star trek, star wars, dune, phm, hunger games
obi-wan, anakin, and ahsoka's aficionado
crosshair apologist
ahsoka, omega and ezra's adoptive parent
mckirk and spones shooter tcw defender to the end
purple_bougainvillea on ao3 ✧
26, critter, aroace
Nothing ruins immersion like visuals that don't match. SweetDream avoids that by keeping the photos and videos consistent with the companion you designed, so she always looks like herself.
That coherence is a quiet quality win. The AI-generated images are beautiful and on-character, which keeps the whole AI girlfriend experience believable. sweetdream.ai gets the details that protect the magic.
✦ trigger warnings in this part: vomiting (last five paragraphs), mild violence
9th rotation
He’s shaken away by a jolt of the ship, which almost makes him bang his head against the wall.
He sighs in annoyance.
What does a man need to do to get some sleep?
Perhaps, choose himself a different squad, but that’s hardly possible when his current one happens to be the one he’s been stuck with since he was born. Not that he minds, not really; but he would never let them know.
He cracks one eye open, hoping he looks as judgmental as he feels. In his line of vision, Wrecker is currently busy lifting Gonky with so much ease it’s kinda funny.
When his brother notices he’s awake, he smiles with such brightness it makes him regret ever opening his eyes. He doesn’t think people should be allowed to look so excited so early in the day.
Wrecker places Gonky down with much less care than he probably should (they need that droid, after all) and laughs in that way of his, the sound rumbling directly from his belly.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” he tells him, and Crosshair doesn’t even try to resist the urge to roll his eyes. It is mostly for show, he admits, because there’s something about the way Wrecker is that has always been endearing, that gets underneath his skin and softens his heart in a way he’s never been certain he likes.
Perhaps it’s because they’re polar opposites. Wrecker likes everything; he likes nothing. Wrecker always smiles; he never does. Wrecker is always loving; he’s not. In a way, he supposes, they balance each other out.
Sometimes he wonders how it’d be like, to see the world through his eyes. Because he’s not presumptuous enough to mistake his whimsy for naivety or stupidity, no matter how much it might seem so. His brother is no stranger to the reality of life, to the mercilessness of the battlefield. He merely doesn’t let that stop him from being himself.
And sometimes that himself is loud, and overly enthusiastic, and annoying; but he still loves him for it. He’s a comforting presence for all of them. Especially because they know that he would do anything for them, to protect them. Whatever path they go down, he follows, with undying loyalty. For some reason, that thought is like a dagger through the heart, but he ignores it.
Repressing a yawn, he pushes himself to his feet, takes a toothpick out of his utility belt and clasps it between his teeth. His brothers have told him he looks ridiculous, affectionately, but he doesn’t care. Sometimes he just needs to bite on something.
He realises too late that Wrecker has approached him with a mischievous glint in his eyes. Before he can leap away, his brother has already scooped him up into a hug. He hates when he does that without warning and without asking, especially when he picks him up from the ground in a way that makes him feel weak and small (it’s ridiculous for a man his height to be made to feel small).
Or, at least, he usually does. This time, it floods his heart with something he cannot explain, and he has to blink tears back. Maybe he needed this, after all, and Wrecker saw it before he could even realise it. He’s always so attuned to their emotions it’s nearly jarring.
Still, he cannot understand why he feels like drowning. It doesn’t make sense. The strength of the arms around him should anchor him, not send him adrift. And yet, he’s suddenly aware that their hold is more forceful than it should be, that it’s on the verge of crushing him.
“Wrecker…?” he asks, voice stifled, the world around them seemingly stilled. But his brother doesn’t answer and neither does he let him go, like he usually would, by that point. He can’t even bring himself to snap at him, because he can barely breathe.
It feels like his lungs are trapped into a steel grip, every second closer to collapsing onto themselves. He tries to rip himself away from his brother’s grasp, to no avail. His arms tighten around his middle; with such violence he swears his bones begin to fracture.
“How could you do this to us, Crosshair?” And his voice isn’t sweet, nor sorrowful. It’s harsh, biting, like he wants to eat him alive and spit out all the darkest parts of him. Like he deserves nothing more than to be gutted. Like he’s the one who’s wrong. “How could you betray us?”
