#if i get star wars lore wrong i am SORRY

[ganondoodle]

I was at first in love with totk, and I still think mechanical wise, its quite impressive

And when I collected all the tears and saw the "story" I genuinely got upset in a good way (at first), because man! Did they really got the balls to go that far? Is there nothing I can do for her? Now I MUST do all the temples, see how it plays out and --oh, I've got this cutscene already. Why are all the people so dumb about Zelda, I KNOW where she is, Link say something-- Link??

After finishing all the temples and almost falling asleep, I stopped playing the game, looked up the last boss and remaining cutscenes and went "Thats it?"

Watching other people (including you) being critically about so many things, both character and mechanical wise, I've almost startled myself with a realization what the gnawing feeling I constantly had, actually was.

Totk feels like a fanfic.

And don't get me wrong, I love fanfiction, I think its great and important, I adore fanfic writers, I love finding gems, I love reading self indulgent stories, see new spins and interpretation of characters. I love the casual, the passion, the creativity!

But totk gives me the same feeling everytime I am reminded that Fifty Shades is a Twillight fanfic.

The world is there. The faces I know and grew to love are there. But everything is ever so slightly different, uncannily so. Just how some characters talk, how they act, how they were placed in the story. The Zonai appearing out of nowhere, but no, they always had been there you see, they were these super magical advanced people but they all died, the king is so tragic. And you see, the king is super cool and powerful and-- oh I dont get to interact with him outside of the tutorial. Did they try to do another King Rhoam-- but wait, that only worked because we didn't knew he was a ghost-- totk wait stop why do you take him out of the story, why couldn't he be a companion, he IS ABLE TO TALK THROUGH THE ARM LET THE OLD GOAT COMMENT ON STUFF?? If you bring up all this ancient stuff and you still got a ghost lingering, let him talk?? (I never ended up getting Mineru but I smell wasted potential as well)

Im not even mad, I am disappointed. It feels like the devs saw what all the lore hunters got attached to and talked about and then just... took the "cool". All the Zonai stuff could've easily been Sheikah tech, but got just reskinned to look more exciting instead of being its own thing.

Like... at this point I prefer what fans are doing over what Totk gave us. The characterization of Rauru (and everything Zonai), projects like you do of what totk couldve been, the little nuggets of actual highlights and details of love fans find in the game. I found much more enjoyment in these concepts than I got from a 70bucks game. And thats depressing.

I love fanfiction. I dont love it when my corporate 70 dollar, six year development, console exclusive game feels like a story that passionate fan couldve written miles better in a week (and I've already seen much cooler and interesting rewrites and ideas).

Zelda has been a huge part of my childhood and its depressing seeing it treated like that. It always was about the story, the epic, its The Legend of Zelda for crying out loud. To be courageous to enter a dungeon, to be wise and solve all the riddles. To become powerful over the journey you embarked on. Zelda to me is the campfire story you tell to others and go into the woods or the beach and imagine what monsters you would slay. Zelda is not the sandcastle you build in the sandbox and then add dinosaurs and star wars ships because you didn't had any other toys, and just stumble into and over some story to entertain yourself until lunch is ready.

I'd have an oracle of seasons over another totk any day at this point. They should've just make the mechanics of totk its own thing, but I guess they were scared it wouldn't sell if it doesn't have a Mario or Zelda skin straped over it.

Anyways, sorry for the mini rant - love your art, love your thoughts and insights, and I am looking forward to see more of it - Zelda related or not (your original characters look amazing, I adore your style sm)

Hope you have a great rest of the day!

*nods along through this entire rant*

idk how many of my rants you have read but yeah ... yeah ... and the further you think about it the further it all falls apart, the wasted potential of it all and the goddamn audacity of them to do those interviews in which they make it EVEN WORSE is just

i know the expectation for a direct sequel to botw was huge and understandbly so but i really REALLY think it would not have been that hard to make it a good follow up even taking into account that totk was originally a DLC, pretty much all of botws aspects could have been developed further, i dont know what could have happened to make totk have turned out like this .. literally it feels like something had to have gone wrong, its like someone who doesnt know zelda nor botw at all was given a few prompts and then just made some generic fantasy story while the rest worked on ultrahand for 5 years

the technical impressive things ARE technical impressive, but i dont think it was necessary nor served the game well in any way (and i LOVE building games- however totk is neither a building game nor a story game nor a zelda game nor an exploration game nor a sequel imo) but zelda, this zelda, is not made for that and i cant help but think it was mainly to encourage people to make some ridiculous mechs so it can go viral on tiktok (not trying to discredit them, it IS cool what they are doing but i .... have my doubts if zelda is the right place for that)

ill stop there bc i have ranted so much about everything i dont wanna repeat it here again; it just doesnt feel like a real game (derogatory), it feels extra bad bc i was not really into zelda when botw came out and while i did get it as soon as i could (months after release since i just started a minijob and didnt have the money) i only over time grew to love zelda this much again, devouring any theories and anything about it bc i loved it so much- i was never into it like this when a new title was announced and dont own any special editions so i bought the totk collectors bc i was just so damn excited for it after the 2019 trailer dropped (god i want that time back ... it looked so much more like it was going to be an actual sequel) even if i was already worried it wouldnt be good at that point given how much i started to sense stuff i dont like about the newer trailers

i recently sold it at our local gameshop bc it was like a thorn in my side given how expensive it was and how dissapointed i was in the game, i genuinely think that, technical impressiveness aside, totk is the onyl zelda i truly cannot stand (for alot of reasons) and im genuinely worried for the future of the franchise

i bought an Oki (Okami) figurine for what i got back and i feel much happier with that :3

(also on a note, i did finish the game two weeks after release but stopped playing it right then and hadnt touched it since, i also streamed all of what i played and its still up if you want to see my slow descend into madness fjkdhkdhjk though its been a long while since then and i by far did not talk about everything back then, just what my most immediate frustrations were while still playing)

(also the gameplay isnt as good as people make it out to be, so much is so frustrating and punishing to use i am kinda baffled it got through like that and most people call that its best aspect ..... though i guess if the rest is so much worse even mid gameplay can seem good ooooooooh how dare i)

also thank you for liking what i do!!! <3 it means alot to know it is appreciated by someone :D

[hecckyeah]

Listen. I know, I KNOW we all have mixed feelings about the finale. Just in the last hour, I’ve read at least five posts on each side, some saying it was the best thing filoni’s ever created, and some literally cursing his guts. As I watched it, I was leaning much more to the how dare you, I waited two years for this and this sucks side, but I had a good night of sleep and some thought, and. I think everyone is overreacting.

Some thoughts.

First, I do think it should have been an animated Rebels season 5. I am partial to live action in general and I’m so glad we got such fantastic casting. But Filoni really shines in the animated world. Live action has limits that animation laughs at, and with all of Dave’s creativity and parallels and callbacks and history in animation, it would have suited this show better. Granted, the viewership might have been worse than it already was, but who’s to say?

Secondly, of course the whole thing was a setup for future movies/shows. It would have been near impossible for this to be a standalone series, with only 8 episodes and so much at stake. I still have absolutely zero idea how this fits in with the s*quels, but I hope it’s all part of the plan to safely extract our (Filoni’s) favorite characters before all hell breaks loose on the narrative.

BUT. Just because it was a setup doesn’t make the story any less meaningful. Dave is the master of arcs within arcs within arcs within arcs. There was the mini arc of Ahsoka and Anakin, reconciling very (very very) complicated feelings and Ahsoka coming to grips with her past as a child soldier and forgiving Anakin for the choices and mistakes he made. There was the mini arc of Hera in the New Republic and how she has to balance her loyalty to the government that she helped to establish with her loyalty to her family (something I don’t think we’ve seen the last of). There was the mini arc of (obviously) finding Ezra!!!! HE’S HOME, YOU GUYS. Sabine did the selfless thing and sent him home after a decade to have a fighting chance to reunite with his family. And to meet Kanan’s son and to see the beauty that Lothal has turned into and to hug his adoptive mom. And she has full faith in him that he will be back to get her, or that she’ll find a way to go back. Because she now has knowledge that he didn’t before, and with Ahsoka’s help and probably Shin and Baylan too, there’s no way they won’t Jedi their way out of this. (*cough* world between worlds *cough*) Also seeing Morai was a HUGE plot twist. I, for one, can’t WAIT to see what’s up with that.

FINALLY. and I think this is something that Star Wars fans (dare I call them fans anymore?) seem to always forget is that Star Wars……. Kinda sucks. It always has. No one in their right mind would say that Star Wars is a literary masterpiece or anything close to that. Star Wars is great because you are literally required to take it all with a grain of salt. Nothing goes at face value. You have to overlook things for the rest to make sense. You cherry pick your favorite parts and ignore the rest. Do I know absolutely anything about mandalore and their political history?? Not one single thing. But could I explain to you the nuances of the aptly-named Disaster Lineage and how generation trauma comes in more ways than by blood?? I could write PAGES. There’s so much history and lore and side characters and branches of story and nuance that no one can ever fit it all together perfectly, no matter how good of a storyteller they are. You have to pick a niche and run with it, and that’s exactly what Dave Filoni is doing. AND that’s what we as fans need to do. If you’re mad that he didn’t address the chiss as a whole or delve into the mysteries of the nightsisters or expand on what happened between Ahsoka and Sabine in depth, then I’m sorry, but you’ve come to the wrong place. Put on a pair of rose colored glasses and cry at Ezra’s reunions with the rest of us.

I’ve stopped expecting perfection from any major franchise (haven’t watched a marvel show or movie since TF&TWS) because the bigger they get, the less they’re going to appeal to the general fan base. And Ahsoka was no different. But it did accomplish one thing: bringing Ezra Bridger home after 10 years, and I think that is all we actually need to worry about for now.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

[words-are-fireproof]

Haalur - (Din Djarin x fem!reader)

(*gif from @cutieodonoghue )

Summary: The tension in Din's body is too much for you to bear. So, you take him home to help him relax and breathe. He needs it.

Rating: T (this might a strong T seeing as there's mention of smut but it's not quite M either so...)

Word Count: 4.3k

Warnings: mentions of past sexual encounters, a little bit angsty, super duper soft, uncertain reader and quite possibly more things that I'm forgetting.

A/N: So, there's a fic I read recently about Din and the reader having sex and him not taking the beskar off. I don't remember who wrote it and I'm embarassed to admit that, but I'm pretty sure it briefly leaks into this story and I AM SORRY ABOUT IT. It just makes a lot of sense and I guess I couldn't get the imagery out of my head. If that's your fic, lemme know so I can tag it and link it here to give you credit.

Also, this is only my second full length reader fic and while I feel a lot more confident in it, I'm not confident in my Star Wars lore, so apologies when I use the wrong words for stuff.

I don't do tag lists, but you're free to follow @fireproof-library for all my fics without the mess. Just turn on the notifications.

* haalur means breathe in Mando'a. Cabur means protector. mesh'la means beautiful. cyar'ika means darling/sweetheart *

[Masterlist]

-----

When you saw him again on Tatooine, your heart skipped a beat. How long had it been since you last saw him? It hadn’t been very many months, not like before when you hadn’t seen him in almost a year. This time, less time had passed, and you selfishly hoped that the downward trend would continue because the more time that passed, the less and less you’d see him, the more you worried about him. The more you feared he would never come back. 

He wouldn’t do that to you, would he? Leave you and never return to you? You wouldn’t put it past him. You couldn’t fall in love with a Mandalorian. The path led to heartbreak, and you were no stranger to it. No matter how much you thought he was different, you knew better. You weren’t Mandalorian, which meant he had no loyalty to you. 

But you knew better. 

The Creed promoted loyalty, Mandalorian or not. It’s why he kept returning to Tatooine. It’s why he continually sought out the same people over and over again. It’s why he was even on Tatooine in the first place. Peli found an old Naboo starfighter with the intention of giving it to him. A worthy replacement to the Razor Crest. 

You missed that gun ship something fierce, but you’d never admit it. You knew exactly how that ship sounded. Out of all the other ships that landed there on a somewhat regular basis, you could pick that one out of a line up every time. You knew the way the engines sounded when it dropped out of the clouds to land–a dull, low rumble that vibrated from your chest to your toes. You knew exactly what it looked like as it flew through the sky, built differently than most ships that landed on the planet. You knew to look for it when you expected him back. You never knew exactly when he’d return, but you knew he would. He was tethered to this place, much like you were. 

You were down at a local cantina in town when the commercial ship landed on a nearby landing pad. You heard the distinct metallic whine and the sudden influx of different languages and dialects. You weren’t exactly a polyglot. You knew how to speak droid and Jawa and just a bit of the wookie language but most of what you’d picked up over the years was from what you’d heard on the streets in the markets. You could barter and trade in different languages, but you couldn’t speak them fluently. A blessing and a curse, your mother would say, but you didn’t care. 

You finished your food quickly, bounding through the crowd to see who might be on the ship. Passers through, the most of them, but you happened to catch the glint of light off a helmet moving opposite you through the crowd. Your breath caught in your chest. The blood rushed through your ears, hollow and excited all at once. You broke off in a run in the opposite direction, cutting through the town on the way to Peli’s shop. You knew every nook and cranny and managed to get there right as he shot the womp rat trying to eat her. 

