#i finally finished s2 after putting it off for a month.......

[croissantexpert]

me 🤝 fushiguro megumi constantly thinking about itadori yuuji

[snek-panini]

As promised, I've got more books to share and they are all fic binds. Have a look at this new one:

This is Among the Stacks by MeinirRhos, and it's one of the few post-s2 Good Omens fics that I've liked enough to bind. It's canon-compliant and full of pining, fluff, angst, and a memory loss plot and I knew before even finishing it that I wanted it on my physical shelves.

I kept it pretty simple on the outside, with Library Summit book cloth and white HTV for the title. Large parts of the fic have to do with libraries and library books, so I thought it would be fun to make it look like a library rebind, something that looks innocuous and blends in to the shelves but it's actually going to be your new fave once you open it up and start reading. I wanted very badly to have the titles hand-written in embossing inks but I couldn't get a clean enough line with the textured cloth, so this handwriting font saved the day.

More photos under the cut; I'm really proud of the typeset for this one!

Top view, with pre-made end bands and a ribbon bookmark. Going with the library rebind aesthetic, I didn't think it ought to have handmade end bands, so these were perfect. Honestly I'm not sure the ribbon bookmark fits the theme, but you can pry that from my cold dead hands. All my books have them and I love them too much to leave it out. The endpapers are cream-colored cardstock, and while they look plain they feel nice. I tried out a new-to-me corner style, the library corner, where you don't trim off the excess material at the turn-in. It's supposed to be more durable than other styles and is common in rebinds. Library Summit is stiffer than most of the other book cloth I've worked with, so it was a little challenging to get it to lay flat while drying, and it's a bit bulkier than I'm used to, but it's perfect for the theming. Unrelatedly, it also holds a hinge crease really well.

Title page. I could not be more pleased with this title page design. I showed it to my husband after I finished the text block but before I had the cover on it, and he didn't realize at first that it was one of mine. I have cracked the code of professional title pages. The graphics were, at the time I put this together, available for free on rawpixel. I'm in love with it. It is sexy as hell and it will never be equaled.

Couple more interiors. The chapter header font is called Book Ends and I found it on DaFont. You add in the little plants and stuff with symbols. I haven't done much with custom fonts until this batch of fics, and in some of the others I've got in the pipeline I went a little nuts with them, but I think this one's my favorite for how well it fits the story. I also started experimenting with formatting text messages in this fic, and I'm very pleased with how those came out as well. The Renegade Bindery discord has resources on this kind of formatting, so check them out if you haven't already. I'd never have gotten them so professional-looking otherwise.

And that's it for this bind! I started working on it back in April and I'm thrilled to finally be able to show off the finished product. Thanks @rhosmeinir (Hi! It's Amberfly from Ao3!) for giving me permission to bind it nearly six months ago.

[weclassybouquetfun]

Tonight is the penultimate episode of series two of AMC+'s INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE.

Well, this isn't ominous at all.

Impressed that months later content from the S2 premiere is still being rolled out.

ALL THE SPOILERS FOR Episode 14 / S2E07

It's fine. It's all fine.

If you've read the books (not me) or have seen the movie (me) or just possess the ability to read between the lines, then you knew this day was coming: The death of Claudia de Pointe du Lac de Lioncourt and her companion Madeleine.

Finally, someone chose Claudia.

They actually made a playbill. The nastiest of nasty work.

There is still a lot to be open to interpretation in regards to motivations and the truthiness of various accounts. Maybe we will get answers in the next episode (how much of a willing participant was Lestat in these deliberations? How accurate was Louis' new recollection of begging Lestat to turn Claudia despite Lestat's warnings?) and maybe we won't (at any time have we seen the real Lestat?)

What I do know is that this cast acts their collective bums off.

What I also know?

They will never make me hate you, maître. You've done nothing wrong, ever.

Even though you leveled your coven with one word, I am sure you could not stop them from putting your lover, his sister-daughter and her companion on trial and subsequent execution.

He was helpless to do anything, you just don't understand!!

Armand was able to control everyone's speech and compel them to say "banishment" and just heaves a sigh of relief for the trouble. Meanwhile, Lestat was wan and bleeding from one ear after mind controlling a room of soldiers.

I still stand by you, Armand. I'm just saying...

-I am inclined to believe Lestat's deviations. You can tell what are Sam's words and what aren't by how Santiago responds and also just how true to form they seem from a character standpoint. I could be very wrong, but I can believe Louis threatened to cut Lestat's head off.

This is Louis who threatened his brother with a knife (which turned Lestat's eye to him in the first place). This is a man who lobbed a veiled threat at Grace during their mother's funeral (and you know it's true because that was from Claudia's diary). Louis was furious in that moment so why would he be expected to hold his tongue and not scrap? As he told Lestat, "You start it, you finish it."

Louis castigated Lestat for choking their daughter. I'm not going to remind him what he did to her when she begged him to let her burn Lestat.

So many people last season were raging because their "Brat Prince" was depicted as a domestic abuser and were sure this season would absolve him. But while we get a fuller picture of the fight, Lestat still did what he did. To me it just adds more clarity on why he stayed away for so long.

The biggest question for me this episode was how long did they workshop Lestat's side? Did the coven plunder his mind or did Lestat readily give them information (they knew about the words "come to me", the killing of the priests, the church kiss, Louis' depression and the house being a shambles. We even see on the projection the raccoon that was roaming their house)?

No matter how they found out the Louis/Lestat details, Lestat is not fully a willing participant in my mind. This man was over it from the jump.

Also, he's stubbled and one thing Lestat de Lioncourt is going to do is be well groomed so those theatre nerds have had him locked away until showtime.

They summoned Lestat while he was drinking his chickory coffee and eating beignets. Classless.

Dreamstat in Dubai feels so wrong.

Spoiler filled interview with Delainey, Roxanne and Jacob after episode 14/7.

Interview with Sam.

[tame-a-messenger]

too long for comment so I am going into ask box again

I am kinda sad how the handled sword AF so far in general and are STILL handling it. Even if the answer is "hey, we are not sure when sword AF will return/we are uncertain about the future of it in general,". It would be so much better to get than just silence. Also, I get that it kind of underperformed, and it must be one of the most expansive things to produce. So yeah, it kind of underperformed slightly in a Smosh context, but it had SO FUCKING MUCH FANWORK. Like, fewer people cared about it, but the people that did care A LOT. Which, like, you can tap into that to finance it. For example, I feel like sword AF merch would perform really well.

We can't know, but if we are not getting Sword AF for financial reasons, that would be so stupid. Because I don't think it has to be that way.

This is all just wild speculating when it comes down to it, and the reasons are definitely more complicated that (time is very likely a BIG factor as well)

Typically, I am really not a fan of guessing and speculating based on so little, but because it is about a show, I give myself a pass haha

*Rattling at the gates of Smosh HQ, "WILL SWORD AF RETURN FROM THE WAR???"

(Additional thing: In a way it was kinda funny they announced that sword AF wasn't going to happen hours after it was supposed to drop. Like were they actually surprised people cared about it??? Haha. )

That's what I find so disrespectful about all this. They haven't said a peep about Sword AF since they delayed it.

I understand that the views didn't do SUPER amazingly well, but they didn't do worse than a lot of other content they've put out? The first ep of S1 got 1.4mil and over the whole 9 eps it got a total of 4.7mil views? (I'm including the "Movie"-comp of all the eps - it had 403k)

The least viewed video (weirdly) is the final ep. I think it's because a lot of people fell off watching it. Keep in mind, they uploaded episodes every two weeks, which I'm willing to bet is a big reason why a lot of people stopped watching.

I feel like most first seasons of D&D campaigns don't start out with crazy views, it's expected to gain traction the more it goes on? That's how I feel.

I agree that running a D&D campaign does take a lot of effort and (from what I've heard) takes a lot of world building and really is a huge time sucker, I can see how they would want need more time to work on it (giving only 3-4 months to write a whole season in-between doing voice over/other freelance work sounds like a lot) so wanting more time I understand. It's just that they haven't given any updates or talked about it AT ALL, that's what's really weird.

SO many people love Sword AF! There was so much fan art! and everyone was talking about it in fan spaces!

Like it was so loved! and I know a lot of table top/D&D people are LOADED, and they would 100% buy even the worst looking merch because of how much they liked the series! (I would by something with Rumpum on it! That sounds so fucking cute!) so I don't see there being any real reason not to do a S2 except either they don't have the time to write it/or are just generally really busy, or some totally unknown reason behind the scenes??

At the end of the day it is just really bizarre to me that they haven't mentioned it at all? like not a peep?

"(Additional thing: In a way it was kinda funny they announced that sword AF wasn't going to happen hours after it was supposed to drop. Like were they actually surprised people cared about it??? Haha. )"

(Was it not the exact time it was supposed to be uploaded? I remember waiting for it and seeing the community post notif at the exact time it was supposed to drop? or maybe 15mins after? either way-)

That was such a slap in the face. It hurts worse now that it's been enough time that I can be certain there was NO WAY it was even close to being finished (or maybe even started?) They really waited till the absolute last- no, PAST the last second to let us know it wasn't dropping. What a way to shit in the face of the people that cared.. (I literally cleared my schedule to be able to watch it and was waiting for the clock to hit 1pm (I live est) thinking I was gonna spend at least an hour watching the new ep.. I can only imagine how many other people had gotten stuff set up to watch, that got fucked with.)

I do want a S2, I want them to say something about it at least. And they BETTER apologize about how they handled it.

[ineffable-bisexual]

WIP Fix It Craic for GO S2

This takes place in the South Downs after EVERYthing dammit. They got a lot of trauma talk to do! I'll have to eat some actual food before finishing and posting lol what is my life today

-----

“Angel…that was a while ago. We’re past that. Right?”

“I’m not, Crowley. My actions nearly drove us apart for good. The moment I stepped off that elevator…I realized what I had done.”

Crowley felt his eyes burn with tears he thought he would never have to shed again. The angel told him all of this already, months after his return to Earth, but Crowley never told him what he went through after he left. The sleepless nights…how music didn’t sound the same…

…even wine tasted bitter.

“Darling,” he said. “I will never forget that day. Ever. As long as I’m existing.” Aziraphale’s bottom lip quivered, and Crowley took another deep breath. “But I forgive you.”

The angel’s sob finally broke free and he cast down his eyes. “Why…?”

“You know why, love. I told you everything that day. Laid it all out even though I knew it would be futile. Even when I kissed you I knew it would be useless. You had already made up your mind.”

“No!” he cried. “I hadn’t then! I hadn’t even given him my answer!”

Crowley sniffed to keep the tears from falling, but one trickled down his cheek and onto his jaw. “I could see it in your face, though, angel. You made the choice…and then you learned it was the wrong one.”

Aziraphale pulled a handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and covered his eyes with it. Crowley’s chest felt heavy as he listened to his husband sob. It was full of regret and mourning over time lost when he thought himself so selfish.

Crowley thought that of himself, grabbing his only love in this universe and kissing him like that would magically change everything that happened.

One last miracle that would never manifest.

“I forgave you a long time ago, angel.” He wiped his cheek of another tear. “Before we met up again…when you came back to Earth…I was so angry at you…” The choked cry from his husband made his jaw tight but he continued, “And I was angry at myself. For not telling you how I felt sooner. You never left my mind, darling. And I needed to forgive you.”

“Crowley, why though?” Aziraphale lifted his eyes from his handkerchief. He looked defeated and tired, even after all the years they spent back together again. “I’m not worthy of your forgiveness.”

Crowley immediately left the chair and got onto his knees in front of the angel at the sofa and put his arms around him. Aziraphale sobbed into his shoulder and clung to him as he should have those many years ago.

Crowley pressed his lips to his wet cheek. “Don’t ever think that again. I had to forgive you because I loved you. I still do, I’ll never stop…it was my vow to you, wasn’t it? On our wedding day?”

Aziraphale took a deep breath and replied, “Yes…’I love you, forever in eternity.’ Oh…Crowley, I can’t do this...”

"It's obvious that you have to, love."

-------

LOL I'm weak help...

[jazzythursday]

Snippet from my post-s2 eventual reveal fic, since it’s so so close to being completely finished and I’m sort of losing my mind looking at it after four monthes—ahhh

“You know,” Wylan whispers, in the time between night and day where you can’t tell if it’s late or early. He’s stretched lazily across Jesper’s side, in the bed they now share, apparently, “the moon doesn’t actually have its own light source.”

“No?”

