed the machete and raced towards Jason and sliced him across the back making him scream in pain.  He ceased his attack on Eddie and turned his attention towards me.
I raced back towards Eddie’s bag to grab the syringe but I was pinned down and I felt his breath hit my face.  His raw strength pushing down against my back but before I could let out another siren song, I heard my shoulder snap as I screamed in pure agony.
Jason was soon tossed off my shoulder and I watched in both horror and awe as Eddie began to tear at Jason’s back and face.  But Jason used his feet to kick Eddie off of him and into a tree which fell on top of him.  Eddie let out a yelp as he tried to get himself free.
“You both….will regret this night!” but before Jason could do anything, he suddenly froze until he fell to the ground.
“The only one who will regret this night is you.” I sat up and through the light of the full moon stood Steve who held a tranq-dart and at his side was Robin as well as Chief Hopper (the only human in this town that kept the peace between us and the humans of Hawkins).
“You okay?” Robin asked me as she came running up to me. My attention soon turned to Eddie who was whimpering as I heard his bones cracking again, he was transforming back into his human form.  I raced towards the tree and desperately tried to lift it off of him to make his transformation easier, but I couldn’t do it on my own.
Steve soon came over and grabbed the other end of the tree and together we lifted it up and off of Eddie as he huffed and whimpered in pain. He had just finally been able to fully transform and now to suddenly shift back into his human form due to the pain he was in, it must’ve been pure agony for him to go through this much in one night.
I reached out and touched his morphing paw as I felt the fur on him recede back to human skin and his growls faded into human groans before he collapsed to the ground.  I pulled him into my lap, his head resting on my thighs before he soon passed out.
“Someone mind telling me what happened here?” asked Hooper.
“Jason and his friends.” I spoke out loud.  Robin’s eyes widened.  Not because of my answer but because I answered at all.
“(Y/n) you—you’re talking.”
“I need to say this Robin.” I turned to Chief Hooper and explained to him everything that happened.  I knew Eddie had strikes against the vampires in the past and has been arrested before due to his ‘wolfing out’ in the past but I pleaded with Hooper to not blame Eddie for tonight.
“You’re new to this town siren. There’s a fine line I can’t cross between you creatures and the people of Hawkins. I gotta give some kind of report and arrest someone.” I held onto Eddie and said.
“Then you’ll have to arrest me too if you take him into custody. I’m just as guilty of murder even more than Eddie. He acted in self-defense.” Hooper looked at us before saying.
“Don’t think I can arrest a young woman who was merely defending herself and her boyfriend against some thugs. I saw Carver break your shoulder myself, so the only guilty party I see is the vampire having a paralysis nap thanks to Harrington here.” Hooper then walked over to Carver and picked him up, forcing him on his feet.  “Hope you vampires know some good lawyers, cause you’re gonna need one.” He then dragged Jason away.
“What about Eddie’s injuries? Jason tossed him around like a ragdoll and his friends had a hand in hurting him mid-change.” I said.
“I just called the paramedics, they’re on their way.” Steve said and soon enough in came flying in on Pegasus’ were the Valkyries.  They landed their horses and came over and asked what had happened.
Robin explained to them as one of them took Eddie out of my lap. I tried to reach out for him but my shoulder ached as I moved it and another Valkyrie came up to me and helped me onto my feet.
“C’mon, we’re taking you to the white witches. They’ll heal you too up in no time.” I was soon led to another Pegasus and soon both Eddie and I were taken out of the woods and towards Witch grotto where we would be tended to for our injuries.
After getting my shoulder set back into place and drinking a potion for the pain, I sat by Eddie’s bedside as he was covered in Athelas plants for his injuries and had a wet cloth laying across his forehead for the small fever he had due to his infected injuries.
I reached out and took his hand and stroked the back of it and I remained vigil at his bedside until he began to stir when the sun began to rise.  He let out a tired groan as he opened his eyes to me.
“(Y/n).” I exhaled in relief as I brought his hand up and kissed the back of it.  “Where are we?”
“White witch grotto.” We turned and Nancy came walking in. “The Valkyries brought you here and I was called in late to come and heal yours and (Y/n)’s injuries. Since I am specially qualified to heal werewolf injuries, you’re welcome.”
“Thanks Wheeler, I owe yah.” Eddie groaned.
“Just take it easy for the weekend and hopefully you’ll be back on your feet by Monday. Look after him (Y/n) you know how stubborn he can get when it comes to needing bedrest.” Boy don’t I.  I nodded to Nancy and thanked her in sign language then she left us alone.
“Hate to ask but what happened to Jason?”
‘Hooper took care of it. You can also thank Steve for the dead man’s blood tranq that brought him down.’
“Good old Steve Harrington. He is so gonna have this looming over my head for ages.” He teased, which made me shake my head at him softly giggling.  His laughter died down once he took notice of the small band aid that was on my neck from the knick Jason’s nail had done to my throat.  “The son of a bitch.” He growled lowly as he stroked over the band-aid.
‘He’s gone now. Let’s not worry about it anymore.’
“I can’t help it. He hurt you, hell he could’ve killed you. All because I hadn’t fully turned.”
‘Because of him and his idiotic friends.’
“Sometimes I wish the change was quick and painless. I should’ve done more, I could’ve done more.” I took a deep breath in and finally answered him out loud.
“You did enough.”
“Only because I—” he trailed and looked up at me in shock. “Holy shit, did you just—you spoke to me?! So I wasn’t going crazy, that was your voice I heard as the wolf.” I nodded. He reached out and cupped the side of my face and whispered lovingly, “it’s beautiful. Just like the girl it’s attached to.”
“The spell can wear off after the first song within 12 hours. If I don’t talk after this, it could be by this afternoon even.”
“What if I don’t want you to stop talking?”
“Eddie I can’t. This is all part of the siren song. I don’t even have to be singing to put you under my spell. What you’re saying is all because of—”
“My feelings for you.” I shook my head in disbelief and scoffed lowly.  “Look me in the eyes (Y/n).” I refused to look at him until he cupped the other side of my face.  “I saw how their eyes glowed with your song. I may not care for my grades but I’m not stupid. I know when a siren speaks or sings, their victims eyes glow under their spell, are mine glowing at all?” I searched his eyes for any trace of siren magic in them but all I could see was his bright, puppy dog brown eyes.
“No, but……”
“No buts. Look, I know this is probably the worst time to say it but I also wanted to share it with you yesterday. In fact I’ve been trying to work up the courage to tell you this. I love you (Y/n). And not in the friendly platonic way anymore I mean like the soulmate way. When a werewolf howls at the moon searching for their partner kind of way. And there was no siren song or even your natural siren beauty to hypnotize me. I fell in love with your heart, your humor, and your spirit. Never before did I think I would find my other half but it wasn’t until she flew into town like an angel in punker clothes.”
“You know how I hate that nickname.” I softly reprimanded him which made him chuckle and lean his forehead against mine.  His nose chasing after mine to rub up against it. The faint glimpse of his canine teeth poking out through his smile.
“At this point, I don’t care. Because it’s true. You are my angel (Y/n), and you didn’t need your siren song to bewitch me.”
“I’m scared though Eddie, I—” I trailed off.  I felt his nose gently nudge against my cheek as he nuzzled against me like a puppy trying to comfort their master.  “I’m worried you’ll…..that you’ll fall for me too deeply, that you could end up killing yourself over me. And I don’t mean by picking up fights with vampires.”
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“I feel like at this point I have to, cause you need to know the risk of dating a siren.” He separated from me and leaned against his pillow so that I could tell my story.
“Back home, I dated this one guy. He was a wood Elf, strong, brave, loyal, caring. Much like you in a way. But my mother disapproved of him and threatened to end his life alongside my aunts. I tried to break things off with him but he refused to go away. Not because he had grown arrogant in the manner of the ‘if I can’t have you no one will’. But I took notice of his eyes. His eyes that once held life in the early stages of our relationship had grown soulless, with only the red spell of the siren song affecting his mind. When I stopped all contact with him, I find out through our newspaper feed that he died throwing himself off a cliff.”
“Jesus, elves really are sensitive to their feelings.” Eddie said nonchalantly.
“Eddie!” he raised his hands in surrender.
“Sorry, sorry. But in all seriousness (Y/n). I’m not like that guy, I’m not like any other creature you might’ve dated before. Because I didn’t even hear your voice at all until now. And I was still able to fall in love with you. Not right away but with time my affections for you grew. Sure you were beautiful and caught my eye but did I throw myself at your feet in worship or whatever people do around you sirens?”
“No you introduced yourself and offered me a table to sit at because I looked like a lost sheep since Robin and I didn’t have the same lunch schedule.”
“Exactly.” He took my hands in his as his forehead once again touched mine.  “But if you don’t feel the same way, or even wish to have a relationship with me. I’ll never bring it up again, and still be your friend.”
“Y-you’d seriously do that?”
“One thing about werewolves is loyalty to the pack. You’re a member of my pack. Whether friend or mate, I’ll accept whatever you choose.” I looked at him with a loving gaze before finally leaning in and kissed his lips.
Slightly chapped and stained with dried up iron, for some reason the kiss felt perfect.  I wrapped my arms around his neck while he brought his to my waist slowly pulling me close until the need for air became a necessity.  Our breaths gently danced across each other’s and as he opened his eyes, there wasn’t a trace of red magic affecting his mind (which happens when a siren kisses their victims).
“I’ve only ever dreamed of that happening.” He whispered.
“Did I live up to your expectations?”
“Oh sweetheart, you exceeded them.” He chuckled lowly as he had his hand move behind my head and brought me in for another kiss, this time deeper and more passionate.  I felt myself lying on the bed and he was hovering over me and as we separated he said.
“And thus Beauty tamed the Beast.” I threw my head back laughing as I wrapped my arms around him stroking his wild hair as I praised.
“My wolfie.” He groaned at the nickname burying his face into my neck.  “You call me angel, I get to call you Wolfie.”
“Fair enough. But don’t call me that in front of the guys. They’ll never let me live it down, especially Henderson. That little firedrake’s ego is already a problem as it is.”
“Deal. I love you Eddie.”
“Love you too (Y/n).” he leaned down and captured my lips in one final passionate and loving kiss.
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virtie333 · 4 months
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Day 2 - Life Day Damerey Celebration
Prompt: Home
Summary: Poe rushes home for the annual Life Day party, but finds something more important to do instead.
Warnings: None really. Main character has migraine. This results in hurt/comfort.
AO3
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Poe rushed through the procedures to shut down the ship, anxious to exit the X-Wing. He looked around the hanger as he did so, not surprised to find it mostly empty. The big Life Day Celebration was going on in the mess, and all but a skeleton crew would be here. He clambered out of the fighter, watching as BB-8 lowered himself down to the hanger floor.
“Okay, buddy,” he told his droid. “You better get to the mess and join up with the others. I’m gonna go shower and change and then get there myself.”
The little ball droid beeped an affirmative, the rolled off in the opposite direction Poe headed. He didn’t run, but he did walk quickly toward his quarters. It felt odd being assigned to a big cruiser like this again. The last one he had been on as an officer and pilot had been the Raddus. He had so many good memories, and bad, of that ship. But this New Republic cruiser, the Organa, was larger and prettier and named after the most amazing person he would ever know.
Not including his wife, of course.
He hopped on the turbolift that would take him to his floor, then quickly strode down the hall to his door. He punched in the code and quickly stepped through the door, only to stop short as he saw his wife laying on the bed, her back to him. She should be at the party.
“Rey?” He wasn’t ashamed of the squeak in his voice as concern took over excitement. He rushed over to the bed.
She turned her head to look at him, and he could tell she had been crying.
“Kriff, Rey! What happened?” He sat on the edge of the bed, grasping her shoulders and helping her sit up.
She was shaking her head. “It’s okay. I’ve just got a raging migraine.”
Rey’s migraines had started shortly after the Battle of Exegol. Both she and Poe had believed them to be an aftereffect of her defeat of the Emperor and her resulting death. No medicine helped and even meditating in the Force did not seem to ease the pain. Fortunately, they were becoming less and less common as time went on, and there was hope that they would eventually cease all together.
“That’s not okay,” Poe argued with Rey’s statement. “Have you taken a sedative?” Sleeping through them was the only thing Rey could really do, and she needed help to do that.
Rey looked at him, her beautiful eyes bloodshot and watery. “I’m afraid to take one,” she whispered.
Poe felt his gut clench. They had found out just last week that Rey was pregnant. He nodded, understanding why she didn’t want to take the powerful drug.
Rey touched his shoulder. “You go to the party,” she said. “I’ll just keep trying to sleep.”
Poe shook his head. “Nope.” He stood up and started removing his flight suit. “I’m staying with you.”
“Poe,” Rey immediately started arguing. “The party is following Yavin traditions this year. You need to go and remember home.”
Poe snorted, pulling off his boots and shucking his pants, leaving him in nothing but his undershirt and boxers. “Haven’t you figured it out yet, Sunshine. You are my home. I’m staying with you.”
With tears once more in her eyes, this time not from pain, Rey turned again, letting Poe slide into the bed behind her. He wrapped his arm around her waist and brought his mouth up against the back of her neck, softly kissing and nuzzling her, trying his best to help her forget about the pain so she could rest.
Within minutes, they were both asleep.
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teecupangel · 9 months
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What's your stance on what-if-character-x-was-evil AUs? Asking because when Kassandra showed up before Layla in the flesh my brain went "...and she clearly works for Abstergo."
While I admit I didn’t think Kassandra would be part of Abstergo when I saw her appear at the end of Odyssey’s main game, I do think it would be fun to think about how she would have ended up as a member of Abstergo.
Also, what idea we can throw into the wall into how she would have ended up as part of the Inner Sanctum of the Templar Order? XD
Hell. I know the Inner Sanctum is the highest members of the Templar Order but I kinda like the idea that Kassandra would be above them, sorta like the true Grand Master and shadow head of the Templar Order.
That would have been a fun twist to explore…
Although, in terms of Odyssey the game, it would have been a twist ending that would have polarized the players and the DLCs have to work hard to make that twist believable.
In fanworks and AU ideas? Go wild, everyone.
Now, let’s talk in a more general way about how we can implement ‘what-if-character-x-was-evil’ AU ideas in Assassin’s Creed:
The easiest way to do this is to make their backstory different (for example: (1) when Desmond left the Farm, Vidic found him early on and became a father figure that manipulated him into hating the Assassins or (2) Al Mualim’s indoctrination of Altaïr dug deeper than it did in AC1 and he grew up completely loyal to Al Mualim to the point of joining the Templar Order himself with his ‘father’ or (3) Arno is raised by Bellec himself so he’s absolutely one hundred percent a willing accomplice to all of Bellec’s plans and hates the Templars for killing his father to the point that he doesn’t believe the Assassins and Templars can co-exist)
A fun way to do this is to corrupt the characters themselves. This could end in two different main categories:
They are corrupted by the POE and this could be (1) full-blown ‘power corrupts even the best of us’ type or (2) 'I will do these unforgivable sins because the alternative pushed by the Calculations will bring about a fate worse than death to the world and those I care about, this is my sin to bear alone' route. (3) There's also a combination of (1) and (2) that I like to call the N-route of "Have I not suffered enough? Do I not deserve my own happiness even if it means the suffering of others?!".
This one is my favorite because I love fucking with Desmond using the Bleeding Effect: it is not the characters who become corrupted but their digital avatar in the Animus. Either because Abstergo skimmed on QA or this is truly a bug in the Animus that they didn’t think would happen because all that reading of the POE’s corruptive powers messed with the Animus itself and that corrupted versions of the Assassins? That’s the one that appears in the Bleeding Effect. Just imagine Desmond having corrupted versions of his ancestors whispering to him, slowly driving him mad all the while giving him the attention and kindness he didn’t receive as a child. And Desmond would be weak to their whispers because he believes he knows them, had relived their lives… and the corrupted versions know they need Desmond on their side.
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Hii!! Poe and Atsushi for the character ask??
hi!! thank you for the ask ^^
Poe:
fav thing: Karl lol and also his ability is one of the coolest ones imo
least fav thing: he’s treated like an extra instead of a side character istg—
fav line: “Oh, Karl… You’re the only one who will stay by my side forever. Here have some cat food.”
brOTP: Poe and Mushitarou
OTP: Poe x Ranpo !!!!!!!!!!! best ship in the entire story i will not be taking arguments ever
nOTP: Poe and literally anyone except Ranpo cuz they were made for each other and everyone else can keel over so we can get the detective duo slice of life we all deserve instead of this SHITTY ARC
random headcanon: he hand writes all the books he gives to Ranpo and sometimes Ranpo asks to be put in the book in order to solve the mystery if he likes it enough (but that’s pretty rare let’s be honest)
unpopular opinion: i can’t think of any ;-;
song i associate with them: Cradles by Sub Urban don’t question it
fav picture:
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he should be allowed to go feral more often tbh
Atsushi under the cut!
