#love that for once a scene like this ends with an actual canonical hard on

[sockich]

You think you can take me down twice?

BLUE EYE SAMURAI (2023)

[shrimphearted]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY R- what the hell do you mean I’m two days late

[ID: A Mob Psycho 100 comic set post-canon. Mob, depicted with chin-length hair and wearing a skirt, says to Ritsu, "I just haven't been able to think of a gift he'd actually like. And I want it to be special, cause this time he'll expect the party."

She looks down with a frown. "Especially since Teru accidentally added him to the group chat." Ritsu laughs with a "Hah!" and says, "I do have an idea, if you want to hear it." Mob smiles tiredly and says, "Please." Ritsu says, "Okay, but it's a pretty big gift so we should check in with everyone."

Teru, shown with hair past his shoulders, exclaims happily, "Yes!! I think he would love that!" Tome grins and says, "Oh my gosh, yess! Maybe we'll actually see him cry this time, hah!" Shou looks interested and says, "Oh for sure! I actually know a place we can find one!" Serizawa smiles, "I'm pretty sure his new lease allows pets!" Dimple squints and says, "… How do you know that," and Serizawa says, "How about we stop talking for a little while."

Next, marked "a few days later:", we see Reigen opening the door to Spirits and Such. The door creaks open, and he screams with terror when people loudly go, "Happy birthday!" We see scenes of the party: Reigen sweating and grimacing as Tome offers a cake with Ritsu laughing in the background, Serizawa and Reigen smiling fondly at each other with a heart floating between them, and Reigen looking dead-eyed as everyone photographs him and his cake-covered face.

Reigen, now cleaned of cake, flops on the couch and smiles, "Wow! All that's missing now is a present!" He sweatdrops. "… I can feel you all staring. Then he exclaims "Oh!" at the sight of all the kids looking happy and excited. Mob is in the center, smiling with anticipation and holding a box about the size of a large shoebox.

Reigen takes it with a fond smile, saying, "Aw, kids… I was joking but this is really--" He breaks off with a shocked sound as something shifts within the box. He holds the box away from himself and says flatly, "Is this a prank--" but is cut off by a laughing Tome shouting, "Just open it already!!!"

Reigen, frowning, exclaims, "No way! I'm not falling--" As he speaks, a canine nose pokes out from the boxes lid, and his expression turns to shock. "-- for that?"

We see a small puppy excitedly wagging its tail from within the box. The kids all talk. Teru: "Surprise!!~" Shou: "It should be a Shiba but since it's a rescue it's probably not pure bred." Mob, nervous: "… Do you like it?" Tome: "Who cares!! It's adorable!!"

Reigen stares down with silent shock. Making a hiccuping noise, he looks at everyone with an overwhelmed expression that moves to tears as he picks up the dog, making wordless wavering noises as he does.

The puppy licks Reigen's cheeks, and Reigen scrunches up his face as he tries not to cry. The kids exclaim: Ritsu, grinning: "Oh my god." Teru: "Awww." Tome, surprised: "Holy shit, he's speechless!" Mob, happy: "So you like it?"

Reigen sniffs loudly and says, "You guys…" Everyone looks at him eagerly. Once again crying, Reigen says, "Get out of my office." The kids looks surprised, and Serizawa sweats and wryly raises his hands, saying "Reigen--" Reigen cuts him off by shouting so hard he motion blurs. "I said-- get out." His shout is also blurred, and it's bold and in large font.

The final page shows Reigen lying down and blubbering while holding the puppy, who keeps wagging its tail. Narration says, "After everyone left, Reigen proceeded to weep in the privacy of the Spirits and Such office." Ritsu is shown facing away fromt he camera, arms crossed behind his back as he mutters, "Man." Narration says, "Ritsu was blamed for the whole ordeal even though for once he was trying to do something genuinely kind for Reigen, even if it was just for Mobs sake." End ID]

ID by @princess-of-purple-prose thank you so much!

[showtoonzfan]

Now I want to talk about Charlie cause good GOD. I never cared much for her in the pilot, I’ll admit that. I always called her boring compared to the other characters because of how developed they were compared to her. However the show takes everything that the pilot build up for her and just made her 10x worse to the point where she’s INSUFFERABLE to watch.

When I got to the very end of the season, I realized that she barley did anything progressive or had an impact on any character, at least what we’ve seen on screen. I understand this was the first season, but what exactly was her arc and what exactly did she do? Nothing. Throughout the season she wasn’t a leader, the most she did was help Sir pen with lessons and have that fight at the heaven trial. In the end they try to act like she overcame some arc about learning to lead and take charge but…she didn’t really. She was helped constantly by people around her, mainly Vaggie/Alastor/Rosie and she never really did anything on her own that was enough to signify her independence as the MAIN character or even the princess of hell. I love how she needed to be TOLD that her girlfriend cared for her…like wow. Vaggie also states that she’s “done so much and touched so many souls”- and all I could think about is how I actually wish we saw that on screen. Husk said she “wants to fix everyone’s problems but her own” and I never got that vibe out of her??? If she was more like Luz from the Owl house where we constantly saw her avoid her own emotions and problems and focus more on helping other people, then it would make sense but guess what, we don’t see any of that because the show is so disinterested in ACTUALLY focusing on Charlie shining at the front and helping people. They scrapped the main premise of her wanting to help sinners and instead used up all the time they had to introduce new characters. It’s all tell and no show as expected.

She’s painted as someone who’s desperate to save her people but when she’s not the focus and actually helping someone, she’s a whiny frustrating crybaby who needs to be coddled or steered in the right direction, and it’s SO hard to watch how her character is treated like a child who can’t do anything. This character has existed for 200+ years canonically but she isn’t written like that. She’s dumb. The fact that she’s such a doormat that she can’t even realize Angel is being abused by Val or even DO ANYTHING about it is fucking baffling, she’s THAT useless. There were so many moments in the show where she could have used her authority or powers to save trouble, but she just doesn’t do it because she’s useless, and I’m tired of people trying to say she’s a pacifist to excuse the shitty writing. She’s also basically Viv’s self insert in a way, an unfunny woman child who’s a hypocrite. Like Charlie is the equivalent of dry white chicken. There’s no seasoning or flavor to her character, she’s SO bland and boring that Lucifer and Alastor end up being more important than her and having more screen time, she’s ATTACHED to them and it really shows, rather than her being at the front. And I know we’re on season 1, but you’d think that Charlie’s childishness would actually be a character flaw and something she needs to overcome and grow up about. But this isn’t really seen as an issue and more of a quirky thing cause Viv thinks being a woman child is funny, the “fuck you you old bitch” scene made me cringe so god damn hard. Everyone has already said it, but Charlie cursing so so forced and unnatural for her character. I don’t like how she’s supposed to be a cinnamon roll but then at the same time swears and acts feral at times. It doesn’t fit.

During the fight scene in the end, she also does absolutely nothing. She made a whole deal about how she wants to defend her people and get back at the angel’s, but aside from throwing Adam and hitting him once, she needed to be protected or saved, Lucifer ended up actually doing the work and it was so hilarious. Speaking of that, Charlie’s daddy issues arc was also rushed, her and Lucifer reuniting and then making up within the same episode was a mistake. Then you realize that her daddy issues was mainly all Charlie had to her in terms of depth and what was explored in the show. I’m so tired of Viv giving her characters daddy issues, it’s getting old lol. But regardless of what Charlie has to her, in general the show just doesn’t focus on her. She’s not the main focal point of the show when she should be. SHE’S the one who wants to redeem sinners, the hotel was her idea. Even tho the pilot was a mess I still felt like she was determined to take the lead due to her beliefs. And yet she still feels like a side/background character who only occasionally gets focus here and there but certainly not compared to the others. The potential is there but due to the favoritism of the writing she’s such an empty and boring character and stayed like that till the very end.

[staerplatinum]

Some of my favorite doodles from my headcanon/redesign concept sheets used as an excuse to list my headcanons about the main six (for an AU that I'm writing)! More under the cut!

Charlie Morningstar:

She's way more hot-headed than in canon, albeit still keeping her cheerful and gentle persona.

She loves food, and she's always hungry. I always loved the trope of protagonists (both male and female, like look at Goku himself, Usagi Tsukino or Minako Aino) and I think it could fit Charlie perfectly!

She loves planning (and this is already canon) and she has a lot of stationary gadgets. "Sure Alastor, you can borrow any pen! ... Not that one! :D" And takes good care of them.

Her birthday is February 29th. I thought that it wouldn't be strange if her birthday ended up being that day if she follows a demoniac calendar...

Vaggie:

It's canon that she likes everything to be clean and organized. I think she would help Niffty with the rooms and everything! They bond!

She and Angel Dust absolutely have BFFs vibes. Before Hazbin Hotel I remember they were meant to be a couple, but with the new canon they're still adorable as best friends and I love the dynamic more. They get into fights but it's never anything serious, they look like a big brother and a little sis, even though sometimes she definitely acts as a big sis to him. Angel sees Molly through her :(

As we know she doesn't really believe in herself, but she actually makes a very good leader!

In my fanfic, contrarily to the series, she was really fighting with burning hate towards the angels that cast her out. She holds a deep grudge and it's hard for her to come out of it. (I want Out for Love to be useful, it's my favorite song ç_ç)

Her name as a human was Agata Flores, she was born the 28th of June in 1993. If we still count 2014 as her death and if she was once a winner that then became sinner... my headcanon is that she died of a hate crime in March 25th 2014, aged 21.

Angel Dust:

He's not in drag 24/7. He really is feminine, but sometimes likes to try masculine outfits too. (which make Husk wonder "why am I staring??")

He's secretly a nerd. Or not so secretly. He owns video games, and especially likes RPGs and life sims.

He overanalyses everything. Well, almost everything but still. He actually likes reading, and this led him to analyse anything that comes into his eye. (Oh, I can't wait to write one of those scenes because I already had fun outlining it LMAOO)

He's probably Charlie's food buddy. Give them some food and they'll be happy (Valentino doesn't like this but get screwed Val, give him food too)

His name as a human was Anthony (canon) Cavallaro and had Neapolitan heritage. He's born in April 1st (and this is canon) 1912, he died of overdose (canon) in October 11th 1947, aged 35.

Alastor:

I loved his pilot persona more than the series', and most of the things are confirmed canon... but I do have some headcanons for him, too! (also yeah I don't think that will be my last radioapple drawing or doodle lol)

We know he either doesn't sleep or sleeps with his eyes open. Well, I imagine him that in the few rare occasions he actually sleeps, his radio works as a mental surveillance "camera". Also, he's a light sleeper and would definitely go "Do you fellows mind? I'm trying to sleep." like the old man he is.

I would like to explore Alastor's feelings for Charlie more, and how he sees her as a daughter. While we may not know if he was telling the truth, I think they both seeked each other as a fatherly and daughter figures in a way. Many in the fandom headcanon Alastor's father to have been shitty to him. If he truly sees Charlie as a daughter, it could be because he would like to be a better father than the one he had, and since he never had children, he grew affectionate to Charlie as such.

He knows how to handle alcohol well, but I like to think that when he's really drunk he doesn't even know what he's doing. Oh, you saw him playing with Angel's Nintendo Switch? He even brought it into his room to continue playing Animal Crossing by himself? He was totally wasted.

His name as a human was Alastor (which is apparently canon, but I wonder if it'll be retconned or not?) Boudreaux-Alexander. Boudreaux was his father's last name, Alexander was his mother's. He didn't like his mother taking her husband's last name and wanted to keep his mother's. He was born in March 7th 1901, and died in August 4th 1933, aged 32, after being shot by a hunter that confused him with a deer and was mauled by dogs afterwards. (Yikes, I'm so sorry)

Niffty:

She definitely has written lots of fanfics about her fellow hotel friends. Especially men. Yet, she loves Charlie and Vaggie too, so they're there as well.

We know both Niffty and Husk have deals with Alastor. She loves them both, I love to headcanon that when she feels lonely and can't sleep well or had nightmares, she either goes to Husk's or Alastor's room to sleep with them. They welcome her warmly ç_ç

Alastor and Husk most definitely know Niffty's story, which is why they care about her so much. She's childish for her age, but it could be tied to a past that only the two of them know very well.

Niffty knew Vox when they were alive. Now I know it could be a weird headcanon since Niffty is Japanese and Vox is American, but if Niffty's work brought her around the world it wouldn't be weird if they crossed paths. When Vox died Niffty was 19, she either saw him die in front of her eyes or something else happened.

As I mentioned in my concept sheets, she used to wear glasses when she was alive so she can't see really well without them after she died. Sometimes she borrows Alastor's monocle, and if we apply the headcanon that he's colorblind, without his monocle not only he can't see anything but can't even see colors LOL

Her name when she was alive was Sachiko Tanaka, born February 27th 1934. She died September 1st 1956, aged 22, there are popular headcanons about the way she died and yikes, if it's true she didn't have a good death either. Not at all.