“No, not on its own,” Wylan continues. His chin is tucked into Jesper’s chest, ear pressed over the steady beat of his heart. Wylan feels warm and kept and wanted, and it’s so strange. It’s so strange to be anything other than anxious or lonely. “It reflects the light of the sun back at us. Our perceived brightness of it from here just depends on where the moon is in its orbit around the planet, and our position relative to the sun, but it’s…not. Not really…” he trails off, fiddling with the duvet.

Privately, he thinks it’s an apt metaphor. That he makes a pale moon next to the light of Jesper’s sun. That if you took Jesper and put him somewhere where his smile didn’t reach or Wylan couldn’t hear his laugh, that he’d be just as hateful and unremarkable as always.

Jesper hums against Waylan’s hair. Presses his nose into it. “What else do you have cooking in that big brain of yours, hm?”

Wylan stops himself from cringing, but it’s a near thing. Jesper’s tone is genuine, he knows. Jesper isn’t mocking him. He wouldn’t.

He’s finally starting to accept that Jesper actually likes hearing about all the things Wylan finds interesting. He treats all of Wylan’s facts like precious metal: rare, valuable, desired. It makes Wylan feel emotions he doesn’t know how to name, so he doesn’t.

“Guess.”

“Hmm, something like”—Jesper pitches his voice up and does a crude impression of a posh accent—“My boyfriend is amazing in bed and looks fabulous in a kilt, he’s also unbelievably good with his—”

“Stop!” he snorts, laughs into Jesper’s collarbone. “I don’t sound like that!”

“Maybe not, but does that mean it’s not true?”

“You did look amazing in the kilt,” Wylan concedes. Then, “Boyfriend?”

No idea when I’ll have this posted—hopefully the first chapter will go up in the next few weeks, but until then feel free to yell at me abt it in my ask box if you like

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Victoria - 4 years on

Today (May 12) marks the fourth anniversary of the first UK broadcast of the 3rd season (and possibly series) finale of Jenna Coleman’s Victoria in 2019. It’s amazing it’s been so long!

Of course Jenna has gone on to other work. As the season was finishing up on ITV, she was co-starring in a West End revival of All My Sons. A few months later she’d be in Thailand shooting The Serpent. Then of course C19 arrived (hard to believe, less than a year after Victoria aired!), and after a pause Jenna ended up in The Sandman, Klokkenluider, and other projects.

Is Victoria finished? Wikipedia’s page has it as cancelled, citing a statement by ITV dated from 2021 that there were no plans for a 4th season. I recall one article saying further production was unlikely due to C19 (which would technically put Victoria in the same company as GLOW and a few other series ended due to the pandemic, even though most other shows continued production). Daisy Goodwin, the show’s producer and writer, posted on Instagram sometime in 2019 that she’d written scripts for Series 4. And, of course, Series 3 (spoiler alert) ended on a cliffhanger.

There’s still hope that the show might return, perhaps as a one-off special. Yes, Jenna and Tom Hughes are no longer a couple - but there’s certainly precedent for exes to continue working together in TV and film, so that’s not necessarily a barrier. There’s certainly no time limit involved - Jenna could return to the role later in life quite easily (much as Judi Dench has done); in real life, Albert didn’t die for real until a decade or so after the events covered in Series 3.

But the fact remains Jenna has moved on. Maybe not into something ongoing (even Sandman S2 might only entail another one-off story, she won’t in in every episode, and The War Rooms is looking to be the TV equivalent of vaporware), but being tied to a TV series might have prevented her from taking on things like Jackdaw or the Lemons play - or whatever she might be doing next. She probably has no burning need or desire to return to Victoria (maybe not to the same degree she appears to be disinterested in reprising Clara Oswald), other than maybe the fact the series leaves viewers hanging so it’ll always remain a bit of “unfinished business” in that regard.

Her co-stars have also moved on. Nell Hudson is now a novelist; Margaret Clunie has been doing mostly independent films; Tom has been in several TV series and movies over the last couple of years.

But what we did get were 3 seasons (plus a Christmas special) of surprisingly light-hearted romantic drama, Vicbourne, Vicbert (I forgot the ship name), Jenna in nearly every scene, plus some great co-stars including Margaret and Nell, Rufus Sewell, and of course fellow Doctor Who-franchise veterans Tommy Knight and Eve Myles and, lest we forget, Diana Rigg also popped in for a visit when she wasn’t poisoning Joffrey Baratheon! LOL! I miss the show but am thankful we got what we got!

[emilyzone]

emily reviews the GG sonic games

over the past few months i beat the GG sonic games with all chaos emeralds. well, here are my thoughts!

Sonic the Hedgehog What a sweet game. Forgiving but satisfyingly challenging, and with a sense of style the others really can't match. in many ways this game's presentation is actually more polished than its 16-bit counterpart. It makes me feel more within the World established by ancillary media in JP of the time than the main game does. The role this game has in the story of its developer, Ancient, also adds to the appeal. I would give this game a smooch.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 This is such a contrast with 1 that it's a bit of whiplash going in. the art is raw and unpracticed, and the gameplay is aggressive toward you in the way old platformers frequently will be. But after giving in and switching from GG to the MS version (after beating Mecha Antlion once on GG to prove myself), i was able to meet the game where it wanted me to. The challenge became fun, and it was satisfying to make it through to the end. Making the 'special stage' a true final zone with vaporwave stylings based on the 16-bit special stages is an inspired use of limited rom space, and was really fun to play too. they haven't made a zone like Crystal Egg before or since. oh yeah and toot toot sonic warrior originated here - what a landmark tune for this game to have to its name. scrappy game altogether, but in a way where you're happy to see it succeed :)

Sonic and Tails ('chaos') Feels like Aspect is trying to establish their own voice as a sonic dev here. The portable and motobug springs are smart ideas that lend themselves to new puzzle structures, and the rocket shoes are just kind of silly. The experimental special stages are interesting, but it was definitely a miss that when you unlock one, it takes you out of an act without the opportunity to go back and finish it later. The premise that Eggman has an emerald and that's why you only need to get 5 is funny, but I respect it as a way for them to rebalance the challenge in a way they were happy with, without sacrificing the established lore that there must be 6 altogether. Aqua Planet feels weirdly prescient of Hydrocity. Electric Egg feels like someone wasn't finished with Scrambled Egg from the last game, and needed another attempt. I enjoy the tube puzzles so that's fine.

Sonic and Tails 2 ('triple trouble') I initially bounced hard off of this one. The special stage entry restrictions felt too restrictive - 50 rings PLUS find ONE monitor hidden somewhere in the stage. It combines the mainline S2 and S3 concepts into a double challenge. Once you're comfortable enough with the game though, its actually very manageable to plot your route. The visuals do great work translating the S3&K style into 8-bit, probably the prettiest of these aside from 1 (although thats obviously subjective). knuckles piloting a boss vehicle is funny. Fang is funny. I wish they hadnt taken away his gun. Big props to this game for committing to its own core mechanics for sonic - they put in some great challenges making use of balling-up-from-spring and the strike dash.

Not sure if i'll bother with Sonic Blast, at least for the time being. on the whole though these games are fun if you don't expect them to be exactly like the mega drive games.

[shinahbee]

Fall favorites 2022!

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GREETINGS

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October 30th/2022

Happy Halloween!

It’s been like 4 months since the last update.lol. As you can tell I was busy with life. Specifically work and preparing to possibly open my etsy store soon.

I have been testing out different prints to sell and stickers, also thinking about making some clay pins. I have seen some videos on sellers making them and I have all the tools so why not right?

I’ll let you guys know more as it gets closer to opening date. I also have not been reading many webtoons and that’s kind of why the reviews haven’t been monthly.lol. I have to say I probably reached the peak of reading good webtoons now and I just don’t find a lot of new stories that interesting. But I will try to compile at least a couple to talk about and feature them when I can.

Anyways, you’re not here to listen to me ramble about my life so let’s get to it.

                                          Happy reading!

Sheena

Please suggest me some dramas to watch...I’m just watching stranger things and i’ll review that after I’m done.

Recap:

I’m just going to put up the ongoing list only. I also eliminated some titles because they are now completed or I dropped them for now

Ongoing  

Liveta (hiatus)

Pearl boy

Semantic error

The foul (hiatus)

Secret relationships

Kings Maker (S2)

One night mate (hiatus)

Night fragments (hiatus)

The pizza delivery man and the gold palace

Dangerous convenient store

Updates on ongoing titles:

I think the recap section is going to be the longest this update...lol. Just a heads up Spoilers are ahead so if you don’t want to be spoiled ...don’t read it.

You may have noticed some of the ongoing ones are now finished. It was not worth mentioning. Turn off the camera, like how I figured jihoon ended up with yujin, of course...whatever choosing the second lead was never a thing in the first place so why do I bother....

I honestly don’t remember anything about semantic error anymore, it’s been so long since I last read it, I’ll have to get back on that train.

Secret relationships:

Oh boy...the absolute landmine, every person is triggered every Monday by any type of update, lmao it’s honestly so funny to see people defend a 2D character like they are best friends and just covering for their mistakes and making up things to excuse their actions...I’m like, dude if this was your actual friend you would call them out on their shit, you would end your friendship with them if they did something stupid. Needless to say this is all fiction...don’t be rude to other people just cause you have different opinions.

Let me just say the last few updates, if it’s not a flash back it’s a really confusing chapter. I have said this before and I’ll say it again, the plot line at this point is fan service up until now the story had been 75% flashbacks and maybe less than 25% story...it was not until chapter 110 that finally something happened that moves the story forward..Meaning that Daon was finally able to let go of jaemin and go their separate ways, whatever happened in the last 10 years was draining and heavy on both parties, they kept this whole weird relationship going on as more a security sense rather than anything else, even if it was the biggest betrayal a person can commit. It was really hard to read because it is like a 10 year relationship break up where you don’t want to let go because it’s familiar and at the same time you need to choose yourself and think about what you want and just not care. This is the hardest thing people can go through at the time but let me just tell you after it’s all done and time goes by...it will be just fine...just know that and move forward and things will work out!

Maybe I’m giving that author too much credit but that chapter was daon’s defining moment, and I was really happy for him, finally he was able to let go and chase after his own happiness, not saying it has to be Sunghyeon...but just in general being free from something that isn’t working.

But speaking of Sunghyeon...well a picture is worth a thousand words right? After he runs off from jaemin, he went running straight into a certain person’s arms.

Following up to the next chapter 111, Daon talked about how he was ready to start something new and he wants to do that with sunghyeon, so asked for a chance to be with him. I cannot tell you how long I have waited for this from them, my sungda fangirl heart was screaming. I have to say sunghyeon’s reaction was very real and understanding especially since he didn’t know what had happened between him and jaemin and didn’t really know how to react, most people would expect him to just kiss him right there and then...which Korean dramas love to portray as romantic, but he didn’t and instead was hesitating a bit since he was contemplating about his relationship with daon at this point and whether or not he trusts him since in a way daon did betray his trust more than a few times, but in the end he accepted him. This makes him feel anxious and daon reassures him by holding his hand while they are in a taxi, signifying that he wasn’t going anywhere I guess.

On that note some stupid comments were made by people who clearly are just dumb and don’t realize that there are something called “trains” in Korea and not everyone drives cause they were all salty about sunghyeon not for his character but because he does not having a car and therefore he’s poor why would you choose him...I’m like I don’t know what money you are making to afford one especially if you are an average salary office worker...

If this all you can come up with...educate yourself please. Haters be hating on really dumb things. I mean doesn’t everyone deserve to be with someone who encourages them rather than someone who disregards the person’s feelings and emotional well being?

Also the guy waited for Daon in the rain.  He stood in the pouring rain with Daon until he was able to collect himself and leave. Get yourself a man who will do that cause that is the kind of partner that will stand by you though hard times, and Daon was at his lowest point, he essentially lost a relationship he worked so hard to maintain and now is unsure about this new relationship.

I’m saying “unsure” meaning that he has never been in a proper relationship involving both parties being mutually interested. So he does not know how this is going to go.

But I’m so glad Sunghyeon stood with him and held him in that moment.

After wards, they went to Sunghyeon’s place and washed up...not together..I presume. And Sunghyeon was patching up Daon’s feet because he ran out of jaemin’s place without his shoes...he just needed to go. During this time there was so much sexual tension between the two and Daon started giving some “bed room” eyes that does not go unnoticed by Sunghyeon and they started to make out...believe me when I say that I stopped breathing for a sec...lol.