Dank Farrik, he looked good and you had to remember how to breathe. 

The two of them talked about the Naboo starfighter before he seemed to realize you were there. You’d tried not to draw attention to yourself, but you’d just managed to almost trip over one of Peli’s BD droids and the little guy wasn’t too happy about it, beeping and swearing at you in binary while you tried to silence it. 

“Hey, hey! What have I told you about yelling at my droids?” 

You immediately stop as the little guy toddles off cursing. “Sorry, Peli.” 

“And what did I tell you about sneaking into my place? You know better.” 

You shot Peli a fond little smile. “Yeah, but I like doing it anyway.” 

The woman in front of you huffed, obviously annoyed as she turned to him and motioned at you, “Mando this is–”

“I know who she is,” his voice sounded cold through the modulator, so different from the warmth you were used to. 

Peli looked confused between the two of you. You expected her to say something, but for once, she kept her mouth shut. “Okay, then. Wanna see this cool new ride I found you? It’s not finished. I just started working on it.” 

And that’s how the conversation ended. You followed them around as he expressed dislike at the idea of flying a starfighter instead of a heavy gunner. The entire time, you tried not to stare at him too much. Like always, he looked well put together. His beskar shone in perfect condition. Nothing knicked or scuffed that armor and something about knowing that made you smile. He was safe. Unless his ship was shot down in space. But you tried not to think about that. That was too much to bear. 

His flight suit underneath the armor looked faded and well worn. You wondered when was the last time he changed it out. You knew the Razor Crest held plenty of spares in all of its hidden compartments. But since it’d been destroyed, you didn’t know where his spares were, or if he even had any. You wondered if you could nick some clothes off a vendor and alter them for him. It wouldn’t be a flight suit, but it’d be something he could wear if he needed it. 

And that’s how the day goes. You trying not to stare. Him obviously knowing you’re there and also trying not to stare, all down to business and trying to wrangle parts for a starfighter that needed a lot of work. The two of you danced under Peli’s watchful and curious gaze but the fact she wasn’t saying anything said all it needed to. She knew and Mando knew she did, too. 

You find yourself at the back of the starfighter at the end of the day, fiddling with some part or other that you had no idea what it did or where it went. Your thoughts were on him and the way he looked crouched down under the nose of the ship. You didn’t even realize the older curly haired woman had slid up beside you.

“So,” she said suddenly, causing you to jump and drop the part you had in your hands. One of her BD droids scurried away so it wouldn’t get crushed. “How long has that been going on?” 

You tried to feign innocence as you bent to pick the piece up from the ground. “I don’t know what you mean.” 

She lifted an eyebrow. “C’mon now. I might be old but I’m not exactly blind.” 

“Peli–”

She raised her hands in surrender. “Okay, alright. I get it. But if what I think is true, why don’t you get him out of here? Take him to your place? Show him a good time, if you know what I mean.” She elbowed you in the side and you tried to bat her arm away from you. 

“Okay, okay. Peli, I get the point.” 

“Besides,” the woman began, her gaze settling on Mando as he stood to grab a tool and get back to work, “he looks like he needs it.” 

She was right. You watched him move around some, always so poised and strangely elegant in his movements. But underneath that beskar, his muscles jarred and hitched, some usually more refined moves jerky and not at all like they should be. Something felt wrong. It felt…off, and you didn’t know why. You wanted to lift the world off his broad shoulders if only to see him less tense than he appeared now. 

You took a breath, ignoring the thoughts in your head that said, don’t do this in front of the older woman, but she had suggested it and if he trusted her enough to keep coming back for help, then he trusted her enough with other things, too. You sat the part down on a nearby bench and ignored the way the woman pretended not to watch. You’d have to talk to her later when Mando left again. But for now, you approached the Mandalorian, fingers itching to touch him, craving the feel of the beskar under your fingertips and the rough wool of his cape. 

Flashes of a night you’re sure he’s long since forgotten dance across your mind. You can still remember the itch of that wool cape as it scratched over your bare skin, keeping you warm in the Razor Crest as you cooled from exertions you dare not tell a soul about. He had a reputation to protect. You wouldn’t dare be the cause of any pain. 

But this time, you took a chance in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, you could soothe some of that tension before you disappeared to your place. You settled your hand right on the edge of his shoulder armor where the leather of his bandolier dug into the flight suit. You squeezed and you swore you could feel him relax under your touch. 

“C’mon, cabur,” you murmured softly. “It’s time to rest.” He lifted his head, tilting it as he looked at you through the “t” of his helmet. You could almost feel the confusion radiating off of him. “Oh, she knows. She won’t say anything.”

He looked just past your shoulder at Peli who was messing with some coupling or something and muttering to her droids. Then he looked back at you. 

“I have warm soup at home,” you press, reaching up to settle your hand gently on his helmet like you were cupping his cheek.

He sagged into your touch. A sigh crackled through his modulator. “I have to be back here early in the morning.” 

You smile as relief slides through you. “I know. I’ll wake you up.” 

His body hefted up slowly as your hand slid down his beskar, stopping as your fingers slipped off his gloved hand. You almost settled your hand in his but decided better of it. You could imagine the stares you’d get on the street walking hand in hand with a Mandalorian. 

“I will be back tomorrow to keep working,” he said shortly in Peli’s direction. 

“We’ll be up bright and early. Maybe even with some parts. You know the Jawas, though. They come in late sometimes.” 

“We’ll do what we can.” 

Peli waved you both off. “Go on. Go get some rest. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” 

The woman winked at you and you knew that he could see it. You shrunk into a blush, wanting to disappear in the sand. By the stars were you always this obvious? You knew the answer to that, but you didn’t want to admit it to yourself. You didn’t want Mando to see it. Your relationship, whatever it was, as it was, wasn’t typically predicated on others knowing. Peli was…a bit of an unforeseen circumstance. Not that you were complaining. She pushed you in the right direction when you need the push. Even though you hated being pushed into anything. 

He didn’t say anything until you reached your apartment on the outskirts of town. The people there were thin on the ground until they seemed to disappear completely. Just the two of you lingered, lit solely by halogen lights, the beskar shining in the darkness. You unlocked the door and ushered him inside, out of the darkness and the chill that had begun to settle over the desert. You never got tired of the way it cooled off at night, despite the fact you were freezing by the time you shut the door behind him and began turning on the heaters. 

As you puttered around the small home, turning knobs and getting food from the cold case, you felt his gaze on you, watching you curiously as you moved. If anyone else had done that, you’d feel nervous, exposed, and far too vulnerable. You took yourself out of a situation once because too many eyes were on you and you felt like you were being critiqued on something you could never change or never knew you needed to change. You resisted going back out to that cantina when that happened. Eventually, though, you returned, even if the nervous feeling never really got any better. 

Under his gaze, though, you feel…strangely safe. Cabur suited him well in many ways, most of which you’d never tell a soul. You weren’t helpless. You’d dare anyone to make that insinuation. You could hold your own, and in fact, you often did. But despite your capabilities, you appreciated the protection he provided you when he blew into town. While he’d never gone into battle for you, you knew he would if he felt you were threatened. Or maybe that was wishful thinking. Either way, actions or not, his gaze felt warm and safe even if you couldn’t see his eyes through his helmet. 

“Make yourself at home,” you motioned as you put the promised soup in a pot on the stove to heat up. 

The heat hadn’t kicked on yet and you shivered as you turned the element on with slightly shaky hands. You were about to pull on a poncho or an extra tunic or something when you felt the scratchy wool of the cape drape over your shoulders, his strong, still gloved hands running over your arms as he smoothed the fabric over you. 

“Well, hello, cyare,” you murmured, your head falling back gently into the cool beskar shoulder armor. 

“You thought I didn’t notice,” his low voice dripped honey smooth from the modulator. 

“Didn’t notice what?” 

“The way you were watching me in the garage.” 

You chuckle softly, turning in his embrace and wrapping your arms around his tapered waist. 

“I wasn’t too obvious, was I?”

He shook his head and you couldn’t help but smile as you laid your head on his chest. You wished you could hear his heart beat, but you made do with what you had. At least he was there with you. That’s what mattered. He was there and he seemed happy to indulge you, even if he never did take off his helmet or his gloves. You found it odd that everything else was fair game, but you tried not to think about it too much. If you thought about it too much, you’d ask too many questions and you knew better than to ask him too many questions. 

“I’ll heat up the soup and then go take a shower so you can eat.” 

“Thanks,” he said and you swore you could hear a smile in his voice, his tone tinged with relief. 

You wanted to see his face, but you wouldn’t push it. To push a Mandalorian was to tempt his wrath. You wanted no part of that. 

So, you lingered quietly like that. Wrapped in his arms and his cape with your head on his armored chest as the soup heated slowly on the burner. Even with the beskar on, your suspicions were correct about the tension in his body. You could feel it underneath his flightsuit, the muscles of his back tight and rigid. His posture, even with his arms around you, felt rigid, too. Something twinged inside of you. You wanted to ask what was wrong, but you couldn’t make the words come out of your throat. You sighed and lifted your head, letting him go and turning to stir the soup. 

The hair on the back of your neck stood on end. Even though you had moved, he had not. He still stood stock still behind you. You couldn’t decide if he was curious about the sudden change in your demeanor or if it was something else. You could have asked, but again, you couldn’t make your voice work for some reason. 

“What’s wrong, mesh’la?” 

His voice jolted you out of your thoughts and you turned back to face him again.

“What do you mean?” He tilted his head and even with the darkened ‘t’ of his helmet, you knew he was giving you a look that meant he didn’t believe your feigned innocence. 

“You’re thinking about something.” 

You sighed a little bit, again, and shook your head. “Nothing.” Another tilt of his helmet. “You feel different is all.” 

“Different?” He asked curiously, his voice lilting softly through the modulator.

“Yeah. You feel…tense. I’m not used to that.” 

He fell silent, turning away to pad to the sofa. You tried not to feel hurt welling up into your chest. That was all you needed to know. Something was different. You didn’t know what it could be and you certainly didn’t want to ask if he was just going to clam up and draw away from you. 

You turn to the soup and stir it so it doesn’t scorch. You’re used to his silence, but this time it doesn’t feel right. This time, it almost feels like he wants to say something but maybe doesn’t have the words. You wouldn’t put it past him. You also don’t blame him. It’s not like you two are very close. You’re not. He just lost himself in you more than once and cuddled you once and you thought those things meant something. Fools errand. That’s what it was. 

“I miss the kid.” 

You stopped stirring, turning to look at his back as his helmet fell low in exhaustion. Without thinking, you turned the cook top down low and immediately came up behind him. Your slender hands gently settled on the area past his shoulder beskar that is padded with just coarse brown fabric. His cape drops from around your own shoulders as you begin to gently massage him. You can feel the knots in his muscles and the way a shudder works through him as you touch him. 

Before, when he lost himself in you, when he surrendered to his basest desires, he barely allowed you to touch him. He kept the armor and the helmet on, leaving indentations in your skin with the beskar, the coarse fabric of his flight suit rubbing a burn on the curve of your bum that bothered you for days. Even his gloves stayed on, but you couldn’t complain about that. You could still feel the way that buttery smooth leather slid easily between your legs. You wouldn’t mind a repeat of that. 

But now, when you touched him, he let you. You still dare not touch him without the suit but the appreciation is obvious as he allowed himself to relax incrementally under your adept hands. You let the silence between you linger. What could you say to him that didn’t sound contrite or pointless? You hated seeing him like this, but your tongue had a nasty habit of getting you into trouble and like earlier, you didn’t want to risk him clamming up completely. 

As you continued to massage his shoulders, though, you almost felt compelled to talk. So, you did, even if you felt like you were making a huge mistake. 

“Can you go visit him?” You asked softly, voice barely above a whisper, not wanting to break this trance you’ve both settled into. 

“I could. I do have something to give him. Just have to get the starfighter up and running first.” 

You nod. That makes sense. He can’t do anything without a means of transportation. 

“What do you have to give him?” 

“A chainmail shirt. For protection.” 

“Fit for a foundling,” you murmured as you worked a particularly tense muscle. He hissed in pain. Your hands faltered on his shoulders. “Sorry. Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.” 

“It’s fine,” he gritted through clenched teeth. 

You resisted the urge to smack him upside his helmeted head. “No, it isn’t.” 

You ease up your movements despite his protests. He’s been through enough without you adding pain to it. 

“I…found my people. What’s left of them,” he said softly. Even through the modulator you could hear the regret and sadness in his voice. 

“And…?” You trail off curiously, leaving the door open for his reply or his dismissal. 

He shook his head. You yearned to touch him. You yearned to comfort him properly. You could only do so much like this and it always felt like it was never enough. 

“It’ll be okay,” you whisper. “In the end. It always is, right?” He shook his head again. “Oh.” 

You both fell silent. Your hands lingered on his shoulders, not moving this time, just trying to offer him some sort of help despite feeling embarrassingly inept. You aren’t sure how long you stay there like that, but it was long enough that you forgot about the soup and you forgot about the insistent hunger gnawing at your insides. He must’ve too, but you didn’t mind. This was much more important, you reasoned. Food could always come later. 