Husk:

Maybe I'm overanalysing but what if the reason why he grew affectionate to Niffty was because he once had children? Or just one? Either he had a child and was with him but felt like he wasn't a good father or his ex-wife left him because of his gambling addiction and this made him feel guilty, not able to see his child ever again. (I feel bad just thinking about this but ç_ç)

Despite the fact he hates being on a leash and none other than Alastor's, he actually cares about him. If the two were friends when they were alive (including Mimzy), this could explain why he's still around Alastor even if reluctantly. (Sure he says he's forced, but in the pilot Alastor summoned him, so it's safe to assume either Alastor-Husk-Niffty were roommates before coming to the hotel and did their business without telling Alastor, or simply we need more explanations of Alastor's deals)

His name when he was alive was Ivan Goncharov, born January 29th 1900, and died in December 23rd 1967, aged 67. As I mentioned in my concept sheets, he was friends with Alastor and Mimzy when they were alive and he was the last one of them to die. He would often visit his friends' graves when he was still alive :(

[snickerdoodlles]

How would you rank the Theeranyakapuls in terms of clinginess?

everything any of these boys let go of has claw marks on it.

Khun: physically speaking, i actually like making him a little touch adverse, or at least having a very complicated relationship with it. he is touchy with His PeopleTM, but he wants minimum two guns and meters of space between himself and anyone else. generally speaking, it takes a lot to make him let go of any of His PeopleTM. there's a heirarchy to it too: Kinn and Kim are his innermost ring, he will never let them go, not even when he's dead. Porsche is on the ring between brothers and his innermost guards, Chay to eventually join. there's another fifteen levels min to it, but the gist is Khun will cling desperately to anything that's part of his personal feelings of security and ruthlessly reject anything that compromises a higher hierarchy. ie, Khun might say he's done with "that stupid traitor" (Pete) post-coup but in truth desperately misses him, checks in on him, and eventually reconcile and become genuine friends with him because Khun wouldn't want to lose Pete. but in one of my WIPs, Chan (who rescued Khun when he was kidnapped and part of his sense of security) winds up compromising Kim's sense of security and Khun's adamant Kinn needs to get rid of him ASAP because Khun prioritizes baby brother over all else always.

Kinn: canonically awful at letting anyone go, i love it with my whole soul. man didn't even want to kill his uncle who was currently shooting up his home. he clung to the dregs of Tawan for years. keeps saying he hates Vegas and wants him gone, would lose more than half his whole self if Vegas were actually gone. would lose even more of himself if anything happened to his brothers or Porsche. Kinn tries so hard to wall himself away from everyone but he is a bleeding heart like no other. he cares on every level and more, beyond what he should, beyond what is safe. i want to wrap it in loved ones who will protect it like he deserves. i want him to keep bleeding over everything until he breaks and finally accepts the happiness he deserves more.

Vegas: insists he cares for no one and no one cares about him, has a million crises over it ❤ his hatred for Kinn is so integral to his being he could never kill him. would've abandoned everything for a hedgehog he loved to death if it had lasted 30 seconds longer than it did. probably a good thing because he didn't actually want to abandon everything, as seen when he immediately turns around right after to cling to Pete so hard Pete needs to escape. offers himself up as a bleeding sacrifice to Pete since. you all know this, this is just canon and i love it utterly. canon ends with Vegas holding his two worlds in his arms and Vegas would have to be ripped to shreds before letting either go.

Kim: so scared of how deeply he loves he pushes it all away and pine from afar. man literally introduces himself saying he sacrificed everything for his dream, even tho his actual first scene is demanding updates on Kinn's well-being, even tho his very next scene shows the depth of his obsession in checking in on his brothers. he has his claws still firmly embedded in everything he's ever said he let go of. he keeps trying to let go of them while never once relaxing his grip. i'm obsessed with his clinginess on every level, it's so good.

Macau: quite possibly the only one normal about holding onto his loved ones. no weird rivalries he's based his entire sense of self around at least. still beyond sticky clinging to Vegas tho, i outright laughed when Vegas tried to say Macau would prefer to leave him. my dude, that is a little brother ready to stand between you and the whole world if only you would let him.

[fariesoiree]

Lately I've been thinking alot about lovestruck Hobie with an oblivious reader. I'm talking like, man's completely WHIPPED. Doing backflips on his eyelashes to get reader's attention and they just brush it off as 'he's probably like this with everyone'. Bro's furious, desperate even. If you're still in the getting to know each other stage, he acts like a complete idiot. I don't see him as a person to blush or stutter around their crush, but probably do his best to make you laugh or smile, even at the expense of his own dignity. To me, in the movie Hobie seemed like a very physical touch kind of guy. I assume it would be the same with reader, his arms always looking for excuses to end up around theirs waist or shoulders. You best believe he's always got you in the back of his mind (you make him question his beliefs around relationships at least once a week).

Pls give me your thoughts on the matter 🙏 obsessed with the idea.

~☄️ comet anon

ahhhh my first emoji non! this is so exciting 2 me c: okok so i haveeee a fic kinda like this — not really ( he kinda stalks reader to keep her out of harms way )— where hobie is OBSESSED but i like your take on it too

to me, hobie is the textbook definition of a lover boy and it takes him a while to make it look cool bc he’s inexperienced in the actual real world relationship stuff. like, he’s had flings, he’s had short-term relationships, if you can even call it that, in the past. he’s had crushes bc he’s human. he’s not locked down emotionally. if anything, he’s wayyy more open than your standard run of the mill person would be.

i think he wouldn’t be confused when he first saw you and got that little drop in his stomach bc he’s not an actual dumbass. he knows what having crushes is. he’s confused bc he can’t get his shit together and can’t seem to leave you alone. he’s liked plenty of other people before but he’s stuck on you and your pretty smile and your shiny curls, as if handcrafted by a higher power.

and everyone else is like “hobie wtf” when he does shit so blatantly out of character but you think it’s normal bc you just became friends with him. like he’s laughing at every little thing you say even if no one else is and you grin pridefully bc the positive reinforcement is nice. it’s encouragement and you feel like you’re being accepted by a very kind guy but in actuality, he’s dying to get you to look at him.

like he’ll get so desperate he’ll start googling stupid shit. “how to get a girl to like you back” “law of attraction for your crush” and he knows he looks so stupid rn but any opening he can get, he’s gonna take it. he, himself, is thinking “hobie wtf” when he’s walking down the street and swears he gets a whiff of your perfume. and when you’re standing close enough, he’ll wrap an arm around your shoulder in what you think is platonic, and use it an an excuse to inhale the scent of your hair products.

this man is completely and totally star struck and it’s not like him. i’m convinced he loves so hard. he has too w the way he acts canonically. and it’s not like he doesn’t believe in love, he just doesn’t fw the way society tries to force it down everyone’s throats. he sometimes catches himself imagining what it would look like if you two were actually together and if it’s something he’s willing to do, to actually work towards. ofc he is, btw. without a shadow of a doubt.

my hobie, the way i view him, is so unconventionally chivalrous. he’s not laying over a puddle so you don’t have to step around it but he is working behind the scenes, doing subtle things he knows you’d appreciate without asking and could possibly be overlooked. there’s not a single hobie variant that isnt absolutely star stuck all of the time around you. alllllll of the time.

[yuikomoriemo]

DIABOLIK LOVERS HEADCANONS PAGE 2

If the sakamakis/mukamis had TV as kids they'd definitely be watching cartoon network and MTv

Yui one time as revenge waxed laitos eyebrows-

Ayato caught yui watching TWILIGHT and started to act like Edward towards her-

During pride month the brothers take yui to pride but REIJI ACTS LIKE ONE OF THOSE ALLY MOMS 😭XD

Kanato is only scared of one thing...BATHS

One time yuma ate a raw egg when ruki refused to help him shop for more food since his garden crops couldn't handel the heat

Occasionally whenever Kou loses it he loves to smash a bottle on yumas head-

Reiji snuck out to a Malice Mizer concert once (Shu found out but never told anyone)

Kanato watches child's play-

Karl- he is better than reiji with phones

One time kous fans picked on yui that resulted in kou actually making his fans scared of him-

Shu thinks all vampire movies except for "Interview with a Vampire" and "Dracula" are bullshit

(Canon)Yuma devours more than someone's blood-

One time when Laito and Kou were watching desperate housewives laito did what Orson did to bree and put sleeping pills in his drink WHICH RESULTED IN HIM PASSING OUT ON STAGE DURING A CONCERT

Kanatos committed more than murder

Genderbend headcanon- male cordelia would treat the triplets better and cordelia would've loved to have girls instead

Yui used to get picked on by other church girls-

On Halloween reiji gives trick or treaters toothpaste-

Yui would be a nervous vampire-

Actors au: Shu and reiji would be besties irl and ayato would be so clingy to yui and laito cringes during bloopers-

Kou once suprised a fan on their birthday-

Actors au again- laito would have the most frequent bloopers

AYATO...HAS MADE A FANFICTION-

yuis favourite music artist is lady gaga-

Cordelia if she was more verbally abusive would be one of those 1930s mothers when their husband isn't home from work-

I think christa would have been better off with a lobotomy instead of suffering and if she did get one subaru most likely would cry after leaving her during a visit.

Yui went to prom and purposely dressed as CARRIE thanks to kanato

Reiji and Ruki argue about politics-

One time Reiji scolded kanato for 4 hours because he couldn't answer 6 times 3-

Kou grade average is A+(or grade 6-9 in the UK) thanks to rukis painful tutor sessions.

Ayato once went to the school Councillor and by the end the Councillor had to go to a therapist and the THERAPIST HAD TO GO TO ANOTHER THERAPIST AND THE OTHER THERAPIST HAD TO- you get the picture.

Another actors Au thing, During one of the bite scenes with reiji he actually bit yui hard by accident and became a sobbing mess with yui just laughing trying to comfort him 😭😭.

If the sakamakis played smash or pass with the mukamis the only one with the most passes is ruki and yuma (because shu "killed" his brothers for saying smash to yuma-)

Yuma 100% has a southern accent COME ON COWBOY YUMA IS CANON

One time ayato accidentally blasted cupcake(...GULP GULP GULP CUPCAKE-) when reiji was hosting something-

Subaru draws pictures or takes photos of the now modern world for Christmas as a gift and a sorry that she can't live in it..*SOBS*.

@yuma-mukami-garden-god @notdiabolika @diabolikpersonals

[toointojoelmiller]

Have you ever consumed so many devastating TLOU fics that you your heart was at risk of being permanently broken? Does the thought of Part 2 being filmed right now and our collective timeline inching closer to *that scene* airing on HBO with Pedro and Bella make your palms sweat? Same!

My prescription for you is to read today's spotlight stories and remember that, actually, we can stop torturing these two at any time we'd like. (Personally, I won't, but reading Joel and Ellie father-daughter fluff once in a while is good for general mental health.) I'm always reading and writing angst and @becomethesun's fics always feel like a breath of fresh air - and, of course, makes me even more heartbroken at all of the what-could-and-should-have-beens that TLOU I promised and TLOU II used to torment us. She is currently writing a Sam and Henry live AU (Collaborators) that is an answer to my prayers. The two stories linked here are favourites of mine:

true blue by @becomethesun 18,505 words || 5 chapters featuring: family fluff, Ellie adapting to life in jackson, good dad Joel Miller, Ellie gets to be a kid

me and my dog (and an impossible view) by @becomethesun 6055 words || one shot featuring: family fluff, good dad Joel Miller, Ellie gets a dog

from @march-flowerr: "If I had to pick one fic only to re read for the

rest of my life, becomethesun’s “true blue is (it feels good to be known so well)” would probably be it. I’m hard pressed to think of a story that I hold dearer than this - five chapters, short but flush with all the small details and nuances of life in Jackson that we don’t get to see in the game. “True Blue” offers such a sweet catharsis while still holding to canon. Becomethesun gives us these compact, bright glimpses into Ellie’s daily life in Jackson: we get to see her goofing off with Dina and Cat, learning to relax into her relationship with Joel, finding her footing in her new family and community. It paints such a tender and clear picture of Ellie as a girl - not Ellie, the ex Fedra cadet, or Ellie the cure - but Ellie as a kid, with friends and questions and ambition and insecurities and a love for her little world so big that it is breathtaking.

In “me and my dog (and an impossible view)”, we’re introduced to Strelka, Ellie’s dog. She finds her as a puppy in an abandoned book store and brings her home to Jackson. Strelka sees her through her through her first rough days of school, sick days and snow days. I don’t really think much more needs to be said about this fic to illustrate just why it’s so good - Ellie gets a cute little dog that makes her happy. What more do you want, people??"

Re-reading these fics feel like coming home. There’s a lyrical cadence to becomethesun's words that I am drawn continuously to. I love the feel of her fics: the syrupy sweet way the story wends itself through from beginning to end, the way that all these intense emotions and elements are whittled down into simple, intimate moments, like making paper crowns with a friend or curling up with your dog after a long day. The real beauty of these fics is the way that becomethesun has chosen to take the small things - the mundane, the day by day - and has chosen to let them shine. To remind us that amidst real horrors - and let’s be real, TLOU has a lot of those - there is still good to be had, that the little things that make up a life well lived - the things we take for granted - are the most important things. That even when it feels like your world is ending, you can still sit on a porch with your family and feel safe. That at the end of the hardest days, you can always come home."

If you read and love this, please please show the author some love and leave a kudos / comment!! Happy fandoming y'all.

Joel Miller isn't dead if we keep him alive y'all.