Now saying this there are people who believe that it would not be right to engage into sexual activity as Daon is emotionally vulnerable, but from the way he looked at him..it looked like he was waiting for something to happen, his lips where parted a little and cheeks flushed and eyes locked onto sunghyeon, I don’t know...looked like he wanted a kiss. So there is nothing wrong with wanting to touch the person you love, he is aware of what’s going on and does not reject it so we should just let it be and stop being salty just ‘cause your pairing is not the end game. But I guess we will see what happens in the next chapter....I’m happy clearly.

Pearl boy:

Guess who’s back...

Can I just say that season 3 is here and the art just keeps getting better, the creator is working real hard on the art and it really shows...she is so talented.

I think where we left off was when dooshik had come back from his ex’s funeral and had overheard some dudes in a van talk about kidnapping jooha, these men were actually pilwon’s henchman. It’s been a while since I wrote his name lol, I almost wrote pinworm again.

From the first few chapters you can tell that dooshik was being anxious but not really vocalizing it to jooha which made him frustrated since he was going to start working at a sushi restaurant he applied for when they were out on a date. There were snippets of dooshik’s past and you got to see the glimpses of what he went through during his time in jail and the host club. There was a line that he said that was intriguing, “I can’t seem to get rid of this smell” and it was from the time where he was in jail presuming that he had blood on his hands from getting into fights and even after starting anew at the host club he would still encounter that “smell” and saying that he was can never get rid of it no matter how many times he tried to cover it. I’m not really sure if this is what he meant, but to me that phrase just means you can never forgot where you come from, you can’t cover up the things you’ve done. I still don’t know what happened and how he ended up in prison back then, maybe when it is revealed then I’ll figure it out.

Also a lot of new characters were introduced, I really like sunghyun, I think he could be a good ally for dooshik but it does not look like their relationship is that great and he does not seem to trust dooshik. I don’t know why...but some part of me would really enjoy the thought that he secretly had a crush on dooshik...lol. I don’t know why maybe because I know jooha and dooshik’s love is so strong that it seems impenetrable so I don’t mind it if it were true.

I think the thing I liked the most is the progression of dooshik and jooha’s relationship, I mean yes they were cute together before but they are 10x more romantic and in deeper sense, they trust each other even if they can’t communicate their feelings well. Just seeing jooha look at the picture of them together and looking all smitten is really rewarding after all the things he went through, he was getting the opportunity to build his future together with dooshik and that made him excited.

Who wouldn’t get excited look at dat face yall....he’s so fine...

Lol anyways, I hope the English translations will come out soon cause I don’t fully understand from just summaries and raw pictures. I definitely know something bad is about to happen because in the chapter that described how dooshik and sunghyun met , sunghyun had asked what does he want in exchange for giving him Intel, and dooshik just said he wanted jooha to be safe

And right after that a bunch of foreshadowing of events yet to come was shown, dooshik was bleeding and on a stretcher with a oxygen mask attached clearly being sent to the hospital and jooha looked like he was trying to run to him and screaming while looking wrecked, while there are faint beeping sounds of the heart monitor in the background, that whole segment I can visually see it happening and I was not ready for it. So get ready for me to cry a river when that happens.

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Welcome to some spicy reads (21+)

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Killer Crush:

Breaking News: Professional killer Joo Tae Man fell in love with Korea's favorite actor, Kang Da Hyuk! Professional killer Joo Tae-man has endured extreme physical training, mental education, and cruel torture-- but somehow easily falls apart to Kang Da-hyuk's kindness...?

Joo Tae Man who has trained for years as a professional killer thought “is this love?”

What should I do at times like this?”

I think part of my not reading more BL manhwa is because of shitty summaries like this

So this story starts off with a group of thugs interrogating this man for information and the gang leader gets a call saying that the target is with them and the leader was baffled because the target was right here tied up. Turns out the target had killed the guy guarding him and turns out to a hired hitman. The hitman’s name is joo tae man, and he is like a phantom assassin that leaves no traces of his victims and is what these thugs have been having trouble dealing with lately.

Another person named kang dahuyk is Koreas’ favorite actor who wanted to try out a different role as a killer and was not able play the role perfectly, due to his face  being too pretty.lol.

Not wanting to be boxed in as a one trick pony he finds ways to improve his acting ability including following tae man who had the look of a serial killer to his part time job as a convenience store part timer only to learn the ways of getting into character. in the store an old drunk man was harassing tae man at the counter and his thoughts of killing him is so funny...he wanted to break his spine just to get him to shut up.lol. but of course that would blow his cover

But then da hyuk said that he’d pay for the old man just so he wouldn’t start something. He then bought a coffee and gave it to tae man saying it was for him and that made taeman’s stone cold heart go crazy...lol. The boy fell in love for the first time in his 34 years of existence..oh boy

Dahyuk had been on his mind since that day and it turns out that he had a boss and co-worker that were also killers and they can sense that something is off about taeman and they were finding ways to torture the crap out of him just to purge the romantic feelings out...lol. Out demon!

Dahyuk became interested in taeman and started to show up at the convenient store often, there was a confirmation between taeman and the gang leader from chapter 1, the gang leader had suspected the killer was nearby and could possibly be taeman so he decided to confront him.

Dahyuk tried to save taeman and almost ended up getting hit in the process. This was what initiated them to actually talk to each other and they found that they enjoyed each other’s company and dahyuk gave him his number, his colleague was telling him to turn him down by being rude on the phone, instead they made plans to have a date in the “mountains” which is what dahyuk wanted in the first place, he wanted to observe taeman to improve his acting skills.

During their trip together, taeman did everything to be a turn off to dahyuk trying to make him seem like the worst person, but ended up with dahyuk slipping and hurting his leg and they both were almost getting attacked by boars. One of the boars was going to kill dahyuk but taeman jumps in and kills it, thinking that he exposed himself and that dahyuk was disgusted by him he apologizes. Dahyuk was in fact convinced that he had served in the Special Forces and that’s why he knew so much about hunting and was just glad that he’s not hurt.

Things progressed well after and taeman started to accept the fact that he likes taeman and found other ways to get involved with him, the gangster in chapter one was targeting dahyuk for some reason and that made taeman more inclined to be involved. His friend however...has major issues and didn’t like the fact that taeman and dahyuk may like each other and he his love interest (boss man) didn’t give a crap about him. He tried to mess up their relationship by pretending him and taeman were dating, this made dahyuk back off a couples days from contacting taeman, until the boy does not care anymore and just wants to see him. Taeman felt the same and said that he won’t let this affect his work even if he was interested in another person, so they ran to meet up with each other and some cute events happen...

You’ll need to read it to find out cause i’ll just stop here. This was a really interesting read, I mean I can actually see this getting an anime adaptation because it’s just light hearted comedy and it has a good mixture of romantic scenes between two awkward people and comedic scenes in how they deal with their emotions. I highly recommend this if you want something fun to read. You can read this on Lezhin comics.

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Trash segment (21+)

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a.k.a the part of the series where I shit on your favorite manhwa/manga/webtoon etc. Joking but not really, you have been warned.

This is the new section where you’re going to find titles that I dropped and the reasons why I discontinued the series all together, fair warning if you triggered by people criticizing your favorite series then you may want to skip this section all together. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and not every series that is “popular” or well liked by others will be like by all...therefore if there is content that makes a person uncomfortable enough to stop the series, that is on them and please don’t judge them for their morals.

So to recap, the series that I mentioned dropping so far are

Love or Hate

Yours to claim

Wistful summer

Anti-p.t.

The sound of fire

Kiss damnation

Cherry blossoms after the winter

Chasing Mr. CEO

Who’s a sweet cheater?

Another sequence

Thinking of dropping Love is a fantasy...lol. This goes to show you that the author only knows how to write certain type of stories, the situations between the adults in here seems more like teenagers dealing with puberty rather than adults dealing with these situations. So I’ve become uninterested at this point.

Currently watching chainsaw man so i’ll let you know how that goes. Liking it so far.

No music suggestions this month, please recommend me some!

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Ending note:

Hello,

You have reached the end, what do you think? Sorry for the one review really but like I’ve said nothing has been catching my attention as of late due to me being busy with work and side projects. Hope fully I can go back to writing monthly again.

I will update about my shop once that is up and running, and I will work on more art soon, I have uploaded a few prints that will be available for purchasing, if you have any ideas of prints you would want to see please let me know in the comments!

Okay, bye for now.

Take care

sheena

[olivieraa]

Ok I needed to make this post so I can make a gathering of all I've watched now since December.

I basically split them into two categories.

New season(s) & Hiatus (for me, not the anime, basically, where I left off many a year ago)

I basically stopped watching anime in 2017/2018. I was a little burnt out bc anime became a chore and 2018 was a v busy year. I finished the bulk of whatever animes happened to be airing at the time (as most are 12 eps in total), but those that went into the 20 or so eps I never got back to for 6 years, until the past couple of months.

When I logged into my MAL there was over 100 notifications and I opted out of watching them several times. I felt overwhelmed.

But Attack on Titan was an essential immediate get back to. So AoT was a part of the section of animes where--

A new season came out during the 6 years I was away

Attack on Titan (s3 and s4)

Hataraku Maou-sama (s2)

Noblesse (new series in general)

Osomatsu (s3 + 3 movies)

Overlord (3 more seasons since I last watched)

Starmyu (s3)

Osomatsu was the obvious immediate second anime I got back to after finishing AoT. Its one of my comfort animes. But then I was lost on what to do after Osomatsu. Yes, there were new seasons of all those above animes, but it also meant rewatching the previous seasons from the start.

So... I instead rewatched two animes that were on the shorter side while I got my head together (plus they were a v enjoyable rewatch)

91 days

Acca

THEN I finally said I'd tackle one of the above. So I rewatched Maou-sama so I could find finally see season 2 (wasn't worth it lol). Then Noblesse. But I put off Starmyu and instead tackled this list below, aka the one's I had on my own personal Hiatus

Classicaloid (was 15/25 eps into season 2 in 2017)

Yowapeda (2/25 eps into season 4 in 2017)

I'd been so close with Classicaloid to the ending originally, so, to finish those 10 eps off meant going back and rewatching season 1 of 25 eps, then catching up to season 2 with 15 eps and then finally seeing those last unseen 10 eps.

So compiled now that I just finished Starmyu, I just have two left

Attack on Titan

Hataraku Maou-sama

Noblesse

Osomatsu

Overlord (3 more seasons since I last watched)

Starmyu

Classicaloid

Yowapeda (2/25 eps into season 4 in 2017)

Both long af... so I may put them both off juuuuuust a little longer and finally officially watch something new this week

Banana Fish being my main priority

[fearthhereaper]

Finally finished my The Originals rewatch and I have a few thoughts that I didn't have the first time I watched it, back when it was airing.

Klaus's character assassination in TO has been a well-known fact for years now so nothing new in that area. Klaus was my favorite character during my TVDU fangirl era even in spite of it all. He was by far the most interesting character to me, but I have to say that during the rewatch I found myself enjoying Elijah and his complexity to the point where Klaus and his constant over the top theatrics bored me at certain points. The baby plot was stupid, but then again I always thought that, and the only good thing it gave me was Hayley Marshall and Klayley.

Klayley was...as beautiful, as interesting, as iconic as ever. Truly one of my biggest ships of all time, by far the best dynamic in the show imo....but I have to say, as an ex-Haylijah hater, they ate sometimes. Chemistry wise - they're really good. The story is still weird to me but the chemistry really sold most of their scenes this time around. I don't necessarily ship them, because I still think Elijah's feelings exist due to wrong reasons but I can see Hayley's side of it very clearly and I don't dislike it nearly as much as I had the first time around. They really pulled me in during certain scenes, so that was interesting and new.

Marbekah was always a fine ship that didn't really do it for me but now....damn do I hate it. It's so painful to watch and I genuinely don't believe those two love each other enough to pull all the shit they did. I don't believe that she groomed him, at least not intentionally, so it's not even the usual issue of her watching him grow up that's putting me off, it's just the fact that they truly didn't need to do all that because the Epic Love™ feeling they were going for was just not present.

Camille's storyline in s1 was legit so good, it didn't feel like she existed purely as Klaus's love interest. Her storyline in that season was so interesting and one of my favorites from the whole show. S2!Cami, she existed a bit more for Klaus, and I don't even want to mention s3!Cami that was turned into a vampire for no reason only to be killed off for no reason, in both cases when she was finally getting a new (probably very interesting) storyline. I didn't like the whole "I have darkness in me thing" but her storyline in s1 left such a good impression on me that I felt genuinely robbed by her premature death. (but then again the whole show sucked after s3 so maybe her character dodged a bullet)

Freya could've been a Klaus 2.0, instead we got a family therapist older sister whose job was to cast spells and make speeches about her family. S2!dark!Freya is who Freya should've been and stayed and there should've been far more tension between her and Klaus. She adapted way to quickly to having so many siblings, she was somehow the wiser older sister despite living ten years to her siblings' thousand. A shame that the creators for some reason hated dark characters, they made all Mikaelsons far too soft. She can be morally dubious and still love her family bffr.