Atsushi:
fav thing: his eyes, the colors are neat
least fav thing: he’s written like a side character & takes such a backseat to characters like Dazai ;-; some people literally think Dazai is the main character bro it’s bad
fav line: “I’ve only ever regretted the things I didn’t do” (he quoted this from a book he read in the orphanage but i still like it)
brOTP: Atsushi and Kyouka count for this right? sure they do
OTP: Atsushi x Akutagawa (aka the better soukoku)
nOTP: Atsushi and Dazai. it’s icky imo
random headcanon: his hair has the same texture as his tiger fur
unpopular opinion: idk if this is unpopular or not but Atsushi def fell first but Akutagawa fell harder sorry i don’t make up the rules
song i associate with them: Hated By Life Itself (idk who it’s by cuz i can’t read kanji) there’s this one bsd AMV on youtube that’s rlly good with this song everyone needs to go watch it rn
fav picture:
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Atsushi + Rashoumon = badass moments every time
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libertyreads · 10 months
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Book Review #66 of 2023--
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What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher. Rating: 4 stars.
Read from May 28th to 29th.
T. Kingfisher has done it again. Yet another work that I’ve read and enjoyed so much from her. This is a retelling of a Poe classic: The Fall of the House of Usher. In the original, we follow a visitor to the House of Usher as they discover its inhabitants are ill with weird symptoms and a vague madness circling them both. In this retelling, we follow Alex Easton as they get a letter from a childhood friend who needs them to come to the house at once. Upon arrival, Easton is horrified at the state of decay as well as the state of their childhood friends. Madeline is paler than a ghost while madness shines in Roderick’s eyes. What is bringing down the House of Usher?
My main complaint for the original was that it was too short and provided few answers. Which was apparently also T. Kingfisher’s problem since she gave us more and gave us a sense of closure. I was happy with the answer that we got despite how absolutely horrifying and creepy it was. That was something the author did so well in this one. The whole time you’re in a constant state of horror while also trying to think through this mysterious illness. We also got to truly see and understand just how dilapidated the house is throughout the novel. Whole rooms and wings are shut off from the rest of the house because it would be too expensive to heat while wallpaper peels off the walls and mold and water take up residence. We also got more characters in this than we got in the original story. And I think they’re lovely, just like all of T. Kingfisher’s side characters. I need more of a little old lady in love with mycology in everything I read.
I do think there was a little too much fungi in here for me. I know in the original Poe was obsessed with it so it obviously had to be transferred into this story. And a longer story means more time with the fungi. But boy was it a lot. Ha. I don’t know. It was gross and horrifying and creepy and everything you could want out of it. I just felt like we didn’t get enough. Do I know it sounds ridiculous that a retelling of a 29 page story that is 130 pages longer than the original wasn’t enough? Yes. Am I still who I am? Yes, absolutely. If I’m enjoying something, it almost always feels like it should be longer. But that’s more of a me problem than a book problem.
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ragdoll665 · 1 month
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How I would “fix the sequel trilogy”.
Episode 1: The fix begins.
No changes to ep 7, for a few main reasons. Firstly, its actually pretty good, most people liked it when it came out, yes It plays it very safe and yes, it’s a lot of what we’ve seen before, (ep 4) BUT it nicely sets up our main cast of characters, builds some nice intrigue and mystery, who is snoke, what’s up with Luke etc etc etc. Its not perfect but its easily the best of the movies we got for numerous reasons, its only made worse because so much of what this set up was worsened by the lack of planning of what the overarching story of the trilogy was going to be, which I mean is going to happen when 3 different directors are hired to make 3 different movies all building off each other and no one though to make them go into a room together and actually discuss what they wanted to do.
The second reason is simplicity, a lot of my “fixes” are tweaks to the story structure of what we got, especially ep 8 which had a lot of good ideas it just didn’t really develop that well, and because of that keeping the baseline of ep 7 the same helps create a strong base to build on.
OK, with that out of the way lets get on to my changes.
Episode 2: the last retcon.
So this movie has a lot of good ideas and sets up some interesting things, I like Rey and Kylo’s dynamic each trying to convince the other one to change sides (this is a surprise tool that will help us later) fin still feeling like wanting to run but also not wanting to abandon his friends and kind of needing to find a purpose, and Poe advancing into a leadership position and having to learn that he cant do everything himself, he has to rely on others.
So, the movie would start in a similar way, a big space battle with the rebellion, sorry, resistance fighting the new order in space, cut a few of the marvel jokes, not that there can’t be funny moment or comedy in this movie but some of the humour in the movie really messed with the tone. Poe leads a good strike on a first order ship led by Kylo ren and snoke same as the movie they do a good job but lose some fighters and are forced to retreat again very much what the movie sets up.
Now the main changes, in this we have 3-4 main story’s going on at the same time, each of our main characters has a story that they are the hero of that build towards the overall lesson. Like ep 5 and ep 2 the movie will end on a loss for our heroes but will help them develop the skills necessary to win in the end.
So the resistance are on the run the new order are somehow tracking them and preventing them for resupplying, hoping to destroy home one and cut of most of the resistances leadership to cripple them, major difference here is that instead of being able to track them through hyperspace, something that I would argue goes against literally all of previous star wars cannon, there is a spy on board, sabotaging home one and reporting there location to the new orders, eventually due to the size of the new order fleet, being far from the core world were the new republic is running stuff the new order will eventually catch home one and destroy it.
Poe:
Poe’s story is similar to what it is in the movie, keeping things simple here, it’s about leadership, Poe leads from the front, he sees others die and wants to prevent it which leads to him trying to do everything himself, which he obviously cant do, his story is, with the guidance of admiral Ackbar, and Mon Mothra, our mentor characters he has to learn to rely more on others. Poe’s does everything he can to try  and catch the spy but at every turn he is just one step behind, the spy is sabotaging the ship, he’s getting frustrated eventually he walks into a trap and something bad happens, people are hurt and he gets really depressed, he is again reminded that he cant do everything alone, they reference how the rebellion is built from the hopes and dreams of thousands of worlds, callback to how the destruction of both death stars were team efforts, getting the plans destroying shield generators and actually fighting in space. Poe reflects on this, then he bumps into Rose, who was introduced earlier on and is still the sister of a pilot killed in the opening battle, of which po feels responsible for, rose doesn’t blame him maybe talks about how she wants to blame her self as a mechanic she should have seen any issues with the ship maybe if she had done more her sister would be alive, poe says that isn’t fair on her and basically gives the mentor lecture to rose which is how he finally realises he is in the same place, he asks rose for her help and the two hatch a plan. It turns out one of Poe’s friends, a pilot on his team is the spy someone who he never would have suspected or been able to catch because she always knows were he is and what he’s up to due to being on his team, but she doesn’t account for the background characters, the no named engineers working hard like rose who go unnoticed but who’s work is critical, its them who noticed the sabotage and suspicious log activity. Poe and crew confront them and they as a final act sabotage the ship, only partially, because they didn’t have time to finish, but enough because po spent so long trying to do it himself, destroys a part of the ship, Ackbar and Mon Mothra sacrifice themselves to save Poe and gang, in a heroic manner, pass on the message they trust them to keep the spirit of the resistance alive.
Poe is set up to be the new person in charge, Poe still takes an active role but is now ready to assume the mantle of being in charge, relying on other and live up to the expectations of the mentor characters we knew and loved.
This is the main theme of this movie in my rewrite, the conflict between Fascism and Democracy, fascism sets up everyone as trampling over everyone else to benefit themselves whereas our heroes benefit from mentors who seek to help them be better than they were, to make a stronger world for others not themselves. This point will be very apparent in the Rey arc but well get their eventually.
Finn:
Finn: Finn’s arc is about discovering his purpose and doing something with his stormtrooper background, he’s not super in the rebellion at this point but is willing to help to save Po and Rey, he sneaks aboard the enemy flagship and uses his skills as a stormtrooper to try and find a way to sabotage the ship or fleet to help the good guys get away. He is eventually caught by captain Phasma who in a twist is also in the process of building a rebellion, yea the reason she was so willing to give up the shield on star killer base was because she was also questioning her loyalty, maybe in part because of Finns actions. She reveals she’s been building a team of “dysfunctional” stormtroopers who would be killed or imprisoned for being to out of the norm of the stormtrooper brainwashing, we get a cool cast of wierdos with fun quirks, maybe one dude loves flamethrowers another like fighting in melee with batons basically just people who have a personality. A “bad batch” of troopers if you will. This is where fin learns his purpose, he wants to help other stormtroopers escape, obviously not all stormtroopers will be good people but within them will be some and it’s those people he wants to help, to give them a chance to live their own lives. The are the cool elite team that damages the star destroyer enough to let the good guy’s escape (barely) during the climax.
Again, leaning into the individuality is good, and how fascism crushes people’s personalities to just be cogs in a machine for the benefits of a few, it’s the actions of individuals which is why the rebellion won the war with the empire and why the resistance will eventually win against the first order.
Rey:
Rey: Rey jedi training arc time, this parallels very similarly to Luke in episode 5, she wants to be trained quickly so she can go back and help her friends, Luke who better than anyone understands this and understands that it’s the wrong decision, again the idea of learning to rely on others, and realise you cannot do everything yourself. Luke pulls a Yoda and acts senile and drags out lessons and points trying to teach Rey patience, she still has her talks with Kylo and the two continue to try and convince the other to swap sides (foreshadowing). eventually Rey makes the same decision Luke makes in episode 5 and runs off before completing her training to try and help her friend, Luke follows her. She gets to the flagship and confronts Kylo and snoke, they argue, fight etc. This is were snoke pulls a palps, and try’s to convince Rey to become his apprentice, talking shit about Kylo, how she has only had a small mount of training but can compete with him, who has “super blood” bloodline from the Skywalkers. Very eugenics reasoning from snoke which makes sense cause he’s a fascist dictator. Using his dark side powers and through manipulation he convinces Rey to fall to the dark side, before she can kill Kylo and take her place as his new apprentice (very rule of 2) Luke shows up and saves Kylo, forgives him for everything, apologies for failing him as a teacher and tells him to leave and warn the rebellion. In this moment Kylo and Rey have flipped teams, are enemies still but are now on different sides, Kylo returns to the light, early enough to take steps toward redemption.
Kylo flees the ship taking Fin, Phasma and the “bad batch” with them. Luke stays behind to confront snoke, and by time for our heroes to escape (very episode 4 obi-wan) it’s a fight he cannot win but he doesn’t have to, after an epic fight between him and snoke, with crazy lightsabre swings and force powers, they have a finally dialogue, snoke talks about how Luke is weaker than him and got the weaker of the two apprentices, how he fails to understand true strength, snoke is very much a use things so they can get further again everyone is a tool for them to use, Luke on the other hand counters with the idea that no, Rey and Kylo will both end up being stronger than he was, because that’s the whole point, to help people, to teach so that those who come after become better than those who came before the. Then he is struck down in a similar fashion to obi-wan.
I Think this is particularly important for Reys character, I think, more so in getting the audience to accept how strong she gets to be, same for Kylo, instead of just making her super strong which led to her being disliked (although a lot, and I mean A LOT, of that was just sexism from the SW fanbase tbh). Rather she and Kylo are stronger than Luke because the audience believe Luke is capable of training people to be better than him, think that Gurran lagan line.
Believe in the me, that believes in you.
Make the audience want Rey and Kylo to be cool as heck because doing so Honours the legacy of Luke and all the characters that came before them, not just to replace them.
Thus, ends episode 8, the good guys are on the run, Rey has fallen to the Darkside, Kylo and Phasma are on team good guy and while things seem dire, the characters are resolved to keep fighting, to win, to rescue Rey and stop the new order.
Episode 9: Rise of a good ending.
I won’t go into as much detail as I did for episode 8, mostly because due to the changes I would have made ep 9 looks very different and is much more a wholly different movie than ep 8 was. But I’ll hit the main points that build to the conclusion.
Time has passed since the last movie the resistance and new republic are putting up a fight against the new order, but things are still bad, Kylo and crew are still not wholly accepted by many in the resistance because of their previous actions but Poe, now helping lead and coordinate the resistance, trusts Tin and is willing to accept Kylo’s help. The major plot of the movie is about snoke.
Snoke is a very old very powerful Sith lord, he does an emperor from the old republic and every few hundred years kidnaps and tricks a bunch of force sensitive individuals and uses them in a ritual to make himself more powerful and extend his life spam. The good guys learn he is planning to do this again, soon on Rey and some of the jedi from Lukes old jedi school, including the knights of ren. The good guys realise they don’t have long before they lose Rey, and Kylo isn’t convinced he can beat Rey, let alone snoke alone. IF you wanted this is where you have fin be revealed to have been force sensitive and Kylo must teach him to be a jedi to help rescue Rey, and by teaching he learns, which is a common thing for jedi through all of Star Wars, like with Kanin teaching Ezra. Poe leads a big space battle to challenge the new order and by time for Kylo and Fin to sneak into snokes citadel and try to stop his ritual.
This is the plan to rescue Rey and kill snoke, like the empire snoke is the sole leader of the new order, everything comes from him (again fascist dictator) if they kill him infighting and power struggles should cripple the first order, like the empire after Palpatine is killed.
Poe leaves Kylo and Fin to rescue Rey, and kill snoke, he leads the fight in space, to buy them the time they need. When things get dire, he hops into his x-wing to kick ass while still coordinating the new republic forces in his custom 2-seater x-win with rose as his co-pilot.
Kylo and Fin fight through some punks to get to snoke and they fight Rey and “lose” because they are trying to convince her to rejoin them, Kylo and Rey could still have been having force conversations like the last movie throughout. Eventually just before snoke can kill them they manage to convince Rey who breaks through and saves them, they have a short heart to heart moment and turn to challenge snoke. Snoke is annoyed but he’s still in the middle of his ritual and if he wins, he can still use their energy. The three of them fight a big epic fight while the space battle rages on, each using a different lightsabre style, Rey with a double because she had a staff in movie 7, come on Disney it just makes sense, Kylo with his Cross guard but fighting more defensively and supporting his two friends, and Finn with the single, and give him a cool force power, he deserves it and the other 2 got one. The trio eventually end in a force blast clash with snoke, dragon ball z style, snoke boasts about how weak they are, how feeble their forces are how there are nothing to him, but they stand united and the force ghosts of previous mentors appear as the ritual is about to conclude, the extend hands in support of our heroes, again reinforcing the idea of building a better future, and standing together for the benefit of all rather than selfish power grabbing and being alone. With force ghosts at their back the win the struggle and kill snoke permanently, without snoke the new order predictably ends up infighting and power struggling which cause them to lose the battle even though they out gun the new republic.
Each character has their arc concluded, Kylo gets to be redeemed from being a villain and continue to teach to honour Lukes’s legacy.
Finn concludes his arc by helping convince Rey to switch sides, to rejoin the good guys, the power of friendship and acceptance, and gets to be a jedi, who spends his time helping other get out of bad situations.
Rey realises that the circumstance of birth doesn’t define you, she helped to convince Kylo to change sides, which was her main goal in the last movie to honour Leia and Han, gets to be a jedi and help people.
Poe is helping organise the new republic, not just in military efforts but has expanded to be in a similar position to Leia and carries on her legacy, as the surrogate son he always was to her.
Thus ends the sequel trilogy, which told the story of standing against fascism and how we build a better world by supporting each other and teaching the next generation to be better than we were. It passes on the mantle to new characters while honouring and respecting those who came before and for fans of the original series.
A couple optional things.
 I didn’t mention Leia much because I feel weird about how I would use her in the story given carry fishers tragic passing, you could potential have her be the main mentor of Po in episode 8 and sacrifice herself to save him, which I think would be the best way to do it, but also she obviously passed before the movie was fully shot so this might have been impossible and also killing of her character as she passed may come across as disrespectful to the actor, it’s just something I wasn’t completely sure how to handle.
If you wanted to set Rey and Kylo up I think this would give you more chemistry and time to see them bond, but that’s up to you I’m not a Reylo shipper, and I don’t particularly care one way or another.
I didn’t mention our little droid friend, their still here being comedic relief and sad when Rey joins bad guys, teams up with Kylo reluctantly because of Finn and does some cool stuff, at least that’s how I would envision it, but I didn’t feel this was critical to the changes in the story, so I didn’t mention it.
Finally, I just want to mention.
I’m not a good writer, I watch a lot of cartoons and some shows and have a lot of ideas that I think would be good, but I’m not a professional writer, I haven’t written any big blockbuster movies and most of my changes come from seeing a completed story, something the actual directors didn’t have, and hey maybe you even hate my changes or disagree with how characters should have ended up, that’s cool. This was just a very late frustration project from my experience of the trilogy. I really liked the characters of Po, Finn, Kylo and Rey and had my own hopes of the direction the movies would take.
Anyways hopefully you liked some of this ramble, maybe you have your own interpretation about how you’d have like to see the sequels go which I’d love to hear.
Live long and prosper all you SW jizz fans.
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anakin-pilled · 3 months
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okay i finally finished the star wars sequel trilogy and here’s my opinion and thoughts on each of the movies that no one asked for but i want to share anyway 🤓🤓 spoilers below!
The Force Awakens:
Don’t have a strong opinion on this movie TBH, I think it’s the weakest of the three but it’s a good introduction movie.
Wasn’t expecting Han’s death…RIP TO A REAL ONE😭
Still don’t understand how Rey was able to beat a trained Kylo Ren in battle…she was too OP for the first movie.
Kylo’s back story isn’t convincing enough and I think he’s kind of lame, I don’t think they did him justice.