[baoshan-sanren]

best cdramas I’ve watched since the last one of these posts in 2023 (and some I’m still looking forward to seeing)

A League of Nobleman (watch on WeTV VIP | watch on AppleTV | watch on Viki | watch on bilibili | watch on YouTube) Adapted from the novel "The Mystery of Zhang Guo" (张公案) by Da Feng Gua Guo (大风刮过) starring Jing BoRan, Song WeiLong, Hong Yao, Guo Cheng and Wang Duo. Definitely gay, but in like a very focused, we-have-a-mystery-to-solve way. Loved the acting and the plot; cannot believe people actually gave Song Weilong shit for his acting in this drama. He was aMAzing. The downside is that the editing grew progressively sloppier as the drama progressed, and although majority of the visuals were very satisfying, I never realized how crappy the quality of the light was until I tried gifing some of the scenes. The upside is Jing BoRan holding kittens. Enough Said. 7/10

The Blood of Youth (watch on Viki | watch on YouTube) Adapted from the novel "Shao Nian Ge Xing" (少年歌行) by Zhou Mu Nan (周木楠) starring Li HongYi, Liu XueYi and Ao RuiPeng. Love this goddamn drama. I adopted the entire cast within the first 3 episodes and then I spent the next 37 terrified that half of them would get killed off. There’s def some major character death in this drama my chickens, so keep that in mind (and not a canonical death either, from what I understand). Anyway, this is my fave genre by far so I’m never really picky, but this drama is exhilarating and gorgeous from beginning to end. Highly recommend. 9/10

New Life Begins (watch on iQIYI | watch on Viki | watch on YouTube) Adapted from the web novel "Qing Chuan Ri Chang" (清穿日常) by Duo Mu Mu Duo (多木木多) starring Bai JingTing and Tian XiWei. Just sweet and fluffy. The plot is easy and devoid of complexities, but very satisfying nonetheless. The acting is definitely on another level. The entire cast has bonkers chemistry, and it’s about time someone made good use of Bai Jingting’s comedy potential. One of the top 5 easy viewing dramas on my rewatch list.  8/10

The Legendary Life of Queen Lau (watch on Viki | watch on YouTube) Adapted from the web novel "Huang Hou Liu Hei Pang" (皇后刘黑胖) by Ge Yang (戈鞅) starring Li JiaQi and Li HongYi. Loved this. Although it doesn’t shy away from difficult subjects, this is basically a comedy from beginning to end. Not gonna lie, I mainly gave this a go for Li Hongyi, but it’s hard to even notice him when Li Jiaqi is in the room. There’s no shame in being overshadowed by superior talent :) 7/10

(yeah, after all this, I rewatched Nirvana In Fire again)

Under the Microscope (watch on Apple TV | watch on Bilibili | watch on iQIYI VIP | watch on Viki) Adapted from the novel "Xian Wei Jing Xia De Da Ming" (显微镜下的大明) by Ma Bo Yong (马伯庸) starring Zhang RuoYun and Wang Yang. Continuously impressed by Zhang RuoYun’s skills. This drama is 90% grit and tension. Drool-worthy visuals. Interesting plot. Sound mixing that gives me a Mo Ran style boner. Make your friends watch it and they will hate you. 9/10

Till The End of The Moon (watch on YouTube | watch on Apple TV | watch on Viki) Adapted from the web novel "Hei Yue Guang Na Wen BE Ju Ben" (黑月光拿稳BE剧本) by Teng Luo Wei Zhi (藤萝为枝). Starring Luo Yunxi and Bai Lu. This was so breathtakingly gorgeous. The chemistry between the actors, the visuals, the special effects, the costumes, everything is stunning in this drama. The romance is by no means original, but still manages to draw you in. Absolutely worth watching at least once. 8/10

Still waiting on:

Immortality - based on danmei novel The Husky and His White Cat Shizun by 肉包不吃肉 starring Chen Feiyu and Luo Yunxi (you can think I’m a clown but you’d be wrong bc I’m a wholeass circus)

Winner Is King - based on the danmei novel Sha Po Lang by Priest starring Tan Jianci and Chen Zheyuan

Step By Step Lotus - based on historical novel Return to Ming Dynasty as Prince by 月关 starring Zhang Binbin and Luo Yunxi

Eternal Faith - based on danmei novel Heaven Official’s Blessing by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu starring Zhai Xiaowen and Zhang Linghe

Joy Of Life Season 2 - based on wuxia novel of the same name by 猫腻 starring Zhang Ruoyun and Li Qin

Story of Kunning Palace - based on the novel 坤宁 by 时镜 starring Bai Lu and Zhang LingHe

Flying Phoenix - based on danmei novel of the same name by 風弄 starring Dai Jingyao and Shu Yaxin

The Story of the Bat - based on danmei novel Bat by Feng Nong starring Mao Zijun and Zhang Yao

The Longest Promise - based on xianxia novel Zhu Yan by 沧月 starring Xiao Zhan, Ren Min, and Zhang Yunlong

Mysterious Lotus Casebook - based on wuxia novel 吉祥纹莲花楼 by Teng Ping 藤萍 starring Cheng Yi and Zeng ShunXi

Follow Your Heart - historical drama starring Song Yi and Luo Yunxi 

The Thirteen-Hongs in Canton - historical drama starring Zhu Yawen and Yu Haoming

White Cat Legend - based on manhua of the same name starring Ding Yuxi and Zhou Qi

[localwriterdocx]

Stoner or Sober: Scott Pilgrim Headcanons

From somebody who injects weed into my veins, who do I think partakes in this activity too?

NOTES: I have only seen the movie and Takes Off. I have only read up to before Todd's defeat in the comics and I know vague spoilers. Ken and Kyle are not here because they don't get a lot of development in either.

WARNINGS: Mentions of drug use, Mentions of drug abuse, Slight Spoilers for Scott Pilgrim Takes Off / Scott Pilgrim vs The World. Maybe a little OOC

Scott:

No, Sober. He rarely drinks, he doesn't even BEGIN to touch on weed. He briefly tried it before with either Wallace or Envy in college, but called it quits. He didn't like it much then, doesn't like it more now. When he first moved in with Wallace, he would sometimes accidentally eat edibles Wallace put out for himself, now he knows not to touch Wallace's food.

Ramona:

Occasionally. She used to be really into it when she was in highschool. She still occasionally uses it, but uses it less now because she was using it to hurt herself. I headcanon she used it a lot more when she was with Gideon. It made her not care about the abuse she was suffering from with him. She only does it with people she trusts now and needs more reassurance.

Kim:

YES, That is a stoner right there. That's one of the reasons he roommates hate her, she's in her room puffing off her bong. Tried it in her first year of college, and became really into it near the end. It's kind of hard to tell when she's been smoking because she really doesn't change much outwardly. She is the best person here to smoke with.

Stephen:

Occasionally. He doesn't smoke, but he has taken gummies before. He uses it to calm his anxiety down occasionally. Doesn't buy it himself, but if Julie or Neil offers one to him, he's not one to really say no. He's always hesitant when he's offered one, but everyone including himself knows he's going to take it. If he takes one, he is out of commission for the rest of the day.

Young Neil:

Yes. This entry is mainly targeted towards Comic Neil. Even though its not healthy, that's how he deals with his problems. He really just needs to set down the bong sometimes. He eventually would begin to have a healthier relationship with it. Sometimes he goes off with Kim and they go smoke together. I think that Kim would really help him get his shit together and begin to have a healthier relationship with it.

Wallace:

Occasionally. He's tried it, but he doesn't like to mix weed and alcohol, so he usually just sticks with alcohol. Like, he's not going to say no if he's offered it, hell sometimes he goes and searches it out. Has gotten Scott to do it on multiple occasions. He likes to smoke in a group, even if Scott is pulled into it, he can't be left alone.

Julie:

Yes. It's mainly when she's upset and needs something to calm her down. Luckily, she doesn't need it as much as Neil thinks he does. Probably smokes/does edibles once or twice a week. No preference in methods. She gets less bitchy and she likes to sit on the couch watching shitty rom-coms. She usually would want to be alone, but when Gordon came down to her place, she loves getting stoned with him, even if he's not doing any.

Matthew:

No. He just hasn't run into it at a time he wanted to try it. He's comfortable with hanging out with a lot of stoned people, that's not an issue for him, he actually likes it, he thinks its funny. He gets a little curious when it gets brought up, or when somebody mentions it, but wouldn't go out of his way to obtain it. He's just not really interested. If he were ever to get blazed, I think his demon hipster chicks would be blazed too.

Lucas:

Yes, he gets blazed back at his trailer (THIS IS CANON TO THE MOVIE BTW). He's not a absolute pothead, he just likes to partake in it regularly. After a pretty rough day of shooting scene after scene, he like to light up his bong and have a fun night with his friends. Doesn't like taking gummies, it's either smoking it or nothing. He just can't get over the taste.

Todd:

Yes. Envy always has to find him the Vegan strands so he can keep his powers. Envy also has to shut him up when he's talking about it because it's just normal for him. Sometimes uses it to calm his pre-show jitters. He doesn't smoke as much as Envy, but that's because he doesn't like rolling, and Envy kept the bong in the divorce.

Envy:

Yes. She loves it, but doesn't like to tell people about it and will only tell people she trusts. Unlike Todd, she doesn't like using it before a show, she's not willing to risk it. Besides from Todd, the only person that knows she's fond of it is Scott. If Wallace found out, that shit would be on the cover of every celebrity gossip magazine, she would also be charged because this is 2001.

Roxie:

Yes. Like Neil, when Ramona left her, she used it a lot to get over her problems. Now she realized that was unhealthy and stopped for a bit. With her and Ramona making up (In SPTO), she is now trying to have a healthier relationship with it because she did genuinely like it. I think her and Todd are stoner buddies, she used to just go over so she could flirt with Envy, but they became like a stoner trio.

Gideon:

No. Never tried it, and I don't think he ever will. Maybe, MAYBE Julie would get him to try it, but I honestly don't think he would like it. He might try it a few times when he's throwing his pity party, but after that, he's done. He still hangs out with Julie when she does it though. He wouldn't like the way it makes him feel.

Thank you for reading my stoner headcanoning, there will be more.

[buckttommy]

Okay, this is a novel. Go with me.

I'm not saying anyone's interpretation of canon is wrong, but I've seen some people interpreting the graveyard scene as Buck still trying to be something he's not in order to earn/maintain the love of the people he cares about and I just... don't agree with that at all. Where Buck is now is an in-between state. He's not the same person he was before the lightning strike, but he's also not the person he's meant to be after the lightning strike either. Not yet. So he's tucked in this Magical and Confusing World of Almost, where he's almost figured out all the pieces to the puzzle, and he almost knows who he is outside of people's expectations, and he's almost connected the plethora of dots drawn between himself and Eddie, but he's not there yet.

So when Buck says, "I feel like I have to be the same old Buck, mostly for everyone else," that's not him saying he thinks he won't be loved if he's not the same old Buck. That's him saying he's stuck as the same old Buck because he has no idea who to be and, where he is now, no one else can tell him who to be, just like when he asked Hen if she was "at ease" in 6x02. He is constantly looking for answers that nobody but himself can find or give. But he doesn't want anyone to worry in the interim, especially not when everyone else he knows already regards his death with far more depth and trauma than he himself regards it with. So he remains "the same old Buck." This idea also ties into his conversation with Natalia over lunch.

Buck told Eddie that he, in some way, felt like Natalia saw more in him than he saw in himself, but I'm so intrigued by that piece of dialogue, mainly because we didn't actually see the entirety of their conversation. We saw Natalia's fascination and Buck's intrigue (and, dare I say, discomfort!) by her fascination, but we didn't actually see anything beyond Buck beginning to tell her about his coma dream. So what is it that she sees? I think she sees exactly what he said to Eddie—that he got away with something he shouldn't have.

Natalia treats him like an anomaly because he is. No one else in Buck's life treats him like that.

They know him. They love him. They grieved for him. And when he came back to life and came out of the coma, they celebrated him and his return. But. They don't treat Buck dying and coming back as the anomaly, the rarity that it is. And I think this is a perfect example of a situation in which Buck is struggling to find the happy middle. His family treats his death with all the pain and gravitas inherent to literally seeing someone you love die and hang limply, helplessly, in the air, whereas Natalia treats his death with too much glee, too much fascination. And as much as he loves his family, and as much as he's intrigued by Natalia, Buck doesn't need either of those things.

What Buck needs is for someone to acknowledge both aspects of his death: that it was scary and sad and traumatizing, yes, but also that it was something out of a film. Something that shouldn't exist but did. And I think once Buck finds that? Once he looks within himself and allows both of those realities to coexist and inform his processing and who he is, then he will be on his way to finding the peace he's so desperately craving. But until then, he'll struggle with his voice, with Natalia's voice, with the voices of everyone he loves all saying different things on completely different ends of the same spectrum. Which is hard in ordinary circumstances, but especially in this one, in which matters of life or death are explicitly in play.

Buck is loved by his family. He knows he's loved by his family and, overbearing as they are/can be, he recognizes their love and loves them for it in turn. But in 6x11, Buck finally came to a place where Being Buck was enough for him. Now he has to redefine what that means to him. Which doesn't mean that the current version of himself that he's playing pretend at is wrong or lesser, only that this current version is ill-fitting now and he's struggling to find an identity that's the "right size," especially with several different voices (his own included) telling him how he should feel and respond to life-altering trauma.