I felt much more sympathy for Finn and his situation. His very understandable hatred for all Mikaelsons except Freya and his mother. He had every right to try to off them all, sorry.

And to finish it off with Rebekah Mikaelson who suffered the same character assassination that her brother did because who the fuck is TO! Rebekah. As far as I'm concerned TVDs3!Rebekah is the only Rebekah that is in character. From the random maturity she gained in all of three months between TVD and TO, to the painful motherhood woes, i-wish-i-was-human woes, her character became a completely different and frankly...a very boring person. Suddenly she's the one keeping Klaus and Elijah out of trouble.... Rebekah???? REBEKAH??? is keeping Elijah out of trouble....went from living a thousand years as their spoiled baby sister to I'm suddenly the mommy keeping the order of the playhouse.

[number5theboy]

Five being the founder of the commission is a horrible, horrible writing decision. Everything about it is just terrible.

Oh boy, let's get into this.

I’ve been writing on this on and off for the past month, and this is as clear and structured as I feel I can be. This has become a gigantic 5.5k monstrosity, but I wanted to have all my thoughts somewhere together. It starts off as an ‘actually, the idea here was not that bad’ and turns into ‘but the execution in the show sucked, so let me tell you exactly why this did not work’. Dedicating this to @sohoseance, @sharkneto, @kaleidoscopegirl and @nachtare because it really gave me the final push to finish this to hear that you would be interested in reading it.

First of all, I want to say that I don’t think that Five being the founder of the Commission was the point of that scene, or something that the show really wanted to engage in, from the way the rest of the season plays out. Five has no thoughts on the fact that he founded an organisation that existed to bring about the event that ruined his life; in the same vein, Lila says nothing about the reveal that he was, after all, behind the organisation that ruined her life. What it felt like to me, watching the season, was that the reveal and subsequent “Don’t save the world.”-shtick was there to keep Five away from the plot, and more specifically, Allison’s storyline. Without the detour to the Commission, Five would have had a vested interest in fixing the timeline, and Allison would have had someone working on the same goal, which was not what the writers wanted the storyline to be, so Five had to have something happen to him that kept him from intervening in the main plot (you know, like the shrapnel wound or the paradox psychosis in earlier seasons – same plot devices). Point is, the whole reveal doesn’t seem to have been intended as an actual character exploration and functions more like a badly conceived plot device. They needed Five to not do the thing that he has been established to be doing for the past two seasons, and he’s been written in such a way that the only authority he trusts is himself, so they had to crowbar a version of himself that tells him to do the opposite of what he would naturally do.

Second thing to mention is that even if it was intended to be a genuine character moment, I don’t think it was meant to be completely bad, for the simple reason that Steve Blackman, the showrunner and head writer, genuinely doesn’t think that the Commission is a bad or evil organisation (no, really). Which. Has been obvious since the writing of S2, but that doesn’t erase the writing and establishing of the Commission in S1. Someone get the man someone who checks the implications of his writing ideas, the show is in dire need for that. Why I bring this is up is that it a) explains why neither Five nor Lila really seem to react and realise what ‘Five founded the Commission’ implies, what he would be responsible for, and b) I don’t think that Blackman realised that a lot of viewers would look at how the Commission and Five as a character has been established, see that apparently Five founded the Commission and go ‘yeah, this is not compelling and makes very little sense’. Put a pin in that, we’ll get back to it shortly.

The thing is, theoretically, I don’t think this is a horrible writing decision. It could have genuinely been so interesting, a very compelling character exploration. And then it just was the most underwhelming thing. When I watched S3 for the first time and Five said the word ‘founder’, I immediately clocked what they were doing. I knew exactly who the founder was going to be, I didn’t even need the paradox psychosis mannerisms to clue me in, because I love it when time travel is used in stories to confront a protagonist with an older version of themselves who is an antagonist in the story. When well done, that story beat can be so fun and so interesting. Dark (2017-2020) and Looper (2012) are a show and film respectively that I love that tackle this kind of story. As a kid, I was obsessed with Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox, a book which subverts this story beat in a way that blew my little child mind. Five being the founder could and should have worked. It’s a concept deeply ingrained in what makes this character tick.

The hook of Five being the founder should have been the intrigue of how he ended up becoming the exact opposite of what he stood for so far. That’s the crux of this trope, contrasting the same person at different points in their life, having to confront something you loathe that is something you will become. And it would have been interesting and satisfying, in a way, to see everything time-travel-related lead right back to Five, that it really was only him and his powers that shifted the timeline, something about the full realisation of his potential as the most powerful man in the space-time-continuum. And also as someone who despite all that power failed. How great it would have been if the show actually took the time to explore this. I don’t think the idea of ‘Five founded the Commission’ was doomed from the start, it could have been so very compelling.

Instead, we got an incredibly muddled storyline that was more confusing than intriguing, had no clearly defined stakes and resolved (?) in such an unsatisfactory way that I still don’t know how I really feel about it. In my head, there’s two ways this storyline plays out:

Five did the correct thing. He headed the warning of his old self, did not save the world, and everything got reset, staving off the founding of the Commission and him ever going down the path of becoming the founder. It is badly written and really majorly serves so Five has something to do that does not really impact the plot, but at least it is done with and I won’t have to think about it again, should this show get renewed for S4.

Five did not do the correct thing. The world was saved/reset, and there are many, many opportunities to lose that arm and go down the path to found the Commission in his future. This lame storyline continues into a hypothetical S4 as the ultimate proof that the writers have no idea what to do with him.

Under the cut, I’ll first talk about why the whole ‘Five founded the Commission’-shebang doesn’t work the way it was written into the show, and then I’ll talk about why I have an inkling that it could continue into S4 even though I think it’s a terrible idea. Also, major spoilers for the show Dark (2017-2020), if you have not seen that, do yourself a favour, watch it, come back to this later. It feels like the thing they were trying to do with Five in S3 but actually good. Do check the trigger warnings though, it's a show that can be rough in places.

There’s this show. In it, there is a boy whose father committed suicide for an unknown reason. When the boy is still young, an apocalypse happens, wiping out life as he knows it. He learns how to survive in the apocalyptic wasteland, all the while thinking about how to prevent it. He knows time travel is possible. If only he could harness its power to work in his favour. As he is trying to get to the bottom of how time works, there is interference by a shadowy organisation with assassins that want to manipulate the timestream so that the apocalypse does happen, but the boy, who is now a man, keeps getting in the way of that. One day, he meets the man who founded the shadowy organisation. He is old and withered and time travel has left its mark on him. And the penny drops. The old man is the young man is the boy, and he will turn into him, eventually. The old man who once was the boy needs the apocalypse to happen, because it is the only way to figure out a way to  prevent it, because pinning down the origin of it all is muddled and complicated and marred in personal, familial connections for the man. He is trapped in an endless loop of repeating and alternating time, at a point branching into several different timelines, the apocalypse always happens, and he is always fated to become what he loathes most until he can find a way to break the cycle.

That’s, in the most simplified way possible, a part of the plot of the show Dark (2017-2020). It does this plot a surprising amount of justice, it really explores themes of family and time paradoxes and consequences of one’s actions through the focus on its main character, Jonas Kahnwald. I also think that the above is kind of, sort of the ballpark they were trying to hit with the whole ‘Five is the founder of the Commission’-storyline. That time was going to wear down Five until he decided to take the timestream into his own hands, founding the Commission to get himself out of the apocalyptic wasteland and give himself a chance to save the world. The thing is that it doesn’t work with the way that the Commission has been set up to work in previous seasons.

The thing with Dark’s story is that it is contained to one single town in Germany, and the families that live therein. The entire plot revolves around the time paradox and the apocalypse and how everyone fits into it. TUA does not work like that. The implications are for the whole world and the whole of human history – those are the things the Commission meddles in. Where the shadowy organisation in Dark only has very few people and very little, sometimes backfiring technology, the Commission in TUA has essentially been established to be all-knowing, all-powerful. They can travel through time precisely with the briefcases, and even have the ability to stop time altogether. They can modify bodies to their liking, repair them beyond everything imaginable, extending their employees lives. They have the Infinite Switchboard, a plot device that allows them to see not only what is happening in the timeline, but also in alternative timelines (it is singularly the worst plot device in this show, I hate it beyond words). They have technology to shield themselves from paradoxes, which Five himself built, with the implication that most of the tech at the Commission’s disposal has its origin with Five and his powers.

In Dark, the origin of the time paradox that causes the apocalypse, the thing that needs resolving, is a very complicated, tangled mess that tracks through interpersonal relationships and complicated feelings on family. It is not as easy as just removing one person from the timeline, or even one person at all, but rather a culmination of decisions that created walking paradoxes, which then snowballed to make other situations more complicated. In contrast, in TUA, solving the apocalypse – the first one - is pretty simple. What lead up to it is complex, but in the end, it is Viktor, egged on by Harold Jenkins due to something that is ultimately Reginald’s fault.

The point being is that since Five was the founder of the Commission, he had access to all that technology and knowledge, and he knew exactly how the apocalypse came to be. To prevent it, all he needed to do was travel to outside the prison and knock Harold out the second he stepped out. Or even better, go back and prevent Reginald from ever suppressing Viktor’s powers in the first place. Five has long been established as a smart man, when he founded the Commission, he had everything at his disposal to turn the world around for good with little problem.

Instead, the show tells us he somehow set up an ineffectual, all-powerful bureaucracy that goes fiddling about in the past so that everything happens to lead up to the 2019 apocalypse. There is no reasoning given as to why Founder Five would want the apocalypse to happen. We know nothing about his motivations. He exists to be cryptic to Five, tell him not to save the world, and then he dies. He’s not an antagonist, he’s a plot device, despite standing for the very opposite of what Five stands for. This is part of a larger problem where the Commission actually has no fixed characteristics or ethos, it is just what the show needs it to be, even though all of that keeps contradicting each other and creating a woefully muddled picture that makes trying to understand what is going on a headache and a half.

Because that is another fundamental difference between Dark and TUA is that Dark had one head writer, Jantje Friese, who was fully involved in the writing of every single episode and had a complete three-season-plan of how this show was going to play out. Meanwhile, Steve Blackman is playing it by ear, does not have a throughline or a plan as to where TUA is going, and is adapting and changing established things (like the Commission) depending on what the story needs in the moment, leading to a bigger picture that makes no sense.

The reveal of Five being the Founder doesn’t work because based on everything that has been established before, the power that Five would have had, Five could have and should have done other things. Even if he needed to found the Commission to find other people to help him develop things like the briefcases or the thrice-damned Infinite Switchboard, once he had those, what was his motivation to keep the apocalypse going? What was his motivation to meddle with the past? Why was any of it necessary? In Dark, the old man was backed into a corner, he had exhausted every other possibility. That show gave him motivations and really delved into why he became what he was; he was a character in his own right, the Big Bad of the show that explored why he became that.

TUA, on the other hand, is not interested enough in Founder Five to give us a compelling reason as to why he exists. Founder Five is not a character, he is a plot device masquerading as a character.  Unfortunately, that character is one that the viewers are very familiar with, so of course they would try to connect the Five that is by this point very established and has a reasonably strong characterisation going for him to Founder Five, who is just there, I guess. And people come up empty, because there is not enough to Founder Five to make sense why Five would become him, and the Commission is such a flaming dumpster fire of contradictory writing that it is barely possible to make sense of it, so connecting the two Fives through that is also not really possible.

The thing is, Dark also only gave the viewer the motivations of the old man after he had gotten introduced, the writing fleshed him out afterwards. But what they had done beforehand was built him up as a threat, as a shadowy figure with goals, and he was introduced as a character several episodes before the reveal of who he really was, so the viewers actually already knew him. In contrast, the concept of Founder Five and the character himself get introduced and killed off in the same episode.