As the silence continued, you lost track of time. You lost track of yourself, of him in relation to you. It felt like you’d always been there for him yet somehow you’d never really been there for him at all. Everything felt off kilter and the sadness in his voice ate at your insides. What you didn’t expect was for him to reach up to gently lay an ungloved hand on one of yours. Startled, you jump a little, frowning at your reflection in his helmet. 

“I need your help, cyar'ika,” he said suddenly, cutting through your shock and confusion. 

Cyar’ika. You dragged the translation from the deepest part of your brain. Darling. Sweetheart. It felt far more intimate than any other pet name you’d used for each other before. 

“Anything you want.” 

You rounded the sofa to stand in front of him, your body reflected at you through the beskar. You stared into that darkened ‘t’ curiously, trying to read him though the act was impossible. There was no way you could know what he was thinking without seeing his face. 

He took a deep breath. “Take off my helmet.” 

You froze. No, you recoiled at the request. You didn’t exactly mean to, but the request came so out of left field, you didn’t exactly know how to feel about it. 

“What? No.” 

“I want you to see my face.” 

“But…your Creed…” you floundered and trailed off. 

He didn’t say a word in response to that, staring up at you through his helmet, body still as a statue, intent on his request and clearly not wanting to back off from it. Your breath caught in your chest. If you did this, if you removed his helmet, you knew the implications. You knew he couldn’t put it back on again. But…maybe that was the point. His words earlier, the sadness laced in his tone. Realization hit you square in the chest. He’d taken his helmet off before. He must’ve. It confused you even more but now was not the time for questions. He was testing you. You didn’t want to find out what would happen if you failed the test. 

With a shaky breath, you took a step forward, then another one, then another until your thighs pressed against the bent curve of his knees. You tried not to let your thoughts run away with you when he spread his legs for you to step even closer. You swallowed thickly and your slender fingers found the edge of the beskar. It felt smooth under your touch, but you didn’t linger with that thought. If you stopped now, you weren’t sure you could do what he asked. 

You swallowed again then slowly began to lift his helmet. Inch by tortuously slow inch, you got your first look at him. Scruffy chin and cheeks, the brown beard flecked with gray, betraying his age. He was older than you or maybe the stress of his life up until then had caught up with him early. You didn’t know but you also didn’t care. Strong nose. It curved down at just the right angle. Soft looking tawny skin flecked with the light knicks of scars. Deep soulful brown eyes that met yours as soon as they were revealed. Maker and stars above you felt your knees go weak. 

As you lifted the helmet completely off, his mop of shaggy brown hair flopped onto his head. You almost laughed, worrying your bottom lip between your teeth to keep it back. Like his beard, his hair was beginning to gray a bit, but it was no less beautiful that way. You sat the helmet aside and immediately plunged your hands into that hair. The locks slid between your fingers, impossibly soft and surprisingly well taken care of. You watched as his eyes slipped closed at your touch, body swaying a bit as he reconciled with what was happening, what he was feeling as you touched him. You couldn’t imagine what was going through his mind.

You didn’t ask. 

“Thank you,” he murmured softly, sending shivers down your spine. 

Without the modulator, his voice was lighter, less deep but no less honeyed and sweet. It dripped over you easily. You could get used to this. 

“You’re welcome, cyar’ika.” You didn't quite get the pronunciation right, but he didn't seem to mind. 

All his beskar came off that night. The soup soon remembered when hunger drove you both to the kitchen table but then quickly forgotten again when, after having your fill, you made sure he breathed and relaxed even more. By the end of the night, you were grateful for the lack of marks and fabric burns on your skin, but you were even more grateful at the feel of his bare arms wrapped around you. You nestled close against him, unsure when you might get another chance like this again. You knew you had a short time with him. You knew as soon as the starfighter was finished, he’d be gone again. But for now, you had the memory of his skin against yours and the memory of how it felt to properly kiss him to keep you going. 

-----

I just wanted to take a moment to thank all the wonderful creators out there who write and put things out in the world for everyone to see. I love all of you so very much and I'm so happy to be in such great company. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[hurricanek8art]

Okay I can't stand it that post about the hairstyles in Star Trek Picard has activated an autism hyperfixation infodump.

I love Rings of Power and the Hobbit movies. This is not an anti-Rings of Power/Hobbit movies post or bashing either thing in any way. If you're looking for that kind of post, please keep going, I don't want to engage with that. If you're trying to avoid that kinda thing, this is mild criticism at best.

While I am fascinated with Galadriel's Rings of Power** portrayal, the lack of styling with her hair is bothering me a little bit. Like I know it's in character since her hair is extremely important to her character and the lore itself, and even in the PJ movies they kept her hair relatively simple compared to the other elves.

But, Rings of Power Galadriel is different from PJ movies Galadriel. This is a Galadriel actively participating in war, as opposed to the PJ Galadriel that is mostly working behind the scenes except for Dol Guldur. And yet, even as she's riding into what she knows is going to be a big battle for the Southlands, all that's really done with her hair is a loose, kinda messy French braid.

And like don't get me wrong, it's beautiful and very Galadriel and I am filled with jealousy because I had to trim my hair after a while without a haircut and I miss my long, loose messy French braid, but even if RoP was trying not to ape the PJ movie aesthetic completely, they still share a lot of the same visual language and those movies gave us so many examples of Elvish braids for battles/conflicts.

(side note: why is it so flipping hard to find good shots of the male elves from the side so you can see their hair?)

I'm not saying go nuts with it, far from it. But there's a way to keep it simple and Galadriel-esque without losing that visual language. Pull the hair on top back with some lace, rope or Dutch braids then braid the loose hanging hair below. Or do something similar to Haldir from Two Towers and pull it back in a simple half-up French, leaving the rest loose. Heck, even just making the braid a French fishtail to keep that sleek Elvish look but still be something that can be easily messed up for the post Mount Doom go Boom* scenes might've looked more visually Elvish than what they did.

I'm no Tolkien expert in any way, shape or form. I love the books but find his writing style somewhat of a struggle to comprehend personally, so I don't know the books inside and out like my brother does. I do love the movies and I love Rings of Power, flaws and all. I'm no hairstylist either, but I love braiding hair and mentally deconstructing how the movies did their elf hair. So, in short, I guess this is my nitpicky Tolkien adaptation opinion. Thank you for attending my TED talk.

(*and yes I know it wasn't technically called Mount Doom yet but that was the first and only thought that went through my head during that scene and I think it's funny, so.)

(**Sorry I had to mildly edit this because i glanced at it and realized I wasn't clear, this is specifically about RoP Galadriel, not movie Galadriel. But really I like all the Galadriels so *shrug*)

[athetos]

My thoughts on what movies for other Nintendo franchises would be like:

Legend of Zelda - abysmal. I have zero faith in a film adaptation characterizing link or Zelda properly. And there’s simply so much game to pack into a single movie, no matter which game you base it off of. They’d have to do an original plot, and I doubt that would go over well. If anything, it would have to be a tv show, and even then it will be pretty bad.

Metroid - sounds like it has potential, but I have a feeling it would fail. I don’t trust many people to write samus Aran. Metroid Dread would be the most likely to get a film adaptation, and it would definitely be scary and thrilling, but I feel that Hollywood would botch the execution fantastically. The EMMI designs would terrify me, though.

Fire Emblem - I feel this would land similarly as Zelda, in that there’s just so much to adapt, especially if it’s based off a more recent (and more popular) game, like three houses or awakening. Plus, with all those games having dating sim elements and player choices, plus the large casts, it would be a mess. I think a movie based off of perhaps the first game/shadow dragon would be alright, though. It wouldn’t be great if you had played the games and knew what was wrong in the adaptation, but for casual fans it would fare well.

Kirby - an animated Kirby movie would most likely underperform at the box office, but would be a big hit with fans. It would be a lot of fun, and kids would love it. You could give Kirby partner characters like Kirby right back at ya did. Maybe waddle dee would be the new minion…?

Star fox - assuming the style was aesthetically pleasing, I think this would be THE best adaptation. Fuck Star Wars, this is a star fox world now. A space opera with furries, what’s not to love? Just don’t adapt Star fox adventure, because I would be the only one to see it. Just follow the first game or Star fox 64, give us some angst and one-liners, drip feed us lore, throw in tons of Easter eggs, and set up a sequel that more prominently features Pigma or something. Easy.

F-zero - nintendo doesn’t even remember this exists.

Animal crossing - I’m sorry but this would be so boring. No matter what plot they make it would suck. I’m sure people will eat it up regardless, but I just can’t see it being fun. Am not sold.

Kid Icarus - has a lot of potential, but only if it’s animated. Would be a good movie to turn your brain off and watch while eating popcorn, equal parts laughs and “oooh”‘s. The writing needs to be fucking solid, though.

Pikmin - could be a fun family movie with jokes kids will miss that will make adults laugh. Not even in an innuendo way, but in a “makes references to stuff from the ‘80s and ‘90s” way. Very nostalgic and new all at once. Could be cozy. They’ll need to expand the cast of astronauts though, and maybe perhaps have some of the pikmin speak. Who knows.

Earthbound - I suppose the entire game could be condensed down into a single film, and I think it wouldn’t be amazing, but still good. However, it would earn hundreds of “omg this is kinda like stranger things!” Comparisons solely because it follows kids/teens in a retro world, which would make me so so mad I would turn into the hulk or the grinch or some other green beast.

Splatoon - it would be super colorful, flashy, and fun, and be a surprise hit. It could focus a lot on the lore that most casual fans are unaware of, and have a ton of original songs courtesy of the idols that would be on the radio forever. I have never played splatoon but I would see the movie the week of release.

[huggingtentacles]

sorry if you’ve been asked this one already cos it’s kinda a basic one but. rate and review the endings?

and what’s a fun build you think everyone should try ?

SSS Tier: Not completing the game because I play PvP and I don't like burning my Erdtree

S Tier: Fia's ending. I am joining the skeleton war on the side of the skeletons. Lots of hugs required to reach this is ending.

A Tier: Age of Fracture. The most mysterious ending, for we don't know what it entails. In my opinion it's just "interpret your own ending" ending, so basically this is the "I get it all the hot women and rule these lands however I want" so this will ending is literally the best. The drawback being that some stinky lore nerd will tell me that I'm wrong. To which I say I am invading your world as a dark spirit right now.

Age or Stars. Ranni might be a real dickhead consider this: she has four hands and she is my wife now. I don't need much for happiness.

B Tier: Age of Order. Same thing as Age of Fracture. Not enough known about how the life will be under this age, so I can say whatever I want. The one thing I know for sure: there will be no gods like Marika who can meddle with the Elden Ring. But the problem is that I DO want to meddle with Elden Ring. I want to change it up however I want! I will shatter it again if I want.

D Tier: Lord of Frenzied Flame. Yep we're skipping C Tier. I disagree with this ending ideologically. I don't think nihilism is the answer to anything. Destroying everything and melting all into one is a dumb fucking idea. But the ending looks cool and Melina hunts me for fun, which is like, I'm always down to be hunted by hot women for fun hell yeah.

E Tier: Same shit as Lord of Frenzied Flame but now I don't have Melina to hunt me down and it doesn't look as cool. But it doesn't mean it's a completely bad for ending. It's the ending of Punishment. It's the punishment for this world's sins. Is it appropriate? I don't think so. There are better ways.

Ask me more about my Elden Ring opinions!

[carolingarts]

Man okay. Imma talk about the new lore drop because hooooly shit what cool fucking lore. Evil imagineer/magician guy turned scientist?? Or (and this hit me) what if this guy legit was just a scientist guy taking *advantage* of Henry? Like then he's like "I could make shit too but he's better" so I'm like. Amazing. Showstopper. Let's gooo.

As I'm observing the discourse however I'm like...why is it the internet tendency to just *instantly* jump to the "let's just focus on the worst things" and I think like...

I have the weirdest relationship with fandom. The last time I had a fandom like this I super cared about I went full "bad guy can do no wrong (even tho bad guy was legit the *worst*) and like. I was in a bad place IRL and those threats hit me in a deeply bad way.

Like a bad way.

Like in the kind of way that stuff happened.

Now. This is fandom and honestly I got a lot of help and I'm better now. And I tried to find other fandoms put together I'm transgender but then y'know both the shows I got into got cancelled after one season so I'm like, fuck it maybe I just need to make my own thing or write about it.

The thing is that like. That's exhausting. Writers deserve a lot cause it's fucking hard sometimes and I have stuff that I can look at dealing with that but LOL round 2 and I'm observing the same stuff.

I'm legit serious. Evil bad guy scientist dude who is most definitely evil who uses what amounts to like themepark tech to murder ppl? Amazing. Better than HN. So fucking cool. I'm into it.

So...I am forced to ask, why am I triggered by this discourse and after an evening of being upset and mild panic attack I have come the following conclusions.

