#blu's corner

[bluraaven]

Commission piece. The art is by the amazingly talented @omaano!

Thank you so much, I absolute adore it!

Scene from my fanfic, Wherefore, Heroism?

When he wakes up in a clean bed in what he later will learn is a sanatorium, he finds a pair of flintlocks and a rose quartz rosary lying on the night stand next to him, meaning they're probably his. Not that he has the slightest idea where he is, or how he got here in first place. As he tries to gather himself, a group of people wearing unfamiliar faces enters the room. They crowd around his bed and ask questions, but when he has no answers it is them who tell him that he was lost to them for nigh half a year, dead and buried, mourned, and now brought back to life by a miracle of the Light. They tell him this place is called the Hamlet, and that his own name is Dismas.

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Haunted

my contribution to the DinCobb Fall Fest 2023!

Artwork by @dracadraca

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The problem was that Din did not believe in ghosts.  He did, however, recall days and nights spent between scorching sands and an endless canopy of stars and an auretii who wore his beskar'gam as if he had been born into it and thought, Vanth can see ghosts.  -- When Greef Karga makes the unusual request that Din hunt down a ghost that's been sowing terror on Nevarro, the Mandalorian cannot refuse for friendship's sake.  He turns to one man who he hopes is willing to help him; Cobb Vanth. 

[bluraaven]

can you tell us more about Oscar from Dark souls please? :}

With pleasure!  This is something that I wanted to dip into ever since I first played DS probably over a decade ago.  However, I've never gotten around to being motivated enough to immerse myself into all the hopelessness of that dying world.  The outline of the plot goes thus:

Oscar returns from rounding up Undead and is deeply troubled by it.  Berenikke and Balder are falling to the curse and Astora is worried, though doesn't bear the brunt of it yet.  Oscar remembers his family history and the line "thou who art undead art chosen".  That line also is spoken by Sunbros.  The political situation is becoming precarious and church's Way of the White is gaining power and popularity.  They want Undead burned or sent off to a faraway Asylum that's being built.  The crown faces uprising, fear and disorder and Carim is always threatening to invade.  The king calls all Houses to a meeting to discuss how to deal with the situation and to assure himself of Houses' loyalty.  Representing the Sunbros at that meeting is Solaire, a long-time friend of Oscar's. 

Oscar's family wants to present unity and supports deportation, but Oscar speaks out against.  He also wants to find another way (community, remembering the prophecy of the Flame and the Chosen Undead).  The king faces pressure from clergy and Thorolund.  It's the clerics who organize Undead hunts and sacrifice them to keep the flame burning. 

Oscar has support from the Sunbro faction but ultimately loses and king allies himself with church.  Oscar's actions cause strife with his family. 

And to add to everything, Oscar carries the Dark Mark (as do some other members of his family in secrecy) and gets betrayed so he gets sent off to the Asylum but gets rescued by Solaire who 'dies' in battle when they are attacked by Carim knights.  Oscar returns home to get his armour and sword and sets out to fulfill the prophecy. 

"Oscar." 

He looks up when his mother calls out his name from the hallway just outside the study.  To this day her voice, like the fall of a silver hammer upon a dulcimer, is the most beautiful sound he has ever known.  It can be the most terrifying one too, if she wills it thus.  Today 'tis but an enquiry for his presence, one he remembers well from his childhood days. 

Oscar carefully smooths out a piece of woven cloth before he places it between the pages of the book he had been reading.   Then, he closes it and sets it on the bedside table.  He doesn't have to raise his voice in answer.  "I'm here." 

The silhouette of the lady Ides of House Admont appears in the doorway, dark against the ever-murky twilight of the corridor.  By contrast, the room is bright, bathed in mottled sunlight that shines through the arched crown glass windows that have looked upon their hold since a time when his father's grandfather had been the Lord of this home. 

"There you are." 

Oscar stretches and winces when several vertebrae protest the sudden movement.  Still, he smiles as he rises to kiss his mother's cheek.  "Hello, Ana."

[bluraaven]

Radio Freetown | a Cobb Vanth x Din Djarin fanfiction

Rating: M

Tags: Din Djarin/Cobb Vanth, Long-Distance Relationship, Enough pining to run a logging operation, Loneliness, Copying Mechanisms, Not Canon Compliant, Touch-Starved Din Djarin, Badass Cobb, the vulnerability of late night talks, Non-Linear Narrative, Happy Ending

Summary:The idea of an independent radio station is born in the wake of the third annual celebration of the liberation of Freetown.  Like most births it can trace its origin back to a union; in this case the unfortunate coming together of Cobb Vanth, the town marshal, and Taanti's homebrewed desert plum and cacti hooch in the saloon that is owned and run by the Weequay.