And Dark allowed their old man to actually be an antagonist, to be the Big Bad, to really sharpen the difference between him and his young self as an interesting clash of characters. However, due to the inconsistent writing of the Commission (which was the Big Bad in S1 and then got written into a really misguided ‘actually the whole concept of the Commission isn’t bad despite them indiscriminately killing innocent people based on something they think should happen - the end of times – there was just one bad apple, the Handler, the Commission is neat as heck uwu’) and Steve Blackman’s inexplicable idea that the Commission isn’t bad, Founder Five isn’t allowed to be the Big Bad despite that being a much more compelling take. Instead he’s just a guy who’s there to get Five to act a certain way. Cool.

The reason I brough Dark up as a comparison is that it is well-written and well thought-out, and it really takes its time with character exploration so that every version of this one character makes sense to the viewer. Knowing how a similar plot plays out in Dark made my experience watching S3 actively worse, because I had seen how compelling and fun and gut-wrenching this exact take on a character could be. I was genuinely hyped when I realised that Five was the founder, I thought they were going to take the opportunity and meaningfully explore the character, and then Founder Five was not a character, not an antagonist, just a mouthpiece for the writers to get Five to not do the thing he’s been relentlessly doing for two seasons. And TUA’s take on this doesn’t have to be like Dark. It wouldn’t really fit with how the tone of the show has been going (sidenote: it would absolutely have fit S1 though), and just because Dark did it one way doesn’t mean that is the only right way. I’m just saying it was a compelling way, and they did a lot more interesting things with it than TUA did, which could easily have found its own fun and off-the-wall spin on having Five found the Commission, but they didn’t.

Alright. Okay. Founder Five as a character is a dud. So what about him as a plot device? Was the pay-off to the whole ‘don’t save the world’-thing worth the headache of trying to reconcile Five with Founder Five? Not really. I’m still in the dark – pun not intended – about what exactly they were trying to do with Five in the latter part of the season. Intellectually, I know the answer is ‘keep him out of Allison’s storyline so that their motivations don’t align and they don’t team up’ (which is a shame, if Five had kept wanting to save the world, we could have had some really interesting collaboration and fighting with Allison about whether or not to trust Reginald with the reset, but alas it was not to be). Practically? Who knows.

There were three key take-aways from that godforsaken paradox-safe bunker: the words ‘Don’t save the world.’, the tattoo, and the cut-off arm. The first one was an instruction from Founder Five to Five, the other two were markers of Founder Five. Back at Hotel Obsidian, Five puzzles over them, thinking that it might be Founder Five’s attempt to discourage him from becoming him, thinking about how he could try to break the cycle, all of it with – or rather at – Klaus. It’s, I think, the one really good scene coming out of this weird storyline, because we actually get to see Five’s thoughts and that it fucked him up seeing himself die, and the fact that it makes no sense (we all feel you, buddy). And I’ll give praise where it’s due, I think Aidan Gallagher did a great job with the odd material he was given, his acting in the bunker and at the bar with Klaus genuinely is top-notch, I wish they would reward this performance with the writing it deserves.

The talk with Klaus leads him to this season’s most pointless side tangent, the Mothers of Agony. After bringing up the idea of trying to break the cycle and expressing disgust at potentially dying with an old-man-tramp-stamp, any reluctance Five has had is promptly shoved out the window, never to be seen again. He talks to Pogo, gets some plot information because that’s what Five is usually for, and he gets the tattoo that he didn’t want with no discernible reasoning as to why. He talks some about how destiny doesn’t care whether he is sure about getting it or not, which is odd, because Five, as previously established in this show, doesn’t care about destiny (you know how que sera sera is bullshit in any language? That was a key part of his characterisation in S1 and seems to have been forgotten here.). So here he is still following Founder Five’s path for no established reason except that the plot tells him to and it’s supposed to keep us on tenterhooks on whether he will make the right decision. The tattoo, with that, fulfils its plot obligations and is never seen again.

He then helps a tiny bit to save the world real quick, with the whole ‘Christopher imprisons the kugelblitz’-thing that doesn’t stick, so it barely matters except for the fact that it makes him give up. Which I genuinely think is perfectly natural and understandable, he has been at this for a month straight and everything he’s been doing has made things worse, so maybe giving up and giving in doesn’t seem so bad anymore. It’s devastating in his arc, I think, that he finally is at the end of his rope after a lifetime of stubbornly clinging to life, to the belief that he can change things. The show does not particularly indulge that framing though, instead having him be funny drunk for an episode. Woo. Remember when Five’s alcoholism was something genuinely devastating from his time in the apocalypse in S1? Good fucking times. Anyway. He pivots his position from saving the world to not saving it, which is only solidified once Reginald shows up and suddenly he wants to save the world, which Five doesn’t trust him about because he knows he is hiding something from them. He then doubles down on not saving the world with the vote, swinging it so that they don’t go and save the world. Reginald then does some murdering and strong-arms them into a position where they do have to go and save it anyway.

This is where things get really muddled and I don’t understand Five’s thinking anymore. He knows that Reginald is up to no good. He knows that there is information he isn’t privy to that Reginald knows. He knows Reginald is using them, putting their lives on the line, and there was this deal with Allison that Five doesn’t know the terms of. And of course Five figures out where the sigils are. He is observant and aware of his surroundings, this has been well-established.

He gets summarily interrupted by one of the guardians cutting off his arm. So now we have what I think is supposed to be tension but when I watched, I was mostly confused. He has the tattoo, he has lost an arm and gained the knowledge on how to save the world. The pumps are primed for him to go down the path to founding the Commission, it all depends on the choices he makes now.

Inexplicably, he tells Reginald (who, again, he does not trust and does not like) where the sigils are. Is he saving the world here? I genuinely don’t know, but I don’t think it’s meant to be that. Maybe. Again, we are in muddled territory because I am very confused on his decision-making in this last episode.

What I think is supposed to be his pivotal choice is when it comes down between him and Allison to step on the last sigil. There were supposed to only be seven of them, Reginald meant for all of them to be incapacitated when he reset the world, but now there is a choice. And Five, somehow, does what Reginald tells him to and steps on the sigil. He doesn’t know it will incapacitate him, but it does, and so he can’t act anymore. What he can do is talk to Allison, and what he says convinces her to kill Reginald before he can kill her siblings, but only after Reginald has already locked in his new version of the world, his reset, honouring the terms he set with Allison. She pushes the button and resets (saves?) the world, with her conditions intact (she gets back all her siblings, Luther and Klaus included, and Ray and Claire), but because it was a deal with the devil, the siblings are stripped of their powers, and Reginald gets his wife back and more power than he’s ever had. It remains to be seen how this will play out, should this show get a fourth season.

More importantly, and tying this back to Founder Five The Plot Device, is that Five gets his arm back, so does this mean he averted going down the path of becoming the Commission’s founder? I think that’s how the show is set up to be, although I’m not 100% sure, put a pin in it, I’ll get back to it shortly. What I interpret is that Five did make the right choice by taking his spot on the sigil. If he had not and Allison, desperate to save the world and get her family back, had stepped onto the sigil, it would have left Five and Reginald. And Five, who did not have a deal with Reginald and would have seen his beloved siblings in pain, would have had a lot less qualms about putting that axe through Reginald’s brain, but then Reginald would not have had the time to reprogram the world. What I think the implication is is that Five would have ended up with the reconfiguration screen and somehow, I don’t know, used it to, you know, save the world. And he would have fucked it up somehow because that’s what Five tends to do – make things worse – and this would somehow, at some point, led to him founding the Commission to right his mistakes. Maybe. I don’t know. This is the best I can do and I am not certain that’s how I’m supposed to understand the finale in relation to the whole Commission-founding-business.

So, to recap, how did the Founder Five Plot Device work out? It created some kind of tension on whether or not Five was going to turn it around and decide to break the cycle. Kind of. Sort of. It was not particularly well-written and genuinely confused me more than it intrigued me. And I understand that it can’t be clear-cut, it’s supposed to be difficult for both the viewer and Five as a character to see what the right course of action is, I just don’t think it was particularly effective in building tension and I hated the thing the writing did where it would have Five state that he would not do a thing (get the tattoo, work with Reginald) and then he would turn around and do the thing with no real thing happening in-between that convinced him to act otherwise. Like. He volunteered that info on the sigils before he knew that could stop the guardian. And I think a part of the point was that in order to not become Founder Five, Five would have to act against his instincts and do what Reginald says, but it really was not conveyed well and his willingness to help Reginald along after his whole shebang about the deal with Allison was mostly confusing. Was he pressed to extremes? Yes. Was it the last resort the show portrayed it to be? Not really.

I also think this all would have worked better if Allison and Five had had any kind of established relationship beforehand. They barely talked for two seasons and basically only sniped at each other for the third. Maybe there was a point there that despite all the fighting, Five loves her enough to put her over himself, but they barely let them interact despite it having the biggest potential, especially this season, but who knows.

So, to sum up, even disregarding Founder Five as a character, what he brought as a plot device was also mostly muddled and confusing, and even in retrospect I’m still trying to figure out what exactly they were going for. I think it could’ve been made substantially better if there had been more than just the one scene of Five reflecting on what he witnessed in that bunker, but as it is, it just feels unsatisfactory in a way that I can’t really put my finger on. But at least it’s over and done with, Five will not go on to found the Commission, it’s a new day, it’s a new dawn. I think. Maybe. Potentially.

Okay.

The thing is that once I thought about the cliffhanger ending and what world Reginald has created, Five in that position looks to me way, WAY more likely to found the Commission than anything he did before the reset.

For the first time, I think we see a world that he would actively object to. He doesn’t like Reginald, he doesn’t trust Reginald, and with all that has happened, Reginald now seemingly has more power than ever, having shaped the world in the image he deems ideal and having depowered his former children in the process. They are still alive, because no matter how conniving, he upheld his part of the deal with Allison. What I’m saying is, this world is the first world where I could see Five going ‘this should all burn’, the ultimate act of defiance, rather ending the world than let Reginald have it.

But to do that, Five would need his powers, and Five doesn’t have his powers. What he does have is a reasonably good understanding of them, of the math behind them. This seems, to me, like a good set of circumstances for him to reverse-engineer his powers and put them, just as an example, into a briefcase, to use them to stop his father from taking over the world, even if it costs him said world.

He’s gotten his arm back, sure, but he is physically 13 and Founder Five died at a hundred years, there’s a good 87 years for Five to get his arm chopped off again. The only thing that could definitely tell us that Five made the right decision, did not save the world, is the absence of the tattoo, but we haven’t seen that, so the prospect of him actually having saved the world after all and still somehow founding the Commission is not completely discarded.

But by God, do I hope it is. I don’t have much interest in a potential S4 where we see Five pursue that because a) there’s this rule that every season only spans 10 days, and you can’t cram that kind of development into 10 days and b) it’s just. Five is such an interesting character to me. He is so fun and the performance is endlessly entertaining to me, and I don’t want to watch him become a bureaucrat. It’s literally the least interesting thing I can imagine him doing, and comic!Five got into the stock market. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see him reverse-engineer his powers, but not if it leads down to him becoming a non-character.

If you made it this far, 5k in, I congratulate and thank you for keeping with my thoughts for this long. The TL;DR is that Five founding the Commission is not the worst idea ever, theoretically, but this show does not have the writing and continuity necessary to pull it off into an interesting twist. Founder Five was not a character, he mostly felt like a plot device that was barely used to explore Five’s character, and even the plot devised for him was not particularly compelling or well-written and led more to confusion than anything else, exacerbated by the fact that the writing made Five say certain things and then do contradictory things with nothing in-between really indicating why he would have changed his mind. It is not particularly good at creating tension around his decisions and the pay-off, if it can even be called that, is more confusing than satisfactory with the weird decision-making Five has got going on in the season finale. There is the small but hopefully unfounded dread that this ‘Five founded the Commission’-storyline might extend into a potential S4, as the circumstances where the siblings left off at the end of S3 seem to me much more favourable to make Five found the Commission than anything else that came before, but I really, really hope I am wrong, because this show does not have the writing to make this kind of storyline as compelling as it deserves to be. If you want this storyline pulled off in a much better thought-out and satisfactory way, I can warmly recommend Netflix’s Dark (2017-2020).

[winchesterxxi]

Gentle Pathways (Din Djarin x Reader)

Rating: M (Mature)

Type: Fluff & Smut

Summary: “all these people keep posting how rough a horny Mando can be but I mean, come on, that man probably hasn't been touched as in skin-to-skin contact since he put the helmet on - we all saw his reaction to Grogu touching his face. So how do you think a touch starved Din would react to reader getting close to him?”

Word Count: 2.7k

Warnings: No clear time frame except that it’s between S1 and S2; Blindfolding; Smut (Virgin!Din, loss of virginity, blowjob, vaginal penetration, swearing, unprotected but consensual sex)

A/N: Vanilla!Din and Soft!Din GIVE IT TO ME, WE NEED MORE and yes I know the gif is of Kylo and Ren leave me alone. 