I'm not the costume meta person here, that title belongs to the lovely Kym, but I'm assuming Buck's internal struggle also calls back to the wardrobe choices made in 5x14 too. The choice to have Eddie and Buck in the same/similar clothes they wore during their outing to the equestrian center only illuminates to me what we already knew: that Buck's 6B arc is a speed-run through Eddie's 5B arc, in that they both dealt with the nuanced complexities of similar traumas. Eddie dealt with horrendous survivor's guilt following the loss of his team, and Buck, too, is dealing with a similar brand of "left behind" confusion. Eddie was the only one "left behind" in that he's the only one who survived everything his squad went through, but Buck is dealing with it in the sense that death came and robbed him of something, but he's still "left behind" to pick up the pieces.

Both men have struggled immensely with the idea of cheating death, of living on borrowed time (though both concepts are outlined more explicitly in Buck's arc than it was in Eddie's), but the similarities of their trajectories are important to note because they will both, ultimately, lead to the same place—to the realization that cheating death and living on borrowed time means you have to, subsequently, do something with that time. Buck says it himself a the end of the scene: every day, from the point of death onward, is a gift, one that must be embraced before time runs out.

Time is running out for Buck and Eddie, but not in an entirely ominous way. Time is running out in the sense that both are rapidly becoming aware of that fact that days wasted aren't just days wasted; they are gifts that are going discarded without being embraced to the fullest. And when they finally sort themselves out, I believe that realization is going to hit them the hardest. Because it won't be so much the idea that "we could have had this, we could have had each other, sooner if we weren't so afraid," but the realization that "we were happy and we were okay, but we weren't as happy or okay as we could have been," and that's a hard pill to swallow for two men who have lived chunks of their lives playing against the nebulous, overwhelming nature of time.

I'm sure they'll figure it out—both together and individually—they always do. But in the meantime, the slow crush of both of their feelings against each other, and against the audience, is nothing short of agonizing.

Get it together, boys. I'm on my knees begging. Work it out for the sake of your hearts and mine. I can't take this much longer lol

[dindjiarin]

The Choice - (Din Djarin x f!Reader)

After returning Grogu to his kind, the Mandalorian must also face the consequences of his bounty hunting. Or: Din Djarin Has Two Very Bad Days.

The Savior / The Concession / The Choice (END)

AO3 Link

A/N: Canon-divergent - Grogu is saved at the Seeing Stone. Citing again my same sources from The Concession.

TAGS: two smut scenes, helmet stays on, helmet comes off, child neglect lmao (din trusts grogu not to get into trouble way too much), angst, fluff, light torture lol, allusions to sex, P in V, rough-ish P in V.

MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU

It happened slowly. The change that the Mandalorian wrought in you, though dramatic, was one born of love and patience. While he had always detested your acting like a servant to him, now you were banned from even feeling like a lesser lifeform. Din insisted you learn whatever he could teach you. You needed to know how to protect yourself, and how to trust yourself. He had even demanded that you learn to control the Razor Crest. That had been a scary day. 

Day by day, you began to see yourself through the Mandalorian’s eyes. Self-esteem through your own merit bloomed, and it was the encouragement of Din Djarin that watered the soil. 

Once, during a particularly grueling training session, Din saw defeat darken your eyes though he hadn't yet won.

“No. Don’t do that,” his modulator flatly stated as he relaxed his posture.

A caught breath later, you'd asked what he meant.

“Don’t concede the fight before it ends.”

“You’re going to win. I’m terrible with strategy.” 

“Then rely on your strengths. You are quick. Resourceful. Don’t give up again.” 

He had waited, patient and calm, until he saw the fire return to your eyes, and then he sprung at you. 

Your favorite weapon was the smooth beskar spear Din had been gifted by the Jedi he’d met. It was hard to hide your admiration of it. An ideal weapon for you, it was your frequent choice during your sparring matches. You’re grateful Din even allowed you to touch it. But Din was far from offended by your fascination and talent with the spear; he found it turned him on, actually.

Days spent sparring always ended in another, more intimate, type of physical activity. Sometimes, such as the day he watched you give up, it was tender and slow. Sometimes it was as desperate and aggressive as the first time he had taken you for himself. You loved both.

Tonight, after he eases himself from you and tucks you in his lean arms in the dark, he is quiet. Though Din was often contemplative after lying with you, this silence has the strain of anxiety. It sets you on edge. You let him drift through his own mind until finally his low voice fills the tiny room.

“As a Mandalorian, removing my helmet is forbidden. While I have technically broken this rule, you have not seen my face.” It's obvious he's thought about this in depth; the tone of his voice is rich with unseen emotion. “That intimacy is reserved for committed partners. For those who share in a riduurok.”

You don’t mean to tense up, but his seriousness forces every fiber of your body to listen, to absorb his words. 

“You okay?” He murmurs when he feels it.

You nod on his chest, so he continues.

“When a Mandalorian removes their helmet for another, they are asking that a decision be made. You have known me as no one has. When my helmet is removed, free of all impediments, then will I be asking that same question.”

What decision was there to make? To explore your options? You’ve been enslaved for most of your life, but even you can see that this - this with him - is as good as life gets. There was nothing more you could ask for, let alone want. If you were going to tie yourself to anyone, it would be Din Djarin - a man of sheer will, loyalty, and an Outer Rim type of honor. Your body relaxes.

“I understand. If that moment comes, I’ll have an answer.”

“It is not a question of ‘if,’” he states, his sultry voice full of restrained feeling. 

You can’t see him, but still your head tilts up to his face. You let your fingers drag through the patches of hair along his jawline, and then you press a kiss to his pulse point on his neck. 

“I mean, I can give you my answer now… if you’d like?” He can hear the smile in your voice.

His muscled arm pulls you tighter against him, as though your answer might be no. You hear Din’s hair scratch on the durasteel wall as he shakes his head.

“I don’t mean to rush you. I only wanted you to understand the way I will do this.” 

The room quiets again as you trace his lips, then his throat, then lower. Small bumps appear on his skin, and you brush over them. 

“I’ll never understand why this feels as good as it does,” he sighs contentedly. “All we are doing is touching.” 

Agreeing, you laugh, “I don’t either. But I never want it to end.” 

“Good,” Din gruffly replies.

___________________________________

The Mandalorian feels the time slipping through his grip. Too many weeks had passed since his meeting with the Jedi. The Seeing Stone awaits Grogu. Determined to do right by the child and his creed, Din finally navigates to Tython. You watch from the Razor Crest as Din cautiously sets Grogu upon the Stone. Din waits. You wait. 

For hours Grogu sits there, consumed by the blue light around him, reaching out. When the sun begins to meet the rocky horizon, Din treks back to the Razor Crest to check on you, and that’s when everything falls apart.

***

As you lean forward in the cockpit of the Razor Crest, the Mandalorian swoops his creaking ship down an embankment and fires upon an errant Imperial TIE fighter. You’ve been around good pilots, but Din is the best. Despite the grief you gave him for continually abusing his ship, he truly is talented. 

Another TIE fighter screams past, and Din pulls the Razor Crest up from its dive. He fires two blasts, but his first shot was true. The TIE fighter explodes.

On the Stone below, as Din makes another pass, you can see pure Force flowing around the child. His eyes are closed. 

“How much longer can this take?” You ask rhetorically. You know Din is as exasperated as you are. Probably more so.

“I tried to get him back, but the shield was too strong.”

“I don’t think that’s a shield, Din. It’s the Force.”

“Whatever it is, it won’t let me get to him,” the worry in his modulated, tired voice breaks your heart. 

“In that case, at least he’s safe,” you try to reassure the Mandalorian. “If you can’t get to him, neither can the IMPs falling from the sky.” 

Din presses his lips together underneath his helmet. While you have a point, he wouldn’t feel right about this until the child was back with him. 

The Mandalorian has been shooting down incoming Imperial fighters for almost an hour, and he’s starting to believe it won’t end when his radar picks up a different, older spacecraft. You shoot forward, staring at the viewer. 

“Is that an X-wing?” You ask incredulously. “The Republic came all the way out here?” 

If it’s Republic, that means it’s low on Din’s priority list, so he pays it much less attention than the three TIE fighters that break the sound barrier above him. 

You’re suddenly thrown back in your seat when the Razor Crest’s shield system rings the alarm and Din calmly spins the ship skyward, arcing over another ridge to maneuver out of the target lock of an IMP. When he banks, he yanks the thruster backward, and the TIE fighter screams by. Din wrenches on the trigger and the black craft disappears in a ball of fire. 

Rising up through the flame, another black fighter barrels down on the Razor Crest. Before Din can shove the Crest into a better attack position, the third fighter flanks him. You hear the Mandalorian sigh. 

From the east, red laser blasts blow apart the first TIE fighter, and then the second. The X-wing flies lazily through the debris, looping above the rock where Grogu sits. 

A crackling sound pops into the cockpit of the Mandalorian’s ship, then a dignified, cheerful voice speaks.

“My name is Luke Skywalker. I’m here to help the child.” 

Uncharacteristically surprised, Din had been expecting that X-wing to be carrying some stuffy officer bent on harassing him, not a kriffing Jedi.

He hits the button on the comms.

“I can’t get to the kid. He’s stuck inside that Force… shield.” 

“I see him. Looks like he’s sleeping.” 

Sure enough, as Din crests the hill, the blue light flowing around Grogu is gone. 

“There will be no more Imperial fighters for a while. You’re safe to land.”

You make a skeptical face, wondering how the Jedi could know that. Reaching forward, you tenderly grasp Din right above his elbow. Din’s tension is greater now than while he was shooting down scores of the Empire’s best. 

For the Mandalorian, that had been the easy part.  

***

By the time the Mandalorian settles the Razor Crest down and the two of you race to the top of the rocky ruins, Grogu is awake. The Jedi, Luke Skywalker, is seated and clearly performing some kind of Jedi magic to read Grogu’s thoughts. 

Grogu’s ears perk up and he turns from Luke when he hears the clinking footsteps of the man striding toward him. He raises his childlike arms, and Din scoops him up.

“I’m glad to see you, too, buddy.” 

Grogu babbles in the cradle of Din’s arms. His head swivels to look back at Luke.

“Your young one is strong.” 

Din nods, his two-toned glove on Grogu’s back. You step up behind the tall Mandalorian. Reaching around the broad man, you rub Grogu’s ears. He purrs under your affection. 

Luke speaks again, “I can see he was well cared for. Grogu is very fond of you both.” He frowns. “Attachments are forbidden to Jedi. Emotion clouds our judgment. It’s best that he learn the ways of the Jedi -  and when he is older, he may make his own decision.” 

“Yes. I was tasked with bringing him to his own kind,” the Mandalorian’s modulator hides most of his voice, but the devastation radiates from him. He tilts his helmet down to the child.

Grogu, eyes shining, reaches up to touch Din’s helmet, expressing his feelings for the man who has protected and loved him.

“You have to go with the Jedi, pal,” Din murmurs, hating the words.

Grogu whimpers, his ears drooping, and with only a moment’s hesitation, Din begins to lift his helmet. 

Inhaling sharply, you move further behind the Mandalorian and drop your gaze. This moment is between Din Djarin and his kid.

_________________________________

“Ducked in there,” you tilt your chin at the seedy cantina door. 

Several members of the local crime syndicate stand outside smoking death sticks, the smoke spiraling up into the vibrant night air.

“You good?” Din asks, his hand reaching toward you protectively.

You wipe your lip free of blood, “Yeah, I should’ve seen it coming.”

“When we go in, we cir-”

“I know, Din,” you smile fondly at him. 

In the past year, you’ve completed plenty of bounty jobs with him. It was easy to use the same tactics on different targets, so you’ve become familiar with the Mandalorian’s strategies. And anyway, it made sense. Of course you would flank the quarry.

Din watches, not a little besotted, as you confidently walk into the business full of slimeballs. It always ached to let you go into danger, but that was why he spent hours each week pouring his knowledge and experience into you. You’ve always been capable, strong, and as ruthless as he is. Din follows you inside.

The thumping bass and flashing lights play with your eyesight. Unlike the Mandalorian in his enhanced helmet, your eyes were susceptible to any kind of trick or weakness. You squint slightly against the glaring lights. When you sweep the room, you catch sight of Din circling around the far side of the bar. He inclines his head at you, then disappears. 

One of the red strobe lights twists from the stage and into the crowd, and that’s your excuse for not seeing the quarry as it hurtles into you. They tackle you, taking you to the sticky cantina floor with a wheeze. The blue, humanoid woman lands another blow to your face before you overpower her, ripping her off you. You nimbly get to your feet, drawing your blaster. The woman grins wickedly from her seated position on the black floor, then she feints to the right.

“Stop. Stop moving,” you warn, the barrel of your blaster now pointed at her head. 

The pounding music makes the quarry’s voice near inaudible, but you hear her snarl, “I know about you. You’re a karking slavegirl. Where’s your master?”

Insults had run out their efficacy on you fifteen years ago, and this weak attempt is no different. You look bored. 

“Give me your wrists,” you indicate with your chin. And when the woman’s eyes dart to the exit, you shift on your feet, stating, “I don’t want to blast you.”

Suddenly noticing the scuffle, a stranger looks from your pointed blaster to your face and shouts, “Hey! No officers allowed.”

“Not Republic,” your eyes stay glued to the woman on the floor. “I’m -” 

Your sentence ends when the stranger - a large, Dyplotid with four eyes blinking simultaneously - wraps a massive hand around your blaster arm. You whirl, trying to break his hold, but he’s much too strong. Instead, he curls his arm around your throat and squeezes. Your eyes refocus as you watch the quarry sprint to the door. 