Transitioning between scenes is so reminiscent of the OG triology and I love it.
The Last Jedi:
THE BEST OUT OF THE THREE!! I really enjoyed this movie; especially all the different sub plots. I loved that we got to see more characters.
I AM A FINNPOE ENTHUSIAST
I AM NOT A REYLO ENTHUSIAST
I liked Rose’s character and her dynamic with Finn!! Kelly Marie Tran did not deserve all the hate she got ): Rose was awesome ):
The scene in Snoke’s throne, Kylo reminded me so much of Anakin in ROTS, from the hair to the expression on his face, I literally think he channeled Anakin’s energy into his performance (think of Anakin when he first pledged loyalty to Palpatine)
Kinda confused on the direction they went in with Luke. You mean to tell me Luke refused to kill Darth Vader because he believed there was light still in him, but couldn’t extend the same hope to Kylo? Idk, Luke’s main characteristic is that he’s the hopeful, optimistic hero and I feel like they completely scrapped that. ESPECIALLY BECAUSE THEY DONT EVEN DIRECTLY TELL YOU WHY KYLO HAD SO MUCH DARKNESS IN HIM, i blame the story tellers
Luke saying no one’s ever really gone…yeah I cried 😭
I knew Luke died from like years ago, but watching his force spirit in front of the two suns just reminded me of that iconic scene in ANH where he’s standing in front of the two Tatooine suns. Literally one of my favorite Star Wars scenes EVER 🥹
The Rise of Skywalker
I think my biggest gripe with this trilogy is that it completely ruins Anakin/Vader being the Chosen One. Like….George Lucas confirms he’s the Chose One and then we see in ROTJ that he helps brings balance to the force, thus completing the prophecy. BUT THEN PALPATINE DIDNT DIE AND HES BACK AND THAT MAKES THE PROPHECY COMPLETELY MOOT AND THATS AN INSULT TO MY POOKIE.
Didn’t expect Leia to die…I know Carrie died (RIP TO A REAL ONE) but I honestly didn’t know she was going to die in the movie and I kept on wondering how they were going to pull it off. And I’m just realizing they killed each of the OG trio 😭
We needed more Rose.
They built up Finn to be a love interest for Rey in the first movie then completely scrapped that idea for Reylo 😭
Not sure how I feel about Reylo. I was really hoping they wouldn’t kiss then BOOM they kissed. Idk I just don’t think the chemistry was there.
I still think they did Kylo’s character building dirty, but I did enjoy his redemption arc. RIP
The voices of all the Jedi guiding Rey, I CRIED OKAYYYYYY
FINNPOE SUPREMACY
I love FinnPoe, but also Finn and Poe separately. Oscar and John were amazing
Seeing all the Death Stars crash, the Ewoks looking up and cheering, the celebration scene 😭😭😭😭 I cried so much IDK it just reminded me so much of the the end of ROTJ and honestly I’m a huge sucker for a good winning final scene.
Overall, I enjoyed the trilogy more than I thought I would and while I do think it’s not PERFECT and I do think there’s a lot to fix, I do think a lot of SW fans are just salty and hated the idea of a more diverse, female led franchise. I would definitely watch again (:
Now I need to know what happens after lol
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stormkobra-5 · 2 years
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The Heir of Djarin
Episode 4: Unsanctioned
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Summary: Three months have passed, and the First Order has started cutting off supply convoys when they can find them. The most recent one has been a medical supply convoy, and now the Resistance is trying desperately to find a way to get what they need before they collapse. Good thing Poe and Laylah don’t have a problem disobeying orders for the greater good, right?...Right?
A/N: And so the story finally picks up! Enjoy a variety of Grogu/Beebs cuteness sprinkled with two best friends who might be in love but they don’t know, a brand new Hutt and some probably-inaccurate science references.
Notes: The Huttese I literally got from a Huttese translator on Google, so its accuracy is... questionable. Also, I know Luke Skywalker gave Shara Bey and Kes Dameron the Force tree to put in their backyard, but I changed it for... reasons...
Warnings: This story is rated 14+ for canon-typical violence, action, and language. The main character is recovering from a traumatic backstory for the sake of the plot, so there is mention of distrust, social anxiety, self-doubt, and emotional damage. Later chapters may involve mature themes for drug usage (spice), excessive alcohol consumption, and clubs that imply adult entertainment (the main characters do not take part). Nothing explicit in any chapters. This chapter involves drug usage (spice) and alcohol consumption (the main characters do not take part). There is also brief mention of previously fighting depression and suicide (the OC has since recovered).
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   Three months have passed since my arrival at the Resistance base. Din and Grogu are still with me, having officially decided to stay, and the Slave is fully operational and entering-atmosphere safe. Sometimes Din will go on diplomatic missions and leave Grogu with me; carrying him around in a satchel is more work than I thought it’d be. He’s always grabbing at things, and more than once I’ve found he’s somehow sucked all the bacta out of a pack. The only thing that keeps him occupied are three things: sleep, a healthy supply of frogs I have to find and catch myself (therefore carrying an extra pack full of dead frogs), or those damn blue cookies that I have to refrain from eating myself.     Things have been quiet with the First Order, mostly, so missions are few as the Resistance tries to spare its resources for something drastic-- although somehow they keep pegging our supply convoys. Most recently was a medical supply convoy, and with a bunch of learning medic/doctors, that’s not very convenient. Dia has had to divvy up the time of a dozen medics just to ensure that there might be enough supplies for learning mistakes-- trust me, you’ll break a few tubes when you pull them out of the makeshift practice mannequin, and you’ll definitely waste some bandages and gauze. Shortening lessons shortens the number of items wasted or broken, so.     Unfortunately, that leaves me with way too much free time. I train, I help with what I can, sometimes I shadow Din, and sometimes I even go straight to Leia to see what else I can do to help. I can’t even help Poe or Beebs with anything, because they’re in the air almost all day drilling and patrolling. I don’t think there’s a time when the mountains aren’t alive with the roar of X-wing engines.   Except for today.   Today Black Squadron is taking a much-needed rest, and Poe sent BB-8 to bring me to them. I was in the middle of wandering aimlessly while trying to find somebody to assist, so I figured why not? I didn’t expect to enter the tarmac and find the whole of Black Squadron and a bunch of other pilots all gathered around cheering and passing bets between them. I tap the shoulder of Jess, who BB-8 discreetly avoids. Apparently she has a thing with getting droids blown up all the time.     “What’s going on?”     “The commander’s going up against Balfro!”      I’ve heard of Balfro. A tough, gray-skinned, broad-shouldered ex-bodybuilder from some planet I can never remember the name of. I’ve heard everybody makes it a point to challenge him to a boxing match. Guess I should’ve known that Poe would eventually end up in that mix. “Why am I not surprised?”     Over the course of the last few months, Poe and I have become close-- we tell each other everything, which is something I could never really do even with Din. I’ve told him every detail of my time on Earth; about how I’d fought off depression and suicide myself in my teen years because I didn’t want my family to worry, how it was prompted by the times I lived in and my evil father, and how I’d never really recovered from being turned away and abandoned by everyone my family met.     He’s told me about his childhood on Yavin, how he ran away and ended up with the spice runners of Kijimi before joining the Republic Navy-- and apparently he’s never really told anyone about being the whole Kijimi bit. “How would it look if the best pilot in the galaxy was an ex-spice runner?” He’d say. He told me about the mysterious Jedi who appeared one day at his house when he was little-- a Togruta, Ahsoka Tano-- and gave his parents a piece of the Force Tree to grow in their backyard. About how sometimes he feels like because of that, he might be a little Force-sensitive himself.     We’re close. Very close. We know each other better than we know ourselves and always gravitate toward one another when we’re near-- which is why, somehow, Poe’s ended up eating with Din and I if he’s in the mess hall, and Din pretends he doesn’t approve but he really does. He’s my one and only human friend, though I’m only one of his, so he always tries to incorporate me in anything the Black Squadron does on a rest day. It’s slow progress, because I’m still anxious around strangers (and because Snap and I are always trying to out-smartass each other), but nobody minds, and I appreciate the fact that he does that.    Although right now I’m wondering, really, how big of a dumbass he actually is.    Balfro is only 5’ 9", so he’s the same height as Poe, but man is he monstrous. He’s like an orc from Lord of the Rings. He’s got spikes on his head and a fricking eight pack, and the guy can do flips and kicks like he’s right outta Mortal Kombat. He always wears war paint, his teeth are filed to fangs, and the horns on his head give the distinct impression that he rams people if necessary. Dathomir, that’s where he’s from. I remember now. Balfro doesn’t really speak Galactic Basic-- he more grunts, more of the silent type-- so right now he’s roaring a stream of what’s probably some vulgar insults in his native language. He doesn’t even have boxing gloves on, not caring at all that his knuckles are busted and bleeding.     Poe, meanwhile, the cocky bastard, is literally hopping, ready for the next round, with an arrogant smirk on his face. He’s drenched in sweat, with his flight suit halfway unzipped and tied at his waist by the sleeves. His white tank top is covered in his own blood, because his lip and forehead are busted and he’s scraped up from being slammed into the duracrete. Does he even realize he’s bleeding? I don’t think so. I can tell already his forehead is going to need stitches.     I stand beside Snap with my arms crossed. “How long have they been at it?”     He answers without even shifting his position. “’Bout twenty minutes. The commander’s getting his ass whooped, but for some reason he thinks this is fun.”    “Dumbass.”    At this point I think BB-8 may have gotten me to patch Poe up, or maybe stop the fight. Before I can say anything at all, though, Poe lunges, manages to get a few hard hits in, and then Balfro’s actually picking him up, and throws him. Poe goes flying overhead, landing hard and with the breath knocked out of him behind us. Beebs and I rush over as the crowd cheers for Balfro’s win.    “Hey Bez,” He wheezes as he rolls onto his back, wincing.    “Hey dumbass,” I quip, leaning over him with my hands on my knees. “Got your ass beaten good enough yet? Or you want a broken bone in there with the internal bleeding and concussion?”    He pretends to think about that for a second. “Nah, I’m good.”    “Good.” I gesture to his whole body generally. “By the way, without all the blood, this is really a hot look for you.”   He tries to laugh, but the effort makes him grunt with pain. Instead, he forces a bloody grin through his wincing and flinching. “Thanks, Bez.” For some reason he thinks I’m joking-- though, we’ve always had this flirty kind of banter going, so maybe he thinks I am.    “Mando!” Roars Balfro from behind, and I whirl around. By now everybody knows me even without my armor, which I haven’t worn since my arrival. Being addressed by the massive, furious creature is absolutely terrifying. He can say few words in Basic, so his next sentence is clipped. He bangs his chest in challenge like a gorilla. “Fight! No armor!”    “You want me to fight you?” This guy could break me.    “Mando...” Balfro growls out, “Coward?” The gathered crowd oohs, looking back and forth, and everybody passes out new bets while finishing paying the ones from the previous fight. Balfro urges them on, throwing his arms up at them and cheering. Mandalorian coward? I think the kriff not.    Poe’s hand shoots out and grabs my ankle, holding on tight-- I’m may be fit now, but I’m still extremely thin. His whole hand fits around my ankle with room to spare; I’m wearing capri pants though, so he’s holding bare skin. At first I freeze, unused to the contact and ready to tear myself away from him-- but then I relax. This is Poe. He’s safe. My heart is calming down as my eyes trail up his arm to his face to meet his eyes, filled of warning. His brow furrows and he shakes his head minutely. “Bez. Don’t.”    I shake him off. Din trained me to use my size against large opponents. I already know where to hit him. In all seriousness, I say to Poe, “Watch and learn, Poe. Watch and learn.” He’s a pilot, so he’s been trained in various forms of combat, clearly, but not like I have. Not like a Mandalorian.     Poe rolls his eyes. I help him to his feet and limp over to Snap, who keeps him steady and standing. Poe tries to hand me the boxing gloves, but I shove them back at him and shake my head. His brow furrows even further, concerned for both my safety and sanity. “Laylah...” He only uses my first name when he’s extremely serious, which has only been a handful of times so far. Usually I listen to him when he says my first name, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that I can do this, even if Balfro is unfairly ginormous.    “This is how a Mandalorian does it.”     BB-8 beeps worriedly. Though Binary isn’t an exact language, I can feel his frustration. I brought you here to get him to stop, and now you’re doing it? Humans.     Balfro and I face each other. I take up no visible fighting stance, but I’m ready-- all my training kicks to the forefront of my mind. Balfro grins, and I see his muscles tense up before he lunges, giving me a split-second warning. I take a single step and spin, bending backward to go right under his arms as he tries to close them around me with intent to crush me. I come up behind him and deliver a hard elbow to a pressure point in his back that makes his legs crumple out from underneath of him, sending him sprawling face-first on the duracrete.    For a few seconds, there’s silence, and I’m not ashamed to be very, very smug. Poe’s face is priceless. “What? Nothing?”    Then they’re cheering. “Man-do! Man-do! Man-do!” Poe cheers with them for a second as I take it in. That’s right. This is how it’s done. Then I’m seeing all their faces at once, and all the attention gets to be too much-- especially Balfro’s scowling face as he stands, eyeing me with a furious glint in his gaze that sends me hurrying to Poe. He subtly shifts so that he’s between me and Balfro-- we both know he probably won’t actually attack me, but the paranoid fear still has me in flight-or-fight mode. Though Poe can walk on his own, overcoming the initial pain of his injuries, he has an arm around my shoulders and keeps his side flush against me. We exit the crowd and move over to a nearby stack of supplies, where I make him sit on a nearby crate of bolts so that I can check him. BB-8 follows closely with a series of whistles and beeps.    Poe doesn’t say anything until he’s sitting. “That was awesome, Bez. You’ve gotta teach me that sometime. Or is it the Way?” He grabs a couple bolts laying on the lid and starts rolling them between his fingers, bouncing his leg rapidly; yes, he does have ADHD, which I thought was extremely odd given his occupation. On Earth that would be a factor that would disqualify one from fighter pilot consideration, right? When I brought it up, Poe had only laughed. “Keeps me sharp in the air. Why do you think I get in trouble so much for doing stuff I’m not supposed to? I do it because I have to, I need to move. So if I’m sittin’ in a X-wing for eight hours, I’m gonna need to do a couple barrel rolls.”    I chuckle, shaking my head in fond amusement as he starts tossing a bolt between his hands. I gently pull his thick hair away from a clump of blood on the back of his head. “Can’t show you our martial arts unless you’re a Mandalorian. Ready to take the Creed?”    “Hell no. That armor won’t fit in my cockpit.” After a second of rapidly drumming his fingers on his thigh while his other hand messes with a bolt, he smiles, trying to catch my eye as I inspect his wounds. “Though that doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about how badass I would be in beskar to match Black One.”    I can picture it easily enough. Black beskar with orange highlights. I can’t imagine what Poe would do if given a jetpack. “Ooh. That would be badass.”    He leans his head back to look at me, pulling his wound away from my attention. I move his head back to its original position so I can continue my assessment. “You said something about having Boba Fett’s armor...”    I swat his arm, realizing too late that it’s already bruising.    “Ow.”    His attention isn’t really on what I just did, but on the idea of wearing beskar and the bolt. “That armor is to be passed on to foundlings, Poe. Boba’s wishes.”    He tosses the bolt up and catches it. “I could be a foundling.”    “Foundlings are children taken in by the Mandalorians,” I chuckle, just picturing Din taking him under his wing, too. “Not full-grown men.”   His eyes flick up to try and counter my statement with a childish glare. “It’s not like I’m old.”   Snickering, I use a nearby rag to swipe away the drying blood under the cut on his forehead. “No, you’re just too old to be a foundling.”   His eyebrows shoot up, interrupting my work. “If a teenage girl can be a Mandalorian, I can do it in three years at the much-more-mature age of twenty-eight.”    I rub the spot between his thick brows until he relaxes his forehead. “A, you’re thirty-one, you liar.” He grimaces, tossing the bolt up and catching it. “B, it took me three years to become a Mandalorian, working every day strictly for that goal, which you don’t have time for. And C, I’m not a teenage girl. I’m a grown woman.”    He taps the bolt against my hip pointedly. “Bez, I don’t care how mature you are, you’re in that gray area between ages. You still have a teen in your age, but you’re also a young woman, so.”     I step back for a second to mock glare at him. “What, you think I act like a teenager?”    “No, you act like you’re my age,” He replies honestly, and I go back to inspecting his injuries. “But technically you’re still a teenager. Emotionally...” He drops the bolt and it rolls away. BB-8 goes rolling after it to retrieve it before it causes somebody to hurt their foot. With a shrug, Poe grabs another bolt. “You’re a lot older than just nineteen.”    “Thank you, Dameron.”    “You’re welcome, Djarin.”    I’m in the middle of inspecting the matted blood in the hair behind his ear when he pokes me in the stomach, trying to get my attention. “Somebody’s looking for you.”    I turn to find Reli, a medic I’ve sometimes trained with. She has dark circles beneath her eyes and she crosses her arms, looking sullen and defeated. The kriff’s wrong with you. “There you are, Djarin. I’ve been looking for you.”    “Oh? What for?”    “Dia needs us. It’s important.” She frowns when she sees Poe, who nonchalantly waves. Apparently when he comes back from missions, he more often than not rushes to the medbay with a broken bone or two. I haven’t seen that yet, but I have known him long enough to see that he’s usually always injured in some little way or another. Reli gestures at him vaguely, impatiently, before turning away, not looking to see if we’re actually following. “Bring him, too.”    Reli is silent, and though I want to ask questions, I don’t. I’ll learn the answers in time. I just have to be patient. When we reach the medbay, Dia is standing with all of the medics-in-training gathered in front of her, looking very distraught and worried. I guide Poe to a bed where a more experienced medic begins to treat him, and then I follow Reli to the far side of the medbay, where Dia awaits.     Once we’re all accounted for, she begins to speak. She shakes her head as if to contradict whatever bad news she has for us. “...There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just get right to the point. The First Order has intercepted another medical convoy, and now all of our suppliers refuse to act since they’ve been found out. Finding new ones will be difficult, since the First Order broadcasts their victories so obviously. Everyone’s scared.     “Because of this, I need medics who have finished or almost finished their training. Those of you whom have not, the most I can let you do is what you do already, treating lesser injuries. Until we find a new supplier and receive a new shipment, your medical training is suspended... indefinitely.”     Everything else she says fades to background noise as it hits me. Suspended... For how long? It wasn’t just the selfish anger I felt, the anger at having my future put on hold again, the flashbacks to Earth where my father’s greed and the people we were surrounded by made it so we were always. Waiting. I feel the anger of a medic being denied the supplies with which to help people. How many people will we lose if we can’t treat them? Without a working medbay the Resistance might as well be finished.     Taking from me is one thing. I’m used to waiting. But these people, who desperately need it? They can’t do that to them. They can’t put them into the endless cycle of waiting that’s the theme of Earth.     I’m leaving the medbay before I realize it. I’m so angry, everything’s a blur. The rage builds, and builds, and then it all comes out in a burst of fury so intense I slam both fists into a wall. I feel a tremor of something else that cracks the rock. I don’t have time to be worried about what I just did, about the fact that my hands are bleeding now and pieces of rock are actually falling off, because someone’s grabbing my shoulder and I turn, ready to hit them hard--    --but it’s just Poe.    Poe. The fury evaporates, but not the anger. I all but collapse, leaning on his chest and trying to calm down-- I feel not just rage anymore, but fear. What just came of my anger has me scared. The fact that Poe glances nervously at the wall before putting his arms around me only makes it worse. “What the hell happened?”    My tone is laced with venom as I choke out, “The First Order. They’ve effectively blocked all our medical supplies.”    I pull back as he’s clenching his jaw. “We’ll find a way. We always do.” It sounds like he’s half trying to convince himself of that. His lips are pursed and his eyes are narrowed, and the stubble makes him look all the more serious-- then I realize he still has the strings of stitches hanging out of his forehead and manage a small smile. I reach up to finish the work real quick. One of his hands rapidly see-saws his wrench between two fingers, the other fidgets with my belt, and he bounces his leg impatiently, moving his head as he scans our surroundings absentmindedly. The gears in his head are turning-- he gets this certain light in his eyes when he’s thinking of a plan.    When I finish, Poe pockets his wrench and spins me around by my belt until I’m facing away from him. He gives me a bit of a shove down the hall, taking me by the elbow and pulling me along with him. BB-8 beeps a question, but I ask it for both of us. “Where are we going?”    Poe unties the sleeves of his flight suit and shrugs it on, zipping it up to try and retain some semblance of professionalism. I have a feeling we’re gonna need to make a stop by his bunk for him to wash off real quick. “To go see what we can do about it.”