Chapter 6 - Din Djarin

[...] His first flight in the wake of his rescue from Aq Vetina is only a blur, a fractured kaleidoscope of fear, noise and armed figures wearing unfamiliar, expressionless visors. 

He was being taken away from the only home he had ever known, away from his parents who had, just moments ago, held him close like this was goodbye.  His mother had been crying.  His father had cast haunted looks over his shoulder as he lowered his son into the bunker.  They had instructed him in rushed whispers to stay quiet and hidden, that they would come and find him when the bad droids were gone. 

The Mandalorians find him instead. 

It would be years before Din boarded a ship again, of his own volition, to be taken into orbit by one of his Clan's members.  He had not yet earned his right to wear a helmet but like all the younglings he had been lectured on the workings of a spaceship and the theory of flying, had studied the purpose of every lever and switch and committed them to memory.  He had only been lacking in the actual experience. 

As it turned out there was good reason for them to learn this young; throwing up one's breakfast would be significantly more of a hassle when wearing a buy'ce, his al'verde had commented wryly before pressing a bucket into Din's arms. 

Din had clutched it close during that flight, but the sensation of something alive in the pit of his stomach couldn't have been further from sickness. 

Almost three decades later, Din chases the feeling of what it had been like, the first time the ship had roared to life around him.

.

New chapter is up! You can read it here

[bluraaven]

It's been a while since I posted anything so here's a little excerpt from chapter 5 of Radio Freetown, which I'm currently working on. And it's gonna be a long one!

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Cobb has always loved fixing broken things – a fortunate happenstance, all things considered.  It keeps his hands busy and his thoughts free to wander. 

He doesn't ponder the mystery of the missing sarlaccs, the matter driven from his mind for the time being. 

Today, Cobb thinks about his father. 

Cobb remembers him having light hair and eyes that shone all the brighter out of a soot-stained face whenever his da had returned from the mine.  He'd been a big man although that particular impression is tempered with a child's penchant to look up at their parents and see someone larger than life. 

[bluraaven]

A very abbreviated rant about S3 E7 [spoiler]

Paz didn’t die, he ragequit.

Apart from the horrible decision to run after their enemies into unknown territory from a people that are supposed to be military savvy, I am seriously miffed about the show’s choice to kill off Paz to show the situation is  s e r i o u s  in a series where the main character has, without suffering any injury, been knocked around by a woolly rhino, fallen off the crawling fortress onto a rock, been swallowed by a dragon, crashed his space ship, flown the same space ship when it was held together by driftwood at light speed, and even surfed atop a tie fighter. 

No, it was never serious and I don’t appreciate the change from silly space spaghetti western to drama. 

Paz should have jetpack-tackled those latex fetishists off the cliff or fried them with the flamethrower he never got to use and then we could all have laughed at him scratching his head because somehow he, the mobile mountain of beskar, the least inconspicuous of all the Mandos in the history of Mandalore, is now the one who now has to infiltrate the Imperial base.

Thank goodness fanfiction exists.

[bluraaven]

WIP Train

Thanks to @omaano for tagging me on the WIP train!

from: Radio Freetown, chapter 4:

"So, where does a sarlacc go?" 

"Huh?" 

Din's fingers freeze over the keys of his holopad, his current thought winking out in the manner of a burned-out light bulb minus the sizzle and pop.  He casts a fleeting glance at the radio to his right where the voice of the Marshal doesn't quite hit the perky pitch the man had probably been aiming for.  There's no insight to be gained from the device's lightly dented frame nor from the yellow letters that Din has somehow, and despite better judgment, grown rather fond of. 

find the story here

No pressure tagging: @kriladoodles, @coffee-in-veins, @osplague

[bluraaven]

Apostate

A Mandalorian Paz/Din fanfiction!

Star-eyed, his mother had used to call him. There are people like his parents, salt of the earth and rooted deeply in their home soil.  There are those who travel the galaxy with ships made of metal and as large as the domed cathedral in the city center.  He trembles at the thought of being inside a spaceship. For Din Djarin, the only stars within reach are the starfish washed up on the beach of Aq Vetina.

A morally grey story about regret, identity loss, found family, and what it means to be human.  Read here.

--

Sidenote: my deepest apologies to the Darkest Dungeon fandom, but I found some more emotionally constipated men in armour to obsess over.  DD updates will continue.