A man, his armor reflecting the rotating colored lights, lunges at the quarry, gripping her arm. Using her own momentum, he flips her onto the floor and snaps binders around her wrists. It’s then that he looks up to see why you had allowed her to get so far. 

Abandoning the quarry, Din strides powerfully forward, his steel gaze locked onto the Dyplotid, when its head jerks.

A hole burns through its arm, and the Dyplotid stumbles back, clutching and screaming at it. You let the blaster fall away from where you'd placed it against his arm. Shaking your head in annoyance, you look up at your partner. Din carefully, wordlessly, raises your chin, looking you over.

“Let’s just get her out of here,” you grouse. 

***

In the cockpit, while Din freezes the quarry, you begin the takeoff cycle. Grumbling under your breath, you mentally poke at yourself over your failure with the quarry. Muffled steps echo as Din climbs the ladder. 

“You did good,” Din quietly praises when he reaches the top.

He swivels the pilot’s chair you sit in around to face him. He knows you’re upset. Standing, imposing as always, he watches you duck your head in shame. 

“I shouldn’t have let him get so close. If I had been faster -” you stumble over your thoughts. “I’m a liability to you. I’m not a good partner if I get caught up like that.”

Din leans, his hand tilting your face upward again. 

“You are not the only one who gets into fights. What matters is that you get out of them. Which you did.” His thumb presses against your lips, and his voice turns suggestive. “Would you like me to make you feel better?”

His advising words will take root and grow, but his offer is one you can’t accept. Because he can see your distress, Din would be gentle and sweet, and you don’t believe you deserve that at the moment. 

“I don’t feel right about you taking care of me,” you admit. “I want you to be mad at me.”

Din’s beskar mask tilts in interest. He nods once. Your eyes drop to the grooved, durasteel floor, knowing he will leave you to your task. 

The Mandalorian pulls off his gloves slowly. He tosses them on the control panel behind you where they land with a dull thud. You look up at him - a question in your eyes. 

“Stand up,” his modulator orders. His chin tilts upward.

“Din -”

He leans forward a fraction, his body eclipsing all else.

“Stand."

A knot forms in your gut, and you obey him. He doesn’t back up, so you’re forced into his personal space. The Mandalorian’s hands slide underneath the bottom hem of your top, palms against your skin. His callouses leave a burning trail.

Din’s hands stop their advance on your ribcage. You know what he wants, so you lift your arms. His skin skates over yours as he rips your top over your head, leaving you exposed in his cockpit. Your eyes toss him a shy look, and Din feels something dark take over. 

He grips your upper arm and pushes you over to the side panel. Din turns you to face the exterior. His hot palm lands right at the top of your spine, and he bends you over the chair. Desire coils and pools where you want him most. Your hands grasp at the bottom edge of the side windscreen.

Thank the Maker Din landed on the outskirts.

Din shoves your pants down your thighs, grunting airily as he does so. One of his rough hands comes around to grope at your breast, lazily rubbing at your peaking nipple. Moderating his strength, his boot kicks your foot to the side, allowing him to fit closer.

You can hear the rustling of his flight suit, and you clench in anticipation. A rush of wetness dampens your thighs when he thrusts his velvet length against your folds. Encouraged by your arousal, he continues.

“You wanted this,” he gruffly warns not a second before he draws back and spears his cock inside you. 

From the outside of the Razor Crest, if someone stumbled past in the vast landscape, they would see your mouth agape, your body jolting, and the Mandalorian fisting your hair. They would see him slip a hand around your throat, thrusting you back onto him. 

But they wouldn't hear the rhythmic slapping, the duet of pleased and desperate sounds from two drunk voices.

Your mind is numb with the plunging feeling of the Mandalorian splitting you in two. Something heavy and metallic falls to the floor, rolling away. Then Din's scruff scrapes against your spine as he hunches over you, wantonly biting and sucking at your shoulder. 

His pace is intense, and if you close your eyes, hyperspace is passing through your eyelids. He grunts as you clench down on him, legs shaking. Your knees knock into the edge of the chair with each thrust. Filthy are the squelching sounds that your joining bodies make. 

"D'you still-" he groans when you arch, allowing him deeper. "You still want punishment?" 

It's not a real question. He was never going to deny you pleasure. This is as close as he can get to hurting you.

Din slips a hand between your legs, his fingers performing your favorite melody. You throw your head back, body locking as your orgasm builds. When the pressure shatters into bliss, your moans, your fluttering around him has Din fighting his own peak.

Arm barring your chest, his other hand cups your throat and his unveiled cheek presses against yours. You slam your eyes shut, wanting to experience every bit of his touch and ignore the temptation to look at him.

"Damn, you’re squeezing me s-" he mutters, but his words end in several rough groans as his cock pulses violently. 

Cheek to cheek, his lips hang open right next to yours. He pants, his cold chestplate stinging your back, as he releases himself. Din relishes the way you whimper in tandem with each of his spurts inside you.

He drops his forehead to your shoulder and brushes his lips along the bruised skin he finds there. The two of you stay motionless for a moment, basking in it. It’s one of the best experiences you’ve yet had with him, and you’re unsurprised he came so quickly considering you did as well.

Din allows his hands to linger - he skims your chest, your sides, then gently cups your ass as he pulls himself from you. The Mandalorian's sweet, unmoderated voice cuts the silent cockpit.

"Turn around.” 

Though he is uncovered, his request tells you that he's not intending on asking you anything, so you face him, eyes shut.

His soft lips pry yours open. He kisses you with sensual tenderness, as though he wasn't just ramming you against a window. His wide tongue slowly drags through your mouth, over and over, upending your sense of direction. Din's hands cradle your jaw, thumbs sliding over your cheeks. 

Tears spring up behind your eyes at his care. You drift toward him, craving his steadiness. When your naked chest touches his beskar, you shiver.

"Sorry," he remembers your state. 

Din lets you go and you wiggle your bottoms back up, head down. The Mandalorian crouches and picks up his helmet, replacing it. 

"You did well today. I am proud of you," Din's modulator lets you know you can open your eyes. “Do not argue with me.” 

He drops into the pilot's seat and finishes getting the Razor Crest ready.

You laugh, biting your lip. “No point,” you tease. “It’s only another thing I wouldn’t win.” 

The Mandalorian’s head swivels to you, and after a pause, he deadpans, “You didn’t learn much just now, did you?” 

You smirk at him. “You’ll have to explain it again.” 

***

The Crest drifts past an exploded star. Long had it burnt out, no cause for current concern. Din Djarin simply wanted you to see it. The gas and debris that hang in spacetime manifest in purples, blues, greens, and yellows. It’s incredible - unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Sitting in your usual chair, your lips are parted slightly in awe as you take it in.

The Mandalorian has seen it before, so he watches you instead. Something heavy presses on his chest, and he can’t quite put name to it. He feels as though he weighs as much as the karking ship he pilots. 

You make a comment to which he doesn’t respond, so you tear your eyes from the view outside to the view inside. He’s facing you, his shoulders hunched. 

“Din, what’s wrong?” You immediately push out of your chair and reach for him. 

Caressing his helmet, you frown, knowing something is brewing underneath. Sometimes, you hate that helmet. Though you know it as Din, and therefore love it for that reason, the human connection that it cuts him off from saddens you.

“Nothing is wrong,” he flatly asserts, though he’s trying to convince himself more than you.

You touch your forehead to his and he inhales sharply. You take his hands - blessedly ungloved - and settle them on your waist. 

“You miss the kid,” you state gently.

Din does not allow the stinging in his eyes to become tears. He grits his teeth, then opens his mouth to allow a pained sigh to escape. Din finally identifies the weight pressing on his chest. It’s a void. You and Grogu make up his heart, and with either of you missing, the emptiness makes itself known.

“Could we not go see him?” You murmur, drawing back to look at the Mandalorian.

You smile at the thought of Grogu’s excited coos, the way his ears would perk up at Din’s voice. 

The Mandalorian sits back in his chair, renewed by hope, “You're right. We should find him. Make sure the kid’s alright.”

_______________________________

Din Djarin found the location of the Jedi's training facility easily. All it took was tracking down an old Republic archive worker, bribing them to provide Grogu's implanted beacon code, and then finding a device capable of tracking such an outdated string of symbols. 

It took the Mandalorian less than two days. 

The new problem was that the Razor Crest suffered a hull puncture during an unforeseen meteor shower. Frustration and impatience line his back and bow his shoulders as he lands the Crest on the nearest populated planet. Repairs would take at least a day, and that was a day that could've been spent getting to the kid.

"This planet is in the same system as Charal. Where you dishonestly obtained a room for us."

You laugh, "I remember that planet for an entirely different reason."

The T-shaped, black slit turns to observe you. 

You oblige him with an explanation, "It was the first time you touched me." 

But Din was already smirking underneath his helmet.

"I remember."

***

Walking alongside and slightly behind the Mandalorian, you hide your grin at the way he parts a crowd. You watch as people eye him as a danger, and others eye him as an object of interest. For all his social isolation, he drew attention like a tractor beam with that swaggering confidence and gleaming beskar. 

And he was all yours. 

You wait a few steps away while Din trades credits for some type of food you’re unfamiliar with. The Twi’lek vendor actually bats her eyes at the Mandalorian. When he drops the credits in her hand, she stumbles over her words when his glove contacts her skin. From a distance, you grimace - whether in embarrassment for her or irritation on your part, you’re uncertain.

Seemingly oblivious to the Twi’lek’s distress, Din wordlessly rejoins you, touching your elbow to indicate his presence. It wasn't that he didn't notice the attention, it was that he didn't care. Though you never doubted the man raised on devotion and respect, it was a balm to your disquiet soul that you could trust him in every way imaginable. 

A few minutes later, he abruptly swivels his head to you, “I have something I need to do. I’ll find you.” 

The fingers on Din’s right hand twitch as though he wants to touch you, but something tells him not to. The Mandalorian could never be certain whose eyes were watching. Instead, he bows his helmet solemnly at you, and disappears down a narrow alley. 

Din had mentioned a task earlier, so his departure was expected; but now you had to face the thronging marketplace by yourself. The last time you were alone amongst a crowd, you were running for your life from a frothing bounty hunter on Niamos. 

While Din had bought food for the two of you, your goal is to get the little womp rat something. So, you straighten your shoulders and stroll down the busy venue. 

Your attention is fully focused on sorting through the unreadable languages, garish banners, and hot smells to find something that Grogu might like when the hair on the back of your neck rises. Swearing you felt a puff of air on your skin, you furtively search, but the milling crowd gives nothing away.

So many eyes and yet none of them seem to be looking at you. Continuing past several chrono traders, you slink down a peaceful side street. It’s shaded from the pinkish sun by balconies and overhangings. 

Forcing yourself to relax, you lean against the smooth, exterior metal wall and close your eyes. You let your mind wander back out into the mass of lifeforms, wondering who had gotten close enough to feel their breath. You try to absorb any shred of detail you can hear or remember.

Your eyes snap open when you realize, with a self-conscious scoff, that you’re imitating the way Grogu reaches out with his mind. But something is wrong. Something is coming. Angling your body to peek around the corner, your eyes frantically search the crowd.

Where is Din?

Before you can finish worrying about the Mandalorian, a hand slaps across your mouth, effectively silencing your startled yelp. Then another hand, cold, immutable metal, manages to snag both of your hands behind you. Thrashing, you jerk your head around, vainly hoping Din decided to play a cruel joke. Instead, a female cyborg grins maliciously down at you. 

You allow her to drag you away from the mass of innocent people, fighting convincingly the entire way. She smells like unwashed armpits and oil. It’s foul and you fight a gag as her arm winches your throat.

Once out of sight of innocent bystanders, you suddenly drop all of your body weight to your knees, and she toddles off-balance. Thrusting your shoulders forward, you throw her over you. She lands with a guh! as the wind is knocked from her. 

Able to assess the threat now, you take stock of her cybernetic left arm, waist, and left leg. Her right arm, right leg, chest, and most of her face are still flesh. The cyborg snarls at you and rolls to her hands and knees, preparing to spring at you, when you draw your blaster and fire from your hip. A move Din made you practice daily.

A pathetic, horrible sound issues from the woman as the blaster bolt burns through her right eye and she falls to the ground, smoking. 

***

As he struts back through the town, the Mandalorian weighs the small package in his hand with contentment. Though you had loved that beskar spear, the Armorer was right: it was far too dangerous a weapon, and it could serve a greater purpose. 

Din is thrilled with his deception. There hadn’t been any damages to the Razor Crest - well, not any that couldn’t wait a little while. Din simply needed a reason to land on this planet and find his Covert without you asking him a thousand questions. 

Now, his task is complete. Grogu will have something to keep him safe and remember Din by, and you’ll have… the Mandalorian’s smirk falters a little when his thoughts consider your reaction to what he had made for you. He rarely second guesses himself, if ever. But this is territory he never considered.

All at once, he notices that people seem nervous for a reason other than him; he can hear the hushed whispers between friends. Din’s keen ears latch on to the word ‘abducted.’ His heart rate kicks up.

He tucks the small package of gifts into the pocket behind his belt, and lengthens his stride. The Mandalorian flicks on his heat sensors, but there’s too many warm-blooded species swirling about, and he growls as he flicks it back off. 

To Din’s left, two booths set up to sell chronos are quickly packing their wares away; they look considerably more afraid than the rest of the crowd.

“What happened here?” Din demands of the closest shopkeeper, a Trandoshan. 