1) for a generation and fandom full of people who care about mental health 1- there's gonna be a lot of people who are hurt over this and I hope y'all talk to those people and talk about people sending death threats and maybe like. Make safe spaces for people who are systems and fictives. Encourage them to talk so they can like...process it. Y'all did it for bl*eycapsules. Or just remember (and I have seen this) that like this new thing is canon but your au is valid keep up with- your au.

2- would it fucking kill y'all to use tone indicators even if it's an actual joke and seems obvious completely omitting me like. There might be people who don't get it haagha edgy humor. I mean. This guy's a shithead *should be obvious* but speaking just...as me. An old asshole. People miss shit.

(I am actually a really really big proponent of "hey listen this canon version sucks *ass* why not make your own thing then change the names and make a comic about it and y'know you could add your own flare like maybe it all turns out to be the backrooms or something. Enjoy the slasher-killer but if you connected to the dude be like 'fuck you Scott and canon I'm gonna do my own thing and it's gonna be better.'

That's one of the things I love about this fandom. It *was* sandbox-like and Scott seemed to like and encourage that. Don't ask for star wars. Ask for something super cool that you can make your own even if nobody listens.

3- final note. Gonna not get personal but maybe a little bit? Idk how this might be read. So this is a warning. I'm in my 30s and I'm old. Take that into account reading this pls.

I'm trans and this space is aligned with all my special interests (themeparks, creepy entertainment companies) and I wanna be here but Scott could maybe we have another adult who...isn't a villain and isn't Vanessa?

Hear me out. I love Vanessa but I'm on a gender struggle bus. I'm old and trans and I love her but I'd like a cool...idk. just another person.

The world: Kyle! But what about Mike Afton-

Im...old. and Mike means a lot to a lot of other people and maybe this is my neurodivergency but like he and Jeremy just belong to so many people in warm and fuzzy levels...I'm old. I don't go here.

The world: ok but the animatronics-

It just doesn't work for me. Sorry. Believe me I've tried. believe me.

Anyway. Dear Scott and Steel Wool are the only like decent human beings your 2 throwaway cops in the novels and a bunch of parents who have no names and Vanessa? I know this is a kids game and it feels weird to ask but could we have grownups who are masc presenting who aren't Mike Afton and aren't y'know. Creeps like Luis?

I know it sounds stupid but it really is my neurodivergency and it is so hard to explain like. Mike and Jeremy etc belong to so many other people and what's cool about this is idk I feel like I could share that and maybe not feel like a weirdo

Anyway. Those are my thoughts. I'm just getting it out there.

[p-taryn-dactyl]

rant? more like one sided conversation ahead

it’s funny that my friends/family have gotten so used to me being really extreme about my fandoms (i.e. Marvel, Percy Jackson, Stargate, Vampire Diaries) where i know practically everything, i memorize every detail from every show or movie, and i can recognize an actor in a heartbeat even if they were only an extra for a few minutes, that with fandoms that I’m in like Harry Potter, Star Wars, Star Trek, Shadowhunters, where i know a little bit more than average but not to the extreme, that they get so confused when I’m not confused by every little detail or going on ten hour long rants about something seemingly insignificant. Like don’t get me wrong, i have those rants in my mind it’s just that…I’m an idiot. And with the fandoms where the world building is ‘complex’ or has extremely heavy lore with fans that are cutthroat about defending it, i tend to take a step back and just enjoy the media i have decided to consume. But there’s always the exception, like marvel for example. You ever tell a middle class white boy who likes to play devils advocate and wears too much hair gel that you aren’t a huge fan of Steve rogers? Lemme tell you, that was one weird twenty minutes of him ranting to me about how unpatriotic i am and how much i hate America.

Anyways

I want to know more about Star Wars and Harry Potter but for the latter its harder for me to delve into it like i used to because of she-who-will-not-be-named and her pretentious little defenders. Whoa that got personal sorry. I don’t like terfs.

This was one big word vomit to simply ask if y’all had any questions about any of the fandoms i mentioned, regarding my opinion about anything and everything in said specific fandom!! I’ll try to answer everyone’s question but i do reserve the right to ignore or delete asks i deem rude or uncomfortable.

<3

[ryqoshay]

Tri-Arame: DS9 Game

Primary Pairing Trio: YuuAyuSetsu Mentioned Pairings: AiRina, ShizuKasu Words: ~1.1k Rating: G Fandoms: Love Live Nijigasaki, Star Trek Deep Space Nine Parent Fic: Tri-Arame Time Frame: Sometime after college Event: Wake Up Challenger 2022 Source: Idol Fanfic Heaven Discord Challenges: 1, 2

---------

Author’s Note: For the first week of this event, four challenges have been posed, and we are allowed to use up to two per entry. Challenge 1 is to write a fic using only dialogue, no narration. Challenge 2 is to do a crossover with another franchise. Neither need be Love Live, at least I do not believe that to be the case, but it doesn’t matter, as LL has enjoyed more than the lion’s share of my attention for the last decade, so of course it will be one of the franchises for my entry.

Summary: Setsuna wants to DM a new TTRPG she found

---------

“<Space: The final frontier.>”

“Yuu-chan…”

“<These are the voyages of the starship Dreamverse.>”

“<Dreamverse?>”

“<It’s continuing mission, to explore strange new worlds,>”

“Yuu-chan, we haven’t even started playing and you’re already naming the ship?”

“<to seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before.>”

“That was wonderful, Yuu-san! I love it!”

“But, why did you say that all in English?”

“Aren’t the original lines in English?”

“Yuu-san is correct. And the version I watched was also in English, just subbed in Japanese.”

“I suppose… wait… Dreamverse… Yuu-chan, did you name the ship after Setsuna-chan and I?”

“Ah ha ha. Looks like you figured it out.”

“But… what if Ai-chan and Rina-chan want to play?”

“I doubt they’d mind.”

“… That may be true, but what about Shizuku-chan and Kasumi-chan?”

“Yeah, Shizuku-chan definitely won’t mind, but… maybe I suppose Kasumi-chan might get jealous and want the ship to be named after them instead.”

“Well with the game I have in mind, I can give Shizuku-san and Kasumi-san their own ships, if they want. Ai-san and Rina-san as well, if they want.”

“So, we’d all get our own starships to command?”

“Not starships, per se, rather battleships. Escorts, actually, as the Federation doesn’t, or didn’t, believe in creating warships. You see…”

“Hee hee. Setsuna-chan’s already getting excited about diving into lore.”

“I… but…”

“Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I just can’t help thinking about how cute you are when you’re like this.”

“Uuuu….”

“Yuu-chan…”

“What? I know you agree with me, Ayumu.”

“That’s not what I… never mind. Setsuna-chan, please continue.”

“… R-right… Anyway… Uhm… The ships I have in mind are Defiant class, which are significantly smaller than the average starship, and require much smaller crews as well. They’re not loaded up with science or exploration equipment and have the bare minimum in crew amenities. The bulk of the craft is dedicated to fighting, which pretty much makes them warships, even if the Federation doesn’t want to call them as such.

“Also, just because they are smaller, doesn’t mean they are less powerful offensively. Or defensively, for that matter, as not only do they have the standard energy shields, they also have ablative armor that can continue to protect the ship even after shield generators fail.”

“I’m not sure I know what ablative means.”

“Uhm… It’s kind of like sacrificial material that can be destroyed without risk to vital components or structural integrity or the like. The rulebook has tables that go into specific detail about what types and how much damage can be dissipated by the armor. And the shields of course.”

“I see.”

“Oh, and also, the Defiant class ships are far more maneuverable than bigger starships. As such, they can more easily perform effective evasive maneuvers.”

“So, not only are they meat shield tanks, but also evasion tanks. Double tanks!”

“You’re not wrong, Yuu-san, but the ships are made of metal, not meat.”

“You know what I mean. Oh, and with heavy offense, they’re also DPS. Triple threat!”

“Yes. That is why the Federation made so many for the Dominion War.”

“Dominion War? We’re going to fight against a group called the Dominion?”

“Yes.”

“And all this talk about space craft means we’re going to be role playing a giant space battle?”

“Yes, that is what I had in mind.”

“That sounds thrilling!”

“I am happy you are looking forward to it.”

“Ooo, Changelings. I wanna play one of them!”

“Eh? But… Yuu-san, the Changelings are the enemy. They’re the leaders of the Dominion. You’ll be playing on the Federation side.”

“But, uhm… where was it… ah here he is. Isn’t Odo a Changeling who is on the Federation side?”

“True, but he is a unique case.”

“Hrm… what else we got in here… Oh, she’s cute. Jadzia Dax. Trill. Hey, Ayumu, you should totally play someone like her.”

“A joined Trill with a symbiont? What’s that, Setsuna-chan?”

“The Trill is the humanoid host for a longer-lived symbiont that retains memories of the lives it lived with prior hosts.”

“So, like a multiple personality thing, like the character Shizuku-chan played in one of our earlier games?”

“Not really, no. Each joined Trill becomes their own individual being, just with memories of prior hosts.”

“Hrm… I still think that sounds more like a character more appropriate for Shizuku-chan to play.”

“Alright then, how about this one, Ayumu? She’s also cute. Kira Nerys. Bajoran.”

“Are you just trying to get me to play a cute character, Yuu-chan?”

“Of course! Someone as cute as Ayumu should play a cute character.”

“… … Fine. But I get to pick the type of character you play then.”

“Works for me.”

“So, I take it you two want to play.”

“Very much so. This game is already getting my heart racing and we haven’t even started playing.”

“I’ll reach out to Ai-chan and the others to see if they want to play and when they might be available.”

“Thank you, Ayumu-san.”

“Woo! I can’t wait to start playing! Hey, we should totally watch the show before we play.”

“Uhm… that might take a while, Yuu-san. It’s 176 episodes. And not twenty minutes anime episodes, full length forty-five-minute episodes.”

“But you already watched it all, right?”

“…”

“Setsuna-chan, did you sacrifice sleep to binge it all on your last tour?”

“…”

“Setsuna-chan. No wonder you looked so tired when Yuu-chan and I visited you over the weekend. I thought maybe you were spending too much time practicing again.”

“I’m sorry… I was just so excited about the rulebook I found and wanted to know more about the world in which the game took place.”

“What are we going to do with you…”

“I’m sorry…”

“Well, what’s done is done. We shouldn’t harp on her too much, Ayumu.”

“I suppose… But you still need to take better care of yourself, Setsuna-chan. Especially when you’re on tour.”

“Hee hee…”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“…”

“Hee… I’m just imagining Ayumu tagging along just to keep an eye on Setsuna-chan.”

“You make it sound like I can’t leave her alone.”

“You say that, but you’ve been watching over me for years. Also, your expression tells me you’re considering it anyway.”

“Moh!”

“Ha ha. And it looks like Setsuna-chan isn’t opposed. Well, if Ayumu can’t get that much time off, maybe I can go along instead.”

“Then I’d definitely have to join, to keep an eye on both of you.”

“Is that the only reason? Or would it be because Ayu-pyon would get lonely without us?”

“Mmph…”

“I, uhm… wouldn’t mind if you two came along with me. In fact, I would like it. A lot, actually.”

“Then that settles it, Setsuna-chan. Ayumu and me will join you on your next tour. But in the meantime, let’s watch some DS9 so we can get a feel for the world we’re going to be playing in.”

---------

Author’s Note Continued: So there we have it. My first entry for this new event. I hope it wasn’t too hard to keep track of who was talking at any given point. And I’ve already outlined a good portion of my next entry, so hopefully I can get that written an posted by this coming weekend, when the next set of challenges will be revealed.

[r1-jw-lover]

Just a question. I want to make a fic about the first Jedi and his disciples before Disney gets the drop on me. I'm only familar with disney canon and I haven't watched Ashoka so tell me if I got anything wrong.

The basic idea was that the first Jedi is basically a wandering Gautama Buddha and his disciples were basically the Eight Bodhisattva. Manjushri is known for his kindness and wisdom. Guanyin is kind and compassionate. Vajrapani is strength and protection incarnate. Maitreya is prophesized to bring balance to the force. Ksitigarbha swore to save evryone in the galaxy no matter how evil and no matter what it costs her and I don't really know much about the rest. Might even toss some characters like Sun Wukong and other buddhist associated characters.

The intent is to make the first jedi a real larger than life figure. God's amongst mortals who would make any other force user look like a joke. Yet also make them suprisingly human in that the first jedi just wants to help people and comfort them and doesn't want to use such powers in the first place for violence.

I also want to play around with the first sith and portray them as Eldritch abominations and monsters who feed of the weak and oppressed.

Hello there. First off, I just want to say that I LOVE your fic idea and I would personally love to see you write it down.

However, I am no expert in Buddhist lore so I can't comment on the accuracy of the details you have written out. I live in a multi-cultural, multi-religious country so I know the general concepts of Buddhism, but just the basics. Sorry to tell you but I'm the wrong person to ask this question.

A blog I can recommend you to ask this specific question you have is @/writerbuddha who talks about Star Wars and Buddhism.

The only thing I can advise you is to do your research thoroughly. And if you ask me, you don't have to watch Ahsoka in order to start your fic.

That's all I have to say. Have a great day ahead, and may the Force of Others be with you.

