hi I’m reading starman 1994 finally because of d1scow1ng and it’s making me lose my absolute fucking mind it is literally the most comic ever and I have so many feelings about the knights 😭😭😭😭😭
hear that @d1scow1ng? the READ STARMAN 1994 agenda is going as planned :) but genuinely oh my god. oh my god. i reread starman like twice yearly and look at choice issues at least monthly like an insane person i can't name a single other book with this kind of impact, with this kind of feeling to it, this complete sincerity and love for the medium!
as an avid 1940s comics reader, what james robinson does with the jsa's legacy in this book is quite genuinely everything in the world to me but i'm also like. i'll never get over jack. the way he grows up in front of our eyes, the way he's a complete weirdo like robinson and all the readers who relate to and understand him, the way he gets the arc of all time and history. my god. now you're making me wanna reread it again!
Another pirate AU for one of my fave rarepairs thank you So Much uwu uwu
(OTP prompts list found here)
Sadme/Padtine/Satidala/goddammit Padmé why are your names so hard to portmonteau 9 - Pirate AU: Who is the pirate? Who is the member of the royal family who did not sign up for this?
(Padmé here is v loosely based off of the legend of French pirate Jeanne de Clisson)
Satine does not particularly like her life in the convent. Hell knows-- begging pardon --she doesn’t quite believe what they preach, and many of the women here hold the stifling conservative views on women as the bastards back home that were the reason for her loss of land and title in the first place.
But she will not run away and she will not concede. She will get her position as Duchess back-- the matter of the fact is that she is supposed to be dead, so for now it is living at the convent by the sea with the well-stocked library and resources that is not too far from her ancestral lands, and daring to send out letters to anyone she feels she might be able to trust, searching out who may be able to lend a sympathetic hand, or more specifically, resources.
Satine has a Plan, and a ship with blood red sails melting out of the fog one morning while Satine is tending the vegetable garden is not part of that plan.
Neither is a group of mostly women trudging up the beach and towards the cliffside stairs that lead up to the convent, covered in ash and-- is that blood?
The woman in the lead is in bright red and her brown hair twisted back intricately off her face. Her face is youthful and her warm eyes are older than her years. They glow in the overcast light and she speaks in a way Satine recognizes as high upbringing as she introduces her group as travellers in need of shelter and meal for a few nights; surely the women of the Good Lord wouldn’t mind?
Satine’s eyes land on the sword on her hip that is yes, still definitely dripping blood, and the woman assures her that they swear they will do no harm. The convent is one that practices charity and offers shelter to travelers making a holy pilgrimage. Satine is currently armed with naught but a basket of cabbage and carrot. They will need the permission of the Mother Abbess to stay-- luckily, the Mother Abbess is Satine herself.
(An accident, honestly. Satine had been looking for an opportunity when she had endeared herself to her predecessor, and was not expecting to inherit the job a year later, but she had given herself a respectable position and being in charge would offer even more opportunity. If God existed, He surely could forgive her her pragmatism and ambition. She had done well in the five years since, even if she didn’t terribly care all that much for the theism itself vs the opportunities for charity and helping educate young women)
She invites the strange group of women in. She asks them to please not drip blood on the carpets. Their leader introduces herself as simply Padmé. She’s looking around, wiping the blood off her sword onto her stained skirts, and Satine wonders how it happened. Padmé sends another woman off to send a message. Satine wonders who it is going to.
Throughout the day, Padmé spends it in the library. Satine finds her there, they talk politics and classics and languages. Padmé is brilliant, and she has such ideas, such passion. Satine hasn’t been able to talk about much more than religion for years.
Satine invites them to evening prayer, they accept, but she notices throughout that Padmé does not speak the entire time.
She asks her afterwards.
Padmé gives her a simple smile. I am Jewish, she says.
She is brave, to admit that here, Satine thinks. Life is harder for people like Padmé because the world is prejudiced and cruel. She guesses from the bloody sword that Padmé knows a thing or two about the cruelty of the world.
Well, since Padmé won’t judge her for it
I don’t believe in anything, Satine says
Padmé laughs. It is bright and clear, like birdsong. And yet here you are, she remarks.
Here we both are, Satine counters, adjusting her habit as they sit beneath one of the stained glass windows.
Padmé can hear the question in her voice and fiddles with her bloodstained skirts. She looks back at Satine and her gaze is clear and unrepentant.
“I am here because the rest of my ships were separated from me. They will be continuing my current crusade at the nearby fort along the northern coast.”
“Crusade?”
“I had a title once upon a time as well, Lady Kryze. I was once Lady Amidala myself. Have you not heard of me?”
The revelation of Padmé’s name removes all surprise on Satine’s part from being recognized; a fellow noblewoman would have likely heard of her troubles. And she has heard of Lady Amidala.
A minor noble who caught the eye of the High King for her talents, Lady Amidala and her lands were favored until the King asked of her something she could not do. As punishment, the king sent soldiers, burned her ancestral lands until there was nothing left and killed many of her people. Lady Amidala had been forced to sell all her assets and had disappeared. It was the biggest scandal amongst the nobility since Satine’s own deposing; of course she had heard of it.
Satine mentions she was unaware of the former Lady’s fate. Padmé just cocks her head and asks if Satine has heard the rumors of the ships lost at sea, that never return?
Satine has. Merchants stopping by mention their fear to sail along the coast.
They are not bad storms, Padmé admits. They are me, she says, and she sounds proud. Padmé had tried to appeal to the King for a more equal society rather than the large gap in living standards between the nobility and the majority poor of the kingdom, had tried to make changes in a political manner. But he had thrown her out and continued with his harsh laws, so now she will make herself known in a way he cannot ignore. Padmé raids his ships and visits his seaside forts and razes them to the ground like he did her home.