The chrono seller winces as a Mandalorian stalks toward him, and rapidly answers: “A girl was abducted. Right there -” he jerks his hand to the side, pointing at the alleyway next to his booth. 

“What did you see?” Din isn’t threatening the Trandoshan, but his quiet, forceful voice certainly sounds like it.

“I- I don’t want to get too inv-”

Din’s body language shifts ever so slightly. He cocks his head; and that’s all the Trandoshan needs to restart his sentence.

“Human girl. She was being dragged off by a karking cyborg. It was terrifying; I tried to help her but the thing was too big,” the giant lizard’s words flow so fast, they blur as though he took a shot of spotchka before answering.

Din lurches past the vendor before he finishes his second sentence. Though the Mandalorian has no proof you are the girl in question, the knot in his gut and the hollowness in his chest tell him all he needs to know. 

Heat sensors back on his viewscreen, Din follows the yellowing, fading trail. The tunnel-like road is utterly quiet; it’s clear it’s a residential street, but there isn’t a soul to be seen. 

The trail ends in an expansive lot. It’s a confusing tangle of heat signatures in the dust, and Din can’t make out exactly what happened. He switches the sensor off again and crouches to examine the footprints himself.

Someone had been dragged. Din looks up and to his right. A small ship idles on the far edge of the field. Scanning the ship, he identifies two lifeforms - at least one is female. The Mandalorian's footsteps are quick and quiet as he approaches the small-scale freighter. The boarding ramp is down, so he slips on board. 

At the far end of the cargo hold, in a pile of cargo hauling material, lies a female body. Din knows without further examination that it is not yours. Over the past year, Din Djarin had memorized every facet of you; he committed you to memory like each entry was a precious artifact. And this body is decidedly not yours. 

Din switches his heat sensor back on to look for the other lifeform, but a brutal blow to his ribs sends him on his side. Din scrambles to his feet and is shocked to be staring into the face of Con Macta. 

“Come to settle a score?” 

The Mandalorian goes to draw his blaster, but, from behind him, the arms of the female cyborg cinch around his neck, tightening rapidly. Too quickly for Din to react, Con Macta stabs through Din's flight suit and into his bicep with a syringe. Unconsciousness steals the Mandalorian.

***

The cockpit of the Razor Crest is cold, silent. 

Cara Dune’s blue face greets you with a grimace. 

“It’s good to see you, but not like this. I sent his chain code to the Razor Crest. And, hey,” she frowns. “I can be there in less than a cycle.” 

“In that time, I’ll have found him,” you insist. “Thank you for searching the Republic database." 

"Anything for you two,” she smiles grimly and the visage fades. 

You spin away from the fading hologram and begin powering up the Razor Crest's navicomputer. The hologram of the star system flickers to life in front of you. Two planets fill your vision, and on the planet adjacent to your current position, a small yellow dot blips. 

Slightly taken aback that Din is no longer on the same planet, you recover quickly. It doesn't take much for you to add up all the evidence. A cyborg attacked you and now Din is on Charal.

You bring up the entry log from that cyborg job a year ago. The data screen reads in Aurebesh: 

Con Macta - Stormtrooper, 607th Battalion - Missing/Killed in Action 1 ABY. 

You frown. Either the database had missed an important detail, or the female cyborg was on a revenge mission. Chewing on your lower lip, you’re finally thankful Din taught you how to fly.

***

Brought to wakefulness by searing voltage in his veins, Din's jaw muscles are forced taut by the current, preventing his pained groan from escaping. His entire body tenses painfully.

Laughing cruelly, Con Macta cuts off the switch on the dirty, steel wall. 

"Good afternoon, bounty hunter. Really didn’t think you’d be so easy to capture. I didn't even have to go looking for you. You thought your apprentice was on my ship, didn't you? Very touching, your affection for her." 

Din doesn’t reply, too busy catching his breath.

“I sent my own lady friend to snatch her up, but your rather wily apprentice almost killed her. Say hello, Venita.”

Venita saunters toward the containment field Din is suspended in and taunts, “Hello, Mandalorian. You really were a disappointment compared to your friend.” 

“You know, we never did find your real name. We found your apprentice’s, but yours seems to be kept in a secure section of Imperial files. Very interesting. And in that case, don’t worry about dying here. You’ll be going to meet them next. They pay top dollar for their bounties.”

The Mandalorian does not speak. Hanging as he was inside this energy field, there was little he could do. Whatever he’d been injected with still held him in a dazed consciousness. 

“You were all bravado when last I saw you, Mandalorian. What’s changed?” Macta goads. He flips the electricity on for a second, then cuts it again. “You don’t like this? This is what you forced me back to. My maker created me here, in this filthy lab, against my will. Poor stormtroopers. We’re all pulse-cannon fodder or failed experiments.”

Din once again does not reply. Nothing he could say would change the outcome, and he damn sure wasn’t going to give Con Macta any sense of satisfaction.

The cyborg huffs. “You’re far more boring than the last time we met. I guess I’ll have to find your apprentice. That will make you lively.” 

The Mandalorian forces every ounce of will he has into not reacting to that statement, but his sudden rigidity gives him away.

“I can find her, Con. Let me have another go,” Venita begs in a hiss.

The cyborg takes his demented friend by the arm, leading her out of the room. 

Din can just make out his answer: “We’ll both go. If she’d blasted your real eye, you’d be dead.” 

The Mandalorian growls with frustration. It’s essentially useless to struggle. Containment fields are made of pure energy. The control panel with the large, white power switch sits unhelpfully across the mid-size, gray room. 

The cyborg had yet to remove Din’s helmet, thank the Mythosaur; but Din is unable to reach the vision-changing settings, so when a small, dark shadow creeps in from the steel doorway, the Mandalorian squints to hurry its focus. The light from the containment field blinds him to much of what occurs outside its glow.

The shadow moves to the control panel, and Din loosens his muscles in preparation. Tensing would only make the spasming more painful. To his great shock, the blue energy field suspending him disappears and he falls to the ground with a clang. 

Groaning, still groggy and in pain, he unsteadily rises to his feet. They must’ve accidentally released him and now he had to fight. But as he continues to squint, a soft, anguished voice comes from the direction of the control panel.

“Din! Dammit, what did they do to you?” 

You hurry to him, sliding your shoulder underneath his to stand him up fully. 

“I’m alright. Injected me with something,” he shakes his head, trying to clear the cobwebs from his mind. The two of you move toward the exit. “How did you find me?” 

“I ran to the Razor Crest right after I was attacked. I had a bad feeling, so I holocalled Cara to give me your chain code. Can’t have been much more than half an hour behind you.” 

Underneath his helmet, Din’s eyebrows shoot upward. “You were smarter than I was,” he chuckles. 

“I was terrified,” you whisper.

His arm clutches you to his side and he rubs his thumb across your hip soothingly. 

Din releases you to retrieve his blaster from its place on a table. They hadn’t removed any of his other weapons; he supposes they didn’t deem it necessary. He feels a little insulted. 

Suddenly remembering, Din jerks his hand to the place he’d held yours and Grogu’s gifts. Empty. He growls under his breath. 

You peek around the open doorway out into the hall. Your options are left or right. Following the same way you came in, you go right. 

“Those two droids,” he says it like the slur it is to him, “went this way. Stay alert.”

Two blasters are pointed down the dark hallway as you and Din skirt the circular building. It was shaped like a moisture silo - round and high. You’d set the Razor Crest down a click to the west. All you needed to do was find the busted ventilation grate you’d entered through and sprint to the ship. 

In the poor light, you can’t see the object flying at you. A weight slams into your stomach, and you crumple to the floor. Unable to catch your breath, you try to duck out of the way when the gleam of a metal arm comes at your face. It stops mid-air with a dull sound, and you focus your eyes to see that the cyborg’s fist has been caught by Din’s hand. 

The mechanical woman rips her arm from his grip right as he tries to grab a better hold. She disappears into the darkness. You fire your blaster in her direction and the instantaneous red beams of light creepily illuminate the hallway. It’s too brief to confirm, but at the apex of the curve, two figures seem to be lurking. 

The Mandalorian is a protector; dividing his attention between you and the threat is as easy as breathing. He flips on his dark-vision, and with his other hand, he gently helps you stand. Slowly, you get to your feet, clutching your ribs.

“You okay?” His voice is clipped, worried and angry.

“Yes,” you groan. 

His world lights up a sickly green. The two antagonists are at the apex of the curve, believing themselves to be hidden and waiting in ambush. 

“For an ex-stormtrooper, he is extraordinarily unskilled in tactical matters,” Din whispers drily. 

The pain in your torso spasms when you snort a laugh under your breath. “Can we make it out alive before you start imparting your wisdom, O God of War?” 

The Mandalorian’s hand splays across your lower back in familiar affection. He keeps his eyes trained on the two cyborgs as they crouch in wait. 

“They’re setting a trap for us.”

“What do we do?”

“Walk into it."

“Are you still feeling that drug in your system?”

“Yes. Start firing when I do.”

Advancing on the hidden threat, you keep your blaster at shoulder’s height, waiting for Din’s cue. Blood red light casts the hallway into faint relief as the Mandalorian’s blaster repeatedly fires. Your blaster joins his, and the two of you continue approaching the now-dodging cyborgs. 

The female launches at you again, apparently very upset about her missing cybernetic eye. This time, with Din’s dark-vision, he sees it coming. The Mandalorian bumps into your blaster, preventing you from shooting him in the back, as he lunges in front of you. He catches the woman mid-air and brutally throws her to the ground. 

You poke out from behind him and fire another blast at the oncoming Con Macta. His yell changes in pitch when your shot burns through his left thigh. Limping, his charge is slowed considerably. 

In the split second you take to shoot at Con, the Mandalorian is kicked in the back by Venita. As she gets to her feet, Din twists and fires at her. His blast does not go through either eye, but through the center of her forehead. 

Con Macta’s roar echoes throughout the building. The mechanical mixes with whatever’s left of his humanity to form an utterly hair-raising lament. 

“Mandalorian, you’ll watch yours die for that.” 

The cyborg steps underneath an exterior grate, and in the faint, purplish light, you can see that he had undergone further modification after the Mandalorian had taken out his bounty. Before, his entire head was flesh, now only his eyes and mouth remain uncovered. His cheeks and forehead are plated in a tan, utilitarian metal. His thin upper lip snarls. 

“I also have this.” The cyborg pulls a fist-sized red and white bundle from a pouch on his hip. 

Din tenses beside you. 

“Let’s see what’s inside. I hadn’t gotten around to examining my spoils yet, but I’m curious what a minimalist Mandalorian could be carrying so dearly.” 

As the cyborg looks down to untie the material, the Mandalorian raises his weapon and pulls the trigger. Con Macta stumbles as the bolt hits him in the arm. The package drops to the steel floor with a muffled clink. 

He roars again, charging at the two of you. He dodges the Mandalorian’s blasts until finally he leaps, knocking Din to the ground. Unwilling to accidentally shoot Din, you try to get an angle on the twisting cyborg. Deciding that was no good, you finally just kick Macta’s partially-human head. 

The tortured, destroyed ex-stormtrooper cries out and wobbles to the side, giving the Mandalorian an opportunity. Still pinned, Din thwacks his right leg on the ground, firing a knee rocket directly into the cybernetic back of Con Macta.

Following the ear-splitting explosion, the cyborg delivers a groaning death rattle, and slowly collapses to the ground with a resounding crash. 

The Mandalorian hefts to his feet, and quickly walks to the small bundle lying on the dirty floor. He brushes it off absentmindedly, and turns to you. 

"You still okay?" 

Nodding, you move toward him. He holds out his hand, palm down, and jerks his head toward the exit.

__________________________________

Grogu sits on a yellow stone. His eyes are closed and his breathing is audibly shallow. His mind is focused on the incoming ship. The Jedi across from him can feel it, too. 

Luke Skywalker frowns with acceptance. The child had made its choice. 

***

“You’re very quiet,” you observe, hoping Din will tell you his mindset.

He doesn’t. The Mandalorian continues performing the landing cycle with rote movement, jostling slightly as the landing gear settles onto the gravel below.

“I can’t wait to see him,” you smile, peering out the glass, hoping for a glimpse of the kid. “His little face -” 

“I know.” 

You press your lips together in a knowledgeable smile. Din is anxious. 

***

The boarding ramp lowers, and you bounce once or twice on the balls of your feet. Beside you, Din is composed except for the fingers on his right hand. As the two of you strut down the ramp, a figure in form-fitting black materializes from the treeline. 

“Hello. I was expecting you sooner, actually.” Luke smiles. “You really do care for the child to have denied yourself for so long.” 

The tall grass sways for a second before Grogu flips out and onto the gravel path. 

“Patu!” The child begins waddling toward the Mandalorian.

Din strides forward and crouches to one knee, taking the kid into his hands. 

“Hey, buddy. I missed you, too.” 

Tears threaten to fall from your eyes at the blatant love in Din’s voice. Grogu reaches for the Mandalorian’s helmet, but Din does not remove it this time. He half-turns, and Grogu’s attention shifts. His childish hand raises at you, cooing. 

Nearly jogging to them, you allow three stubby fingers to grasp your thumb. Pressing a kiss to his wrinkly head, you murmur an affectionate greeting. Grogu begins to purr.

“Is he happy here? Is his training going well?” Din asks the Jedi. 