                                                       -  -  -
   “I can’t sanction a mission to gain new supplies with any good conscience,” Leia says to the room full of commanders. Every single one is here, and she stands in the center of the circular room, holding all of our attention. “Not until we have more information. Everywhere we go the First Order lurks, and we’re always caught in ambushes.” She extends an arm toward Din. “Commander Djarin is leaving for Tenbari in an hour. Hopefully he can get new supplies for us there.”    “Hopefully?” Admiral Ackbar scoffs in disbelief. “Tenbari would rather send all their fusion technology to the First Order than give us medicine! They hate the Resistance just as much as they hate them, if not more! Why would they help us?”    “Any hope is better than nothing, Ackbar,” Leia replies steadily. She doesn’t seem worried externally, keeping cool and confident, but I’m sure she’s plenty concerned right now.    “What about a deal?” Poe speaks up from beside me. Somehow nobody’s questioned the fact that he has both BB-8 and myself beside him, though neither of us are exactly allowed in here. I catch a gleam in his eye and I know the gears in his head are turning just as rapidly as the wrench he’s drumming on his thigh.    Leia regards him carefully, like she knows she’s gonna regret asking. “What did you have in mind?”    “Some places might have unregistered medical supplies. We’ve just gotta know where to look.” He pauses to see if anyone objects, then stands to address the whole of the room, coming to pace by Leia. “Any of you heard of Tiersa?”    “The old prison colonies?” Admiral Statura asks reluctantly, and Poe nods.    “Yeah. Once the planet was freed up, some gangs set up shop there.” Even as people start shaking their heads and muttering, Poe continues unwaveringly. “One of them in particular deals with excess supplies disgarded by the First Order, or even stolen. Food, weapons... medicine. Edda Hutt.”     “Edda Hutt is cruel,” Din says sternly; it looks like Poe jumps a bit. Din has so far succeeded in making Poe think he doesn’t like him, much less approve of us being friends. “And unreasonable. His prices run way too high. We can’t afford it.”    “He doesn’t always deal in credits,” Poe counters, confident. “Besides, it can’t hurt to look. We’re desperate enough, aren’t we? How many of you are absolutely certain that somebody will give us supplies before the Resistance collapses?”    Leia turns her head, catching his eye. Her eyes narrow. For a second, it seems as if she briefly considers it, but then she says, “You’re suggesting we send someone to a planet which has a crime rate so high they actually count the days nothing happens instead, to ask a Hutt a question.”    “I’ll go,” My blurted offer makes everyone turn to face me with surprise, even Poe-- or, in Din’s case, a warning to shut up and stop being stupid. I’m surprised by what I’ve just said. BB-8 whistles unsurely. But I cross my arms and keep my expression unreadable. “You’ve all seen me fly the Slave. Dad can attest to my skills otherwise. I can get the information and get back here unscathed.”    “Can you speak Huttese fluently? Or at least understand it?” Ackbar questions.    This catches me off-guard, and I suddenly realize why it sounds like such a stupid idea. You kinda need to understand the Hutt to make a deal with the Hutt, dumbass. I shift nervously, trying to keep an embarrassed flush off my face. I’m overly-aware of everyone’s eyes on me. “W-Well, no, but--”    Ackbar bobs his head in confirmation, turning to the address the rest of the gathered assembly. “Then you can do nothing here! Tiersa is off the table.”    Leia nods slowly, eyes flicking over me for a second; I avert my gaze, instead focusing on Poe, who looks sympathetic and determined to push his case. Leia has the attention of the whole group, though, so Poe can only try to interrupt respectfully and without speaking over her. “I agree with Ackbar. We won’t go to Tiersa, not yet. We’ll wait until Commander Djarin returns from Tenbari. We have a few other prospective ideas; Tiersa will be a last resort.” She surveys the room as if asking for objections-- and to give Poe and I a look of warning-- and then nods, confirming that most of the room is in agreement. “Dismissed.”     Poe and I leave immediately, side-by-side and frustrated. BB-8 whirs anxiously, sensing we’re thinking about what to do. I know exactly what he’s contemplating. I only need to give him the final shove. Luckily the departing commanders are lingering in the conference room, discussing alternatives and other solutions that everybody knows aren’t gonna work. I lean closer to Poe and lower my voice so he can hear me. “When do we leave?”     “What?” He plays dumb. He makes the most exaggerated what you’re crazy look I’ve ever seen anyone give in my life. To anyone else it might even seem half-believable. But he’s doing the nervous-wrench twirl, the one he does when he’s thinking of doing something that will definitely get him in trouble but he’s definitely gonna do it anyway.     I half shrug, nonchalant. “This was your idea. When do we leave?”     He looks around to see if anyone heard me and then pulls me into a nearby hallway, where he leans close and lowers his voice to an almost-whisper. “You heard Leia. We can’t go without an order.”     My eyebrow goes nearly to my hairline. “The fact that you’re dragging me off to the side to whisper about how we can’t go makes me think you’re going to.” He frowns, trying to say something in a poor defense, but I interrupt him by lifting a finger. “Ah-ah! Sh! Listen: she didn’t say we couldn’t go,” I point out, “She said we as in the Resistance in general, not we as in Poe Dameron, Laylah Djarin, and the one-and-only BB-8.”    His dark eyes search my face for a moment, then he drops his head with an exasperated shake. He starts spinning the wrench again. “You’re gonna do this with or without me, aren’t you?”    I scoff, making him look up at me from under his brow. “Aren’t you? You need your badass Mandalorian best friend to watch your back, I need a guide and a Hutt-translator, Mr. Ex-Spice Runner. I’ll be at the Slave in an hour. We can’t take your X-wing anyway.” I start to walk away, but he stops me-- the wrench is back somewhere in his pockets, both of his hands on my shoulder. Currently, all of his focus in on me. I’m used to him having something else besides me to occupy his attention, so this is... unusual.   I don’t think I’ve ever seen Poe this serious as he tries to get across the gravity of what we’re doing here. “We do this, there’s no going back. You might get demoted, or your training suspended anyway, or you might not even be allowed to be a medic anymore. You might be considered unreliable, and then what?”   “I don’t give a damn what happens to me,” I hiss under my breath, “What I care about is getting the Resistance the medical supplies that they need. I’m willing to do whatever it takes. We all know it’ll be a miracle of any of these planets give us aid. But this Edda Hutt-- how steep are his prices, exactly?”    Poe scoffs, somehow shaking his head in disbelief and nodding to emphasize his point all at once. “They usually involve somebody dying to get him some obscure piece of whatever. That’s how steep.”    “Oh, well, that’s it?” I chirp as if that’s perfectly reasonable, “Alright, now I’ve got a heads-up.” He shakes his head, grip tightening on my shoulders. “I’m doing this, Poe.”    “We’re doing this,” He corrects sharply, his dark eyes locking with mine. There’s a spark of amber in them, like fire. “I’m not letting you go alone-- you can’t, you’ll never find Tiersa...” He straightens up a bit, putting his hands on his hips. “...And this was my dumbass idea anyway.”    Resolved, we agree to meet at the Slave in an hour. I swing through the armory first, grabbing a stunner-- I know I’m gonna need it. I’m at my room in five minutes, and have finished putting on my beskar save for the helmet in twenty. Someone knocks at the door just as I’m about to leave and have finished scrawling a note that says:
   Dad, sorry I had to stun you to get off the base on a mission I’m not supposed to go on. I promise I’ll be careful and listen to all your lectures when I get back. Tell Grogu I’ll be back soon. Love you.
    I hear the code being inputted. Kriff... I hear distinct jangling as Din enters. I hang my head, avoiding his gaze as I stand up, setting a bag packed full of food and first-aid supplies down on my cot. Din places Grogu on the bed next to my pack before turning to me, trying to seem imposing-- even with the armor, he just isn’t to me anymore. He’s Dad. His voice is firm but still it’s usual calm level when he says, “Don’t do this, Laylah. It’s too dangerous.”    I try to meet where his gaze might be. It’s hard to tell. “I’m a Mandalorian. Danger is just a part of my religion as weapons.”    “And is risking the lives of others? That’s carelessness,” Din counters swiftly, and I bet he’s narrowing his eyes at me. “Dameron’s willing to follow you through hellfire, but would you really let him? The Resistance needs him-- needs you. If anything happens to either of you, not only will they be short medical supplies, but they’ll have lost two of their best pilots.” I save my ass from crashing one time, and suddenly I’m Han Solo? His head snaps over to Grogu, who is rummaging in my bag and pulling out the blue cookies. “Grogu. No.” Grogu whimpers plaintively as he plops down and stares at the cookies wistfully, ears drooping.    We look right back at each other. I say, convicted, “Nothing’s going to happen to me-- or to Poe-- because of our mutual decision of reckless behavior that may or may not get what we need.”    Din sighs, shaking his head and crossing his arms. “You can’t know that for certain.”    “Not unless I make it happen.” I’m surprised by how strong and determined it comes out, when I’m worried and concerned myself. “If we don’t do something soon, the First Order is going to win. You know what’ll happen if we don’t get supplies-- and you know as well as I do that nobody’s going to give them to us.”    “Let me go to Tenbari first.”    “We can’t wait that long, Dad,” I turn away, starting to grab the strap of my bag. And the stunner, but Din’s so worried that he doesn’t see. That, and he’s trained me well. “We’re going. And we’ll be careful. I promise.” Before he can say anything else, I take a deep breath, heart pounding. “Sorry, Dad.” I yank the blaster out and stun him without a second thought.    He falls with an oof, sprawled out on my floor. I stare at him for a second, shocked. Kriff. I just stunned my kriffing dad. I just attacked him. I wonder if he’s going to abandon me after this, abandon me for betraying him for the greater good. I’m going to fully expect it. I sway, trying to fight something that feels like a panic attack. I’m shaking so badly I fall to the ground, back against my nightstand. It’s done. It’s over. I’ve just ruined my relationship with my dad. He’s gonna hate me after this. He’s not gonna want anything to do with me. I start to hyperventilate. I think I might be apologizing repeatedly, but I can’t be sure.    Stop it. You promised Poe you’d be at the Slave.    Poe.    I need to get to Poe and finish this mission. Get the supplies for the Resistance. Whatever happens with Din, I’ll at least have Poe.    I snatch my bag, pull my helmet on, look at Din again. I’m pretty sure I’m crying now. “I’m so sorry, Dad.” I leave my room after putting my note in his hand. Maybe by some miracle he won’t leave me. “Bye Grogu.” I close my door. Din should only be out of it for an hour or so, so we need to be out of here quickly.    I ignore the looks of confusion as I rush to the Slave, but thankfully everyone is too intimidated by the armor of a Mandalorian to approach me. When I reach the Slave, the ramp is already down, and Poe is already inside with BB-8, spinning a wrench between his hands. On the ground beside him is his own pack. When he hears me come up into the ship, he looks up, putting the wrench in his pocket. Raising his eyebrows, he points behind me, and I turn to see Captain Connix hurrying to the Slave with a bunch of soldiers with her. With them also is Admiral Statura, looking very very agitated, and I know we’re in trouble, because he usually remains extremely calm. Now he looks pissed.    “Dank farrik...” I slam my hand on the button to close the ramp and toss Poe my bag. He sets it on top of his and secures them both with the seat belts as I run to the cockpit. “Strap yourselves in, guys.”    I’m climbing into the cockpit, powering up the Slave, when the comlinks blare to life. “Djarin, your departure is unauthorized.” I don’t recognize the voice, but I can almost feel Leia standing nearby on the other side. “Please power down your ship and exit--” I flip the comlinks off. Kriff. I’m doing a lot of horrible things today. Takeoff is nothing like it was before; smooth and easy. After a few seconds, the engines are blasting us up, vertical, and then we’re speeding off toward space.    An alarm goes off as an X-wing patrol tries to intercept us, but the Slave is more maneuverable than ever before. I pitch the throttle and we abruptly dive, before leveling out and blasting up underneath of them toward free space. They’re on our tail, though, undeterred, and I have to punch the lightspeed button as soon as I see blackness with the only destination I can think of: Yëa.    As soon as we’re in the blue tunnel of streaming starlight, I lean back in the seat, taking several deep breaths. Adrenaline and anxiety buzz together, and I have to sit there for a second and convince myself that we just disobeyed orders for a damn good reason. I’m sure it’ll be fine. Dad cares about me, right? Right?    I hear Poe coming up behind me, and I turn to look at him out of the corner of my eye as he reaches the landing behind my seat. He doesn’t look as stunned as I am-- probably because he does this kind of thing a lot. Which is good, because having somebody with experience on this little trip really helps. “...Did we just do that?” He nods gravely, and I face the window, trying to stop shaking. “Yeesh, we’re in so much trouble...”    “They’ll thank us later,” Poe assures both himself and me, then adds, “After they’re done yelling at us.” He leans forward to try and see the coordinates I’ve entered. “Where are we going?”    “We had to get away from the patrols fast, so, I inputted Yëa’s location. Anybody else know where Tiersa is? We might be met with a friendly ambush trying to knock some sense into us.”    Poe chuckles, shaking his head. “Everybody knows of Tiersa. But the only ones who can actually find it are those who already know where it is.”    I bury my helmeted face in my hands, laughing quietly at the absurdity of that statement. It’s times like this where I wonder if I’m just having an elaborate dream influenced by reality, but if that’s the case, where the hell are the elves and dragons? I lean back, tilting my head up to see Poe looking very concerned, raising an eyebrow at me and frowning. I manage through my laughter, “What is this? Pirates of the Caribbean?”   His face smooths out and he smirks a little. “...Is that some Earth reference I’m not gonna get?”   “Yeah.”   Poe shrugs, nodding in understanding. “Just checking.” He pats my shoulder. “By the way, you now have grappling hook marks in the walls of your ship.”   “In the walls of my--” The Slave?! Kriffing grappling hook marks when we spent so long making her shiny and new?! “What the hell did you need a grappling hook for?!”   Poe looks sympathetic. Probably because if anyone dares to scratch his baby Black One, things happen. I once seen him enter the mess hall looking all scruffy and covered in grease demanding who the hell clipped his X-wing with theirs, fully prepared to kick somebody’s ass. When the guy tried to sneak away into the kitchens, I then witnessed how fast Poe Dameron can run, even sliding over the tables as a shortcut to grab the guy and drag him out onto the tarmac to fix the scratches himself. “Not me; Beebs. He needed to hold on until we were level. I couldn’t find any other place to strap him down. I’ll patch ’em up when we get back, don’t worry.”      Luckily, I understand. Laying down in those space-shuttle-like seats can’t be easy for a little droid, and it’s certainly disorienting at first even for a person. “Understandable.”    He gestures to the streaking lightspeed out the window. “You should just drop out here. Commander Djarin knows you’ve only got a handful of coordinates in this thing, so where do you think he’s gonna try to find you?”    “You’re right.” I really do not want to run into him after what I did, so I drop out, and we’re in the middle of nowhere. Nothing but vast, black emptiness for as far as the eye can see. I turn to Poe questioningly. “Now what?”    He slides onto the tiny ledge between the seat and the control panel, gripping the back of my seat for balance as he leans over, reaching for it; he takes a second, scanning the old setup for the navicomputer. I scoff a little under my breath when I realize where my eyes are drawn to. “Nice ass.”