MASTERPOST | REQUEST HERE | KO-FI

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It was late at night inside the Razor Crest, although no one could tell if it were otherwise because, as you could see through the front of the cockpit, the cold gloom of hyperspace engulfed the ship on all sides.

The Child was fast asleep and had been for a while now, and you were just finishing inserting some coordinates on the navigation panel as Mando asked you to, before leaving you alone and walking to his makeshift chamber. After doing as instructed your hand brushes against something that falls to the floor of the cockpit with a clatter.

Looking down, you notice that it’s Mando’s e-comm, easily identifiable by the big silver-colored scratch across one of its buttons. He never leaves it out of his sight, even when sleeping, that thing is always at arm’s length so you assume that he probably forgot it.

Standing up with the device in hand, you turn off any unnecessary light in the cockpit before heading towards the direction Mando went just a few minutes ago.

After you reach the steel door, you let your knuckles hit it about three times, before hearing a muffled Come in coming from the other side.

Sliding the doors open you step inside of his room, as he stands in front of you, back facing you, still fully clothed. His helmet rotates slightly over his shoulder as he directs his voice to you.

“What is it?”

“You left your e-comm on top of the navigation panel.” you tell him, extending your hand as your feet follow and you get close to him “I know you always have it on you no matter what, so I brought it to you.” your hand softly lays the device on the table against which he was leaning. 

Your face comes dangerously close with the beskar on his shoulder blades and you swear that despite everything in you telling otherwise and that beskar is cold, that you could feel warmth irradiating from it.

Mando strangles a little thank you that you acknowledge with a nod of your head before awkwardly walking back and away from him.

What there was no way of you to be aware of was that the device was left back in the cockpit on purpose. Not in the sex bait type of way, but in the Will she notice this and hence confirm that she also bears some feelings for me for noticing such small things and being attentive enough to come and return it.

A fairly explicit and complex thought, he knew, but that’s exactly what you did to him. Or have been doing for the past year to his head. Although he might not be very skilled in articulating more than one single-worded phrase at a time, his mind is constantly racing. Constantly formulating this extremely clear ways of disclosing his true feeling for you that get stuck in his throat making it shake with anxiety and instead making him opt for the safer options of a simple thank you or You didn’t have to.

Like what he just did. He wanted to facepalm himself right there and then, weren’t it for your presence. 

But he’s had enough. This man has fought virtually every deadly creature in this planet and sure enough this little crush as he tried to convince himself so many times was the scariest of them all for him to face. But enough is enough.

“Y/N.” He croaks out, turning to face you.

You hum and turn around almost instantly, surprising yourself at how easily you reacted to him.

“I - ..... I,...” he tries. He really tries.

“You what, Mando?” you question, brows furrowed while taking slow steps towards him, worried that there is something wrong.

“I ... have...feelings for you.” Your cheeks heat up but you look down avoiding getting overly excited, as this could go one of two directions.

“What type of feelings?” you ask cautiously.

“Feelings.”  The padding inside of his helmet feel like fire right this moment, and the urge to curse himself has never been this strong. 

But you understand. And he sees that you understand by the way your eyes almost pop out of your sockets and your mouth hangs open.

“Oh.” you manage to voice before being struck by utter and absolute confusion “Me? You’re sure about that?.... I’m an absolute trainwreck of a person!”

The tension that he was holding in his body due to the confession suddenly left him in the form of a low chuckle, making you even more embarrassed. “I love you just the way you are.”

“You what?!” your heart stops.

“I...” that’s when it dawns on him what it just said. This man spent months hiding his feelings from you and, just like that, under a minute he goes from saying that he has feelings for you to telling you that he loves you.

“... I love you.” he says, this time more sure of himself.

You pause a moment and look at him, eyes surely meeting something behind his darkened visor and your expression softens.

“I... I think I love you to.” you finally admit, finally letting go of your own months of repressed feelings, that now so easily slipped out to the man in beskar in front of you.

Mando slowly walks up to you, praying that you don’t run away, all the while pulling at a piece of fabric that he had wrapped around his elbow. Your eyes follow his movements before looking up at him and nodding, knowing exactly what he is about to do.

His hands disappear behind your head and then you’re surrounded by darkness.

Being deprived of your vision heightens all of your senses and you can now very clearly hear his breathing. His unfiltered breathing.

“Did you...?” you ask, but he doesn’t let you finish.

“Yes.”

His ungloved hand slowly finds your own, bringing your knuckles to meet his lips. You shiver at the contact. Slowly, he brings up his other hand to cradle your cheek, delicately replacing your knuckles with your lips.

You thoroughly melt against his touch, resting your hands upon his chest plate for some balance as he pulls you in closer, ever so gently. The kiss wasn’t too sloppy, but you could feel his inexpertness, but his lips were so soft that everything else was forgotten. And oh how you loved the tickle of his facial hair against you.

What began as a sweet kiss quickly escalates and the both walking into the nearest wall as his hands explore your clothed body, months of previously undiscovered sexual tension arising to the occasion and you could feel how excited he was getting.

The only pleasure Mando had even known had been at his own hand. And even that, he took care of as a chore,  a release of pressure, just getting himself off for the day so that he wouldn’t get distracted.

“Wait.” he pulls away, out of breath “I know that you want to take this further, but I don’t want you to be disappointed.”

“Disappointed?” you query “Disappointed how?”

“I don’t know how to do this... I’ve never done this.” he says, and by the tone of his voice, you can imagine how he is motioning with his hands between the both of you.

“You’re a virgin?”

“Yeah.” he shyly admits, rubbing the back of his head.

“No, that’s - that’s completely fine. I just... wasn’t expecting it?”

“Why?”

“You’re a bounty hunter and, well, word runs on the streets. Besides, the way Xi’an spoke to you back when we went to that prison or the things she said, I thought-”

“Nothing ever happened. Not with her, not with anyone ever. She did try, several times, but I always pushed her away.” he couldn’t bear to have you think that there was ever anyone before you.

“Oh.”

“But I want to do it with you. Here, now.” he confesses, resting his forehead against yours.

“Are you sure? I mean, having sex means that you’ll have to -” you begin, knowing fully well the implications

“I’m sure. I trust you.” he assures you with a gentle stroke on your cheek.

“Okay, then.”

“Okay.”

With your eyes still closed, you feel the knot in the back of your head loosen, and the pressure around your temples dissipating, slowly bating your eyes open. It was extremely dark in the room, but you could still make out some shapes, the disheveled curls and the prominent nose and his eyes. His eyes. You couldn’t make out what color they were but they were as dark as the sky outside this ship, with a slight glimmer as he looks down at you.

Haltingly, you lift your hand to his right cheek, stopping right next to it.

“Can I?” he nods and your rest your hand where you intended, and he closes his eyes, inhaling deeply and leaning into your touch, a pitiful look washing your face. “How long haven’t you been touched like this?”

“Since I swore to the Creed.” he confides, in a soft voice.

“That’s a long time.”

“I know.” he agrees and you bring your face close to his.

“Is this okay?” you question, not wanting to go to hard and break any boundaries.

“Yeah” Smiling up at him, you lean up and press your lips to the skin on the side of his neck, tugging down at his collar. Shuddering next to your ear, Din lets out a soft moan. 

Your hands roam the front of his body, before tapping against his chest plate.

“Can i take this off?”

“Please” he almost begs.

One by one, you remove the pieces of beskar that adorn his body, letting him discard of your own clothes after, and finally having you take off his last layer of clothing. This alternate game, painfully slow eased the nervousness out of the both of you - even though he was the inexperienced one, you were more nervous to be with him than you had with any other man.

The others were just quick affairs or one night stands, no one ever sticking around long enough to tell you the things he told you a few minutes ago. Always using you as a quick fix for whatever was wrong with their lives. But he was different. He was special, and you wanted to make this special for him, in return.

Once you both stood bare-skinned in front of each other, his hands sneak around your waist, cold skin making you hiss.

“Your hands are cold.” you whisper against his lips, that curiously explore your face.

“Sorry.” he mumbles

“It’s okay.”

You push the both of you in the bed, until the back of his knees hits its edge, and he sits down with you standing in between his legs.

“Y/N, I …um…I-I…I-I d-don’t know how to…”

“Shhh,” you mumble against his lips “It’s okay, I’ll start and when or if you feel comfortable you can take over. Okay?”

“Okay.” 

Returning to kiss his lips, you kneel down, breaking the kiss only when your skin hits the floor beneath you.  You place one of your hands on his toned stomach, gently pushing it so that he gets the hint and lays down on the bed. Running your hands up his legs, you feel his every muscle harden under your palms.

“Try and relax. I’m not going anywhere.”  Din leans his head back and moans softly as your hands work their way up and down his length. You can feel the way his body tenses up when your fingers wrap around his girth.

His fingers unconsciously find their way into your hair, gripping at it as you lick up and down the length of his cock. Every wet trail your tongue leaves pulling another pornographic moan from the man, each louder than the previous one.

You look up at him before opening your mouth and finally sinking onto him fully, earning a grunt of approval. 

“How does that feel?” you ask one time, bringing your lips to the top of his head, before popping away.

“Bloody great...”

When you feel that he is starting to get close, you pull away and quickly step onto the bed to straddle him and he instinctively sits up, face close to yours.

Taking the tip of his cock, you line it up with your entrance eager to work on your own pleasure “Can I?”

Looking down at him, he nods and you slowly sink down onto him, moaning at the way he agonizingly stretches you.

“Maker,” Din moans as you settle on his cock, all of his length buried deep inside of you. “Move, please.” He practically begs you.

“Give me your hands” you instruct and he obeys, you guiding his hands so that they are gripping the soft flesh of your hips.

You start slowly moving your hips up and down, grinding against his pelvis every time you come down on him. At first he doesn’t move, just letting you get used to your own rhythm but as soon as he gets more eager, his own hips start thrusting up to meet yours, joining you in perfect synchrony.

The hands that previously rested on your hips part ways in different directions, one of them coming up to cradle the back of you head and the other slides to rest on your bottom. Instinctively, you throw your arms against his shoulder, one hand finding the back of his head as you both keep thrusting. There was no getting closer than this - him buried balls deep inside of you all the while hugging you against his body.  

Groaning, he lifts his hips causing you to buckle your legs around his waist as he manages to flip you over, so that now he was the one on top.  You refrain from a moan to come out of your mouth.

“Seems like you’re getting the hang of it.”

He only chuckles against the curve of your neck, before resuming the rhythm at which he was working before.

“Y/N...Fuck”

“Mando...”

“It’s Din.” he lets out between breaths.

“What?” you pant.

“The name. It’s Din.”

The knot in your stomach begins to tighten, and your walls squeezing around his cock. Your moans become more frequent as you feel your high growing. You grab one of Din’s hands and guide it down to where your bodies are connected.

“Feel this?” you pant and he hums in response “The hard bud, it’s the clit. Rub it in circles. It feels good.” You guide his fingers a few times circling your clit and once you feel like he has the hang of it, you let him do it on his own. 

“Like this?” he pants, stroking it fast causing you to see stars.

“Exactly like that.”

You can feel your orgasm getting closer and by the way he is tensing, you can tell he is about to cum too, the only sounds in the room being those of your breathings and sloppy kisses, and your skin slapping together. 

Your hips connect one last time before your back arches off the bed, pressing your nipples against his soft chest and Din’s body tenses, groaning in pleasure as his hot cum dashes your insides. 

But he doesn’t stop rubbing your clit until you come down from your own high as he pulls out, rolling to your side, and you let out a soft whimper at the emptiness. 

You’re sprawled out next to him and looking over at you, he chuckles adoringly and wipes a bead of sweat from the side of your forehead before placing a kiss to it. You manage a soft smile, eyes meeting his.

His eyes then trace the shape of your body, glazing over the red handprints your hips and waist.

     You roll over onto your side, draping one hand over his chest as he wraps his arms around you gently, pulling you to him, and burying his face in your hair. You close your eyes and inhale his scent.

     “I love you.” You smile a bit but don’t open your eyes only whispering the same words as he smiles against your forehead, leaning down to kiss it before resting his chin on the top of your head as he holds you against his body for the rest of the night.