“Happy enough. But he is distracted. I believe Grogu has made his decision.” 

Your brow furrows, “What decision?” 

“Grogu has learned all he will from me. I know his feelings, sense his thoughts. They remain with his father. A life dedicated to the Jedi Order is not his path.” 

“You’re saying that you won’t train him anymore?” You clarify, shocked.

“Grogu has seen both of his choices and made his decision. That decision is to return to you.” 

Though you can’t see his face, your eyes turn up to the Mandalorian anyway. Your imagination serves you well enough. His eyes are surely glassy, and a soft, disbelieving smile is certainly spreading across his face. 

Luke bows slightly, and turns away, walking down the path with his hands folded behind his back. In the distance, a stone hut is being built by spidery droids. You watch him go for a moment in curiosity before returning your attention to the two in front of you. 

Din’s helmet tips down to look at the child. “You’re coming with us?” The hope in his voice confirms your picture of his expression. 

Still aggressively purring, Grogu burrows down into the crook of Din’s arm. 

The T-shaped slit tilts up to you, and you wish you had the ability to freeze the image. The Mandalorian contentedly holding his green child, looking at you with what you're sure is pure happiness.

"Let's go, then," you grin. 

_________________________

Deciding that a reunion could be better savored while resting on a peaceful planet, the Mandalorian lands the Razor Crest. Gentle hills of sand roll in every direction, and, once outside the ship, the sound of ebbing water can be heard.

"This is Illen. The entire surface is made of small islands. The waterline is on the other side of that dune," Din points his chin upward. 

"Is it late in the day's cycle?" You wonder, referring to the soft, golden light that illuminates the planet.

"The sun does not set here." 

You raise your eyebrows in appreciation, "It's beautiful." 

Din kneels, laughing under his breath at Grogu's immediate fascination with the sand. 

"Kid, I have something for you." 

Grogu's ears flop slightly when he looks all the way up at Din. He tilts his head in curiosity. 

The Mandalorian unwraps the little bundle he'd carried with him and pulls out a child-sized chainmail shift. 

"This is yours by right, Grogu. You are a Mandalorian foundling, and part of this clan." 

The child seems to understand the gift he's being given. His eyes look upon his father with adoration, and his hand touches the beskar chainmail with respect. 

***

Several hours later, Grogu begins to slow his excitement. His tiny mouth opens wide showing a range of even tinier teeth as he yawns. 

Grogu plops down in the sand, grabbing fistfuls and letting it trickle through his fingers. Miniature crustaceans with towering, swirly shells scuttle by, fascinating the kid as he slowly starts to drift to sleep. 

"He'll be busy for a while," the Mandalorian nods his head toward the ridgeline. 

Traipsing through the soft, sifting sand makes your journey to the top of the dune longer than usual, but when you join Din at the top, your breath catches. 

"Woah," you blink, ensuring your eyes aren't lying to you. 

Gentle waves lap at the silky white sand. The ocean is a vibrant blue, contrasting beautifully with the golden tint of the sky. Purple and yellow clouds dot the horizon. The burning sun casts yours and Din's shadows far behind you. 

Din gallantly holds your hand as the two of you trudge down the dune, stopping several paces from the water. 

"I have something for you, too."

Tearing yourself away from the natural world, you turn to look at your own. 

"What?" 

Din's thumb and forefinger dig into his pocket, and he fishes out a metal pin shaped like a Mudhorn. 

"You are also part of this clan, if you so wish. This does not bind you in any way, however," he assures. 

You smile warmly and raise your palm for him to drop the pin onto. It's even lighter than it looks. 

"Being bound to this clan is all I want," you shake your head and pin the object to your shirt. Your cheek twitches up into a lopsided smile at him. 

The Mandalorian simply stares at you for a breath, enjoying the moment.

Reluctantly, he starts to speak. “While I am reminded of it: I did have something I wanted to teach you,” he unhooks his real binders from behind him. "You are going to learn how to get out of these.” 

Your shoulders fall and your face is unmistakably wary. “Seriously? Can’t we have a single day without some type of exercise?”

Real binders represent a litany of bad memories. If you can avoid this, you will.

"No. And don't be afraid. You trust me." 

He says it as though it's a fact. And you realize that it is. The bond of trust between the two of you hasn't been up for debate in a very long time. He has your best interest at heart. Always.

The Mandalorian clasps the thick metal around his own wrists, and to your immense shock, a shadow in your mind whispers something excitingly foul. 

“When you’re…” Din’s words trail off when he notices something. The blank face of the beskar helmet tilts. “Your heart is racing.”

"It's not," you lie.

"I’ll get you out if you’re unable to break them. You need to learn how to do this." 

Din worries that your past might be causing you to fear. It was, but a more insidious idea has taken root.

"No, I know. I believe you."

Din's shoulders tense, his bound hands folded in front of him. "Then why is your heat signature rising?" 

The breeze from the sea is cool, and the sun is at a perfect place in the sky to allow for a comfortable amount of warmth. Trying to understand, the Mandalorian watches as your cheeks flush, and it finally strikes him that you're embarrassed.

"This -" he pauses, truth dawning on him. "You like this, don't you?" He raises his hands.

You bite the inside of your cheek and look at the shifting ground beneath your feet. 

"I'm sorry. I don't know why." 

Din considers that for a moment. It wasn't hard to understand. A lifetime of servitude and bondage, you might enjoy being on the other side of it. 

The Mandalorian shifts his body, his knee cocking. “If you win today, I'll see what I can do." 

Your eyes widen, nerves sparking already at his voice. Then you frown. 

"But I never win," you retort. 

Din shrugs his shoulders. 

You take a deep breath and roll your eyes, "Alright, well. Show me how." 

The Mandalorian twists one of his hands, working against one of the hinges. One edge of the hinge springs up. Then, Din raises his hands above his head and jerks them down and apart with all his strength, popping the hinge. One cuff remains, but his hands are no longer constrained together.

You raise your eyebrows, impressed. 

"These are a low-grade set. You won't be able to break free of the high-end binders; unless you pick their lock," he explains. "But I want you to know how to do this." 

Din resets the hinge, and holds out his hand for you to take them. As your fingers close around the binders, however, the Mandalorian sweeps your leg out from underneath you. 

Instinct takes over, and, though you're laughing at the change in plan, you duck into a recovering move to the side, giving yourself space from him. 

He nods at you, and the fight is on. Binders still in your hand, you feint to his left. Din actually reacts, so you take advantage and charge his right. 

You land a blow to his side, then grab his arm and try to set him off-balance. From the modulator, you hear him breathily laugh at your pathetic effort. He crouches and whirls you off him, sending you down onto the sand. 

Scrambling onto your feet, you're laughing too hard to focus. Even without a weapon, his strength was such a formidable opponent that you'd never win. 

"You can do better.”

"I can't," you snort. "Din, you're as broad as an X-wing." 

He gestures like So what?

"Try again," he demands, folding his hands cockily. 

Huffing, you narrow your eyes, looking for some kind of misstep. But he's just standing there - unimpressed as a karking Republic officer. Eventually, you decide on trickery; that seemed to work before. 

Feinting again, Din expects you to go to the opposite side like you did last time, so he twists a little to that direction. But then you continue through on your "feinted" movement, launching at him. You come at him from below this time, grabbing and pushing at his waist, and as he bends, your leg swipes out his knee. 

He grunts, rotating and falling onto his back, and you go down with him, arms still around his waist. 

Din takes the opportunity, while your ankle is awkwardly underneath his knee, to wrestle on top of you. He's chuckling under his breath, clearly enjoying this. 

As Din supports himself above you, you knock your elbow into the crook of his arm, causing it to give out and his body to drop to one side. He grips your waist as you roll and force him onto his back once more. A click resounds between you.

"Stop doing that," he growls at your cheap shots on his joints.

As you straddle him, he hears a second click. 

The Mandalorian looks down now at his hands where they lie against your stomach. Binders lock his wrists in place. The black slit on his helmet considers you with a sigh. 

"Well done,” his modulator conveys his flat, raspy tone. “I concede." 

Your eyebrows draw together, mouth agape, and you place your hands on his breastplate for stability. 

"You can't concede a fight you lost." 

"I just showed you I can break out of these, did I not?" 

"That doesn't negate my win." 

Din huffs dramatically. The motion tenses his abs underneath you. Once again, you’re tempted by the way he looks right now, bound and pinned underneath you. Heat begins to pool where you sit astride him. 

Suddenly, the Mandalorian lurches upward, looping his bound arms over your head and around your waist. He shifts on the sand until he's sitting up with you in his lap, your legs still sprawled around his waist.

"Can you take this off for me?" His gravelly voice asks. "My hands seem to be tied up."

There comes a lurch in your stomach that has very little to do with your position around him.

"The helmet?" You whisper.

"Yes, the helmet." 

"Din, are you sure? Shouldn’t you -”

“I think it is fitting. You won and I’ve already made my decision. You make yours.” 

Reverently, you place your hands on either side of his beskar face. Your fingers curl around the concave shapes that resemble cheek bones. A third Death Star could splash down into the ocean and you'd only know when the tsunami engulfed you. The weight of the moment is almost too much to bear. 

The sharp edge of the helmet crests the top of his head and short, wavy, brown locks fall away from the interior. You set the helmet down beside him, and, with the gravitational pull he has on you, you can’t stop yourself from touching his face.

His face.

Huge, sensitive brown eyes look up at you, reading your reaction. His full lips pout in a way that forces you to stutter over them several times in your exploration. You’re surprised at how easy he is to read, and for a moment you believe it’s because of how well you know him, and that is much of it. But then you understand. A life behind a mask meant that he never learned to hide his expressions. 

You press a gentle kiss to his angular nose; to the patch of missing hair on his jaw, oddly shaped like a heart; and finally to those unfair lips. Your hands cradle his jaw as you press your kisses, and he sighs underneath your touch. 

The Mandalorian is beautiful underneath beskar and bone. 

This is the first time Din has seen you without his helmet, and the weight of his gaze as it travels across your face, down your throat, and back up to your lips sets your already-taut nerves ablaze. The knot in your stomach has yet to loosen; instead, Din only twists it tighter. 

Taking a liberty, you peck him on the lips shyly, drawing back almost immediately. The corner of his mouth turns upward ever so slightly and his hooded eyes pin you with a look full of deep admiration.

When you pull back, your eyes open to the true intimacy of the moment. The Mandalorian could not show you any more blatantly that he cares, that he’s yours. Bound and unhelmed under you, Din is still in control. At any moment he could break his bonds, but he chooses not to. You take a shaky breath, then surge into him again. This time, however, your lips slot between his with heated fervor. 

He groans into your mouth, crushing you to him. Din reclines a few degrees onto the sand dune behind, allowing you a better position on him. Your sounds become more desperate, and Din breaks the kiss.

“Take this off,” he indicates his chestplate. 

His eyes are hooded and completely on board with this new dynamic, so you comply. You bite your lip, trying not to ogle, as you carefully divest the Mandalorian of his armor. The illusion of control was yours, but he always held the power. Him choosing not to use it makes your blood boil. 

When his armor is lovingly placed to the side, abandoned in the daylight, you run your hands up his chest over his flight suit. Without waiting for instruction, you unfasten it. Quietly he watches you, his arms still around your hips, and his breathing grows shallow. 

You pull open his flight suit and duck to press open mouth kisses along his chest. Sparse, dark hairs curl in the center, tickling your cheeks and lips as you move.

Din groans through his nose, his eyes closing above you. At the apex of your thighs, his length twitches and thickens. You kiss along his collarbone, encouraged by his faint sounds, then suck a biting kiss on his tense neck. 

A wrecked groan rips from his mouth, and his hands press into your back, egging you on. Your hips buck of their own free will as his arousal becomes hot and hard between you. His eyes roll closed when you drag along him just right, and the sight of his pleased face soaks your underwear. 

“You going to run the whole show?” He murmurs. “Or would you like me to -”

Before he’s finished speaking, you retrieve the thin key for his binders, unlocking them. Pulling off his gloves and tossing the binders into the sand, he immediately skates his hands underneath your shirt, tugging it off you. When Din tosses it away, his eyes shamelessly follow his hands as they explore.

He suddenly sits forward, his arms cradling your back, and he sweeps you underneath him. His knee spreads your legs, so it’s really his own fault when your drenched, needy core rides his thigh. Looking directly into the Mandalorian’s soft eyes, you whimper; his eyes darken further, and he roughly shuffles your pants down. 

Your hands fumble with the rest of his flight suit, but he shrugs out of the sleeves, tying them around his waist. He opens the codpiece area and your eyes widen. It’s not the first time you’ve had sex with him in the daylight, but those times had always been from behind. Din’s hands are already large, and yet his cock makes them look smaller. The memory of it inside you is enough to make you arch into him.

Your arms reach for his neck, and he bows over you, tenderly kissing between your breasts. He makes his way to your throat before he returns the favor, sucking a bruise into the crook of your neck. Din’s heavy erection settles against your thigh, and it throbs when you moan.

“Stop teasing,” you beg breathlessly. 

“I’m not teasing. I am enjoying this,” Din says honestly. 

“I really need you,” you take his face in your hands, pulling him into a desperate kiss. 