You betrayed me first, he wants to say, but not a sound leaves his lips, other than a pathetic, feeble rasp. His stomach churns, the bitter anger he has never quite consumed strangling him, choking him more than Wrecker ever could.
The dream shatters in a thousand pieces and he wakes feeling sick and unsteady, the taste of bile in his mouth.
He doesn’t even try to make it to the edge of the platform. He’s past the point of caring.
He vomits all the meagre remainders of his dinner (raw fish and rain water; like it’s been for days on end), down on his hands and knees, shivering. He’s always shivering and he doesn’t even know what from anymore: he doesn’t know if it’s because of the cold, or the disgusting food he has to shove down his throat, or because the water is drowning him from the inside out.
There are tears streaming along his cheeks, but they have nothing to do with sadness or grief. They’re forced from his eyes as his body desperately tries to get rid of something that isn’t there. He cannot save himself from this sickness because it’s tangled in his veins, underneath his skin. His body knows that something isn’t right, but none of the defence mechanisms it has can save him.
And does it truly matter, if his body is failing? Does it matter when he feels his mind is not his own anymore? There’s barely a difference between his dreams and reality.
Right then, he feels like he’s miles away, looking at himself from a distance, like a stranger. Looking down at this animal that’s left of him and wondering if he’ll ever be anything else again. Wondering if he’s ever been anything else.
✦ trigger warnings in this part: self-harm (last five paragraphs), mild blood
7th rotation
Sometimes he dreams, in those brief, troubled hours he succumbs to exhaustion.
They’re like poison, something he should not be having; and they dig his most pathetic self out from underneath his ribcage.
He dreams of hands shaking him awake, softly and yet with too much eagerness, a voice calling his name.
He dreams of blinking his eyes open and discovering he’s back in their room, the rain hammering against their window instead of against his skin.
He’s still young and there have not been missions, yet; there has been none of the harshness of the real world.
He turns around from where he’s facing the wall, though he has no need for it to know who has woken him.
This is a pattern he knows, he recognises, something which has happened before.
And he’s learned his brothers’ presence by heart, the way the air shifts around them, the way their heart beats and their breath sounds.
He heaves out a grunt in response, because he’s tired, so damn tired—but it’s a battle he’s already lost.
He always does.
No matter how much he tries to hold himself aloof, to shove down his emotions, it’s a lie that has no chance against his brothers.
Still, he glares at Tech, standing beside his bed, datapad drawn so close to his eyes it’s a wonder he doesn’t burn his retinas.
They have just given him glasses and, sometimes, he still forgets that he has them.
“What?” He eventually asks, in a hiss, when Tech doesn’t speak a word for what could be minutes.
His brother looks up from his datapad, stares like he forgot he’s there, like he forgot he’s the one who has woken him up.
“I find I cannot sleep,” he answers, voice tired but mind entirely too awake.
It’s something that has happened before. Tech finds it hard to shut his brain down, sometimes.
With a sigh, Crosshair scoots over, giving him space to climb into bed beside him.
It’s a twin thing, Tech says; being close to him helps him sleep, when he can’t.
He doesn’t mind. He would never admit it, of course, but he doesn’t mind.
Sometimes he feels a void in his chest, something that can only be filled by being close to someone; ironically, he finds it difficult to allow.
It doesn’t take long for Tech to start chattering about whatever he’s been reading on his datapad, though Crosshair is barely listening.
The words might be lost on him, but there’s something soothing about Tech’s voice. He makes so many things so much more bearable.
He doesn’t know how to tell him, but he wishes he could. He needs to know. He acts like he bothers him, most of the time, but he loves him like a part of himself.
He’s almost fallen back to sleep, head in his lap (and perhaps, that should ring an alarm bell, because it’s not common for either of them to accept physical touch), when some of his words break through his drowsiness, stilling his heart in his chest.
They feel wrong, askew.
Not something Tech would say; not like that, at the very least.
“I wish you were not like this.”
They’re a dissonance, colliding harshly with the softness of his fingers running through his hair. “I know you cannot help it, but I wish you were kind.” It’s odd to hear him say so. Because, though Tech is one of the kindest people in the galaxy, it’d ever been a concept that’s too abstract, not tangible enough for him to define.