Satine is stunned; violence like that is never the answer.
Padmé shoots back that is Satine not supposed to be dead? Her authority was challenged by those who would refuse to cede her her rightfully inherited lands after her father’s death, and who overthrew her after she refused to either take a husband or to bend her laws to the favors of the more powerful and influential.
Satine stands up. She is dealing with it, she explains. She will regain her position rightfully and honestly and without another war. It’s just..... taking her time.
Padmé stands up too, catches her wrist. Is she not tired, in the slightest, of waiting?
Satine has been waiting for five years.
Is she not tired of inaction?
Satine looks at the hand that has been washed of blood but have still spilled so much, remembers what she once had, what she could once do, and the man who is in charge now, how her people must be suffering.
She takes her hand out of Padmé’s. She cannot be like her. She cannot start a war.
She bids her goodnight, sends one of the other younger acolytes to show any remaining guests-- pirates, they are pirates --to their quarters when it is time to sleep.
Satine is awoken in the early morning by sounds of violence and shouting ringing throughout the stone walls of the peaceful abbey. She is out of her bed and opening the door to one of the King’s royal soldiers if the uniform is right, brandishing a sword at her and grabbing her wrist in the same place Padmé did. Satine barely has time to react to him before she is being tossed into a wall and as she lays there, stunned, there is more yelling and the slashing ring of metal, and another body crumpling beside her, and a small, strong hand pulling her to her feet.
Padmé smiles at her apologetically, saying that she and her crew have brought these soldiers here, where they thought they would be safe.
They should be safe, Satine says angrily. Criminals or no, houses of God are not supposed to be desecrated with violence, should be open for everyone, and that is the law of the land itself. The King is breaking the laws, he can’t--
Padmé tucks a strand of Satine’s loose hair out of her face. Satine hadn’t even noticed she wasn’t wearing it. Her head feels lighter without it.
They will not hurt the nuns here, Padmé promises. If the King cannot protect his subjects, Padmé will instead.
Satine spends the battle in a nightgown wielding a torch. She doesn’t hurt anyone, but she keeps soldiers back and escorts frightened nuns through the maze of the stone walls and into the crypts below to hide. The aforementioned mazelike walls are what help Padmé’s crew turn the tides of the fight; having had a day there to get a vague sense of direction in comparison to the soldiers running blind.
In the morning, there is a rainbow outside and blood and death inside the convent. No nuns were killed, thankfully, but one of Padmé’s was, and several soldiers before they were driven off. The soldiers will be back, Padmé warns Satine, as her girls head back for the ship that, after all of this, was not even touched. The nuns here will not be safe. She offers to take anyone who wishes to leave either to the nearest nunnery, or to allow them to join her crew if they wish.
The other sisters are obviously distressed by this, but Satine feels a laugh catching in her throat at just how many take the offer to join the pirates.
And what about you? is Padmé’s question for her as they’re boarding the ship and sailing away from where Satine stagnated for the last five years. The ocean breeze feels good in her hair.
“Do you want your lands back?”
Satine stiffens. She does, of course she does, she wants to free her people, but--
She can’t condone retaking it by piratical violence. She can’t do it. It isn’t her way.
“Then come with me. I’ll take you to the people who can give you the support you need to retake them honorably.”
Satine looks at Padmé and her sun-warmed eyes. She would be here... while Padmé burns forts and ships.
Padmé’s smile is sharp. Satine has her war, Padmé has her own. This is merely a temporary combining of resources.
Whatever is so bad about a temporary alliance?
She holds out her hand. It is covered in blood again.
Satine takes it and lets Padmé bring her knuckles to her mouth in a kiss.
Maybe she finally made a connection that would get her where she needed to be after all.
Once Newt’s recovered from the precursors and he and Hermann get married, they move to the beach! They have an old, fixer-upper beach cottage with no AC, but it’s oceanfront, and they love it. Newt gets into the habit of going on beach walks every morning with Hermann, and they get a dog too.
it was all newts idea and hermann abided because he only cares about newt now, nothing else (what a fucking gay bitch) and so they get the beach front house and newt loves everything about it while hermann hates everything about it, he hates the sand, the gusts of wind, the salty sea air, but he loves the big smile that is constantly on newts facethey live a simple life of just hanging out together, they get a dog cuz newt felt they should ‘have a kid’ they get a bulldog and newt is so in love with it and constantly calls it their son, they walk around the beach or the town walking their dog, hand in hand, just peaceful and happy
out of pure curiosity. Do you have any particular AUs you’ve come up with that you’re attached to? For any of your faves tbh
not really, i'm sorry! i'm not really an au person because i love canon so damn much, only thing that comes to mind is that me and my beloved @slaapkat did once upon a time have an incredible hal & sinestro silent film au but that was a couple years back, and now i'm more of a stickler for canon than ever before
I’ve never gotten any content from you before but honestly the idea of you making content in creole is really really cool. I would absolutely consider it, even though to be honest I’m not coming at this from the most NSFW stance
OH THANK YOU FOR SAYING SO!! I definitely am more interested in making both nsfw and sfw content in creole now, really happy to have even one person on board with that! Thank you!! ☺️
wrenvibes replied to your post: wrenvibes: Ok so nobody wants to? WELL IM GONNA...
ok so. the flooded forest theory was a theory I came up with when I was like…. I think 13, when ATWQ 4 first came out- it was based off of this offhanded line in TVV that made me think of this theory? I can go back and find my posts, but most of them were asks I sent to @variousfableddictions before I had a tumblr.
oh cheers for replying, so prompt. im nearly up to TVV in my Big Conspiratorial Analysis, im always looking for fun worldbuilding links in off-hand comments so ill keep an especial eye out