[di-kut]

Baar Bal Runi: Chapter One

Series Masterlist

Pairing: The Mandalorian x Reader

Words: 5k

Summary: (Body Swap AU) While helping the Mandalorian find the Child’s home planet you find yourselves in a difficult situation

Rating: canon typical threats of violence (no actual violence in this chapter folks), angst-ish, extreme tension

Tags: body swap, force sensitivity, a peppering of angst 

A/N: Look guys, I won’t lie, it’s a body swap au. This started as absolute crack and somehow I’m 25k words in. It was meant to be funny but now it’s a lot of tension and angst (and fluff, I promise just, like, not yet?) I can’t pretend to make any explanations of this, I just wanted a body swap au and so here we are. s/o to @btillys​ who is really the ideas man of this fic and holds my single brain cell at all times.

“We should be there soon.”

The Mandalorian is standing at the bottom of the ladder. You hadn’t heard him come down. You lift yourself off the cot with your elbows. The hull is mostly dark, but the flashing of the lights reflects off his Beskar. You shut off the holopad in your hands and throw it down. He nods at it.

“Anything?” 

You shake your head. “Nothing.”

“Get ready, Gotabor.” You feel the familiar weight of his gaze along the back of your shoulders. “We’ll come out of hyperspace soon.”

You push yourself up properly. Mando turns to leave in a soft kiss of Beskar against Beskar. His cape hits against the guard, the echo of his boots against the rungs of the ladder ring through the quiet hull. And then he’s gone. There is only the quiet hum of the engine, the control lights blinking in the darkness. You pass the empty carbonite chamber. Follow the Mandalorian up the ladder. Even from the outside of the cockpit you can hear the cooing of the child, the soft voice of the Mandalorian speaking to him in Mando’a. You slide quietly into the space, let the door close behind you.

The child coos from him cot happily and you offer him your hand without thinking. He offers you a brief wave of emotion, bright and happy, and you smile down at him. Rub the top of his head affectionately. Hyperspace is a blur of white all around you. It slips over the Mandalorian’s Beskar like ripples over water. 

You settle yourself into the co-pilot chair. “Any idea what we’re looking at here?” 

“Not really.” Mando switches one of the radar controls. “Uninhabited. Green.”

“Green?” You run a hand down your face. “Maker.” 

The Mandalorian grunts. It’s his agreement grunt, you’ve grown to understand. You stare at the side of his helmet and he stares straight ahead, out into the tunnel of light all around you. Like he can see through it all, like he’s waiting. Maybe he can, you think. His hand flexes around the controls, tense, ready. 

The feeling is like a shot to the chest. Mean, dark. Dread curls up under your ribcage, coiled and tight like a spring. Settles into your stomach so you feel it drop into the chair beneath you. You try not to think about it, try not to run through every hard-won inch in the search which has led you here, cruising through hyperspace in the Unknown Regions, but the paranoia is so sudden and so complete you can’t help it. It stops the air from getting to your lungs. You hadn’t even found it – the child’s planet. But it was a lead, a solid one, finally. And your every nerve ending felt like it was short circuiting.

The child lets out a cry from the crib behind you. You reach back for him blindly, unable to look away from Mando. The warrior tenses at the sound, tilts his helmet slightly, doesn’t look away from hyperspace.

“What’s wrong with him?” He asks.

“I-I’m not sure.” You turn and look at the kid. He grabs for your hand and you feel it. The alarm is so much worse buzzing through your connection, his emotions so much simpler, all encompassing. Only a child. “He’s scared.” 

Another grunt. A different one this time. Determination. He turns back to the task of pulling out of hyperspace. You scoop the kid out of the crib and set him in your lap. Buckle the belt around you both and push your back hard against the chair. Brace for – something. You don’t know. You trust the Mandalorian, but something was wrong. You could feel it, the kid could feel it. You try to calm yourself, if only for the kid, knowing somehow, he could feel it. He hasn’t stopped his panicked cries. Mando’s hand grips the control, his arm tenses. You can feel buzzing in the tips of your fingers. There’s a jolt and –

You come out of hyperspace. It’s as smooth and even as ever, Mando easing you all into empty space with a control finely honed. You can see the planet some distance ahead. It was small. Green. Blurred slightly in the distance. You lean forward, strain against the belt to try and get a better look. Your hands are shaking. You sit back down and hold the child closer. 

“You okay?” Mando asks softly. 

Your sigh shakes, too. “Yeah.”

“The kid?” He turns and looks at you both. 

“He’s just scared. I think.” 

Mando twists his chair, and you feel him assessing you both. He turns back to the front. He flicks the controls, turns the ship over to manual, sets coordinates. He flips the radar to surface scanning and keeps the ship at a slow and steady cruise. The radar finally tunes, and a slow, paced beeping fills the silence.

You orbit until your legs are numb and your back and neck are sore with tension. The kid stops crying, but you can feel his restless squirming in your lap. The Mandalorian keeps you hovered right off surface, until finally he seems satisfied with something. The atmosphere of the planet is thick and murky, and the further the ship drops the harder it becomes to see. The Mandalorian flips a switch on his helmet, adjusts the radar again, blipping and slipping with urgency as you approach the surface. Eventually the fog is so thick all you can see is the shape of giant shadows towering just out of sight. The descent only makes the churning of your stomach grow worse. You have to close your eyes, count the stars behind your lids to distract yourself from the humming, crawling under your skin.

It feels an eternity later when you feel the ship touch down.

The air is wet outside the ship. Condensation slips down the walls of the hull, coat the ramp, makes the ship look as if it weathered a storm. It’s cold where you stand just shy of the ramp, the child back in his crib, and the Mandalorian. He’s found something of a clearing between the trees, bigger than the petrified ancient forest on Batuu, towering into nothing. Disappearing into mist. The trunks are so thick you can barely make out their curve. You’d pulled on your jacket, thick and lined with Synfleece. You can feel where the moisture is gathering on your cheeks and clinging in your hair. Mando’s armour is pebbled all over with beads of moisture, just like the ship. You can see his coarseweave getting heavy with it.

“Mando.”

He’s found something on his pauldron and is fiddling with it. Adjusting something. You can’t find enough room in your head to try and figure out what he’s fixing. He’s got one foot on the extended ramp. Extra rations in his pack. You feel sick. 

“Mando, I don’t like this.”

He finally clicks whatever was bothering him into place. Gives his arm an experimental push back and forth. “It’s the only option we’ve got.” 

“Something doesn’t feel right about this place.” You say. You know your protests are falling on deaf ears. “The kid doesn’t like it either.” 

Mando heaves a heavy sigh. 

“I don’t like it.”

“Gotabor.” He says it like a statement. The name doesn’t make you feel better. Gotabor. Engineer. You feel useless when the Mandalorian has to go out. On the ship you were good, you were helpful. But an engineer couldn’t fire a blaster like a Mandalorian could. Couldn’t fight. Hopefully this trip wouldn’t come to that. “Stay with the ship. Watch the kid.”

He turns to leave. Always the same, like this. The tight feeling in your chest sets your teeth on edge. One day you think he is going to walk down that ramp and you will never see him again. A friend, finally, after all the months with him, and you can’t imagine anything worse than never knowing. That you will be waiting on the Crest for him to come back and he’ll be dead somewhere. Alone. The panic already in you makes the feeling so much worse. You reach before he can step out, grab his pauldron without thinking, firm enough to stop him in his tracks. He turns back, slow.

“Mando.”

He’s staring at you and the hair along the back of your neck stands on end. You keep your hand on his shoulder, unsure what you’re asking of him. He sighs quietly and twists back further, lifts his other arm up and cups his gloved hand over yours where it rests against the Beskar. The armour is freezing in the cold air, and the leather of his glove is damp. You can feel the weight of his hand underneath it. Feel the warmth bleed through the glove until it reaches your skin. You stay like that, his steady presence so constant it becomes hard to imagine life without him. You stare up into the visor, hope you’ve found his eyes behind it, and realise you are hoping he understands. He squeezes you hand, once, twice. Releases it. And you know you have to let go.

“Watch the kid.”

 He’s gone for two days. You shut off the engine after he leaves and keep the radar running on backup power so you can track his progress. You keep yourself busy, let the kid out of his crib, bounce him against your chest until he finally drifts into a restless sleep. You suspect the stress of the landing had gotten to him. You carry him with you to your own cot and lie down with the sleeping child against your heartbeat. Close your eyes. But you can feel whatever was causing the kid so much panic, feel it creeping up your arms and pinching at the back of your neck. Sleep doesn’t come. You lay there until you hear the blipping of the radar stop at what should have been early afternoon. The mist outside leaves everything shrouded in one shade of murky green-grey which makes the planet feel like a perpetual twilight. You tuck the kid in, check the fuel reserves and switch the engine power back on so you can change the radar over to long range. You watch his tiny dot blink and reappear. A single lifeform on an uninhabited planet.

You climb below deck while the kid sleeps. Busy yourself with rewiring the components around the hyperdrive which had been showing wear since before you stepped on the ship. The heat was starting to eat through the coverings, a job you never seemed to have time for. But now – you peel the coverings back, recoat them. Even bundle and tag groupings of wires. The feeling of unease doesn’t abate. You spend the night down there, listening to the blipping of the radar and working through the jobs you’d never had a chance to get to until you find you can’t force your hands to come into focus in front of your eyes. So you let yourself slide down further into the compartment beneath the flooring and hug your knees to your chest. You blankly inspect some relic of hardware plugged in at the ship’s engine and try to categorise the serial code on the edge of the product. Eventually you give in, vision blurring from nerves and exhaustion, and close your eyes.

You dream, colourful, terrifying dreams. The kid disappearing in front of your eyes. The Mandalorian dying somewhere. Alone. The stormtroopers which had boarded your ship from Coruscant finding you. Hundreds of ships like shooting stars plummeting across the skies. You wake shaking and covered in sweat.

The kid is crying weakly in his crib. You haul yourself back out from below deck, ignoring the twinging in your neck and find him. He’s still in your cot, swathed in blanket, hiccupping slightly between his snuffling. You lift him to your chest again and hold him up near your head like you’ve seen Mando do hundreds of times since coming aboard the Crest, hoping the familiar action might soothe him. But the child doesn’t lift his tiny hand to cradle your jaw, or touch your cheek, like you know he does with the Mandalorian, slipping his three fingers beneath the weight of his helmet for the little contact he can get beneath the Beskar. You try another tactic and lower your forehead to the child’s. But he twists his head sideways and dodges, lets out a louder and more petulant cry. It still hurts somewhere petty in your chest, but you shush him as best you can and let the child squeeze his tiny fingers around yours and rock him back and forth. Murmur empty comforts to him until he falls asleep, clutched tightly to your chest. 

The second night passes. You don’t sleep at all.

When morning comes there is still no light from above, but you switch on the ship lights again from the cockpit. The blind you, at first, bouncing through the mist to create a wall of pale grey. You stare out, unsure how long you stay there trying to make out shapes in the dark, until suddenly you’ve had enough. The unease which had buried a dark home against your breast only grows. And Mando as stopped moving. He stopped sometime in the early evening the day before. His dot blipped stationary. He’d been making slow progress even before, moving slower and slower through the giant forest around you. You check his coordinates, switch the radar through a few different modes to try and get some idea of the lay of the land, and then you climb back into the hull.

The child is awake in his crib again. He watches you with wide eyes as you pull your rucksack from beneath your cot, pull out some of your personal items and replace them with the spare remote for the ship and the crib, and one of the Mandalorian’s blasters. You hesitate in front of the kid. You give his ear a gentle tweak, climb back up into the cockpit, twist his favourite toy off the lever for him. He’s quiet when you get back to the hull, wordlessly holds his hand out. You hand him the little durasteel ball. You kneel in front of him. 

“We’re gonna’ go look for your dad now, little guy,” you tell him. “We’re gonna’ go bring him back.” 

The child coos at you.

“Alright then. Let’s go.”

You seal the kid’s crib and lower the ramp. Switch on the hand torch you’d dug out from a compartment in the cockpit, shoved beneath the cleaning rags you knew the Mandalrian used to care for his Beskar every night. You’d turned the ship off, the headlights no longer lit the forest floor. The mist crawls down the back of your throat and joins panic already there, strangling you. Check the portable radar, orient yourself. You touch the child’s crib gently before setting off down the ramp.

 It takes you until late in the afternoon to get close to him. The trees grow closer together the further from the ship you walk, the forest floor is even but for the tops of the giant roots of the ancient forest erupting from the mud. You move quickly, following the radar through the darkness and the silence. The hand torch splices through the mist ahead. You get used to picking a path through the trees quick enough, but it only makes you worry more. The Mandalorian is fast enough on his feet. It shouldn’t have taken him so long. You watch his little dot on the radar, but he doesn’t move.

You wonder how the Mandalorian even found it, when you finally see it. Almost walk right past it in the thickness of the fog and the trees and the oppressive darkness. But you realise the looming shape isn’t trees when it’s almost too late and stop dead. You check the radar and you know Mando is inside. He’s close. You stare up at the gaping mouth in front of you, some kind of rock formation instead of wood. The blipping of your radar is grating in the unnatural silence of the atmosphere, skipping up to an urgent pace the closer you get. Your heart matches it for speed. You swing the hand torch around, but it does nothing to penetrate the darkness in front of you. Your own ragged breathing blends with the beeping of the radar.