He tries to move away.
He can’t.
The fingers in his hair tangle around the strands, hold on too tight.
“You tried to kill us.” No, that’s wrong; it hasn’t happened yet.
“I didn’t want to,” he whispers and hates the way his voice breaks.
I didn’t want to. Not at first. You left me. You left me. You left me. You weren’t loyal to me. I was your own, but you left me behind. I didn’t want to.
Tech’s voice sounds distorted, suddenly so similar to his own, when he bends down closer to his ear, to harshly gnaw on his very soul:
“But you did.”
He startles awake with a gasp that chokes him. For a moment, everything is blurry, and he cannot remember where he is.
Until he realises that everything is blurry because there are tears in his eyes. And he remembers that he’s not home.
That his home doesn’t exist anymore.
That he’s been stranded in the middle of the ocean for a week and he’s falling prey to his own delusions.
His brothers are gone; they’re not coming back.
They might as well be dead.
He bites down a sudden sob, chewing on his bottom lip so hard it splits easily.
His tears mix with the pouring rain, and he hates himself more for it.
Hates how relieving it is; to be able to pretend he’s not crying at all.
He catches himself wishing he’d gone with his brothers.
Because, despite all his pretences, their loss is a wound that scores his soul so deeply he will never be the same again.
No, no.
He cannot regret his own choices, not now.
He cannot be this weak.
He won’t be.
He doesn’t think, when he sinks his fingers, his nails, against the too soft skin of his arm, stretched thin underneath the constant attack of the rain.
It breaks like the surface of the water; too easily. It feels like breaking through the surface of the water, as well; like breathing.
It doesn’t even hurt.
Blood trickles down his arm, crawls down his hand, falls between his fingers.
He stares at it, in strange fascination; every memory of his dream forgotten.
every fandom is somewhat weird about their ships but i feel like the star wars fandom is the worst. you say you like a ship that isn’t in between the like seven approved by the masses or is even remotely controversial and they look at you like you shot their dog.
back when we were thirteen, me and my best friends wrote a comedic play-like story about obi-wan taking anakin and padmé to jedi court because he found out about their relationship. and we usually acted it out because you know, teenagers.
it featured wonderful things, like clovis having an obnoxious italian accent, mace windu being addicted to smoking wooden closets, jar-jar being obi-wan's lawyer, obi-wan having a secret relationship with undisclosed people but only through the force and ahsoka wearing a bathrobe to claim it's the latest fashion and explain why anakin was found at padmé's wearing one.
The difference between Season 1 and Season 3 of the Bad Batch
Season 1:
Omega: Crosshair, can I have a hug?
Crosshair: The audacity??? Of this Child??? Nothing would revolt me more than to show any kind of weakness to sate your neediness.
Season 3:
Omega: Crosshair, you're getting a hug.
Crosshair: The charity??? Of my Sister??? Nothing would give me more joy than to be hugged by the Literal Angel that you are, though I am a lowly worm.
skin and bone ⌖ an angsty kamino crosshair fanfiction
✦ Part 4 (4th rotation – words: 295)
✦ read on AO3 ✦ Master post | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
✦ trigger warnings in this part: auditory hallucinations
4th rotation
He’s losing his mind.
He has to be.
When he woke up from his troubled sleep, hours (or has it been mere minutes?) ago, he swore he was jolted back into consciousness by the noise of a distant engine.
But when he opened his eyes, he was met with nothing but the infinite dark stretch of the ocean, melding with the sky in one single blue void.
On the other side, nothing but the smouldering remains of Tipoca City, somehow not yet extinguished.
He wonders whether they will ever stop burning.
Not that it matters, really. He’s starting to think that nothing matters.
He was just deceiving himself, holding with white-knuckled strength onto a hope that has never been tangible, has been slipping through his fingers like sand this whole time.
There’s no reason for anyone to return to Kamino; the planet had once been valuable, but it’s nothing more than a dead land, a desert of salt water.
They won’t find him.
He’s going to die here.
And for—for what?
What is he dying for?
A revenge he never got.
A pride that means nothing anymore.
That’s not fair. It was never meant to end this way.
Of course, this is his brothers’ fault.
