In your Skywalker bs cubed au, how long would Obi Wan be able to hide Vader’s identity from Anakin, and which twin would Anakin figure out was his kid first?
Oooh, see, you raise a very good question. I think your second query is quite answerable— the second someone mentions either Luke or Anakin’s last name, they’re gonna figure it out. (The Skywalker boys are stupid, but they’re not that stupid. The fact that Ben knows Anakin is a clue enough to Luke in itself).
The first question is a little harder, because first we have to answer whether Ben wants to hide Vader’s identity, and then whether he can.
I think it’s probably fair to say that he wants to— here is Anakin in front of him, so far from how he last remembers him, burning on Mustafar, and so close to how he wants to remember him. Ben knows that this Anakin is capable of horrible things, of atrocities, but he almost can’t bring himself to care. He still loves Vader, who has committed those atrocities, because that’s what loving someone does to you— it changes your soul, changes the fabric of who you are from the inside out, until stopping loving them would be the same as tearing yourself apart. And if Ben loves Vader, he certainly loves Anakin, certainly wants to protect him, to save him, for all that he doesn’t trust him. He doesn’t want Anakin to know what he becomes, because then Anakin will be one step closer to becoming it.
As for whether he can— well, there were only a few people in the galaxy who knew Vader’s true identity, and of those few only three, none of them loyal to the Empire, who knew of Vader’s children. I think Ben thinks he can conceal it.
I don’t think Ben can, though.
We don’t know how the Force works, but stripped down to its barest, canon, bones, Luke can recognize Vader. Vader can recognize Luke. And Vader can almost certainly recognize Anakin.
Forget the tracker on the Falcon, forget the Death Star, Vader is coming after Anakin by himself, on his own. Rebels be damned, this is far more important— this is himself, before Mustafar, before Padmé’s death, and if Anakin Skywalker can find his way into the future, then Vader can find his way into the past. His wife, his children, aren’t lost to him forever.
So Vader shows up on Yavin, storms into the Rebel Base, and hauls Anakin up by the collar, and says, in what to Anakin is a weird voice, “Where have you come from, Anakin Skywalker?”
Luke blinks. “Wait, Skywalker?”
“That’s none of your concern,” Anakin spits back.
“He did say Skywalker, right?”
Ben groans.
“I’m not imagining things?”
“He said Skywalker,” Leia confirms.
“Anakin Skywalker.”
Anakin huffs. “I’m a little busy, here!”
“But my dad was Anakin Skywalker!” Luke beams.
The world goes still, the room dropping a hundred degrees in an instant.
“What,” Vader croaks.
Oh fuck me, Ben thinks, beginning to look for escape routes.
The doors slam shut.
Fuck, Ben thinks again, more emphatically.
“You’re my SON??!!” Anakin breaks free of Vader’s grip, which seems to have substantively weakened, and rushes over to Luke. “But that’s incredible!” He frowns, turning to Ben. “Obi-Wan, why did my son grow up on Tatooine?”
Vader’s head turns slowly towards Ben too, an ominous silence growing over the room again.
“Well—” Obi-Wan says.
“Did I die?”
“In... a manner of speaking.”
Anakin turns back around to face Vader. “Did he kill me? There’s no way I died to anything but a Sith.”
“Anakin Skywalker died so I might live,” Vader says, but there’s no triumph in it, only a sinking sort of desolation.
“Oh that is IT.” Anakin flicks his lightsaber on, and Ben sighs.
“Vader didn’t kill you, Anakin,” Ben says, wincing.
“I subsumed him,” Vader says clenching his fist in a way that might look intimidating if he didn’t also look like he was about to keel over.
“You ATE ME?!” Anakin screeches. “What the FUCK, dude!”
“He—” Ben tries again, weakly, “he didn’t eat you. It’s a metaphor.”
Vader lets out one long, loud breath. “I was Anakin Skywalker, but in his weakness, I consumed him.”
“Oh, fuck no,” Anakin says, and raises his lightsaber, ready to fight.
In the demon au, how did Jean meet Kaeya and Diluc?
Jean met with Kaeya bc she contracted him! she didn't summon him on purpose but once you summon a demon there's no going back. She didn't know what to tell him since this was all an accident so she just asked him for his loyalty/support B^) Kaeya was amused by this bc people don't ask him for this kind of stuff since he's the demon of secrets, so he decided to stick around and shenanigans ensue hehe.