You stop with the tips of your boots are right at the threshold. The light of the torch shows nothing. There’s something ugly about the darkness of the cave, something twisted. You feel your throat tighten, the urge to throw up nudging in the back of your mouth. But Mando was somewhere in the cave. And his child has started letting out muffled cried from inside the crib. You reach a hand for the kid, touch against the damp surface of the sealed crib. The two of you wait there, willing your heart to slow, willing the crippling tightness in your chest to abate. The quiet of the cave is bleeding into your ears, muffling the world so it feels far away. Your heart doesn’t slow, and the fear doesn’t leave. The child keeps crying.

Stepping into the cave is like falling. Maybe you are actually falling. There’s just darkness and a screeching noise, like metal grinding against metal. The ringing in your ears won’t stop. You lose track of the kid, of yourself. Then your knee hits the ground hard and you yell and your hands catch you just in time. You can feel buzzing behind your eyes. The mechanical screeching stops. 

Pieces of the world around you slot into place. The ringing in your ears is so intense it makes you nauseous, hasn’t helped with the feeling of adrenaline coursing through your system. Your eyes are closed. The ground is oddly warm beneath your hands. Something about this place was wrong.

When you’re finally sure you won’t fall you slowly blink your eyes open. Check behind you for the child. You go slack with relief when the hovering crib is still there, and when you strain your ears beyond the ringing you can hear his babble of noise. The ground is closer than you think it’s going to be, tiled with some pattern which swirls and twists along the ground over and over, on and on, and it makes your head hurt. For a brief moment you can’t remember why you are there. It’s light in the cave, lighter than outside, and the air dances past you clouds of murky grey dust. The room isn’t large, the walls are close, but the ceilings are so high they disappear into nothing. There is something lingering in the air, something musty and old. Undisturbed. You can hear dripping and it echoes all around you, louder and louder as every moment passes and the buzzing fades. But unlike the outside the air is dry and warm. You have dropped your torch. Your radar.

You clamber up slowly. You knee aches where it hit the ground. You turn, expecting to see out into darkness and forest, but there is only empty space stretching out behind you, more corridor of mosaic floor and endless ceiling. You stop for some time and stare blankly around. The walls are shelved, and the shelves are stacked with paper. Scrolls. Flat, long documents laid over every available inch. Spines of books. You turn, inch by inch, taking everything in. You wonder if they are written in any language you could understand. The thoughts float in and out again, but they’re distant and disconnected, like maybe they don’t actually belong to you. The dripping is clearer now, almost crystalline, musical. It sets your teeth on edge, but you aren’t sure why. It’s such a pretty sound. Drip. Drip. Drip.

The kid cries and you jump. You had forgotten he was with you. Drip. You reach out for the domed lid of his crib and the coolness of the surface connecting with your hand. It brings you back. You blink, and the swirls of dust through the air seem to drop slightly, the patterns they make as they twist through the light disappear and they are just dust again. The smell places in your mind, damp and mouldy. You remember your lost torch and radar. Drip. Why did you need the radar? You can’t think. Everything is scrambled. You flatten your hand against the kid’s crib and try to remember. You hear footsteps suddenly, so close they are right behind you. You swing around, heart in your mouth. Drip.

It’s like wadding through water. You stare blankly at the blur of your reflection in the gleaming Beskar. Thoughts slip and fall one by one, down through cracks you can’t feel into nothing. The helmet tilts slightly and catches the light. So familiar. Drip. Drip.

The Mandalorian.

You almost cry in relief. Finally things solidify. The forest. The ship. The child. Drip. It’s almost painful when logic returns. Frantic. Drip. You step forward to reach for him but he moves faster than you, before you can piece together what’s happening, and he has his blaster out. You freeze. You stare down the barrel of the gun, back at the Mandalorian. Drip. His armour catches the light, like a moving mirage, he blends in with the shape of the walls. His visor is black, glinting. You had never wished so badly to see his face. You raise your hands slowly. Drip. Drip.

“Mando…” You whisper.

He jerks. And then steps forward, suddenly feels impossibly bigger than he had only moments ago. Drip. Silence. Drip. You try to figure out how long he’s been in the caves alone but staring at the end of his blaster manages to makes it impossible. You didn’t recognise him, didn’t know him. You step back and he matches you forward. You move sideways, painfully slow. His helmet tilts again, the mirage of light glides with it, almost hypnotic. He’s never felt terrifying before. Your hands are shaking again. You step sideways, he steps forward and you wait for his head to follow the movement but instead –

Drip. He stops. Drip. Stares. Drip. His own reflection a blur on the durasteel surface. You feel the change in the air. Something shifts and slots between you both and you become unimportant. He turns his shoulders away from you and with it the blaster. Trains it on the sealed crib. Drip.

“Mando!” He steps forward again, and you see his finger tighten around the trigger. The leather of his glove creak as he grips the butt of the blaster. Drip. You don’t think, push yourself forward, duck under his shooting arm. “Mando, no! Stop!”

He shoves against you, doesn’t bother trying to fight you. You push back, and finally you have his attention again. The helmet snaps down and you hear a grunt as he is forced to readjust. You push your shoulder up against his shooting arm, desperate to keep it away from you. His other hand comes up and wraps around your arm, tight, so tight it hurts. You try shoving back against him, but it does nothing. Drip. Drip. Drip. The clang your fist makes against the Beskar bounces off the walls around you. You scrabble at his arm, trying to get a grip on him, find purchase. You feel the Mandalorian’s annoyance begin to seep through the air around you and he pushes his forearm across your chest to shove you back, to try and get you far enough away to shoot. Your fingers still scratch blindly, finally catch on something, and there’s a click and a hiss from behind you and –

The Mandalorian pushes you with his arm and you stumble back and he swing his blaster over to the source of the noise. The crib has opened. You go blank, unable to think, to comprehend. The child let’s out a wail, high and piercing in the quiet.

You lunge forward, shove against the Mandalorian’s shooting arm. But he doesn’t shoot. Instead he drops his blaster and you nearly buckle as he keels. You nearly go down too. The blaster clatters as it hits the floor. Somehow you get your arms under his, stop him from hitting the ground. The exhaustion and fear feel like laser fire running through your veins. You think he’s passed out but then he mumbles, something unintelligible. You push him back, up onto his feet, try to get him to balance. He slumps backwards this time and its harder to catch him like this. You get an arm around his back and your other grabs a handful of his damp cape. You feel the soles of your shoes slipping against the smooth ground. Drip. Drip. Drip.

“Mando.” You shake him. “Mando, you have to help me. I can’t hold you up. I can’t move you.” You shake him again. Feel your voice crack. “Please, Mando. Help. Me.”

There’s a groan and he stumbles, catches his footing. The lift of his weight off of you is a relief. You keep an arm around him until he’s upright, and even as you unwind your arm from his chest you keep the other hand wrapped tight in his cape. He’s shaking.

“Gotabor’ika,” He croaks.

You nearly sob. “We have to get out of here, Mando. Something is… is… it’s in the air or something Mando. Something’s wrong with this place.”

“The kid…” His voice grates through the modulator. Unused for days. “I wouldn’t, I would never – “

“I know. I know, Mando. Come on, we’re gonna’ get him home safe, remember? We have to go. We have to move.”

And, finally, he does. He ducks for his blaster and then he’s running. Closing the kid’s crib as he goes. You feel your pulse throbbing inside your skull and in your legs as you run with him, one hand still wrapped in his cape. The mechanical screeching starts again, so loud this time you feel the floor vibrate with it. Your teeth click together. You don’t remember coming so far into the cave, but it feels like forever once you start moving. The crib is with you both, hovering at Mando’s side as he moves. Somehow the sound of the water dripping is louder than everything else, and getting faster. Urgent. Drip. Drip. Dripdripdrip. The buzzing is so loud you want to scream. Sweat is dripping into your eyes, down your back, soaking through your shirt. You think that you will never get out, that you will be stuck in the cave forever, an unmoving dot on a radar until you fade out of existence. Breathing hurts. Your legs hurt. The buzzing was impossibly loud. Dripdripdripdripdripdripdrip. 

And then the mouth of the cave is suddenly there. And you are falling through it, tripping over the Mandalorian as you fall out into the mist and the cold and the wet. Land on the wet forest floor. Let out a ragged gasp, torn with tears, roll over and retch up nothing onto the ground.

There’s a hand on your back, heavy and warm. Mando. He’s murmuring something, asking you something maybe. You hear the name he calls you mixed in with the words. You aren’t sure if it’s Basic or Mando’a. Then he pulls you up, puts you on your feet. He inspects your face, your chest, your arms. Looking for wounds. You can’t hear him over the ringing in your ears. He grabs your arm and turns and then you’re both trekking through the forest. The Mandalorian pulls you ahead through the mist and the darkness. You stumble blindly behind him. 

You walk for hours. The sweat cools on your skin in the damp, cold air, until you’re shivering even in your thick jacket. You wait for the ringing in your ears to stop but it never does. You don’t hear the sound of the Mandalorian’s boots crunching through the undergrowth, or the cries of the kid, although you’re sure you should hear both. It’s like the world is slipping further and further away and trying to hold onto it is like watching sand slip between your fingers. The exhaustion presses against you, until you realise it’s not just exhaustion. Your skin feels too tight, itchy. It must be morning again, you think, but the darkness doesn’t lift. You don’t know how Mando sees but you let him lead you through the forest, hoping whatever he is using to navigate through the trees is taking you both back to the Crest. It’s all you can do to keep your eyes open and your feet moving. You can feel yourself dropping in and out of darkness.

“Come on,” he grunts in your ear. Close, you think. So close. The modulator hisses. “Almost there, Gotabor, come on. Stay with me.”

You feel your head loll. Things start coming in flashes. The ship, gleaming in the mist. The churning sound of the ramp lowering. The kid whimpering.

“I can’t lift you,” he says.

And you don’t know how you do it, but you manage to walk, one arm looped over his shoulders, up the ramp. The crib is still behind you. Blackness hovers at the edge of your vision. The Mandalorian gets you inside, only just far enough that he can close the ramp. He leans like he’s going to lower you, but you slip out of his grasp and hit the floor. Hard. You don’t feel anything, slump into the wall. He is standing above you, your vision is swaying. No. He is swaying.

“Sick,” you manage to get out. 

The Mandalorian hits something and the ramp is lifting. He turns, gets to the ladder. He puts a hand out to grab the ladder and misses completely. Stumbles forward and just catches himself on the wall. You think he might fall. He doesn’t. You let yourself roll until you’re lying on the ground, let your forehead roll until it presses into the cool, hard floor of the ship. You wonder if you might die here, but this time the thought doesn’t bother you. You’re conscious long enough to feel the ship hum to life beneath you, and something clang and echo in the cockpit, before everything fades.

  Gotabor: Engineer

Gotabor’ika: lit: little engineer. ‘ika suffix creates affectionate nickname when added to the end of noun.

Tag list: @btillys​ @vercopaanir​ 

[yostresswritinggirl]

@butterfly-mochi​ Rewrote this freaking thing thrice because it keeps getting deleted wth tumblr agjvahkfajkvk- I enjoyed writing it a lot tho and since I’m too weak to the characters I ended up writing for all of them (except for Sucrose, im sorry bb huhu, I ran out of brain power). This is my first time writing for so many of them in one go so please excuse me for any mistakes or blandness ywy thank you for letting me write for my baby Ganyu too hhhhh

Universe Reversal 2

Genshin Impact Character Reader and Modern Players with Zhongli, Childe & Ganyu (how they simp for you) (event masterlist / Part 1 / Part 3)

Zhongli the F2P

The most relatable out of the bunch because this man is still broke and can only rely on the primogems he can farm. And he had a LOT. The one thing he doesn’t have a lot on, however, is his luck.

So how did he manage to pull you?: Well after exhausting all his primogem on your banner with nothing but weapons and other characters, he has lost his resolve. But by some weird luck, there was a character bug that was fixed and in his email was the almighty consolation primogem. Enough for ONE pull. And by the Gods he FINALLY got you.

He’d nonchalantly post his screenshot of pulling you using a single acquaint fate in his friend group without any words and everyone else just loses their shit. “You got them in one pull?!” “Yeah” A riot.

This was partnered with the fact that not only is Zhongli an F2P player, but also barely has any five star characters.

He looks calm and apathetic over the news, but behind the screen he’s exhausted and relieved, silently livid.

He has no primogems left to squeeze for a constellation so you’re instead pampered with the best weapon suitable for you (because that’s all he keeps getting).

Zhongles spends most of his time farming for materials to quickly level you up, unlocking all your stories and voiceline, but he fucked up on your build (his artifacts are messy).

He follows communities, forums and videos regarding your character to know all the things he needs to perfect your build. You can barely make a dent against normal mobs, so he knew he was doing something VERY wrong.

Is the type of person to keep refreshing the page for new content, very updated.