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[saintobio]

saint ;-;

i opened the finale of sn with a heavy heart only to read your additional notes and end up with a heavier heart. does this mean you're done writing? on another note, this finale truly broke me to pieces. i'm at a loss of words yet again. thank you so much for all the hard work and dedication you've put into making sn and the rest of your series. you have touched my heart time and time again and i can never thank you enough for helping me get through tough times through your writing (even if we've never directly spoken).

much love, 😔

Anonymous said

Ok, I haven't even read the chapter yet, just your author's note and when I saw how you signed it too, ahhh I never wanted to give someone a virtual hug so badly!! Your writing is beautiful and you always went the extra mile for us with all the research and everything! I really hope you enjoyed this journey as much as we did🥰

Anonymous said

Did I cry a lil reading your additional note on the finale? Yes, yes I did.

Saint, I absolutely adore your writing. Better than actually published stories I've read. Your writing is so fluent and overall stunning. I love it.

Saint, I wish you the best in everything you do. I don't know you personally, but I genuinely believe that good things will come your way.

Loved Sincerely Not, and can't wait to see you in the sequel.

With love and adoration,

anonymous

awww thank you :’) i knew it was the perfect opportunity to sign off using ‘sincerely yours’ hhhh and i’m rly glad to have u guys on this journey. s2 is here now, and i hope you’ll enjoy it too <3

Anonymous said

Saint, people may have mixed feelings and different opinions about how the story is, but I want u to know that I enjoyed it so much 💜😭no matter how much I may disagree with any of the characters, the story is amazing and I’m so grateful for this amazing experience 💜thank you for this masterpiece! Pls rest well, enjoy your well-deserved break, and we’ll be waiting for your return! ✨Congrats for finishing SN1!! 🎉

Anonymous said

Hey Saint,

Just wanna say that I love your writing!

I know that after this chapter a lot of people are going to give you their opinion on how you are choosing to navigate the story/ plot. But I want you to know that I as a simple bystander am simply here for the ride. I support all your plot twist and trust your process of story telling. I can’t wait for SN2! Thank you for this masterpiece! Rest and take care of yourself on your weeks off! You deserve it!

that’s ok !! like i said in the prev ask, people’s opinions will vary depending on who’s perspective they’re looking at. anyway, thanks sm for being so sweet and for generally trusting my process <33

Anonymous said

Genuinely thank you so much for writing this series!!It gave me and probably a lot of others something to look forward to for the past few months. I had no idea how attached I’d get to the series. I just wanted to ask a few other questions.

What happened to Toji and the Ballerina 👀

Since Toji helped to raise Y/N’s child won’t it be especially painful for him when YN inevitably chooses Gojo since he’ll essentially lose a child he helped raise.

I completely understand where Y/N was coming from when she hid her pregnancy from Gojo. But also 3 years, when a child develops sm and everyone agreed to keep the information from Gojo. Although I was one of the ppl that really wanted Gojo to receive his karma I don’t quite understand why YN did that considering that who Gojo was as a husband is separate from who he’d be as a father. I understand 1 year to get away from the chaos but 3? Why? Also who knew? Ieri? Gojos mom?

Sorry if most of these will be revealed in S2! Thank you again!

ty very much <33 toji and ballerina remain just friends, and he had lesser contact w her ever since he got with yn :) and to ur other question, it’ll be painful for him but he also knows and respects his boundaries esp the fact that sachiro rly isn’t his child.

Anonymous said

kinda irrelevant rn but I've gots to ask this!! What's your opinion on Sera and her relationship with gojo?

I personally think they weren't in love with each other at all. Sera liked the good, healthy, happy and perfect parts of gojo, bec she rarely saw him in the kind of situations that y/n did, and she was hellbent on thinking that her relationship with him is the only good thing going on in her life, so ofc she held on to that idea of a perfect man (that gojo definitely was not) And gojo oof I rlly think that he just used Sera to piss off his dad, and eventually just got used to her company??? and just kept her around bec subconsciously it gave him some sense of control over his own life and decisions (which were otherwise dictated by his father) and ofc it helps that she was an attractive woman. SOOO PLS TELL ME YOUR OPINION ON HER!!

I started feeling particularly bad for her, bec I can really understand where she's coming from. Yeah she was extremely unpleasant at times and had serious issues, but I can't find it in myself to really blame her :(( she was done wrong by gojo. both her and y/n. they deserved better. I think this is why I still don't particularly feel sympathy towards gojo, Idk it's all his karma catching up to him in my opinion 😭🙏🏻

i always think that their relationship was toxic. she didn’t care for him more than having this image of a ‘perfect rich man’ while gojo’s love for her had always been strictly physical. sera has many flaws as a character, but that’s what makes her human. she leaves you conflicted on whether you should stay mad at her or if you should feel bad bc of her struggles in life :) all in all, her character is complex and will be judged from different lenses. personally, if i was yn, i think sera has learned her lesson and that’s enough for me to forgive, but not exactly forget ykwim?

Anonymous said

Miss y/n doesn’t sound very convinced about her second wedding huh… I wonder if she would have had that same reaction if Satoru had not showed up. Idk about y/n but I’m about to run to that altar and marry Toji myself at this point. Anyways I feel really bad for Satoru and I hope he can heal himself rather than be healed by y/n. I know eventually he’ll have to face her again about the whole fake abortion and hiding their baby thing, but for that to happen, I hope he can at least be levelheaded or else the child will be the one suffering with an unstable father. If he’s bound to end up with y/n at the end of the story, I just hope he can find peace within himself first and that y/n doesn’t go all “I can fix him”. But I trust you Saint, I know you’ll deliver the good drama and the craziest plot twists. I truly can’t wait for season 2 and all the new characters we’ll get to see. I’m most excited for mr sukuna and how he’ll be introduced to the story 😗

yes exactly, the best way to deal with the storm is once he’s levelheaded, but we’ll see 🥺

[kilyra]

Asking for Trouble

A/N: Well no one asked for this so I’m not sure how much interest there might be, but after watching S1 of Cobra Kai, I finally got hit with the urge to write for the first time in ages, so I ran with it. I started watching S2, so I’d say this fic takes place maybe mid S1, when he’s still subletting to a yoga class but is starting to get more students. 

As the city starts to feel a little less friendly, you approach Johnny Lawrence, after your yoga class, for some help. 

Warnings: Bad language but no spoilers. I try to make my stories neutral but this one ended up being based off my own experiences which means it probably is more through a female lens even though I didn’t actually mention gender. Just a heads up.

If you want to be on my tag lists, (all or just a character) just let me know! Gif credit for this amazing gif to @deadlightcircus​

Did he...go by Johnny? Were you really supposed to call a grown man Johnny? Not that there's anything wrong with that, it just felt odd. But you sure as hell weren't going to call him Mr. Lawrence – that was just as awkward since you were also a grown-ass adult. So that left you with...?

And why did he have to be so good looking? It's not like his perfect blond locks made up for the dismissive looks he shot your class, but it added up to him being intimidating in more ways than one.

Hesitating in the doorway, you started picking at the edge of the rolled-up yoga mat that hung off your shoulder. Squishing it between your fingers, you tried to push past your sudden nervousness when you heard the last of the yoga class clear out of the dojo behind you.

Now or never.

Your hand felt numb as you finally forced yourself to knock on the frame of the office door. “Uh...excuse me?”

“You lost? Exit's on the other side.” The man behind the desk gruffly answered without even looking up from his papers.

Taking it as the closest you'd get to an invitation, you stepped inside the office, hovering near the door. "No...actually, I was hoping you had a minute?"

A faint sour scent hit and you glanced towards the trash to spot the source. Three stubby beer bottles were peeking out around the crumbled garbage. Your eyes snapped back to Johnny as he cleared his throat.

“Yeah? Why's that?” His bright blue eyes swept over you once he finally acknowledged your presence. Heat flushed your cheeks under his scrutiny, but if he made any sort of a judgment, his unchanging features didn't offer any clues.

“It's just that you teach karate here, right?”

“And you are?”

It was a basic question, but you felt thrown. “Oh, uh...I'm Y/n.”

Leaning back in his chair and pressing his shoulders back in a subtle stretch, a faint smirk played on his lips. “So what, Y/n? That pansy-ass crap out there not doing it for you anymore?”

It wasn't exactly shocking to confirm he was an asshole.

What did surprise you was how that calmed your nerves. Instant annoyance had its benefits. “I like it just fine, thanks. I was wondering if you had any self-defence classes.”

Johnny's eyes lit up as his eyebrows lifted, changing his entire demeanour. A quick smile replaced the smirk as he sat forward. “Oh! So you want to learn how to fight, huh? My classes are more for kids, but I think I can help you out.”

By the time he finished, he was standing next to his desk with his hands set at his sides. His form-fitting shirt somehow made his posture seem stiff and relaxed at the same time as he cocked his head and kept his focus on you. The arrogance he exuded was stifling.

“No, no I...I'm not looking to fight like that. I'm just looking to, y'know, protect myself.”

“What better protection is there than to kick ass?”

The confused glare he shot you as he spoke cemented the irritation swirling in your chest. Dropping, it became a lump in your gut. He wasn't going to get it. But you couldn't stop yourself trying at least once more to get your point across.

“I guess? But I'm just looking to learn some self-defence moves, not to take a class on fighting.”

Scoffing, his lip curled as he spread his hands apart. "Trust me, there's no better defence than putting your opponent down hard enough that he's not getting back up."

“What opponent? I'm not talking about...Holy crap, you know what? Just forget it.” Slinging the strap of your mat over your shoulder, you backed out of the office.

You were barking up the wrong tree. He definitely wasn't going to get it.

“Whoa, hey wait...”

Ignoring his attempts to get your attention, you crossed the dojo, heading to the exit. It was clear he didn't offer the classes you were after, and the last thing you felt like doing was sitting through a tone-deaf sales pitch of sorts from a guy who refused to listen.

“Would you just stop a sec? I can help.”

His hand clamped around your arm with just enough force to break your stride. His grip was firm enough for you to feel the power behind his grasp, but gentle enough that you pulled from his fingers just by turning toward him.

With his palms facing you, he took a step back before dropping his hands by his sides again. “Hey, I'm being serious here. No one messes with my students once I'm done with them.”

“I get what you're saying.” Pausing, you nodded to the cafe across the street. “When I get here early, I wait there and I see your class going either through the moves or sparring. And I'm sure in competitions or maybe even fights at school, they're going to be amazing. So I get it. But that's not what I'm looking for. I want something for now.”

His eyebrows drew together, softly scrunching his features. “It doesn't work like that, you've got to be willing to put in the wor-.”

“I don't want to wait for three months before I can start feeling safe.”

The air in the room grew thick as a silence stretched out. Apparently, for once, he heard you.

Narrowing his eyes, Johnny's voice was softer, but it still carried an edge. “Are you danger or something?”

Of course he would think that. He was a tough, clearly fit man who could undoubtedly hold his own in any situation – not much could be a threat to him.

“No, it's not like that...just forget it, you wouldn't understand.” Despite the finality in your tone, your feet were glued to the floor.

As his hardened stare continued to capture your gaze, his fingers tapped along his thumb as though he was tempted to clench his fist. “Then explain it to me.”

Was he annoyed? Angry? Did he truly have the audacity to be the irritated one?

Dropping the yoga mat from your shoulder, you stood it in front of you, letting your fingers nestle into the curled edge. Ignoring your hammering heart, you let out a curt sigh. "Fine. Let's start with the fact that I work in a decent area. Nothing fancy, just a bunch of office buildings and cafes, but it's nice enough. And yet police are issuing warnings to stay aware of your surroundings because the purse snatching and pickpocketing is getting out of hand. In the middle of the day, it just happens so fast. I don't even feel safe running out for coffee, nevermind the fact I take public transit there. Pretty much just a matter of time, really."

The corners of Johnny's lips turned down slightly, but he didn't interrupt.

“And forget coming home to unwind now because they just issued a warning for anyone using the trails by my place. Lone joggers are being assaulted and they can't seem to catch the guy, so they're asking everyone to jog in pairs. Running without my headphones in isn't enough since there's not much I can do even if I did hear someone coming. And because I don't really know anyone in the area to go with, I just don't because it's better than being freaked out the whole time.”

Your rant picked enough speed that if he had wanted to say anything, he'd have to try to talk over you first. He didn't.

“Hell, just then, you grabbed my arm and didn't even give it a second thought.”

Swallowing back anything he might have said, Johnny's gaze finally broke from yours as his eyes darted to the side, but you kept going.