  “Thanks,” He replies in full seriousness without pausing his search, then, “...Where the hell is your navicomputer?” I point to it almost accusingly. He inputs the coordinates in a format I’ve never seen before, then launches us back into lightspeed before I can warn him. Even with the upgrades, the initial jolt still gives us some turbulence.     Poe yelps as he loses his grip on the chair and slips off the ledge. He slams into the transparisteel window on his back, still sore from being thrown onto the duracrete. I flip on autopilot and hop down just as he catches his breath and is rolling onto his side with extreme difficulty. “Yeah. That hurt.”    “I bet.” With my help, he’s back up on the ledge and is moving toward the seats behind the pilot’s chair. Every third step apparently warrants an “ow,” and I purposefully pat his sore back a couple of times. “It’s your own fault, y’know.”      “Ow ow ow. Was that really necessary?” He turns to look at me in mock-betrayal.    I try and fail to stifle a chuckle. “Maybe you’ll think twice about challenging somebody like Balfro to a wrestling match next time.”    “Maybe. No promises.”  He starts to go back to his seat, then stops, staring at me expectantly as I take my seat. I stop and wait for him to ask whatever it is he’s wanting to. He sounds like a little kid when he says, “...Can I fly for a bit?”    “No,” I reply immediately. Not out of fear for the Slave, because he could drop us out of lightspeed right now and send us into death-defying maneuvers near the corona of a sun, and I’d completely trust him. I tell him no because his face is priceless.    “Dammit.” Poe goes to his seat, muttering to himself, and I turn back to the controls, deciding to keep it on autopilot for awhile. Something feels off. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I’ve just stunned my dad and broken every rule the Resistance ever had, not to mention I disobeyed a direct order-- but... Something feels different. I cross my arms, suspicious but unable to act on anything. I worry myself into a dozing state, my half-dreams of Din abandoning me and Leia being so ashamed that she kicks me out of the Resistance interspersed by sunshine-snippets of Poe singing softly to himself and making a beat with his wrench on the wall of the ship.
                                                         -  -  -
    I wake up to BB-8’s frantic whistling and beeping. It makes me nervous as soon as I hear it. The off feeling is even worse now. Kriff, there’s somebody on the ship that’s not supposed to be.    “What is it, buddy?” I hear Poe ask, then repeat dubiously, “...What do you mean there’s something moving in her pack?”    I twist around in the cockpit, alarmed. “What do you mean there’s something moving in my pack?!” I make sure the ship is still on autopilot and hurriedly climb around to find Beebs and Poe both staring at my bag as it crawls across the floor of the grated platform with a life of its own. After a second, Poe nods decisively, turning to face me with his hands on his hips.    “I’m gonna shoot it.”    “Don’t shoot it!”    “Say that when you open it to find a spider as big as your head.”    I rush forward with an awful, horrible suspicion. Nah, that can’t happen. Nah, he was on the bed, right? I said goodbye to him and everything. I tear the flap open, reach inside, and scoop out a familiar green face, proving that he was not on the bed when I’d left my bunk earlier. “GROGU?!”    He babbles incoherently, probably trying to formulate an acceptable excuse as to why he stowed away. He’s even flinging his arms about like there’s no way in hell he can possibly be held accountable for his actions. Poe whistles low under his breath, avoiding meeting my gaze. I turn to Poe desperately. “What the hell do we do?!”     This time, he can’t hold back a laugh of disbelief. “Why are you asking me?”     “You’re older than me! You’ve been adulting for longer!” I cry, but even as I say it I hear how stupid that sounds.     Poe scoffs, putting his hands on his hips after gesturing vaguely at Grogu. “Well I can tell you right now I’ve got twelve more years of adulting experience than you do, and I have no idea what to do. I’ve never had a baby stow away on my X-wing.” Beebs beeps in affirmation.     I shift the way I’m holding Grogu, imagining the absolute terror Din must be feeling right now. Does he think I took him on purpose, or does he figure he stowed away? “Should we drop out of lightspeed, turn around?”     “Too late now,” Poe shrugs, trying (and failing) to hide the fact that he’s attempting not to laugh. “We’re almost to Tiersa. If we go back now, we can kiss the deal with Edda goodbye. We’re not gonna get out of there easily again.”    Grogu agrees with a tiny little sound I hardly catch. I don’t know if we should keep going or head back-- but if we do that, we’ll never get off D’Qar again. And honestly? I’m not really ready to face Din’s reaction to me stunning him or taking his kid. Or potentially getting booted from the Resistance. Vocally, I try to reason with myself and Poe. “Poe, we can’t go on some daring mission with Grogu with us! He’s a baby!”    Beebs lets out a slew of beeping noises. Poe nods along with him for a second, listening very seriously, and then raises his eyebrows at me points to him as if BB-8 knows best. At this point, he probably does. “Droid’s got a point. Djarin did it all the time in his younger days if the stories he tells are true.”      Helplessly, I hold Grogu and am suddenly really regretting doing this. Why why why why why? Why? Wait... Then I realize why he was in my bag, heart sinking to my boots. My eyes widen with realization and I lean down to dig through the contents, finding a very empty pack of cookies and my bag full of crumbs. “He wanted the cookies. Dad told him no-- Maker, Poe, he came because of the damn cookies!”    He turns, putting his hands on the back of his head; when he turns back around, he’s almost laughing. “And what have we learned about your sweet tooth? You have no self-control and will eat a whole cake by yourself if left unattended, even attended--”    “That was one time--”    “--and you attract stowaway infants on dangerous missions."    I sigh, running a hand down the length of my helmet. “Great. Perfect. Now not only are we breaking rules, but I just accidentally kidnapped my baby brother.”    BB-8 beeps low, and rolls away to hide under a seat with a whir of anxiety. Poe is desperately trying not to laugh, half-pacing because every time he looks at us he almost busts out laughing. “Gotta tell you something, though: your dad’s gonna be pissed.” He bites his knuckles to stifle the laugh that nearly escapes him, wincing at the very idea. I glare at him even as Grogu tries to shove his last cookie in my face as a peace offering. This mission may very well be a bust, because Din isn’t likely to be unaware of our location for long.    “You ever hear the story of when Grogu was kidnapped by Moff Gideon?”    Poe puts his hands on his hips, taking up a very serious air about him, though the corners of his mouth twitch as he fights a grin. Matter-of-factly, he says, “And your dad went and rounded up a bunch of Mandalorians and old friends to storm his ship, won the Darksaber, and summoned Luke Skywalker somehow?” He nods for emphasis when he sees my expression; Din doesn’t often tell his stories, but when he does they spread quickly. I was never aware that he’d told that one; it’s rare to hear it from him. I’m sorry I missed it. “Yeah. I’ve heard it. Wouldn’t be surprised if he jetpacks right through the cockpit window any second now.”     “We’ve made a horrible mistake...” I sigh as I brush crumbs off of Grogu’s robe and face, trying to remain calm.     Poe comes closer, going from teasing to reassuring in just a second. “I’m sure Djarin’s trying to find us, but he won’t. Not here. Which means you’re in charge of protecting Grogu now, and I’ll help you. Nothing’s gonna hurt that little guy so long as we’re around. But if we turn around now, with nothing to show for it? We’ll have just disobeyed an order for no reason. We have to keep going.”     I’m already nodding; I can’t back out now, anyway. What kind of Mandalorian does that? I already swore to protect Grogu. Like, it’s pretty much completely legal according to Mandalorian law if I take him, technically. Probably. “So now we have two goals: protect Grogu, and make a deal with Edda Hutt.”     Poe inclines his head, glad I’m getting it, and turns his attention to Grogu. “Hey, buddy. We’re on a very dangerous mission right now, so you have to do everything your big sister and I say, alright? We’re gonna keep you safe.”     “Badu,” Grogu agrees-- at least, I hope he agrees, instead of saying yeah ha ha whatever I’ll just be doing my own thing.     Poe beams and holds up his hand for a high-five, which Grogu awkwardly returns. “Alright, great.” He straightens up with a sigh, twirling his wrench in one hand and suddenly serious. “When we get to Tiersa, you’ve gotta follow my lead. Edda knows me from when I was a spice runner; we did some deals together, but not many because of how he runs things. He doesn’t know you, and he’s less inclined to make a deal with somebody he doesn’t know.”     “He hold up his end of the bargains?” This is what I’m worried about. A hopeless, useless endeavor that may have cost me my relationship with my father.     He huffs, shaking his head. “Always, if you could get what he wanted. I almost died twice making deals with him. He may be an evil slimeball, but he’s an evil slimeball of his word.” He notices that I don’t really respond to this, that I’m standing there quietly bouncing Grogu up and down and looking down at the floor. He nudges my shoulder. “You alright there, Bez?”     I shake my head. “I stunned my dad for this. I accidentally kidnapped his kid. He’s probably gonna hate me.”    “You say his kid as if you’re not one of ’em,” Poe scoffs, trying to make it sound lighthearted, but there’s sympathy in his eyes and the way his smile suddenly seems forced. He knows how scared I am about being abandoned... Which seems absolutely obsolete compared to the worry about getting the necessary supplies for the Resistance. I have to push my personal feelings aside to focus on the mission, I know this, but it’s hard. I’ve never done it before. His voice is soft. “He wouldn’t’ve named you his heir if he didn’t truly think of you as his daughter, Bez. It’s gonna be alright, you’ll see.”    I take comfort in his confidence. I make myself believe him, even if deep down I’m still terrified. Slowly, I start nodding to show that I appreciate his assurances and understand; Poe shakes his head in disbelief, keeping his eyes on me as if to gauge how bad I’m feeling. “What the hell did those people do to you, Bez?”    I don’t-- can’t-- answer. I’ve already told him everything. At this point, I’m now trying to block all my personal fears for the sake of the mission. I’ll deal with them later. Right now all that matters is getting the medical supplies for the Resistance. I take a breath and change the subject. “...I’ve never seen a Hutt.”    He takes a second, nodding to show that he understands I’m done talking about it. He shifts back into his cocky, hotshot self with a shrug, stepping back a bit. “I’m not surprised. Picture a slug, but with a frog face, and as big as a speederbike.”    The image is disturbing at best. “Beautiful.”    Poe adds, shaking his wrench at me, “Oh, and he reeks like a swamp.”     My whole body responds in some kind of accepting gesture of great. “Splendid.”    Grogu babbles and reaches for the pack, which is still on the ground. He’s completely ignoring our conversation, instead only wanting the kriffing cookies. I sigh heavily, expecting to have to deal with an angry toddler that wants cookies the whole damn trip. “Sorry, Gizmo. That’s all I brought. You ate them all.”    Poor Grogu looks like he’s ready to cry. He lifts his head and leans back to look at me, probably trying to see with the Force if I’m telling the truth. When I shake my head to emphasize that there are none left on this ship, Grogu sorrowfully examines his crumb-covered hands and I swear he’s about to burst into sobs.    “Did he, though?” As if by magic, Poe pulls a smaller pack of cookies from his jacket pocket, presenting them to Grogu with a beaming smile. Grogu’s face lights up immediately, and he reaches with both arms for the cookies babbling rapidly in what might be either gimme that or please can I have it. With Grogu it’s sometimes hard to tell. Poe opens them for him and passes them on. “Here you go, buddy. These ones really are the last ones, though, unless...” He turns around in circles expectantly, gesturing with wide arms to the whole of the ship around us, “You got some secret stash of candy somewhere, Bez? Maybe a whole cake or two?”    “Shut up, Dameron.” He turns to stare at me, unamused-- he’ll do this until I admit to it. What self-respecting Mandalorian addicted to sugar wouldn’t keep a secret stash of candy? I shift my weight back and forth, trying not to give in... but, then I do. “...Fine. I do.” He immediately goes off in search of it, but I stop him by grabbing his arm. “But you’ll never find it, so don’t even try it! Besides, it’s all hard candy. Grogu can’t have any.”    Poe somehow manages to keep a straight face, though it looks really hard for him to do. “...It’s that yellowish one that you say tastes like butterscotch, isn’t it?”    Yeah, it is, and I’m surprised he remembers; although I really shouldn’t be. When I first discovered it I literally ate myself to sickness because I said it tastes like butterscotch. I was stuck in the medbay as I worked off a sugar high and was unable to keep any actual food down. During the event, Din and Poe were concerned, but after it was over they haven’t stopped teasing me about it when it’s brought up. Of course, he’ll never find it. Good luck hunting out the loose panel that is otherwise flush unless you bang on it right. I shake my head in disbelief, gesturing to him up-and-down. “What about you, huh? You just randomly carry cookies on you, do you? For no apparent reason?”    “I’m always prepared,” Poe replies, clapping me on the shoulder. “Kids love cookies. So say I’m in a town with a bunch of kids, I always pass out cookies. They deserve it.”    “Huh,” I hadn’t realized he’d ever done that. That’s brand new information about him, and it’s... I beam at him. “That’s... actually really sweet of you, Poe.”     He shrugs, flushing with embarrassment. “It’s something I’ve always done. I’m sure everybody passes out cookies or candy to kids if they have a chance.” He reaches over and takes Grogu from me, trying to mimic the way Din holds him, and points at the cockpit. “We’ve been in lightspeed for about an hour now. We should drop out at any minute, and just flying straight on autopilot is gonna get us killed pretty fast. I’ll be up in a minute, I’m gonna try putting him in the bag like your dad does.”    BB-8 is already handing him the bag, having stuffed all of my things in with Poe’s while we were talking-- the droid thinks ahead. Maybe he should be in charge. As Poe kneels down to adjust it, I turn and hurry into the cockpit. I’ve just finished strapping myself in when we drop out, and I pull on the brakes-- not that it’s needed here. In shock, I kind of just sit there for a second, frozen. “What the kriff?”     Thankfully, my questions don’t have to wait long, because Poe is coming up beside me. He seems unfazed by the view, but I start waving my arm at it, vainly trying to explain why I think this is unusual, but the only phrase I can seem to utter is, “What the kriff?!”     It’s nothing. As in, there’s no planet. There’s no moon. There’s no debris showing that Tiersa may have been obliterated. No clouds of colorful space-dust. There’s just empty space before us. Empty. Space. “What the kriffing kriff, Poe?!”     He keeps his gaze on the extraordinary expanse of absolute nothing before us, eyes flicking around like he’s looking for something. “Just keep flying forward. Slowly.”     I wonder if he’s currently suffering a lightspeed-induced hallucination. “There’s nothing there!”     Poe turns his head to look at me. Even with my helmet he somehow meets my eyes, and I’ve never seen him look more serious since I’ve known him. “You trust me?”     Of course I do. I trust him with my life, illusions before us or no. He knows what he’s doing. I heave a sigh and start easing up on the brakes, moving forward at an incredibly slow pace. “You know I do.”    Poe nods toward the window, anxious and tense. I only ever see him like this when he’s about to go out on a mission definitely involving a fight with the First Order, which has only happened twice since I’ve known him. His voice goes all commander mode-- though it’s hard to take him seriously when Grogu is trying to copy him and be all stern. “Then fly forward, very slowly. Turn the comlinks on. And when we’re hailed, let me do the talking.”     I flip the switches as he orders me to, tilting my head a little and settling into my seat with a whooshing deep breath. I readjust my grip on the throttle. Poe’s nervous, which makes me nervous. Being nervous isn’t good. Just be cool, like Poe is. “Gladly.”     My heart is pounding so loudly I’m sure he can hear it-- or maybe I’m hearing his. The blood rushes in my ears and I take a deep breath to make my hands go steady. What the hell is out here that we can’t see? “I’ve never done anything like this before.”    “Well, lucky for you, I have. Just stay calm.” He reaches down and squeezes my shoulder in assurance. “If they see you’re nervous, they’ll take advantage of it. Ready?”    “No. But whatever.”     He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He’s watching out the window, and so I do. As we get closer, I start to see definition: Machinery. Hexagonal slivers of light. Cannons. There’s a freaking orb of metal around this planet, which is pretty recognizable to somebody from Earth if they’re a huge fan of sci-fi, like myself.  “A Dyson sphere,” I breathe in awe. How the hell...     Poe looks down at me curiously, absentmindedly keeping a hand on Grogu as the little guy tries to climb out of the bag to explore the cockpit. “What?”     I struggle to find the words to explain. I’m not a scientist, I’m a doctor. Ninety-percent of my sci-fi knowledge comes from movies and outdated books from my childhood, gathered when I’d wanted to be the pilot of the space shuttle. Before NASA kriffing retired it... Although the Slave is a pretty badass equal to the space shuttle. “A Dyson sphere. A hypothetical structure built to fully encompass a star and harness its solar energy, beaming it back to a planet via a series of powerful satellites. At least... it was hypothetical on Earth. Guess it’s not here.”    The fact that this galaxy has so many similarities to mine makes me worry about whether or not Din is right about me having memory implants. Is this the original, and Earth was fake? Or is Earth the original, and this is fake? Am I in some kind of coma on Earth? Or did I die? Which, if I had, that kind of makes Din and Poe my guardian angels, maybe.    