Ask him a question about your character and he’s gonna bring you the word vomit that is his research. He’s not gonna stop- probably accidentally developed a copypasta for you.

Also follows your VA in both Tiktok and Twitter to indulge in every bit of content. He also has that screenshot of his pull saved and locked.

On his birthday, a friend of his gifted him a chibi plushie of you and he has treasured it ever since, treating and handling it like its a figurine.

“It is merely pure luck and grace from the gacha gods that I got this character, and I will make sure that they know I am very grateful for this fortune.”

Favorite Voiceline: Birthday Message

Childe The Whaler

This lucky wealthy bastard with no remorse for his money whales for EVERY character. He’s making a collection, which is to get all the characters, especially the five stars. So when your banner finally popped up, he’s gonna square up and trigger a whole ass meteor shower.

How he pulled you: Money. His luck with this games are actually not the best so he always compensates with money, he got you halfway through the first failed pity, almost giving him a heart attack that he might actually break the bank just to get you.

And then he pulls more to raise your constellation lol.

The first thing he does is look over your character info and read through it all; constellation infos, your base stats, artifact compatibility.

At the end when he’s maximized everything, he would then focus on playing around with your character *coughs climbing noises coughs*

He thought you’d just be another part of his collection but playing with your character was very enjoyable and in-line with his playstyle- oops 100 screenshots with the Kamera-

Any and all merchandise that he fancies would be his, and he’s definitely flexing it to the other sweetie nerds who call themselves simps. He’s fighting for the simping title, and he’s currently neck and neck with this fanartist in Pixiv.

Speaking of that fanartist, he definitely commissioned an expensive and detailed portrait of you, full rights and everything. No one else was allowed to use it but him.

Was also the first one with the audacity to call out your VA to create an account on Tiktok to create more content with your voice. He was successful.

His obssession also comes in the form of self-indulgent contents, and had been keeping track of the ship wars happening. During conventions, he cosplays as the character shipped with you the most (or the character he thinks should end up with you).

Silently scrutinizing those who cosplay you, only ever taking pictures with/of the best looking one, sorry haha

Definitely flaunts that you are his waifu/husbando and will fight for best girl/best boy during debates or polls. Has mobilized the community to vote for you once. He’s very persuasive.

“Hm? Why I’m just the best collector in the game, and I am more than happy to let everyone know that I am their number one fan haha, everyone who claims otherwise is definitely wrong!”

Favorite Voiceline: More About (Y/N) I-IV, (Y/N)’s Hobbies...

Ganyu the Employed

Ganyu, our dearest overworker, is one of the players in the older stage who actually has a job but still plays Genshin for their past times. The gorgeous sceneries and the music is her main focus in playing the game, not much of a try-hard but still decent in the combat mechanics.

How she pulled you: You came home within 50 pulls! And you appeared again after another 10 pull! Ganyu was so SHOOKT and so distressed because oh goodness, what does she do? She doesn’t know anything much about you!

Will rewatch your three trailers to try and understand your skills better, ended up saving the soundtracks from them because that was such a nice trailer music! Tnbee gains a new follower!

Ganyu will take a while before she can properly play or build you up because she’s so busy with work, she only ever plays when she feels fully done with her work.

During her break she plays with your character while multi-tasking on eating, earphones plugged in and sight on the phone as she farms materials and artifacts for you.

The moment she gets more help from her player friends tho, holy shit, you just ended up being so OP. She had so many good artifacts and weapons for you because she didn’t know what they were for before.

She loves how you’re so easy to use and can easily solo the enemies and even the boss fights. A huge breather, because now Ganyu can cheese the battles that takes a while, to give her more time to focus on the storyline and lores.

Since Ganyu plays for the story and aesthetic, she’ll find you almost always in her team. Still very proud of her pull, she makes the best screenshots of your fights or in the best angle through exploration.

Treasures you so much she starts talking to her phone- “Ah, no, please don’t fall.” “There’s violetgrass up there, let’s try and get it”

Blushes everytime you produce a sound when climbing, doesn’t change you anyways tho

Hums to your trailer music while working, and if permitted, would have the song on repeat while she buries herself in work. She finds it really refreshing and the time she spends in work miraculously flies by fast when she gets lost in the sound.

At one point, when she was given a day-off or if the convention was on her free time, she attends to look for cosplayers of you and take a picture. No one rejects her because she’s so adorable and cute when asking shyly.

Had brought a decent amount of merchandise, preferably the functional/practical ones like a phone cover, mug or keychain. Also has an earphones clamp with your little chibi self as the holder.

When asked, she would shyly announce that she likes your character the most.

“Their character theme and music really soothes me during work, it feels nice to have them, and I have not once regretted ever pulling for them. They are the best.”

Favorite Voicelines: Good Night/Afternoon..., About Us, Something To Share..., Interesting Things...

so enjoyable...

@moaa @zelos-simp @legionqueensav @dandelion-dreams @snackgod @rxsalinee

[skruttet]

How my S3 bingo went:

At least one song in the soundtrack episode title contains the word “home” - ✅ - ok, so we didn’t get a soundtrack, but if I changed it to “episode title” then I can tick this one off because of Homecoming 😂

Moomintroll and Snufkin hug - ✅ - yay! and pretty much how I’d imagined it going down, too!

Episode 2 focuses on Moomintroll and Snufkin’s relationship - ❌ - whilst it does have the lovely reunion between them both, the focus of it is more on moomintroll and snork & snorkmaiden

Stinky’s a dick - ✅ - but in an “aww, what a rascal, I love him” kinda way!

Brian Brisk’s a dick - ✅ - and in a “he’s a straight-up dick, I love to hate him” kinda way

Mr Brisk adopts Sorry-oo (please god no) - ❌ - thank god for that! no sorry-oo, but I did at least successfully predict that we’d get more Moominland Midwinter

Snork and Little My butt heads - ✅ - I’m gonna say that the moments of her getting angry at him in Inventing Snork count? kind of?? wasn’t exactly what I was thinking of but eh 😂

Pappa doesn’t remember who the Snork is - ❌ - this one is impossible cause only Snorkmaiden has previously known the Snork in this series!

Moomintroll’s arc continues to be covertly queer yet he still gets nothing explicit - ✅ - despite the progression in his relationship with Snufkin and in their separate character developments, we’ve still gotten nothing explicit :/

Snorkmaiden Feminism Moments™ - ✅ - Snorkmaiden IS a feminism moment at this point 😂 (what does that even mean what am I saying gfhdjsk)

Moomintroll and/or Snufkin have an hallucination or dream - ✅ - ticking this one off cause I’m claiming that him seeing the Moominvalley trees and plants as tropical when they’re not in ep2 counts as an hallucination shut up 😶 (though how nice for Snufkin’s development! he still needs a therapist but at least not for hallucinations anymore!)

Muskrat gets on my last fuckin nerve - ❌ - maybe I was a bit too harsh including this one in the first place, but there were times in the first two seasons where he (as a comic relief character that is pretty much always the same joke) felt like he was starting to be overused. But I think they used him sparingly enough in this season and I didn’t mind him!

Mymble Jr’s original role in a plot is now given to Snorkmaiden or Mymble another female character - ✅ - ok I had to change this one as well lol since her role was given to Misabel this time! smh 😔

Another allusion to Snufkin and My’s relation? pls? - ❌ - we did get more interactions between the two of them which is always nice, but no more winks to their relation, unfortunately

Stinky gets Sniff on board [with] a bad scheme - ✅ - I’d say the unheist counts as a bad scheme 😂

More film references (LOTR, Star Wars, etc.) - ✅ - I couldn’t spot any nerdy ones myself, but the musical number was definitely an homage to old Hollywood, and I think the umbrellas & lampposts were specifically referencing Singin’ in the Rain? though I could be wrong?

Bit of Comet to show when they first met the snorks? pls? - ❌ - welp, like I said, no one else has met Snork before, and since it looks like they’ll be adapting Comet next, then that probably hasn’t happened in this universe yet!

Mrs Fillyjonk character development - ✅ - mostly in Brisk & Breezy and she does give Cedric away at the end of Last Hurrah

Snufkin and/or My eat or drink something questionable - ❌ - My doesn’t even eat the terrible food Mymble makes for her and Snufkin refuses to drink what the Hobgoblin offers to him! 😯

At least one more song sung by the characters pls pls pls - ✅

Snufkin says something that could be interpreted as sexual - ❌ - there were things OTHER characters said that made me giggle or raise an eyebrow but nothing from Snufkin this time

Moomintroll uses his butt hammerspace - ❌ - I feel like there must be an example of this but I can’t think of one off the top of my head! I know Stinky pulls stuff out of his butt, though 😂

Random new lore is thrust upon us (eg Too-ticky’s sister, Mr Brisk being a type of hemulen) - ✅ - Mymble having dated Mr Brisk definitely counts as this

Snufkin flower crown Snufkin flower crown Snufkin flo- - ❌ - still can’t believe they let Little My wear one but not Snufkin 😭😭😭

ayyy I got a bingo! two! even if I did cheat by changing a couple of them lmao

[recurring-polynya]

hi there! AMAZING blog and great bleach write-ups. u know the characters so well it rivals - if not surpasses - kubo himself. im just curious what ur thoughts were on the 20th anniversary special one-shot chapter? (i apologize if u already talked about this but im just living vicariously through some of ur old bleach posts and haven't caught up to the new ones yet. sorry!)

Hi, thank you so much! I *wish* I knew as much about the characters as Kubo... the only thing I don't like about the return of Bleach is that he keeps dropping info and ruining my headcanons/stuff I said in my fanfic. 😂

Here is my very personal and biased take on the one-shot: I loved it. To be honest, it was basically catered to my very specific interests: lore + my faves. Renji had more panel time than any other character (really, truly, someone on Twitter counted) and his DILF energy was off the charts. It was lieutenant-centric overall, my favorite group of characters. We got an Akon shikai tease, I love both the new lieutenants, Mayuri shot laser eyes at Hisagi, Shinji made a hilarious face. There is now canonically tv, Line, and videophones in Soul Society. Yumichika is a wine aunt. Rukia is a shitlord. It's perfect.

Beyond that, even, I actually like the new story arc that's being teased (I am working under the assumption it is going to continue, it just doesn't make sense otherwise). My primary complaint about late Bleach is that there are too many characters. Kubo feels the need to have all his mains get a fight and then he needs to let everyone they fight have a backstory and he tries to interleave things and it takes so long to come back around to the small subset of characters any given reader actually cares about.

Don't get me wrong: I really, really like Ukitake, Unohana and Kyouraku as characters, but part of what I like is that they are a) old as balls, b) have seen and done some gnarly shit, and c) enjoy the relative peacetime where they get to mentor young people and be kind and pretend like they haven't committed a ton of murders for the Good of Soul Society. Yamamoto is a special case because I don't believe he's remotely sorry for anything he ever did (see: that filler arc where he falls asleep while Amagai is screaming about how Yamamoto threw his dad under the bus). In any case, we never really got to see Ukitake go ham, and we only got glimpses of Unohana, and I'm honestly kinda into the idea of them becoming Lords of Hell, because they probably do deserve it. Also, I want to see Bankai Rukia vs Hell Yamamoto, that shit is gonna slap.

I do wish we'd gotten a little bit more of Orihime, Chad and Uryuu (and no one needs to tell me that was the back of Uryuu's head at the ramen shop-- I don't actually think it was and also the back of someone's head is not very exciting). As I said, I have every expectation that this story will continue and I am hoping they are all involved. I can't imagine that Orihime *wouldn't* be, but it is a strong possibility that Chad and Uryuu will get shafted. I am saving my rage for them. (Note: What if Chad got to fight Shrieker again?? That would slap!!) I'm not really concerned about other people not appearing much-- it was already an extra-sized one-shot, and it had a lot of cast members, it was enough for me.

Two last thoughts!

1) I liked the amount that the kids appeared. For a while, I was really concerned that they were gonna pull a Boruto and make some next-gen series (possibly with minimal involvement from Kubo) and it was literally going to make me hate Bleach the way the new Star Wars movies made me hate Star Wars, a thing I once deeply loved. Instead, the kids were there and they were relevant to the plot, but the action was carried by the adult characters. This is cool in my opinion because it lets use see our faves in their role as parents and it builds the kids' characters organically instead of asking me, the reader to care about them solely on the basis that I liked their parents.

2) I mentioned Kubo ruining my headcanons earlier, and probably the #1 thing I didn't like about the one-shot is that I had always assumed that Soul Society basically knew how Hell worked, and that they had some sort of treaty or natural division of responsibility between them. Tbh, that's on me, my expectations were far too high. From day 1, shinigami have consistently known jack-shit about how anything works and just blunder through the larger greater spiritual world, making stuff up as they go along. I used to assume that this was a Rukia thing-- she only had one year of shinigami school, she's a Kuchiki so she can just say things and no one disagrees with her, and she's Rukia. But, no, Kyouraku's out here performing insane rituals and sending his pals to Hell and he's like, "oh, man, I think I read something about this on Yahoo! Answers once but then I got distracted." Complete and utter buffoonery. I can't wait to see more.