Their treachery, their betrayalhas led to him being stranded here.
Had they done the right thing, had they joined the Empire, the right side, none of this would have happened.
He hopes they’re dead. If this is his destiny, it better be theirs as well. It wouldn’t be fair any other way.
It doesn’t matter that, sometime later, when he thinks he hears someone calling his name, he turns around, frantically, telling himself that maybe, this time they’ve come back for him.
watching the same scene seven hundred times while writing fanfictions because if i don't describe the exact inflection of and emotions in someone's voice (dee godly baker in this case) my head will explode
skin and bone ⌖ an angsty kamino crosshair fanfiction
✦ Part 3 (3rd rotation – words: 303)
✦ read on AO3 ✦ Master post | 1 | 2 | 3
✦ trigger warnings in this part: raw fish (i guess?)
3rd rotation
Hungry.
He’s so damn hungry.
No one has come for him, yet. He still holds onto hope that they will, that someone out there is searching for him.
Because he’s loyal.
Because he’s a good soldier.
But he also knows that, until then, he has to survive on his own. That’s nothing new, in the end. Survival is written in his blood.
He hates thinking he has to lowers himself to such measures, but his instinct of self-preservation has kicked in and he certainly cannot allow himself to die.
What a waste it would be.
So, he takes his armour apart, not caring that it’s the sole thing that protects him from the rain; he rips the sleeves of his blacks to tie every piece together, into a make-shift spear that’s too blunt and yet is the only thing that can help him.
His sharp eyes aid him see through the rain’s constant slaughter of the surface of the ocean. Somehow, he catches something.
The fish is barely dead out of the water and he’s already gutting it with his bare hands, feeling like a rabid animal who has lost all control.
He chews through the scales and tears the flesh right from the bone, swallowing it down along the bile that begins to climb up his throat.
It’s disgusting. It’s primitive. He doesn’t care. He’ll do anything it takes to survive.
He carves a tally mark into the durasteel on the side of the platform to count the days that have passed, like they used to do in their room, after a successful mission.
How foolish that he’s still thinking of his brothers, he tells himself. Yet, for all his resolve, they’re always there, at the back of his mind.
What a cruel little thing, it is, to be aware you’re alive.
skin and bone ⌖ an angsty kamino crosshair fanfiction
✦ Part 2 (2nd rotation – words: 416)
✦ read on AO3 ✦ Master post | 1 | 2
✦ trigger warnings in this part: non-specific
2nd rotation
Rain.
He’s beginning to hate the rain.
Once upon a time, it had been somewhat comforting, a constant in his mind.
The scent of home.
But that home is beginning to seem nothing more than a prison.
It has been for a long time, even before it fell.
Still, he had never come to despise the rain, not until then.
He should be grateful, he imagines. He certainly won’t feel the lack of water. He wishes there was less of it.
He didn’t think about it, yesterday, but he thought they would find him sooner. He thought he wouldn’t have to stay there more than a few hours.
It’s been an entire rotation, more or less, and no one has come for him.
Other than the rain. It has not ceased falling, battering down on him with little mercy.
The ocean has been turbulent ever since, and he’s found himself more than once nearly drowning, waves crashing against the platform with nearly no warning.
It does nothing to ease his bitterness.
He told himself he would not think about his brothers ever again, but they’re still on his mind.
It’s hardly his fault that he’s stranded on the planet that reminds him the most of them, where they spent all of their childhood together. Yet another thing that’s gone; yet another memory he wishes he could erase.
And he asks himself whether they’d truly ever cared.
After all, when he’d first turned against them, he’d had no choice. They couldn’t have known, but it says something of their loyalty, to know they left him with no hesitation. Perhaps, they had always believed that he would betray them, one day.
Had they ever truly believed in him, or they always thought him cold and unfeeling?
Even Tech had said as such; that he’s just like that and they should have not expected better. Being the bad guy had always been in his blood. Well, then, what a surprise that’s precisely what he’s been.
He tells himself he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care where his brothers are, he doesn’t care about the kid they replaced him with (she saved his life, he saved hers; they’re even and he hopes he never sees her, or any of them, again); they could die, for all he cares.
pixelskylines
blakekathryn
kianamaiart