Poe hums when he hears my definition of a Dyson sphere. I push my worries out of my head and focus on the task at hand. “We call it a planet-shield,” He tells me, “Back when Tiersa was a prison colony, they built this to keep anybody from leaving. When they were freed, the Tiersans used it to their advantage. This is why nobody can find it-- or if they do, they crash into it before they even know what happened.”    “Lovely,” I choke out, forcing myself not to ease up until he tells me to. “So what now?”   “Just keep going.”    Ahead of us, a door opens. Blinding white light flashes, and I wince away before my helmet darkens to the equivalent of glareshades. I glance over and see Poe actually putting a pair of glareshades on. “So do you just have an entire stash of various supplies hidden in your jacket?”    He shrugs, unwrapping something and popping it into his mouth. “Maybe.”    I stare at him for a second, trying to see what exactly he’s eating. “...Is that my kriffing space-butterscotch?”    He bounces his eyebrows and gives me a smug smile. “Told you I’d find it.”    I, meanwhile, am trying to figure out how the kriff he found it so fast. “How the hell--”     “Don’t be so surprised, Bez.” He turns his attention back to the window, hands on his hips. Grogu has ducked into the bag to avoid the light, mumbling to himself in baby-babble. “That loose panel was asking for me to hit it.”    My eyes narrow. He’s just given himself away. “...You found it while I was dozing off, didn’t you?”    Poe casually stands there and makes absolutely certain that my space-butterscotch crunches once loudly before he talks. “...Maybe don’t doze off when you’ve got an already-fidgety X-wing pilot with ADHD on board. Your own fault.”    I peer around him in a vain attempt to see what the hell else he messed with. “What else did you mess with? Or break?”    The comlinks flare to life, making me jump so badly I almost fly right out of the seat. “Firespray 31-class, identify yourself.” Poe turns away and covers his mouth to try and stifle the fact that he’s stopping a laugh and to try and keep from choking. When Poe composes himself (though he’s still chuckling), I turn expectantly to him. The people on the other end don’t at all sound friendly.    Poe is fully serious now, and somehow he’s already swallowed the candy. He gives a here we go shrug, shifting around the chair to push the button, careful of Grogu in the bag at his waist. “This is Poe Dameron from Kijimi. I’m here to talk business with Edda Hutt.”    There’s silence on the other end, and Poe lets go of the button so that he can speak freely to me. “Edda pretty much runs the place. Almost everybody answers to him. He’s a powerful crime lord, so just play along with whatever I say or do.”     Man, it’s a good thing I trust him. If I were doing this with anyone else-- hell, if this were an official mission and I’d been paired with somebody who told me that, I know I’d end up screwing it up, because doing whatever they say without any context is not gonna work for me-- unless it’s Poe. I know he’ll get us in and out of there safely so long as I play my part. “Gotcha.”     We wait. I start bouncing my knee nervously until Poe absentmindedly reaches over to hold my leg still. “Stop it. You’re making me nervous.” I glance over at him. What about your leg-bouncing, flyboy? But then I recall that he’s got this kind of special ability. When Poe’s in the middle of something extremely important, all his focus is on what’s he’s doing. Somehow he can channel all of his ADHD into completing a task-- probably more so when it involves guns, potential death, and danger. All of his senses are watching for danger and ready for fight-or-flight.    Grogu seems to sense our nerves, and tucks himself into the bag. It looks like Poe just has a regular satchel on with nothing special inside, because Grogu remains still as a stone once he’s in there. Poe even latches the bag shut securely. “Good idea, buddy. Stay hidden.”     I hear Beebs asking questions from below. I lean over to see him at the foot of the ladder, looking as anxious as a droid can as he wobbles back and forth. “I don’t know. They’re quiet.”     “Probably seeing if this is alright with Edda,”  Poe says. Then he straightens up, tense, and points to two spots on either side of the open hangar. “They just trained cannons on us from there, and there. If Edda doesn’t approve this, we’ll be shot right outta orbit.”    Oh kriff... I start flipping switches, preparing the Slave for any sudden evasive maneuvers I might have to pull. Every system is ready for a sudden reverse. Nothing moves, and everything is far too silent. Nerves have me wanting to yank the Slave back out of the range of the cannons now, just to be safe. But they haven’t opened fire and Poe hasn’t given me that order yet. “Poe...”    He doesn’t move. I can’t tell where his eyes are because of the glareshades. “Easy, Bez. Don’t move yet.”   The comlink flares to life, and I brace myself to yank back on the throttle. A prompt appears on the navicomputer: landing coordinates and instructions. “You’re to follow these instructions, and you’ll be met with an escort at the landing pad.” Curtly, they cut off the channel, and the light shuts off, leaving a burning afterimage even though my helmet was darkened. Poe leans back with a breath of relief, taking off his glareshades-- from the furious way he’s blinking, I’d say they did just as little good as my darkening visor. “You might wanna let me pilot now, Bez. Tiersa’s got one hell of a climate.”    Immediately, I start unbuckling. He is the best pilot in the Resistance, after all. He can literally fly anything. And though I don’t believe he will at all, I still feel the need to jokingly mock, “You crash the Slave, and I won’t have to kick your ass. Boba Fett will come back from the dead to do it for me.”    He’s barely paying attention. He’s watching the cannons and squinting at the open hexagon before us like he’s expecting an attack. “Noted.”      Once I’m standing, he pulls the strap of Grogu’s bag up over his head and puts it on me. Grogu squeaks with surprise as he bangs against my hip lightly. Poe jumps into the pilot’s seat, but he doesn’t seem excited-- only cautious. “Go strap yourself in. We hesitate for much longer and they’re gonna blow us up anyway.”   “Nice of them.” I hurry to the seats behind him and strap myself in, holding Grogu protectively to my chest. BB-8 whirs in apology before latching himself to a wall. “It’s fine, Beebs. Just make sure you hold on. If you fall the length of the ship...” He’s a sturdy droid, but that’s a tough fall.    I think that Poe must have been paying attention to the few short times he’s watched me pilot this thing up close and personal, because he somehow knows where everything is-- or maybe he’s just that good. It’s hard to tell. Somehow he’s in total, complete control of the Slave and all he had to ask was where’s your navicomputer.    “Kriff, Poe,” I say as I watch him from my seat, a little jealous as I remember how many times it took me to learn the controls of Din’s starfighter. Worse, how the one time Poe showed me the workings of an X-wing (not in his precious Black One, and on the ground), I couldn’t remember any of the buttons except for the one that started the engine. “Wish I could fly like you.”    Poe scoffs as he guides the Slave into the enclosed atmosphere of Tiersa. “You’ve got a whole different set of skills I can’t top, Mandalorian.”    At that, I make a face of acceptance and nod to myself. “Yeah, yeah. You’re right. Carry on with your badass pilot self, Dameron.” I see him mock-salute, but then both hands are working to keep the Slave stable as we enter a whirlwind of beige and brown dust and clouds. I can’t see a thing, which means Poe is probably relying solely on the systems. He’s flying blind, which is something I can’t do at all. The view outside the window is making me nervous, so I focus on little Grogu, who decides to eat one of the cookies Poe gave him. I can’t help but smile when he gets crumbs all over not only his little burlap robe and the beskar chainmail underneath, but my armor, as well.    It isn’t long before we’re feeling strong turbulence. I glance to Poe, but being unable to see his face, I can’t tell if he’s worried about that or not. Grogu whimpers with concern, clinging to me through the bag and tapping my shoulder to get my attention. “It’s okay, buddy. This isn’t the craziest stuff you’ve been through, right?”  I sometimes forget that even though Grogu is a baby for his race, he’s still far older than I am-- far older than even Din or Leia, or even the Slave. I wonder how much he’s seen... Din told me about what happened to him on Coruscant, and that I was not to mention it, ever, under any circumstances, in front of him. I wonder how terrifying it was to witness the slaughter of the Jedi Temple by the one who would someday become Darth Vader. Only Luke, apparently, knows exactly what he saw.    When Grogu and I communicate through the Force, it’s always with emotions and pictures, never words, and it leaves Grogu exhuasted. I hate using it anyway, because if I keep trying, will I reach the point of being able to become a Jedi-- or Sith? I think about how angry I got when Dia told us the news. I shouldn’t have been able to break that wall. It’s unnatural. I shouldn’t have let that rage come out in the Force, if that’s what it was. Doesn’t that mean I have the makings of a Sith? Letting anger control and fuel my actions? It’s the last thing I want. If I were turned into a Sith, I’d betray everyone I know and care for. I’d start killing. I’d be the one ordering the interception of medical convoys. I’d be stripped of my Mandalorian identity and honor, given black robes and a red saber. I’d become exactly what I never wanted to be, something akin to all the villains of Earth that wipe out the good. It terrifies me.     Din wants, more than anything, for me to take on the task of restoring Mandalore, which I’m happy and eager to do-- what other purpose could I have here? Where I dropped into the galaxy made that pretty obvious. But then he’d also told me that he’d pass on the Darksaber to me when the time came-- the saber that felt so much better than a blaster, that complimented my preferred reverse grip. I could still, very clearly, remember the sound of the plasma blade igniting. The air around it crackling with heat and energy. It is a very powerful weapon, and I wish I had it with me so that I might better be able to protect Grogu. I only wish that there were two. Holding one saber with two hands felt wrong. My other hand needs a blade. I wonder if I might be able to find a lightsaber to go with the Darksaber, or if it would even be allowed.    I will admit-- despite detesting the idea of using the Force, I prefer the idea of lightsabers as a weapon than blasters. Din had told me once that having a saber doesn’t make somebody a Jedi or a Sith.    But if I can use the Force and have a lightsaber, what exactly does that make me?    The Slave tilts. In a matter of seconds the seat is horizontal and I hear the engines powering down. Poe appears as I’m unstrapping myself and standing. He looks nervous; shifting his weight, biting his lip... BB-8 rolls over to him with a beep of assurance, and Poe kneels so that he’s eye-level with him. “Stay with the ship. Be ready to power it up.” BB-8 beeps in understanding and rolls toward the cockpit.     I regard Poe for a second, confused. “The Slave doesn’t have a droid interface.”    He shakes his head, pulling a respirator mask out of his jacket pocket and ignoring my reaction to that. The wrench, glareshades, cookies, this mask... The jacket of infinite wonders... He have an X-wing in there? “Doesn’t need one.” He locks eyes with me, trying to convey how serious his next words are. “Remember, no matter what I say, just play along.”     I readjust Grogu so that he’s at my hip with one hand, grabbing Poe’s arm to reassure him with the other. “I’ve got it, Poe, don’t worry.”      Poe and I stand side-by-side at the base of the ramp. He pulls the mask on, making sure it’s sealed around his face and is secured tightly by the straps. He looks at me for a second; my helmet systems lock onto him when I touch a specific button on my earpiece, and start recording his vitals. His heart is pounding.    Kriff, how dangerous is this planet? He jerks his chin at me, voice muffled. “That thing filter air?”    I think about that for a second, but then realize what I’ve seen Din to, the stories he tells of Bo-Katan. “It should. It can let me breathe underwater, but I haven’t tested it.”     He turns back to the ramp, hand hovering over the button. “Even if it doesn’t, it should block the worst of the pollution. That bag should keep Grogu safe, so long as he doesn’t poke his head out. Ready?”     I face the door. Man, I hope this works... They could just shoot at us and take our ship. On that note, I prepare to leap in front of Poe and shove Grogu behind me at once. My beskar will protect me, but Grogu doesn’t have a helmet and Poe has nothing in the way of armor. “As I’ll ever be.”     We both take a second to brace ourselves, then he pushes the button and the ramp begins to lower. Waiting to greet us is a dreary sight: windswept old plains, littered with dead shrubbery and trash, are lit dimly from giant lights on the underside of the planet-shield above that can’t exactly pierce the brownish smog. Just a few hundred yards from the dusty old tarmac is a congested, dirty city. I hear people screaming, coughing, and blasterfire even from here.     Kriffing yikes. No wonder Leia didn’t want us coming here.     Standing with old blasters that I’m not going to risk doubting the functionality of are at least six people from various species in old, tattered clothes. Dirty, scruffy, and with drying blood and healing bruises in places, they look ready to try and rob us rather than take us to Edda. Which strikes me as odd.     I glance sideways at Poe, keeping my voice low. “What the hell did you do to make them think they need six guys to keep you in line?” He can fight, sure, but six guys with blasters are a match for anyone but a Mandalorian, and they can’t have possibly known I was here until here until the ramp opened.     “I’ll tell you later,” He says to me before addressing what is hopefully our escort. “I’m here to see Edda Hutt.”     A purple-gray Twi’lek sneers, baring rotting teeth once filed to fangs. He jerks his rifle at me in gesture. I rest a hand not on my blaster, but on the top of the satchel Grogu is in. “What’s with the Mandalorian?”    Poe has clearly already thought of our story, because he says calmly, “She’s my bodyguard.” He sounds so entirely convincing that even I almost believe him.    One of them stalks up the ramp by order of the Twi’lek. “Your weapons.” Poe and I pass them their blasters, and I spend ten minutes removing all my knives and throwing daggers.    “And you talk about me,” Poe mutters to me when the man marches back down to his comrades with a bag full of our weapons.    The Twi’lek waves his weapon around at us carelessly. “Search them, you idiots!”    Two rush up and don’t hesitate in roughly patting us down. The one searching me practically hits Grogu’s bag hard enough to make him yelp, and I don’t even realize that I’ve clocked the guy hard in the center of his face until he’s sprawled on the ground holding his bloodied face, crushed by the beskar handguard. The escort’s weapons are powered up and aimed at us, while Poe spreads his arms and steps between me and the escort. “Hey hey hey! Easy, everybody calm down!”     The guy that had searched Poe bends over to pull his groaning ally away. I’ve taken up a fighting stance, but not the one distinctly used for the flamethrower and whistling birds I’m keeping hidden. They might find that a little odd and take my vambraces, and then what? We would be entirely defenseless. “Laylah,” Poe warns, “What are you doing?”    He hears Grogu whimpering, and then understanding flicks in his eyes. I think I might even see anger before he turns back to face our escort, keeping himself between us.     “The Mandalorian stays here!” The Twi’lek orders frantically.     “The Mandalorian is going with Dameron whether you like it or not,” I say back very calmly, but Poe turns to give me a stern shake of his head, keeping a hand on my shoulder.     “Easy,” He urges, “He just... accidentally hit her... pet. She’s protective. But it won’t happen again. Will it?” He points that last bit at me, and I bite back a sharp retort along the lines of, So long as these bastards keep their hands to themselves and keep their weapons where I can see them, but I stop myself just in time. I only manage a stiff nod. Poe turns back to the escort, keeping his hands up. “See? Just a misunderstanding... Are we good?”    Reluctantly, the escort steps back so that we can disembark. Poe takes my elbow, probably to try and stop me if I try anything else, and guides me off the ramp. I close it behind us. I ignore the escort’s death-glares and the fact that their weapons are uselessly aimed on me, but keep an eye on those aimed at Poe. One shot is all it takes... While keeping tabs on them out of my peripheral, I turn on the light on my helmet and peer into the bag, silently asking if Grogu’s okay.    “Badu,” He mumbles softly, shielding his eyes from the harshness of the light; I don’t see any bruising and he’s nibbling on a cookie, so I think he’s fine. I turn off the light and return the bag to its place at my waist, keeping a hand on top at all times. The other is ready to use my whistling birds.    It’s a tense and overly-long walk into the crime-ridden city. The sandy buildings may once have been sandstone, but are now crumbling ruins of green-gray with slats of wood for doors, boarded-up windows, and surrounded by piles of muck, rotting animal bodies, and trash. I see three guys mauling a jawa, two others shooting the hell out of a shop, and an ugnaut running off with a bag I initially think is full of stolen goods until I seen blood staining the burlap and realize he’s carrying a dead body.    Kriff. I tighten my hold on Grogu and keep my eyes on Poe. Maybe Dad was right. If Poe gets shot up here, I’d never forgive myself. I trust him to be aware of his surroundings directly ahead of him, so I take up a position behind him, watching his sides and guarding his back.    It seems like an eternity before we reach an alley filled with people clearly using spice. They’re all either high or drunk, laughing and partying and dancing, watching gamblers and wrestling matches. They eye us, throw themselves into our path and mumble some incoherent words before the escort shoves them off, or openly point us out to whole parties that eagerly turn to watch the procession.    