Diluc and Kaeya are demon bros in this AU so he at first came to Jean's place to check up on him since he usually doesn't take so long to finish his contracts, and so more shenanigans ensue B^)
Jean is tired from dealing with demons... please give her a break
We had another wonderful headcanon elimination game on the femslash discord, this time with historical headcanons from past to future - these are the headcanons about the more or less recent past:
King Frederick I Barbarossa's death was due to some immortal intervention. (The dude was a king - of Germany and Italy? - in 1155 and led a giant army east in one of the crusades and then unceremoniously drowned in a river in Turkey. We don't know how or why it happened but about two thirds of his army deserted ... so he wasn't the most popular person around) - @jackwolfskid
The guard was involved in one of the defenestrations of prague - @waxwingsfail
Quỳnh thought she hallucinated it, but throughout her time in the ocean she actually saw many "cryptids" pass by her coffin. It isn't until Nile, Joe, Nicky and Booker are watching YouTube videos about various cryptids that Quỳnh realizes they might be real... - @insomnia-anonymous
Andromache met Anne Bonny (bisexual pirate, 1710s) and saved her from execution - @lilolilyr - 3d place in the game!
Andy invented some diving methods and marine technology in hear search for Quỳnh - @cryhardanddanceharder
Quỳnh kept a little bit of the money from everywhere they went through every change it had (Andy keeps the tradition up for her) - @waxwingsfail - 10th place in the game!
The old guard went on the expedition to Antarctica where the people ate the dogs and resorted to cannibalism yet still mostly survived - @authortrash
Andy accidentally lit the Great Chicago Fire - @authortrash
Andy was ‘Calamity Jane’ - @my-gaydar-is-on-point
The Guard was on the titanic (they had actually planned to get away from any important events for once) - @lilolilyr
The Guard is magically attracted to historical events. (Even when they just try to chill for a change, they end up in the most famous cruise ship of history (Titanic) or the coffee house they hang out in 18th century France happens to be the meeting place of the soon to be revolution leaders. "Fuck this is just another historical event" or some variation of the phrase has been said on multiple occasions.) Insert meme "if I had a nickle for each time I accidentally attended or messed with a historical event I had x nickels which is not a lot but it's weird it happened x times) - @jackwolfskid
Andy was a blacksmith for a time, and got quite well known in the area for both her skill and her strange companions - @mythologeekwriter
Andy learned to blacksmith (so none of her family would ever be without their favoured weapon) - @waxwingsfail
More historical The Old Guard headcanons can be found here, and a masterpost of all games here!
anytime any character mispronounces or misspells something I automatically hit them with the dyslexia stick, which is exactly what I did when tim pointed out that jon switched back and forth between "carla" and "clara" in the von closen statement. and, unfortunately for anyone who disagrees with me, I am actually right.
11. Share a passage from one of your works and tell us why you liked it so much.
From Resurrection, a Joniss (THG) oneshot:
Slinging the strap of my duffel bag over my shoulder, I venture out into the streets, crinkling the pamphlet in an anxious fist. Vibrant autumn leaves litter the asphalt, clogging drains and leaving a stream of water to lap at my hunting boots as I walk. Somehow, those dead leaves appear more alive than I feel. At least they make a small crunch of protest when trod upon. I’ve long lost the energy to protest such things. Maybe that’s why my life no longer feels like it’s mine. Before I packed a bag and left Twelve on a whim a couple days ago, I’m not sure when the last time was that I made a decision for myself.
I enjoy this passage a lot for the imagery if nothing else, especially autumn in the PNW, which just has a particular feel that I think I really captured in this fic. On top of that, it’s a good use of metaphor and it really speaks to Katniss’s depression post-canon. I think the sentence structure/pacing communicates the mental illness issues as well, it kind of feels disconnected/disembodied in a way. Overall it’s just a nicely crafted paragraph that does everything it’s supposed to do, immersing the reader in the setting as well as the narrator’s headspace.
In the Martin + tapes au, would Melanie try to remove the others from the hive mind/Eye by gouging out their eyes too? If so, how much would they remember?
Okay so--the way blinding works to cut you off from the Eye seems to be less about blindness itself than about choice and willingly making a sacrifice. Because of this, I don’t think that someone else blinding a member of the Archive would work. Their eyes would just... grow back, miraculously.
But does Melanie know that? No. And the question is... would she try it?
I feel like this would be a difficult choice for Melanie. She probably figures out, on her own, that she wants to quit. So she knows she’s going to blind herself. But then she thinks--maybe she should blind everyone else before she does?
She goes to Georgie to talk it over.
“Um,” Georgie says. “Why... if they don’t want to leave the Institute, then...?”
“But they might,” Melanie says. “It’s like--okay. It’s like being drunk. Having the Eye inside of your head. It fucks with what you want and don’t want. How can--is leaving them to it really letting them choose? Or is it just letting the Eye choose for them.”
“I mean,” Georgie says. “Even if they wanted to get away... you’re going to be forcing it on them. They’re gonna wake up confused and blinded and they might never have chosen that themselves. And it’s permanent.”
To which Melanie buries her head in hands, and sighs.
I don’t know what she would choose. But if she does attempt to blind anyone before going out herself, it would only work for a moment. During that moment, the memories of all they had done under the Eye would be hazy, but just clear enough for them to go what have I done.
And then, shortly after, flesh regenerates and their vision gets bright, and then clears. And after that, they can’t remember what they were upset about at all.
