#exomal

using this as an excuse to share this scene i just did for 'drive the wedge' chapter two, where they have to go tell david that frank has river.

YES YES YES HEHEHEHEHE I AM VERYYYY >:) ABOUT THIS ONE. also tagging @remixedroses and @altschmerzes because you both asked about this one as well <3

so. as a fair warning, i have one episode left of s4 and this concept may perhaps be bungled by whatever happens in the finale. however. i am gonna do whatever i want forever! and also i thiiiiink based on what i know that it could. plausibly work lmao. anyways!

post-s4, things have. settled down, somewhat. a little. but river is... well. he's in a pretty bad place. he went through A Lot during s4, and the consequences of enduring that level of trauma, especially over such a contracted period of time, don't just. go away. so he's been struggling with not sleeping, with panic attacks, with feeling very scattered and not a part of himself or his life, with this sense of disconnection and fear. it's just. it's A LOT.

and then, one night, he gets home and is pretty sure that somebody's been inside while he was out. it's nothing... nothing obvious, nothing he can really get worked up about without seeming crazy and paranoid, but. something's off. like somebody wanted him to know they were here. but river is river and he's not going to kick up a fuss about something that's probably nothing, so he shrugs and tries to move on with his life. except. except. that may be the first time, but it's certainly not the last. it keeps happening. someone keeps entering his house and leaving behind little hints that they were there but he can never catch them. and then, suddenly, he starts getting the sense that he's being followed. on his way to slough house, on his way home, when he's going to the grocery store.... someone is Watching Him and he can't figure out who.

(he thinks frank, but immediately dismisses it. the man wouldn't come after him again so soon, would he? would he?)

(spoiler: he would.)

hiiii thank you!!

2. What’s something new you tried in a fic this year? ooh this one was difficult to think of, but I’ll say the emeto trope—I’ve included it in fics before, but never as like the centerpiece of the whump like I did in seasick (slow horses), so that was a fun new one!!

17. Share your favorite opening line. I think I’ll go with this one, from peroxide (tmfu): “They’re about thirty minutes into trudging through a swamp somewhere in central Canada when Illya says, quite conversationally and apropos of nothing, “I think I was injured. In escape.””

Hi, thanks for the ask! This one's from my Shmi Lives AU.

“Mom?” His voice was very nearly as hoarse as hers, and just as quiet. It was like a whispered prayer, secret and precious and full of hope and fear in equal measure. Too many emotions to name swam in his too wide eyes, relief and pain all tangled together in him just as it was in her, and once again, all she could see in this strange young man was the little boy she had borne into the harsh sands of Tatooine, and who knew of its cruel kindness as well and as intimately as any child of the desert.

This is gonna be my mandatory Eldritch Anakin AU™

BUT

Anakin had to get it from somewhere. 😏

Basically, Anakin is found to be Force Sensitive much younger and taken from Shmi and this actually causes something in Shmi to snap. 

All she can hear is Anakin screaming, Anakin crying as he's taken away. She feels him fading -- like an ache in her very soul. A stretch and a snap and he's gone. She her silent cries -- learned at the knees of women that were not her mother, the waterless tears of a slave -- transform into screams. They echo in the halls. Shockwaves -- ripples -- pushing everyone away. She can't feel her son anymore. Her sun.

It's all she can think about -- getting him back.

Wind and sand whip around her as she reaches. She doesn't know toward what. She's never felt this way before. Fingers spark and blaze but no one around her is harmed. No slave is harmed. Only the Masters.

She blazes in the night. Seeking, searching. Slaying all the Masters that get in the way. She topples stone and turns sand to glass. Her Children walk around her, wielding weapons wrought from their chains and picked from the belts of their fallen Masters.

Together they raze Mos Espa.

Turning over every grain of sand and every brick, seeking the Sun but he cannot be found.

The next night, Mos Eisley.

One by one the cities fall in the search. In the fight. To Freedom.

And there is still no sign of the Lost Sun.

Eventual Fix-It and reunification.

Stressed™ Obi-Wan.

Tatooine Revolutions.

Macenjar: Ship It

What made you ship it?

Don’t cite the deep magic at me, I was there when it was written- jokes aside, I really was there for the ship to be born and I 100% support it in its wonderful glory.

What are your favorite things about the ship?

How absolute crack the premise is and YET it works out. 10/10

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

here you are dear !

“Curious.” The holo of Plo Koon looked at them thoughtfully, but Anakin thought he heard a barely contained amusement in his voice. “Why is it, when something like this happens, it's always you two?”

“Believe me, Master, I've been asking myself the exact same thing for the past thirteen years,” Obi-Wan answered dryly.

It’s from a multichapter wip, trying to finish writing some more chapters before posting :)

THANK YOU it's one of the things that makes me the most bonkers about this lmao is the like. the association that happens in river's mind post-rescue with frank and lamb and how it casts so much... doubt on lamb sometimes, even beyond lamb already being a cantankerous asshole. it's like he thinks in that clip - lamb has never been violent to him before but things just feel so much less certain now. how can be trust that he won't be? it's so fun to me.

as thanks for asking and also an apology for taking a couple days to answer, have TWO clips, one with lamb and one with frank :)

this is um. well. snippet. clip. this is a.......... rather long piece from river's time in captivity sldfjs and then down under that ive got a clip from after his return, from the same conversation the last clip with lamb is from. this is. well it's frank, so content warning for. frank. and generally just. violence/trauma.

drive the wedge, frank:

Frank is looking at him. His eyes are hard and cold and they don’t waver for a moment. They bore into River’s with enough intensity that it nearly makes River flinch backwards just to see them. He just barely manages to stifle the instinct — it’s a close enough call that his hand, the one gripping the arm of the chair, flexes and the chain of the cuff around his wrist rattles.