“And neither do the other assholes who do the same thing when I'm just trying to have a drink with friends. They just grab my...arm if I'm lucky...and the easiest way to stop it is to be polite and try to be on my way. Because if I tell them exactly what I think about it, it just draws the whole thing out into a big, ugly mess and ruins my night anyhow. I hate it. It's not fair. And, no offence, but I'm not interested in going through the motions like your students for months...I want to go for a run, now. Or sit and have a fucking beer, now.”

Huffing a long breath through your nose, you realized he was still staring off. Was he even listening anymore?

Before you could ask, he rubbed the side of his knuckle against his chin and nodded. “Alright. How does seven work for you?”

“What?” You were ready for another rant or even to storm off and hopefully make it out the door. But this?

Dropping his hand to his side, he turned his full attention back on you. “I still think...no...I know the best defence is a good offence. You know you're safe when the other guy is going down and staying there.”

He paused just enough for you to jump in, but as his icy eyes bore into yours, it was hard to focus.

Waving you off, even though you stayed quiet, he continued. “But...I hear you. I get it. I mean...I don't get it, I guess...but I can show you some basic ways to break a hold and create some space. It'll be a start at least.”

Slowly, your shoulders melted as the realization sunk in that you made your point.

“Hell, I can even teach you a wrist lock or two for when some uh...asshole grabs your arm.”

You couldn't help the chuckle that broke free. Your laugh seemed to pull a quick, lopsided grin from Johnny before his face grew serious again. It was gone in a flash, but your chest fluttered at that glimpse of warmth.

“So if you're really interested, be here tomorrow at seven. We can start with some basics and go from there.”

Chewing your lip, you started to wonder if this was such a good idea or if you were just asking for trouble. But you'd already come this far...

“I'll be here.”

Taglist:  @foreverfaeries  @flower-two-writings  @getlostinyourparadise   @selfishkiddo  @angelicshinigami  @parkersbabey

[lavendersb]

Golden

Din Djarin x Reader

Summary: Things have been tough for your little clan of three.

You decide to take a break on an idyllic little planet and play happy family for a while.

Alternatively titled: "Touch starved metal man nearly dies when someone touches him softly"

Takes place after s2, but the crest is still intact, and Grogu hasn't gone to jedi school :)

Warnings: Literally none this is the softest thing in the world

Din had promised you a break.

For nearly a month you had been holed up in the razor crest. Din took no jobs, you stopped for nothing but fuel and even then Din wouldn’t allow you or Grogu to leave the ship. He was paranoid and desperate to ensure that the empire were off your trail before stopping for an extended period of time.

He had a good reason to act this way. You understood him well, just under a year of travelling as the Mandalorian’s companion had made you well aware of the way he operated, and the risks that came with his job. For a month or so you had been something more to him. Neither of you could quite put it into words yet, but he had opened up to you, made you aware of some of his more personal fears. How he worried near constantly that something would happen and your little clan of three would be separated.

As much as you understood Din’s reasoning, Grogu was struggling with his hyperspace confinement. A toddler with no way to burn off energy would be a nightmare in regular circumstances, but a toddler with magic powers was an entirely different set of challenges.

In the last week, Grogu had taken to throwing any item he could manage across the hull of the ship. It was harmless to begin with, just the odd crayon or stray bolt but now that Grogu had some practice, he was starting to pull at the large crates crates. When he managed to open Din’s weapon storage, that was the final straw.

You had reasoned with Din that just for a few days you needed somewhere to stop. It didn’t need to be populated, just somewhere the child could safely run free for a while. Preferably somewhere with decent weather. Eventually he had agreed, checking nearby planets for a safe place to land until he came across a very tame-looking planet called Usmoff 8. It would only take a day or so to get there.

-

 You had been asleep when Din had landed the crest. He had gotten up in the night to navigate the landing and had left you to sleep in the bedroom you shared behind the cockpit. When you finally woke to join him, you were startled by the view from the cockpit’s windows.

It was evening, the sun just beginning to dip below the horizon and casting the grassy planet outside in a brilliant golden glow. The light reflected off Din’s beskar vibrantly, the light flashing your eyes as he shifted in the pilot’s seat.

“The average day on this planet is much longer than most,” He tells you “It’s still only morning for us”

You rest a hand on his pauldron, looking out at the planet instead of into his visor. With the sun reflecting off him with such strength you could hardly look at him.

“You might want to go without the beskar today, when I look at you it’s like staring at the sun” You suggest. A year ago you would never have dreamed of saying such a thing to Din, but after the events of the last few months he was starting to embrace life outside of the armour. Every now and then he would remove his beskar and sometimes even his helmet, but only when he was sure that just you and the child could see.

“First I’m going to take a look around. Just to make sure there’s nothing we need to worry about” Din says.

“Alright,” You touch his pauldron gently, feeling how it’s already warming in the sunlight “I’ll go wake up Grogu.”

Din rests his hand to rest on yours, squeezing it where it rests on his shoulder and you use your free hand to turn his face to yours. You lean down to touch your forehead to the space above his visor, resting there for a moment before pulling back and heading down to the hull.

-

 “Grogu” You coo softly when the door to the cot lifts, and the hyper-active child sits up in the hammock. His ears flop into place as he wakes himself up, blinking slowly and letting out a string of groggy noises.

“We’ve got a busy day today” you say as you fish him out of his blankets. The two of you get ready whilst you wait for Din to return, washing your faces together and helping Grogu into a poncho and little pair of trousers.

You’re just finishing breakfast together when Din returns.

“Looks like we’re alone. It won’t hurt to stay alert though, I’ve no idea what the ecosystem is like here” He says, setting down his rifle and taking a seat on a crate in the hull.

“Do you think the wildlife will be a problem?” you say as you pass him a small bowl of lumpy porridge.

“Hard to tell,” he shrugs “but I don’t really want to risk it. I’ve seen the most vicious of animals living on some of the most beautiful planets”.

 -

The three of you finish breakfast and as you and Grogu clear up the plates together, Din starts to remove his beskar. He stops when he gets down to his flight suit but opts to keep the helmet. You don’t push for him to remove it, even though you know you won’t properly be able to look at his visor when your outside in the blinding sun. You want him to feel safe.

“Much better. Now you’re not so reflective, I’ll actually be able to look at you when we’re outside.”

“Do you plan on looking at me that much?” Din quips and you can hear his sly grin from under his helmet.

You scoff, and lightly shove his shoulder with yours as you pass to the ramp.

“I always want to look at you Mando.”

You hear Din chuckle quietly as you descend the ramp into the ‘evening’ sun. Grogu stirs in your arms, becoming restless at the sight of the grassy plains after going so long inside the metal belly of the ship. You don’t put him down just yet; you quickly scan the horizon first after becoming wary from Din’s words earlier.

There’s no sign of any other life forms, just grass and flowers and sunlight for as far as you can see. It really is picturesque. The golden sun illuminates the planet in a hazy glow and makes everything look warm and perfect. You set the baby down, and instantly he begins to toddle off towards a big, wilting flower.

“Thank you for letting us stop here” You say as Din comes to stand beside you.

“You don’t need to thank me. You should ask more often; I sometimes forget that the two of you need time to rest. When I travelled alone I never took breaks like this” He says, watching Grogu as he brings the head of the flower towards his little nose.

“Did you never get cabin fever?” you ask, and Din gives a little shrug.

“I grew up in the sewers of Nevarro and it was rare that I ever got let out. I think I’m immune to cabin fever.” Din says it like a joke, but his voice is laced with something akin to nostalgia. Or perhaps grief. You can’t quite tell.

Something moves out of the corner of your eye. You quickly turn to look for what it is, worried that it might be some kind of predator like Din had warned about. Instead all you are faced with is a tiny, orange-winged butterfly. The solitary thing flutters close to you, and then off past you and Din to disappear into the sunlight.

“So much for those dangerous creatures” You laugh.

-

 You spend the rest of the day outside in the sun. Din reckons it’s safe enough that you won’t have to leave too soon, but you’re still so excited to actually have fresh air to breathe. You do everything you can outside the ship, you eat outside, sort the laundry outside , and for the benefit of the child you play outside too. Whilst you and Din work on the little mundane tasks that need doing, you both keep an eye out for Grogu, whose energy is so abundant he keeps scampering off across the fields. Each time you have to call out to him and tempt him with food or a new game to play, and each time he comes diligently scampering back, giggling the whole way.

By the end of the day his energy has run out entirely. He waddles rather than runs, and never goes further than a few feet from where you and Din have settled under a tree. Din lies on his side next to you, finally convinced that there’s nothing out to get the three of you and parts ways with his helmet. It sits glistening next to him, close enough that he can grab it if anything goes wrong.

Over in a patch of shrubbery the baby gargles and lurches forward, disturbing a cluster of peaceful butterflies from the plants they rest upon. Two dozen or so of the petal-winged creatures leap into the sky and flutter away from the little green monster that waves his tiny hands after them.

“Oh Din, look” you say, and the two of you chuckle at the image before you. The butterflies have disappeared into the blinding golden sunlight and left Grogu alone in the flowers.

“Eh-a?” Grogu exclaims in confusion, his arms still extended towards the sky and his big brown eyes squinting as he looks for the insects that have abandoned him. His small arms drop back against his side, he seems ready to waddle back over in defeat until something in the flowers catches his attention.

You watch as your adoptive son’s big ears prick up with excitement. He slowly bends down, tentatively reaching into the shrubbery and straightening back up again with something resting in his open palm. He begins to totter over to you and Din, his attention solely on what he cradles in his hands, moving so carefully, as though it is the most precious thing in the world.

“What do you have there, Ad’ika?” Din says, and you sit up to see what Grogu has brought over.

He comes to a stop between the two of you and offers up his palms for you both to see his catch. It’s a butterfly, unfortunately dead but not by Grogu’s hand. No, the little boy is far too gentle with it. Grogu looks between you and Din and makes a noise of confusion. He lifts his palms higher into the air to try and get the butterfly to take off but all it does is roll slightly in his hand. Definitely dead.

“I think he’s gone to sleep,” You say to him, not quite ready to discuss the concept of mortality with a tired green toddler “It’s almost time for your bedtime as well.”

You reach out and take the butterfly from Grogu’s gentle hold, holding it’s body between your forefinger and thumb you admire it’s pinkish wings in the warm orange sunlight. Grogu sits down heavily and lets Din pull him closer so that his back rests against his father’s chest. His big brown eyes still watching the butterfly as you move it around.

Smiling you bring it towards him, brushing the insect’s soft wings gently across the baby’s wrinkled head.

“Does it feel soft?” You ask, bringing it down to tickle his rosy cheek and then back up to his head. Grogu doesn’t answer, he’s far to busy enjoying the feeling of the butterfly’s wings on his skin, his big eyes looking up at your hand and his little mouth parted in wonder. You keep going, watching as it lulls him into a sleepy state and makes him melt into Din’s body.

“You’re a good influence on him. A year ago he would have eaten those things without mercy” Din jokes as you continue to move the butterfly wing.

“You underestimate your own impact on him” You say quietly, so as not to disturb the baby. Din huffs in disagreement.

You’ve always known that Din thought very little of his ability to raise Grogu. His insecurities about raising a child were what brought the two of you together in the beginning, but even after so much time together the Mandalorian still couldn’t see how much of a natural he was at parenting. At being loving. At being loved.

“Din,” You chastise softly, but he doesn’t meet your gaze. His head is bowed, eyes laser-focused on the grass below him.

You take the butterfly away from Grogu (he’s become so drowsy he hardly notices it’s absence) and bring it to Din’s cheek instead, brushing the silky wing across his skin. Din bristles, looking up at you with his eyebrows raised and slightly pinched. His breath audibly catches in his throat, and you keep softly brushing the butterfly wing along his stubbled cheek.

“You’re gentle too,” You say, as Din’s eyes plead with you. You know he wants to argue with you, he wants to tell you he isn’t gentle, that nobody’s ever let him be gentle, but you won’t let him. Instead you bring your free hand up to hold his other cheek, and Din practically melts into it.

His eyes close as he enjoys the pleasant touch. You know how overwhelmed he gets when his bare skin is touched. Especially when it’s his face. Especially when it’s a tender touch. A life hidden behind beskar will do that to a person, he had told you once, and most of the physical contact he received as an adult came in the form of punches. This was still so new to him.

You place the butterfly down on a nearby flower and lean in close to Din, slowly pressing your lips to his in a sleepy kiss. It’s slow, and as you pull away Din leans to follow you, searching for more.

You chuckle at the sight in front of you. Din leaning on his side with the baby sitting against his chest. Both of them stare up at you with content, their brown eyes blinking slowly in the sunlight. You and your boys are happy. That’s all that matters in the universe right now.