[nhi-theuserof-this]

Cackles in lore

Come get your food everyone

TW/CW: underage drinking, swearing, uhhhh, spoilers up to dec 16

—

The Antarctic Empire had practically taken over the world as they abused the way maps were supposed to be made, and only in a short matter of time too. Phil and Techno individually hadn’t expected this kind of outcome, only for seperate reasons but nevertheless were glad it turned out this way.

SMP Earth had eventually come to a stop and so did the ability to stay in the world.

“So what are your plans when this is all over?” Phil murmured cracking open a beer and passing it to Techno as they enjoyed one of the last sunsets to happen on the server.

“Nothin much, I had a side war with another guy on a different server and that ones looking pretty close to the end.” Technoblade took a long swig from the beer bottle as his eyes wandered aimlessly around the terrain.

“You should come with me for awhile, I’ve kept in touch with my family and I think they’d like you.”

“Maybe in the future then.”

-

At midnight, exactly a week and two days after the end of SMP Earth that Philza had gotten a message that Technoblade was coming to visit and needed permission into his world, and at three twenty-nine in the morning Technoblade had logged onto the world.

“What’s going on Techno? It’s three in the morning.” Phil asked as he walked down the steps of his porch and began walking towards where Technoblade had appeared.

“Oh. Sorry, forgot sleep schedules are a thing.” Techno murmured, “I wanted to visit to let you know I’ve won the potato war in person since this is an optimal excuse to see you.”

And like that, the two spent until six-thirty celebrating Technos victory.

“Dad?” Came the voice of one of Phils children after Technoblade logged off.

“Oh! Hey there Wilbur, why’re you up so early?”

“I woke up to you talking with that guy that just left, who was he?”

“He’s a friend I made while I was in SMP Earth, he wanted to stop by to catch up. Now go back to sleep, it’s still early in the morning.”

“Okay dad.” Wilbur mumbled turning to go back upstairs.

-

It had been a few weeks since the first visit, a steady on and off random visits schedule had begun to form in that time, Technoblade visiting in the late hours of the night and leaving just before late hours. Today seemed to be quite different however, a notification appearing in chat informing Phil someone had joined the world with no prior notice.

“Dad? Who’s that?” Tommy asked looking up at Phil.

“It seems a friend of mine has joined, you go sit down and eat your breakfast before it gets cold.” Phil replied ushering Tommy to sit at the table Wilbur was seated at.

Before Phil was Technoblade standing on the porch in a slouch nervously looking at the now open door. “Techno?”

“Heya Phil, surprise?”

“You know that still doesn’t answer my question man.”

.

“Dad Dad! Wil and Techno are twins!” Tommy shouted as Phil entered the room with a cup of coffee.

“Yeah, me and him have the exact same birthday.”

Philza sputtered for a moment. “Your fifteen Techno?”

“I know right?”

“What- does this mean I’ve committed war crimes with a fifteen year old?”

“No, you were committing war crimes with a thirteen to fourteen year old, don’t know if that’s any better though.”

Wilbur let out a long laugh as Techno let out a small grin while Philza was practically going through the five stages of grief.

-

I honestly am having trouble making a cohesive story so have a very large amount of script format interconnected memes

-

Phil: You’re what?

Techno: Nonono- Phil you got it all wrong-

Phil: *sighs in relief*

Techno: I’m fifteen not wHaT.

Phil:

Phil: *sounds of adoption papers*

-

Phil: *is drinking beer*

Techno: *walks into the room*

Phil: Want one?

Techno:

Phil:

Phil: *slowly looks away*

-

Tommy to Wilbur: You ever wonder what alcohol tastes like?

Techno who’s also in the room: It’s okay for the most part, people act like it’s way better than it actually is though

Tommy and Wilbur:

Techno:

Techno: ah,,

-

at the festival*

Techno: *is drowning in the water tank*

Fundy: *takes a beer from a cooler*

Techno, still inside the tank: Don’t drink that Fundy that brand is gross

Fundy: I haven’t ever seen you drink

Techno: That doesn’t mean anything when laws don’t matter to me

Fundy:

Fundy: Shut up you’re supposed to be drowning

-

Post pit fight with Tommy*

Wilbur: What are you doing Techno?

Techno: *Glances at the bottle of beer*

Wilbur:

Wilbur: How many.

Techno: uhhhhh

Wilbur:

Techno: You should be the last person to judge how I cope Wilbur.

-

Shlatt: *has a fucking heart attack* *dies*

Everyone: *celebrates*

Techno: woo! We killed an old man with heart problems!

Later

Techno: I wonder if it was actually something in that drink that actually killed him..

Phil:

Techno:

—

Some time after Techno beats the shit out of Quackity and runs away from the execution*

Tubbo: Philza how were you so calm the whole time?

Quackity: We literally had an execution set up to kill your son.

Phil:

Phil: my what?

Tubbo: Your son? Technoblade??

Phil: He’s not my son.

Tubbo: Doesn’t he have the same birthday Wilbur did??

Phil: He does.

Quackity and Tubbo: ???

Phil: He might be like a son but we’re more like war buddies after committing so many war crimes together back on SMP Earth.

Tubbo: What?

Quackity: What the fUucK??

—

And now for our sponsors!

@nicarose24 @sam-grey @rememtale @a-moth-called-mof @jklpopcorn @netheritenugget @theicingonacoke @internet-or-sleep @strawberiitea @imnotentirelycertain @demiphoenix66 @letluigisaythefword @potatos-are-best @itsfiveoclock @glaxyjellyfish @whatareusernames @rstrawberrytea @rlchaos @canadianinja @salamencerobot @marshquid @ye-olde-party-times @star-fruit23 @hellwo-block-men-make-me-cry @storm-wayne-kent

Have a good day!

[sharknadoslutt]

Not that I ever wanted to watch it because of the era it plays in, but what was so awful about Star Wars resistance?

Oh Okay this ask got me GOING so Welcome to my Tedtalk on my feelings on Star Wars Resistance; a story of Disappointment.

So Mr. Dave Filoni, the story telling Prince, left the show like halfway through production of the first season for other projects (For TCW season 7 and The Mandalorian). This left what was a promising show with characters Dave himself had created, in the hands of very inexperienced story board artist and writers. Personally, I think they panicked and half assed it so that Disney could make money on toys. Because.. idk. It just doesn't even come close to the emotional story arcs that TCW and Rebels gave us. and that's what Star Wars is supposed to be about. Changing for the better. Hope or some shit, am I right?

What was most disappointing in my opinion.. is that the protagonist, Kazudo Xiono, is UNBEARABLE. He is the EMBODIEMENT of privilege. This punk has had everything handed down to him from the moment he was born. He was born like 14 years after the Empire has been brought down and the New Republic reigns, so he has never known war. AND HIS DADDY IS THE SENATOR OF HOSNIAN PRIME FOR FUCKS SAKE! THE CAPITOL????? WHERE THE SENATE IS???? YOU KNOW HOW RICH THAT MUST MAKE HIs FaMiLY??? His dad literally gives him an allowance even though he is a grown ass man in the military when the show starts.

To put things into perspective for those not up to date on Sequel Era Lore and I envy you greatly tbh bcs not to be that person i do not like the sequels that's the equivalent of being the Senator of Coruscant in the Prequels!!!!

Not to mention he is a BUMBLING idiot. Like. This man has ADHD on steroids. As a person with ADHD it's.. lord, it's cringe. He is clumsy. He is loud. He says inappropriate things at the wrong time. He doesn't know how to do anything for himself. AND HE IS SUPPOSED TO BE A SPY FOR THE RESISTANCE UNDER COVER AS A MECHANIC???? HE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT MECHANICS and really doesn't really learn anything about it by the time the show ends. And don't come at me saying this is a kids show so I cant complain about things being silly bcs I'm not the target audience. I can and I will bcs no one was NEARLY this obnoxious in TCW or Rebels. Kaz is Jarjar Level, but I ACTUALLY LIKE JARJAR!

DUDE IS A DAMN SPY HE DOESNT EVEN LIKE GO BY AN ALLIAS!!! HE DEADASS USES HIS REAL FULL NAME. BCS KAZ IS AN IDIOT.

I'm not saying he isn't a good person. Kaz is very sweet tbh. He's just an unknowing spoiled ass man-child who NEVER REALLY DEVELOPS INTO ANYTHING ELSE?????

It would be okay if he entered the show like this and exited a more mature, capable man. But he really doesn't. There are never any consequences for his actions. Ever. Other than when he becomes a spy and, again, IS USING HIS REAL LEGAL NAME as a spy for the Resistance... to avoid a scandal and to scold him for LITERALLY DESERTING THE NAVY his daddy cuts him off from his allowance. So instead of half assing his cover job as a mechanic, Kaz has to actually apply himself so he can make money for food. He doesn't improve much. His co-workers (Who are MUCH more interesting than him) constantly complain about him messing things up and making their jobs more difficult.

Man, FUCK KAZ. MY HOMIES HATE KAZ. BEING HOT CAN ONLY GET YOU SO FAR!!!!!

At the Season one finale there is a moment where you think he is finally going to grow as a man! Grow into the protagonist we deserve! Tragedy, for the first time in his life, strikes Kaz! It's during the events of episode 7, when The First Order blows up Hosnian Prime. His home planet. Where his FATHER LIVES. He has a moment of humanity and he is devastated. He almost cries. But he sucks it up to finish the mission and get his friends off base for their safety. He is a man now. and the audience feels a sense of comradery for Kaz. After all, Star Wars is about Fathers. Kaz has lost his father forever. His father was KILLED by the First Order. He now, first hand, has experienced real loss for the first time and this is going to help him grow and toughen up. he has to live on his own now. Our hero has a reason to be doing what he's doing. Fighting against the first order.

BUT NAH. FAM. then the very next fucking EPISODE YOU FIND OUT HIS DAD IS FUCKING ALIVE AND THAT HE DIDNT ACTUALLY EXPEIRENCE THE LOSS THAT HE HAD THOUGHT, AND HE GOES RIGHT BACK TO BEING HIS GOOFY ASS CHILDISH SELF. NO. I HATED THAT. THERE WAS NO REASON FOR GROWTH. MAN FUCK RESISTANCE.

FUCK. IF ANYONE DESERVED THEIR FATHER TO LIVE THROUGH A DAMN PLANETORY DESTRUCTION IT WAS MY GIRL LEIA, NOT FUCKING KAZUDO THE CLOWN XIONO. FUCK. guys I'm sorry I just really hate this god damn character.

Like. Lemme break it down, folks.

TCW started and Ahsoka enters. I HATED Ahsoka for a long time. Bcs she was young, cocky and annoying. But that was on purpose. Narratively, she experiences loss, she experiences pain and GROws as a character while navigating her Jedi life during the war. Our girl grows into the capable protagonist that we EXPECT out of a Star Wars story.

Same for Rebels. We meet Ezra, and he's not quite as annoying as Ahsoka was at first in my opinion (I cannot stress how much I did not care for Ahsoka yall) but he was young. He was childish. But he was more capable at 14 than fucking Kaz was at 20. By the end of Rebels, not only is he more wise and capable, but he is selfless. He has found his own path and it's only because of what he has gone through. His journey has made him stronger. Ezra is my favorite Star Wars journey, if I'm being honest. He is the perfect example of character development.

KAZUDO XIONO ENTERS SEASON ONE AS A 20 YEAR OLD MAN-CHILD USING DADDY'S MONEY WHO IS LOUD AND DOESNT KNOW WHEN THE STFU... AND EXITS THE FINALE... AS A LOUD MAN-CHILD WHO CAN NOW USE TOOLS. He doesn't' experience REAL FAMILIAL loss. He doesn't really experience a lot of character development at all. Things just happen around him, he helps, but he doesn't learn. He doesn't grow. I fucking hate that.

Literally every single character in the show BESIDEs Kaz is more interesting than him. and EXPEIRENCE CHARACTER GROWTH!!!

Jarek Yeager, Kaz's boss in the mechanic shop, was in the Rebellion and LOST HIS FAMILY. He is a sexy ass man too. HE starts the show not wanting to help the Resistance at all bcs he's experienced loss since his days in the Rebellion, and his heart is hard and he's comfortable. By the end of the show he is risking not just his career, but his VERY LIFE to help the Resistance.

Tam Ryvora, Kaz's co-worker. Daughter figure to Yeager and a total bad ass woman of color. She is the one on the show who experiences the most character development and struggles to find her identity while the First Order is taking over the galaxy. I LOVE her.

There are these 2 kids who are force sensitive and orphaned after Kylo Ren comits GENOCIDE on their planet. This arc set up is never fully addressed nor does it have a conclusion, like most story arcs on this show tbh.

There's a literal witch for some reason??

There's this fucking rad ass sexy Mirilian Pirate girl named Synara who FOR SOME REASON is suggested to be Kaz's love interest. Gross. Girl, you gay. Move in.

I could go on and on and on. But I wont. Fuck this show. Fuck Kaz. It literally adds NOTHING to the bigger Star Wars lore. TCW and Rebels do this beautifully and this show is a hot mess of ideas and characters that never come to a satisfying story telling conclusion.

Thanks for coming to my tedtalk, dont watch Resistance.