Grogu has curled up, tense and silent. All my senses are focused on him and Poe, and I worry for BB-8 all by himself in the Slave. Poe keeps glancing over his shoulder at me and scanning the walls and roofs for danger. One time when people start shooting each other at a party, he yanks me down to duck with him seconds before one of our escort right beside me gets his head shot clean off. A hit at that velocity would’ve knocked me out even with my beskar, and then Poe and Grogu would be left undefended. I’ve never seen an injury that gruesome, though-- it takes all I have not to retch. Thank the Maker I’m wearing the helmet.    We’re led into a building, through a less violent party, and down a hidden staircase to a basement where people were still partying, but significantly less exuberantly. People here seem to be working off their high, at least for the night. We’re taken down a wide, sandy stairwell, where we enter a very different setting.    Clearly, Edda Hutt-- a disgusting, enormous slug-thing that was just as Poe had described him, only a pale greenish-white with brown stripes-- is in charge here. Everybody seems scared of him. Sure, they snort spice off dirty tables and dance a little, but Edda’s focus is on the star of the show, so everyone else follows suit. A weird little thing that looks like an anteater with the body of a frog is trying to sing, but it’s a horrible sound. The music is off-tempo and screechy. In the center of the ring of people, a Twi’lek female in hardly any clothes tries to dance, but with the horrible music and the chain on her neck, it’s difficult.    The chain is attaching her to the Hutt, and I realize she’s a slave. I tense. You kidding me right now? A slave? I’d lived in America in the 21st century. Slaves, to me, were a thing of history. Stuff you read about in school. Never thought I’d actually ever see one.   It makes me angry. I want to storm down there and blow Edda to a disgusting mass of slime with my flamethrowers and free the girl. She’s clearly terrified. She is a living, thinking person and deserves to be free. How dare he? My jaw clenches so hard it pops when I turn my narrowed gaze on Edda, fist tightening on my empty holster. How dare you? How dare you? How about I tear you down from there and make you dance? I can think of a few words choice words for him: Monster. Evil. Cruel. Inhumane. But none of them come close, none of them can even attempt to describe an act so wretched as this one.   But we can do nothing. Poe stiffens at the sight, but he’s seen this before. Hutts keep slaves, and that’s a known fact. Neither of us can do anything here. If we do, we’ll never make it out of here alive, and get ourselves killed along with the slave without anything to show for it. Not to mention, the Resistance will go without the medical supplies it needs to keep going. Our priority right now is to watch each other’s backs, to watch over Grogu, and to make this deal.     One day, maybe I will become a bounty hunter, but of a different sort. After I revive Mandalore, restore my people, I’ll come after every slaveholder in the galaxy and give them what they deserve. Not one of them will ever be brought in warm.    The Twi’lek at the head of the escort tells us to wait where we are, while he slithers through the crowd to whisper in what might be Edda Hutt’s ear. Edda narrows overly-large eyes, grumbles a stream of unintelligible muttered phrases in Huttese, then raises tiny stubby arms and says in a loud, gurgle of a voice, “Shulu gone, add of uba!”      The music ceases immediately. Nice. The first party I’ve ever crashed. Guests and entertainment disperse, abandoning piles of spice and discarding cigarettes on the floor. Soon there’s nothing but Edda’s guards, our escort, and his slave. He yanks her against him, and my free fist clenches almost hard enough to trigger my flamethrower. Blasters poke Poe and I in our backs, urging us forward until we’re in the center of the room, standing before Edda. I make a point to keep a couple paces behind Poe, trying to watch our surroundings for any sudden moves.     Edda smokes what’s probably spice out of a long, thin pipe. He peers at us, gaze barely passing over me, before he narrows his eyes at Poe with a too-wide smile. “Oom-move uta-sha maskey.”     Damn am I glad Poe came with me, because I don’t understand a word he’s saying. Poe reaches up for his mask, and I grab his sleeve, stopping him wordlessly. The kriff you taking off the stuff that lets you breathe for? “It’s fine,” He assures me, “The air’s not so bad down here.”     “What about the spice?” The last thing I need is a hotshot pilot with ADHD on spice. I’m not sure how it would affect him, because this stuff could be laced with other drugs, more dangerous ones. He could have anything from a simple high, an almost-deadly reaction, or even go into anaphylactic shock if he’s allergic. I’m thinking of all the many different ways him taking off his mask could go horribly wrong.     “It’s okay; I know the smell of this spice. I built up an immunity to it when I was a runner,” He answers, and removes his mask. I have to hope and pray it’s not laced with anything that will affect him secondhand. Although, on a lesser note, I also have to resist the urge to pat his curls down, because it looks like he’s just rolled right out of bed; if I were Edda, I wouldn’t be able to take him seriously. Poe addresses him calmly and coolly. “I’m sure you remember me...” He shrugs a little. “Or maybe you don’t. In either case, I’m here to do business with you.”     Edda laughs deeply, apparently amused by something. “Bal uba think jee beeogola?” He takes another whiff of his pipe. “Meekiyuna keekah whooh uba beet, Dameron.”      Poe remains cool, calm, and collected. No one else would be able to tell what he’s thinking-- I barely can. Damn, he’d be a good actor. Or senator. “I’ve decided the Resistance just isn’t for me. Too much work, too little profit. Got back into the spice business a few months ago.” Edda perks up at this little tidbit of false but convincing information, and Poe adds quickly, “But that’s not why I’m here. I’m here for another trade.”    Edda leans back a bit, pulling roughly on the chain connected to his slave’s neck. She chokes, but Edda doesn’t care; he looks disappointed that Poe isn’t offering space-drugs. I don’t see the appeal, never will-- my ancestors used marijuana and peyoti to induce visions from the gods and their messengers, not for highs. Hell, it’s not even a pretty and sparkly glitter-drug, like in Dune. It just looks like a pile of ugly sand. “Haku oid uba doo mind?”    Somehow Poe sounds completely confident, even though we’re standing on a grate that drops down into who-knows-where, we’re surrounded, we’re underground, and we’re in the middle of a crime-ridden city. If things go wrong here, we’ll never make it out. “You know as well as any the price of certain items on the black markets. But I’ve been with the Resistance so long, I don’t have good stock. I’ve come to see if you would bargain with me.” Edda gestures for him to continue. “I want medical supplies. All you’ve got. I’m sure you can get more from your beneficiaries. In return I’ll get you something you want, something nobody else will get you and you can’t get yourself. You’re eccentric, I’m sure you’ve already got some idea of what you want for your...” He waves an arm, searching for the right word. “...collection. Just like the old days. If you remember me, you know I always deliver.”       And here I thought Poe had told me everything there was to know about him. Never once had he mentioned Tiersa or Edda Hutt during his long tales of his spice-running days on Kijimi. I just now realized that. I make a mental note to ask him about all these new stories for him to tell me.    “Jee oom-membah uba, Poe Dameron,” Edda replies, leaning forward to glare at him. He’s practically crushing his poor slave. “Besh lo’z been andoba-doba cycles nrom eesgoo oeal. Jee huujah bu oom-mnants Emperor Palpatine’z lightsooah! Seel uba heeda sho?”    I stiffen at the mention of Emperor Palpatine. I may not know Huttese, but I can make out that much. I want to speak up, maybe to ask what the kriff did he say about Palpatine, but Poe’s supposed to be in charge here. Bodyguards don’t speak to their charge, and if I undermine Poe’s authority here, he might lose any standing with Edda that he has. I hold my tongue and hope this is over as soon as possible.    “I can,” Poe promises, nodding decisively. Great. What’s he just agreed to? “I’ll get you the pieces of Palpatine’s saber.”    I swear, it takes me everything I have not to say What?! Even Grogu stirs a bit, like what the hell did he just say the pieces of who now’s lightsaber? I have to keep copying Din’s introvert-silent-intimidating-Mandalorian pose, to be a good bodyguard and stand here silently. How the hell are we supposed to get him that? Wasn’t it incinerated in the Death Star?    “But you’ve gotta give me more than that. Any idea where it is?”     Edda leans forward more, talking with one grubby hand and waving his pipe around as he speaks. “Nop Coruscant, nind Kerooh Lar. ’z  gang kajidii bu oeepest oom-gions, bu old podracing arenah. Beke uba seel nind shash before kidds uba, an bargon bu map, lo widd take uba bu sooah.” The Hutt chuckles grotesquely.     “Alright. Then, it’s off to Coruscant.” Poe puts his hands on his hips, ready to leave. Edda, however, has other plans, and raises a hand to stop him. Guards and our escort all move to block exits, weapons ready. I loosen up, prepared to leap forward and trigger my whistling birds. Even now they’re targeting all of our enemies, which do not include Edda, because I’m more than positive we can outrun him.     Edda chuckles, “Hold nop. Kava bal jee keekah soh uba wa-hu sedd bu lightsooah?”     Poe explains calmly, “Because. If I were to just sell the saber, that’s a one-time profit. I might get killed by the First Order for having it, or my business shut down, and I don’t want that. I want a steady income. I can trade different supplies for more, sell them... You get it. So...” Poe smirks, and I feel like that’s the most evil he can get, though it doesn’t look very intimidating to me. “If I want to stay out of prison and get those medical supplies, then I’m gonna bring you back that saber.”      Edda seems reluctant for a second. I start calculating what it’s gonna take to get Poe and I off this grate before it falls completely and drops us into oblivion. Finally, the Hutt gives his consent with a wave of confirmation. “Uba doo duba oays, Dameron.”     Poe snickers in disbelief. “Hold on, I wanna see the supplies. You think I’m stupid?”      Edda grinds his flat teeth. It’s an awful sound, like nails on a chalkboard. He swings an arm at the Twi’lek and his escort. “Stang hoohat lo!” To Poe, he says, “Joppay uba’laz oone, uba boll Coruscant!”     Poe nods, starting to turn toward the door we’d come from, where our escort waits. “As soon as we see them, we’ll be on our way. You’ll have your saber.”     We’re escorted out of his little chamber and through a backway, through the less-populated alleys of the city and to a hidden, locked-up warehouse. The Twi’lek raps out a code on the ridged metal door, and it opens to reveal a spider-faced alien that chitters impatiently as the Twi’lek quietly informs him of the situation. Poe and I remain silent, though my helmet’s systems point out at least a dozen snipers watching us carefully from the roofs. I wish Poe and I had come up with some form of code beforehand, so that I can warn him. Instead, I’m ready to launch my whistling birds at a moment’s notice and shove Poe to safety. Not that that would protect him from a headshot, since his mask is made of plastic and rubber only.    Suddenly I wish that I had given him Boba Fett’s armor.    The door is opened, and we’re led inside. Our eyes take a second to adjust, but when they do we stop short and stare in awe. Crates upon crates of various sizes are stacked, lined up, and arranged. Holy kriff... Poe had said that Edda deals primarily in unregistered supply trade, but I hadn’t realized this much. I see mostly weapons and ship parts with the First Order crest, which makes me shudder.     The Twi’lek takes us further in. I’m grateful for my life-signs detector built-in to my helmet, because I see the guy running up between the boxes with a knife before Poe does. No, no...    Swinging Grogu behind me, I step between the attacker and Poe with my whistling birds vambrace aimed at the escort, my other aimed at the attacker. I pull my fist down far enough to push the pressure-trigger, and a jet of fire streams out just enough to scare him back on his ass.     “Back off!” Poe is reaching for his blaster, but remembers too late he doesn’t have it and swears loudly as he scrambles for a weapon. The escort has all blasters aimed at us, and the snipers are moving into position. I have one whistling bird less than needed, but I’m blinding their scopes; they can’t get a lock on us. As the attacker recovers, I sidestep around Poe and give another warning blast of fire at the escort, which makes them yelp and stumble back, shielding their singed faces. “Back off! You want me to blast your heads off?! Back off!”     “Laylah!”  Poe yells, snatching a dropped blaster and putting his back to mine, “What the hell are you doing?!”     “Yeah, you’re welcome. This guy was about to gut you.”     “I wasn’t!” The Rodian attacker whines, rubbing his burned nose and quite near tears. What scares me is I don’t even feel mildly sympathetic for him. “I-I wasn’t, I swear!”     “Explain why you were running at him with a knife then,” I sound eerily calm.    The Rodian keeps a hand raised toward me as poor defense. “I-I was warning Ael-Ti of an attack! The second warehouse is under siege! Somebody found it!”    “Who the kriff is Ael-Ti?”    “Me,” Snarls the soot-covered Twi’lek. “Are you going to put your weapons down, or are we going to have to make you?”    I sneer at him, jerking my chin. “You first.”    “Laylah,” Poe hisses, putting his blaster down and keeping his hands up. He reaches over and makes me put my arms down, standing almost flush up against me to say low in my ear, “Calm. Down. You wanna lose this bargain?”       Reluctantly, I lower my arms. “I’m not giving them my vambraces.”     “You don’t have to. So long as you don’t set anybody else on fire.”     “I didn’t set him on fire. I almost set him on fire.”     Poe shakes his head; I see a faint smirk under the mask. “And they call me hotheaded...”     I don’t turn my back on the Rodian, who speaks with Ael-Ti in hushed tones. Ael-Ti reluctantly sends the rest of his escort back with the Rodian, who leads them down a wholly separate path to avoid me. Ael-Ti is now, as far as Poe’s concerned, all by himself, so he turns and tugs me close enough to say where my ear should be on the other side of the helmet, “Do not attack him, Bez.”     I won’t risk it unless necessary, because the snipers still have their rifles powered up and pointed at us. I’m surprised they didn’t shoot when I tried to crisp the Rodian. Curtly, I nod, and Poe keeps a firm grip of my arm. Ael-Ti keeps a close eye on me as he leads us through the crates, walking like a crab so that his back is never to me. Strangely enough, I’m completely okay with what I’ve just done. I’m defending two people I love very much. When it’s an enemy, I have no problem with anything I do that might inconvenience them. The more they hate me, the better.     When we reach the medical supplies, Poe and I falter.     Three ten-foot-long and four-foot-high white containers sit side-by-side on the ground. Some of them have temperature-controlled interiors like a fridge-- conservator (sometimes, even after three and a half years, I still revert to Earth names for things). Poe turns his head to me, and when he has my attention, jerks his head toward them. “You’re the medic. Go and see if they’re legit.”     I’m reluctant to turn my back on Ael-Ti, but I hurry forward anyway, beginning to pop the lid of a crate. The snipers are easing up a bit. Poe can handle himself against that weasel. Nobody will attack unless a move is made. Ael-Ti apparently finds me checking the boxes suspicious or something. “Thought you said she was your bodyguard?”    Poe only puts his hands on his hips as he pretends to watch me, but his eyes aren’t focused. He’s watching Ael-Ti out of the corner of his eye. “She’s also my medic.”    Inside the first crate, I find primarily cooled medicines, vaccines, anesthesia, and bacta. In the other two I find various good stock of other medicines, surgical tools and equipment, PPE equipment, bandages, splints-- anything a doctor might need at any given point is in the crates. It’s enough to give us a boost, to keep us going until we find more suppliers, especially if we don’t for awhile. I check the very deepest packages I can reach as well as the top and middle, only a couple of each, to ensure it’s really medicine. My internal systems help me, but they can only do so much. Even the Force wouldn’t be able to help me much here.     Once I replace and secure the lid of the final crate, I return to Poe’s side, still feeling a little iffy about this whole thing. How do we know they didn’t just make fake medicine? Some of them were impossible to tell. “So far as I can see, it’s legit. This is the shipment we’re getting?” I immediately mentally smack myself. Bodyguards don’t ask questions, even if they’re also medics.      Poe puts me completely at ease by acting as if that’s a totally normal, reasonable question to ask, even from someone who he’s supposed to be in charge of. Technically, if I think really hard about it, he is one of my commanding officers, I guess. “It better be, or Edda can count on never getting the pieces of Palpatine’s lightsaber,” Poe says this pointedly to Ael-Ti, who raises a hand and frowns. He inclines his head.    “Yeah yeah, this is the one you’re getting. Edda’s been after those shards for a long time, so this will be closely guarded for you.” He bares his teeth in an angry hiss before leading us out of the warehouse, feeling the need to escort us all the way back to our ship. We pass the body of the guy who was shot instead of us, already crammed into a clogged drain. Eesh. Luckily the city seems to be calming for the night; even criminals need to sleep, right? The trip back, without having to find a path through groups of robbers and murderers, is considerably shorter. We get our bag of weapons once we get to the Slave, and we purposefully slowly count in front of Ael-Ti. All of our weapons are accounted for, thankfully. “No loitering!” He snaps as we’re closing the ramp.    Poe goes straight to the pilot’s seat, and BB-8 comes whirling out as I’m strapping myself in and opening Grogu’s bag. Poe takes a moment to greet his friend. “Hey Beebs. Any trouble?” BB-8 gives a couple of beeps in answer. “No? Good.” He rubs the droid’s head, eliciting a happy whistle from him. “Thanks for watching over the ship, buddy.”     Hearing that we’re considerably safer, Grogu pokes his head out of the bag, covered in blue cookie crumbs. I laugh, brushing him off. “How you doing, Gizmo?”     He babbles and cheers as the ship pitches in its flight pattern to escape the awful fake atmosphere of Tiersa-- even though it’s dark, Poe somehow navigates us easily out into space. Once we hit smooth flying, the ship launches into lightspeed and I get out of the seat, setting Grogu on the platform with BB-8. The two of them begin to chatter in a weird combination of baby babble and Binary about the little adventure they’ve had so far.     When Poe comes stomping around the pilot’s seat, I know I’m in trouble. He tears off his mask and puts his hands on his hips, glaring-- but I don’t think Poe’s ever actually been angry. Besides, I can’t very well take him seriously with his hair all messed up again. “What the hell was that out there?”     I shake my head to try and stop whatever he’s about to say, lifting my hands in much the same way Grogu was trying to explain himself as a stowaway earlier. “Look--”    “What were you thinking? First you punch the guy-- which, okay, he hit Grogu, but not to defend him, but he didn’t know he was there, and you could have just taken a less violent approach? And what the hell was with the flamethrower?!”    “I was trying to protect you!” I snap, remembering the guy running up with the knife all too clearly, “I thought that guy was gonna attack you... I couldn’t let that happen.”    His stern visage softens. “We were outnumbered. You’re lucky they didn’t blast us all to hell. Six against two isn’t exactly fair, even if the two are a Mandalorian and the best pilot in the galaxy.”    “...Thirteen.” I admit this very reluctantly.      “Huh?”       “Counting the snipers on the tallest stacks of crates, there were thirteen. The six snipers on the roof outside might not have been able to get in quickly enough to do anything about us before we found an escape route.”     Poe takes a second to let that sink in. He steps closer and takes a deep breath, trying to stay calm. “You... You attacked when we were thirteen to two?”     It sounds worse than it is. Or maybe it really is that bad. I’m not a soldier, I’m a healer. I don’t have experience in this field, I have no idea what I’m doing. Maybe it was stupid of me. Still, I try to explain myself. “I had twelve whistling birds trained on all the snipers and the escort. That only left the Rodian. We would have been fine.”    Poe starts pacing, running his hands through his hair. His jaw is clenched like he’s trying to stem a flow of curses-- but he’s frustrated. Not mad. Still, I hate to see him like this with me. It gives me a bad feeling in the core of my chest. He’s back to standing in front of me in a few strides, his voice unnervingly calm and quiet, “You could’ve gotten us all killed.”     “I wasn’t thinking--”     “Do you ever?” He snaps, and the ship goes quiet. I flinch, echoes of Earth ricocheting in my head. Outside of my little family, I lost track of how many people had said those words to me. This is Poe. He doesn’t mean it the same way. I meet his dark eyes and remnants of Earth melt away. For some reason, I’m not scared of losing Poe, or of him turning on me. Something tells me he’s never going to walk away like that. He cares, and that’s why he’s so pissed right now.     I take a deep breath, then say quietly, but not meekly, “I wasn’t thinking about the odds. All I could think of was Dad’s warning about not letting anything happen to us, and about the fact that I didn’t want to see you bleeding out on some backwater planet. I thought I had to act, and I did it in the hopes of keeping you safe. I had all of them in sight, and the flamethrower was blinding their scopes so none of the snipers could have gotten a clear shot at you. I’d stunned what I thought was your attacker and the escort. You grabbed a blaster, didn’t you? We could have gotten to cover. We could have made it out. At that point, I didn’t even care about the damn medicine. Just you, and Grogu. Although I should have taken a less dramatic approach. That knife couldn’t have gotten through my beskar or leather easily-- it was old. All I had to do was step between you, but...”     “But your mind went to the worst possible place,” Poe finishes for me softly. “You went offensive instead of defensive.” After a second, a small, fond smirk makes its way onto his face. “...Like a Mandalorian.”     I scoff, fighting tears. Why did I do that? Why didn’t I do the normal thing? “What kind of Mandalorian almost gets her only friend killed?” I say bitterly, and he shakes his head, pulling me in for a tight hug that I lean into.     His voice rumbles my head even through the helmet. “You even hear the stories your dad tells? He sounds like you. So does Boba Fett and Bo-Katan. You Mandalorians... you always do that. You’re always ready or looking for a fight. That’s always where your mind goes, no matter the situation... Why?”     I think about that for a second, and then I realize what we all have in common: Bo-Katan, her sister murdered and her goal always just out of reach. Boba Fett watched his father die in front of him and then was trying to live the life of a bounty hunter, even accepting a job from Darth Vader until Han Solo nearly killed him, and then even his retirement didn’t go smoothly. I pull back, squeezing Poe’s shoulders in appreciation of his gesture. He keeps a hold of my arms. “Because, Poe... we’ve all been through hell.”     I take my helmet off, patting down the static on my crown braids. Talking about my recklessness must be over, because Poe puts his hands on his hips and is smiling for some reason; then he slowly smooths down the hair on the back of my head, pointedly. “Can’t take you very seriously when you have helmet hair.”    On that note, I reach up to tousle his hair out of the just-rolled-out-of-bed look. “Yeah, well, I can’t take you seriously when you have gas-mask hair.” I glance out the cockpit window, at the stream of blue-and-white light with a faint smile. “So what now? Where we headed, Black Leader?”     Poe snorts with amusement and gestures to the seats. Somehow we both simultaneously sit on the platform instead, leaning our backs against the seats. Beebs and Grogu meander over to sit near to us, but continue their own little conversation. Poe pats BB-8 on the head on his way by, but addresses me. “Now, I fill you in on the plan.”     I stretch my legs out in front of me, crossing them at the ankles. I set my helmet beside me. “Please do. All I got out of this was something about Coruscant and Palpatine’s lightsaber.”     Poe actually laughs. “That’s... pretty much it.” He waves his hands and the wrench. “No, really, I’ve gotta tell you the details. So, we’re getting medicine-- all of what you seen-- if we bring him back the shards of Palpatine’s lightsaber in three days.”     I raise a hand like I’m in school.     Poe points his wrench at me like a teacher pointing a pencil. “Yes, Djarin?”     “Correct me if I’m wrong-- and, I might be, ’cause I’m not really from around here, but-- wasn’t he blown up on the Death Star?”     Poe shrugs, banging his wrench against his palm. “Who knows? Maybe it’s just something everybody’s calling Palpatine’s saber but Edda’s stupid enough to believe it. To find it, we’ve gotta get to Coruscant and find Keru Lar, a crime boss who supposedly has a map leading right to it. Apparently he hangs out on the lowest levels, in the old podracing rings.”     I’m struck by a sudden thought. “Great. Cool. How much you wanna bet he’s gonna have us race him for it?”     Poe retains a completely serious straight face. “Ten credits that he doesn’t. And once we get the map from him we just... go get the saber.”    I scoff, fiddling with the top of my rangefinder. “You mean after navigating a treacherous gauntlet of unforeseen circumstances.”    “Yeah,” Poe answers, and I’m suddenly doubling over with laughter. He pauses in spinning his wrench, raising his eyebrow. “What’s so funny?”    I can barely wheeze out an answer. “Guess I got what I wanted!”    Poe is slowly smiling. “What?”    “Something to do.”    Poe snorts, then laughs, and suddenly we’re both laughing so hard we can’t breathe, and neither of us really know why. The combined confusion of BB-8 and Grogu only makes us laugh harder. Poe runs his hands down his face when we finally stop, wheezing for air and still smiling. “Alright, Bez... We’ve got three hours before we reach Coruscant. I am gonna take a nap. I doubt we’ll get much sleep otherwise, so I suggest you do too.”    I glare pointedly at the back of the pilot’s seat. “Dozing in the cockpit made my neck hurt.”     “Maybe don’t doze off in the cockpit,” Poe quips, shoving his wrench in his pocket.     I start to crawl over to him. “I’m using your shoulder as a pillow. Deal with it.”     He positions himself so that he’s leaning with his back on a ladder. I scoot closer until I’m flush against his side and resting my head on his shoulder. His chuckle resonates into my head; it’s a comforting sound. “Always a pleasure, Miss Djarin.” Grogu toddles up, reaching out, and Poe lifts him into the crook of our laps, where he immediately curls up in preparation for a nap; he yawns with a little squeak. I keep a hand on him so that he doesn’t accidentally roll anywhere-- babies have a tendency to roll places you wouldn’t think of. BB-8 comes up in silent question, on Poe’s other side. He elicits a tiny blip, and Poe lifts his arm in welcome. “Come here, Beebs.” With a beep of appreciation, BB-8 nestles up under Poe’s arm. He shifts so his other arm is around me.    This is nice. This little family here? It’s nice. I could stay like this forever.     I’m already exhuasted-- it’s been a long, stressful day. My eyelids are so heavy I can hardly keep them open, and it doesn’t help that Poe is warm and comfortable. He tries to lean his head back in order to sleep, but instantly regrets it. “Ow. Metal pillow. That’s not gonna work. I’m gonna use your head.”     I echo his words to me from a moment ago. “Happy to help, Commander Dameron.”       He laughs softly as he rests his head on mine, fully encompassing me in his embrace. I’m glad he can’t see my face, because I’m blushing from the contact; though I’m sure he can hear my heart pounding. I feel Poe smile softly. “...This is... kinda nice.”     He has no idea how nice. After we started talking that first night I met him, the X-wing wasn’t my safe place, he is. It’s an incredibly odd thing to feel so safe and relaxed around another human being, but... I can’t help it. He’s my best and only friend, but... Maybe sometimes, he feels like more than that. Neither of us will say it, though. I sigh, content. “...Wish we could stay like this.”     Poe lowers his voice to a whisper when he sees that Grogu is starting to nod off. “You mean safe? Relaxed? Or in this position? Because if it’s the latter we’d eventually go numb, Bez.”     I chuckle into his jacket. He smells like fuel and iron, and it relaxes me. “Together,” I specify.     He tenses and shifts a bit, careful of Grogu. Then I realize he’s brought the arm behind me up a bit so that he can tuck loose strands of hair behind my ear, but he keeps his knuckles resting on my temple. He presses a kiss to the top of my head. “One day, okay? I promise.”     I wonder if his words mean more than they sound like, but I’m sure that I’m probably overthinking it. He’s my best friend. Maybe I’m only seeing what I want to see. “...I’ll hold you to it, Poe.” He doesn’t move, keeping his face in my hair, but I do-- I shift enough to wrap my free arm around his chest and nestle closer, without moving Grogu. He doesn’t object, only tightening his grip. Before long, we’re all falling into light sleep, feeling comforted and safe in the blue-white glow of lightspeed.
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kalinara · 2 years
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I would die for a meta on your thoughts about the reylo (which, let’s be honest, is basically just the kylo ren) fandom.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m biased. But I am straight up CONVINCED that the reason we lost out on a trilogy focusing on the trio is because of how much absolute annoying NOISE they made about #savebensolo online, which somehow convinced the movie directors that it was a cashcow making idea.
There’s the Rise of Kylo Ren comics, which apparently set up how Kylo didn’t burn down the school and it was all a big “misunderstanding”, but you will never convince me that that was the plan for kylo’s backstory in The Force Awakens. I specifically remember them talking about wanting Kylo to have an anti-redemption arc to parallel Anakin’s “redemption” arc, where Kylo would grow more and more entrenched in the dark side as the trilogy continued on. Him killing Han was supposed to cement that turn from the light.
And then, suddenly the rest of the movies start focusing more on him than Rey and her relationships with her friends. To the point where there are still Reylo fans who say that rey’s ending isn’t a happy one, because she “doesn’t care about Poe and Finn” as much as Kylo.
Rey didn’t even need to end up without a love interest! I know there are people who wish she had ended up alone, but Finnrey was set up in the very first movie. They flirted! I even would have accepted The Duel of the Fates script with a poe romance if it would have been done well, or even finnpoe.
Instead, we had our main female character risking it all for Kylo in the Last Jedi, which, in canon, is three days post The Force Awakens, after Kylo slashed Finn in the back with a lightsaber so close to his spine that it’s absolutely amazing he isn’t paralyzed.
What if Finn had died? Has anyone ever thought of that? He was in a coma at the end of tfa. People die from injuries while in a coma all the time. Let’s say Kylo threw everything down to come with Rey at the end of tlj. How would that go if they arrived and leia and poe had to break it to Rey, “yeah, finn’s fucking dead, man. Sorry.” Is Rey just supposed to be cool with that and let Kylo go on his merry way? Perhaps date him after that?
There are legitimate reylo fans who believe that Kylo should have lived at the end of tros and went back to the resistance with Rey to have a family and live happily ever after. Just… be pardoned for all his crimes. They really believe that Rey should worship the ground Kylo walks on to the point where she would bring him back to Finn, who he almost killed, and poe, who he tortured, and have her steadfastly defend him against her two friends.
It just—infuriates me so much. We really could have had it all. But certain parts of the fandom made it all about Kylo Ren, to the point where it didn’t just retract from the trio; it also retracted from Rey’s character herself.
Sorry if I ranted. You just have some awesome takes and I’m thinking again about the sequels and the potential they had, lol.
Aw, I really appreciate your kind words. But unfortunately, I don't have any behind the scenes information for you.
I do think, based on the end of the Last Jedi, that Kylo was set up as the big bad. And this may be projection, but I don't get the sense that JJ Abrams really wanted to write Kylo's redemption. The man's written morally ambiguous characters before in his career, and pulled off more dubious redemption arcs. I think he could have sold Kylo's arc better, if he really wanted to.
I haven't read the comics and I honestly don't care about them. They've never been that relevant to my mind, when it comes to evaluating Kylo as a character. My own take is that, whether or not he was to blame for the temple's destruction, he had options besides joining a regime that's obviously a Nazi-allegory, that enslaves children and commits genocide. I judge him by the decisions we see him make on screen, and those are pretty damning.
That said, I mostly enjoyed Rise of Skywalker. Kylo's redemption didn't work for me, but we also saw him die and that made me happy. Rey had an ambiguous moment that might or might not have been romantic. I don't think that's enough to ruin her. At almost forty, I have an old person's cynicism: young people sometimes fall for the wrong people. In my eyes, it's more important that Rey gets a happy ending with the people she actually loves: Finn and Poe. And TROS gave me that.
It's okay to be dissatisfied with the movies, and I'm always in favor of folks ranting about what makes them unhappy. But it's also okay to move on. The Star Wars Universe has a lot of lovely material right now, and more to come. Perhaps there'll be something more to your taste if you give it a chance?
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redrascal1 · 9 months
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As I have said before, many Finn fans on the JCF have an almost poisonous hatred for reylo/Kylo to the extent it’s ridiculous.
It got me banned. I twice mentioned Ben in a thread dedicated to Finn. I made no racist comments, yet was accused of racism. My exact words were:
‘The ST should have been about Ben Solo.’
I stand by that comment, as those films were the closing chapters of the Skywalker Saga. And I’ve lost count of how many posters on forums start off talking about the character the thread is about and end up going on about someone/something completely different! I meant no offence, but because I’m a Ben stan, and a former reylo - they chose to be offended.
Now a poster - one of the more fair of them, I’m astonished they are still posting, to be honest - has called them out on it:
With the whole you are either with Reylo or you are with Finn thing. Can you be neither? Is it possible to have a totally different perspective that isn't about pettiness?
My thoughts exactly. 
I am pretty certain that it all boils down to these individuals believing Kylo ‘stole’ Finn’s thunder. They wanted Finn to be ‘the’ main character, the ‘Black leading man’ as one poster (white female) put it. But frankly, I am sick and tired of them blaming Kylo and his fans, for that ‘not happening’.
It didn’t happen because there was no ‘leading man’. 
TROS is the film that crystallised that. DLF wanted the films to be about Rey. They were very plain that the ST was meant to have a female protagonist. Rey was the main character - not Kylo, or Finn, or even Poe. They were reduced to background noise in TROS. Rey was an ace pilot, powerful Jedi, adored by everyone. In short, no other person was necessary as Rey was Superwoman - she needed no one. Ironically the real Superman, Clark Kent, did need ‘someone’ - his parents. His love, Lois. Despite being alien Clark Kent was far more human than the being they turned Rey into.
If you want to blame an actor for stealing Finn’s thunder, blame Oscar, as Poe was supposed to be killed off and thanks to him, wasn’t, hence Finn having to share his screen time with him.
No, the real reason Finn fans are peeved is because Kylo got to kiss Rey. That’s all there is to it. Finn didn’t. 
And as the ‘sane’ JCF poster pointed out, how petty and spiteful is that? Petty enough for some of the Finn fans to start criticising Adam - not his fictional character.
There have even been comments comparing his acting skills to Boyega’s and finding them wanting. Perhaps they should come back when John Boyega has got two Oscar nominations, eh?
Whatever.
I am saddened by the spite shown by these people - and that they these days completely dominate the JCF. 
The SW fandom is truly turning toxic.
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