The Mandalorian takes the hint. He groans; his hands grip your waist, pinning you into the sand. One hand abandons its post to drag his length through your folds, coating himself in your arousal. Brown eyes bore into yours as he lines up and, with a rough sigh, nestles the head of his cock inside you. The Mandalorian breaks eye contact to look down and grab the underside of your knee. He throws your leg up over his waist, maintaining his hold, and inch-by-inch, buries himself in your tight heat. 

Watching him enter you has you teetering on the edge of an early orgasm. His eyebrows draw together and his full lips part slightly. His chin tips upward with pride when you cry yes, and his heavily-lidded eyes blaze with lust. 

Adjusting to his size is simple when he’s driven you to the point of an orgasm just from insertion. You wait for him to move, but he doesn’t. Instead, he kisses you without agenda. You relax into him, letting him lead. He said he was enjoying this, and the more you touch him, the more you agree. 

Curling your hands in his dark brown waves, you drift with the roll of his tongue and his lips. His slow sensuality seems to turn him on even more. You whine each time the Mandalorian throbs inside your body, and each time it sets your heart racing. 

Eventually, when your body shakes with anticipation and sheer want, he has mercy on you. His hand leaves your knee, sliding down your thigh and between your two bodies. His thumb rubs smooth circles over your sensitive bud and you tighten around him immediately. 

Whining, muscles stiffening, you lean away from his lips just to breathe, when his low, crisp voice asks earnestly, “Will you come on me like this?” 

It’s the missing piece. It whips through you like a wildfire, and you bear down on his cock. He groans in his throat, enraptured, as you shake beneath him. Din takes advantage of the moment, surging forward to claim your lips. 

Din drags his length out along your walls, loving your overstimulated expressions. Then, he reseats himself in a single motion, sending your body forward in the sand. You cry out, begging him for more.

The Mandalorian thrusts into you, replacing his hand around your knee and using it as leverage to please you deeper. His muscular arm settles near your face for balance. Burying you in the sand, his warm body pressing into you from above and inside, the feeling of bliss sinks into your very marrow. 

Grunting, his lips lose their steady rhythm on your mouth, insteading hanging above you. Sweat shines on his forehead, his brown hair curls in the same place, and he looks at you with such admiration that you can’t stop yourself from cupping his face between your hands, kissing and worshiping every part of him you can reach. 

Shaking in his arms, he rides it out with you, breathing rapidly into one another. Sand sticks to the both of you where you’ve perspired. Din leans his forehead against yours, whispering his affection. He kisses your nose, then carefully removes himself from your body. 

Your second orgasm sneaks up on you. Din loops an arm around your back, pulling your chest flush with his while he works himself into you, grunting as his aching member begins to empty itself. The coase hairs between you tangle, acting as friction. The thrusting of his body nudges your clit, and the powerful shuddering of his cock in your overstimulated channel forces you right over the cliff. 

You lie there for a moment, basking in it all. 

“I’m too dirty to put my clothes back on,” you laugh. 

“I am, too.” Din agrees. 

He stands, having tucked himself back in his black flight suit. His upper torso is still uncovered, though, and you stare. 

The Mandalorian holds out his hand and you take it without hesitation. He helps you stand, then begins to undress himself further, not wanting his knee rockets and boots to get waterlogged.

 “You’re… going to bathe with me?” Your lips curve into a coy smile.

“Is that not obvious?” He responds drily, chucking a boot onto the beach. 

“I’m not going to keep my hands to myself,” you warn in a whisper.

“Neither will I,” the Mandalorian promises. 

_________________________________

Taglist:

@morks-watermelon @leithatnight @sexygaypalpatine @leeeesahhh @taro-666 @bitter-sweet-slut @cockscombkingdom

[randombrambles]

Okay...going to wade into the Sabezra discussion. May the flying spaghetti monster in sky have mercy on my soul...

I guess you could call me a "causal viewer" because, despite being a life long Star Wars fan, I'd never watched an episode of Rebels before watching Ahsoka. I just never got around to it and I've only watched a handful of eps of The Clone Wars too. But anyway once I started Ahsoka I was like "this show will clearly make more sense if I watch Rebels" so I started. I'm almost done season 3 of Rebels as of writing this post. And really loving Rebels btw. Part of me of like "why didn't I watch this earlier?" but on the other hand I don't have to wait for the next episode and I know the major spoilers already so I'm not going to get the rug yanked out from under me.

So back to Ahsoka and Sabezra...the big questions. Did I see the romance "coding" (not sure I agree "coding" is the right word but whatever, that's semantics) in Ahsoka? Yes. Sabine's actions definitely come across as her being in love with Ezra to me. That said I can also see the platonic angle, especially after having watched some of Rebels, so I'm not going to tell anyone they are wrong for viewing Sabine and Ezra's relationship as platonic. These things are subjective and open to interpretation until anything definitively romantic or definitively not romantic happens on screen. And at this point nothing definitive has happened either way on screen. Nobody has been proven right and nobody has been proven wrong yet. Sabezra is basically schrodinger's cat right now.

Next how did I interpret the "like a sister" line in Ezra's holo. Um...full disclosure the first time I viewed that scene I didn't even register that he'd said she was "like a sister" to him. I'd never even seen Rebels at that point so I didn't know Ezra yet. So as a causal viewer my take away from that scene was Ezra meant a lot to Sabine and Sabine meant a lot to Ezra. And I'd be wiling to bet that that was the takeaway for most causal viewers.

So on rewatch do I think the "like a sister" line means that Ezra truly sees Sabine as a sister? No. On rewatch, paying close attention to the body language, and after having watched some Rebels, I think Ezra is both struggling to find the words to tell Sabine how important she is to him and telling her what he thinks she needs to hear in that moment. The problem is that in English we don't have a word to describe someone isn't technically family but who isn't a lover either but who's also way more than "just" a friend. Sister is the best word Ezra can come up with in that moment but you can tell from his awkward body language and his literal scoff as soon as he says it that its not the right word. And yeah I think Ezra thinks that Sabine sees him as a brother so he tells her what he thinks she wants to hear right before he heads of on what very well could have been a suicide mission.

Do I think Sabezra is going to be made canon on Tuesday's final episode of Ahsoka (of season 1 at least). No, but hold on nobody panic!!! I also don't think that means Sabezra is dead in the water either. And frankly I'm kind of mystified as to why Sabezra shippers seem to think that the next episode is make or break for Sabezra when its clearly not? If there isn't a love declaration or a kiss or both (which is what I'm assuming people would interpret can them being made canon) its not like either Sabine or Ezra are going to marry someone else on Tuesday either. And since much of Ahsoka has been set up, meaning not much is actually going to get resolved in the next ep (Thrawn hasn't even left Perida[?] yet! I fear we are ending on a cliff hanger), we'll be seeing Sabine and Ezra again. There's no rush for them to get together romantically (and I know that's hard to hear for people who've been shipping for years but its true).

And further to the "there's no rush" point I actually have to say I that I think its WAY too soon for anything definitively romantic to happen between Ezra and Sabine yet (and again I get how hard that is for those who've been shipping them for a long time). And I say that as both a "casual viewer" and someone who's also watched a good chunk of Rebels now. For the causal viewer who hasn't watched Rebels, which is probably a big chunk of the audience for Ahsoka, they barely know Sabine, have just met Ezra and have only seen them interacting for ONE episode and don't know any of their history. A kiss or a love declaration would seem out of the blue at this point I think. And as someone who's getting into Rebels I still think its too soon. While I agree that Sabine is very likely in love with Ezra I don't think she's admitted to herself yet (that's why Baylan used the word family when he was getting her to hand over the map thingy imho) no way is she ready to tell HIM. And as for Ezra...dude is clueless that Sabine might might have non platonic feelings for him so no way is he going to risk ruining their friendship by blurting out that he's in love with her. And not only that they've been separated for 10 YEARS ffs. They need to get to know each other again before anything romantic can happen, again imho. I want Sabezra to become canon but I want it done WELL. Sabezra is a friends to lovers ship, they are still firmly in the friends stage right now, it needs to be a sloooooow burn.

And finally do I think Sabezra will become canon? Honestly...I don't know. I'd like it to, it would be really nice to have a non problematic ship, especially after the sequel trilogy robbed us of FinnRey and tried to force freaking r*ylo. But I think Filoni and the other powers that be over at DLF (he is NOT the sole person calling the shots here, keep that in mind everyone) are probably testing the waters right now and waiting to see what the audience reactions are like before they make any decisions. I'd be wiling to bet that by the end of Tuesday's episode the door will be left wide open for pretty much anything to happening shipping wise. So we'll just have to wait and see. Time will tell, it always does.

[badass-queer-couples-battle]

Propaganda:

For Vanoe: "vanitas promised his canon love interest, as a romantic gesture, that if she started to become a monster, he would kill her so she wouldn't have to suffer. and then later when discussing how vanitas will eventually turn into a monster himself, he said he wants noe to kill him when that time comes. pretty yuri. also i'm a lesbian and i like them"

"Idk they have such a homoerotic shoujo manga dynamic but they're guys. Or maybe not that much but you gotta admit this would be exquisite yuri if they were girls. Noé the gothic romance heroine etc etc"

For Wenzhou: "Basically in their family unit Wen Kexing is the wife but Zhou Zishu is the mom. Also there are lots of genderbends of them around but the best ones are those where Wen Kexing goes super hard on femme but Zhou Zishu deadass has the same personality and appearance - like shoutout to those artists/writers u r the real ones. Also lesbian Zishu still being called "husband" by Wen Kexing, mwah chef's kiss! He would SO be a butch."

"Wen Kexing is compared to a wife twice in the show and at least once in the book iirc. Canon malewife + wears red eyeshadow and rocks a red robe in his Ghost Valley Master getup + his husband is an emo assassin, they are so incredibly yuri even if they're guys"

For Ineffable Husbands: "Well due to neil mentioning that they was plans for a fem presenting 1960s scene of the two of them that never ended up happening, there's a lot of fanart of that. Plus, they are an angel and a demon, and both technically don't follow the gender rules of humans and many other species on earth, so while they do present very masculine throughout the show, they could be any gender and therefore they seem very fitting for this.(I do apologize as I don't quite understand what guy Yuri is despite your definition so I am guessing and have no clue if they count."

"Looks like m/m on first glance but they don't actually really have gender and Crowley dresses as a woman for a good few years canonically"

"theyre male presenting in the show but they dont really have gender so they could be wlw if they wanted to"

"While both characters spend most of their time presenting as male, they are supernatural beings without any real sex or gender. Crowley appears as a woman multiple times, and one scrapped scene included both Aziriphale and Crowley as women in the 1960s. Additionally, it’s very common to find “Ineffable Wives” fanworks, with both characters appearing as women. As well as having been an immensely popular fandom ship for many years, it has been confirmed that Aziriphale and Crowley are canonically in love with each other."

"Regularly turned into women in fanart. Both Aziraphale and Crowley are incredibly gender. They have been together in some sort of way for 6000 years. Heavy yearning. Cringefail. Divorced and married at the same time. Literally an angel and a demon. What more could you want?"

"theyre literally genderless and can be anything ever!!!"

"Their genders are ineffable and they have hopelessly pined for centuries"

[rowenablade]

“You worship the sun, but you keep feeding the dark.”

Thoughts on Ed, Izzy and Miscommunication.

“Drowning in the Sound” by Amanda Palmer is not on my list of go-to Blackhands songs, but that line above sums up Izzy so well for me, and a comment on my most recent fic update got me thinking about one of the more controversial lines from the finale.

“I fed your darkness.”

First things first: I'm not a canyonite, but I do unapologetically love Izzy as a character and do not buy into the narrative that he was an abusive manipulator and Ed was a helpless victim. If that makes you decide that I'm a dumbass, feel free to scroll on past. You're not gonna like the rest of this post.

We good? Okay.

So I know a lot of people hated that line and that scene in general, for a lot of reasons I won't get into here, but I wasn't one of them. While I don't agree with the Izzy=Abusive Manipulator takes, I also don't agree with the interpretation that Izzy was 100% the victim and Ed was a monstrous abuser. To me, their relationship was always a complicated, messy arrangement between two deeply flawed people, with far too many unspoken assumptions at its core. And one of the things that made it so fascinating for me was Izzy's ability to harm Ed when he thought he was helping him.

Look. I fully believe that at one point in time, these two loved each other. By the time we meet them in canon, the foundation of their relationship has rotted, but they are both self-actualized enough to leave a situation if it truly never made them happy.

That doesn't mean I think they were ever explicitly a romantic couple, or ever physically intimate (I actually think that never happened in canon.) But they loved each other once, and tried to show each other that love, and they are both so. Fucking. Bad at it. Or at least, they're bad at understanding how the other interprets the ways they say "I love you."

Take Ed. Yes, he uses a lot of physical touch, but I think Ed's truest way of expressing affection is inviting someone else to play with him. That's why he falls so hard for Stede- he's the playmate Ed never had, the one person who's always ready to give him a "Yes, and." And we see this in his interactions with Izzy in s1e4- calling Izzy to check out things he thinks are cool, trying to get him talking about the shape of the clouds. He's inviting Izzy to play with him, and it's going completely over Izzy's head, because Izzy doesn't want to play! He's at work! Now's not the time, Edward! But that's the thing- they're Blackbeard and Izzy Hands. They're never not at work. And that's what causes Ed's despair and Izzy's frustration to build, because they don't know how to interact with each other outside the context of their jobs.

So what looks like love, to Izzy?

My guess? Bonnie & Clyde. Natural Born Killers. Thelma & Louise. Us against the world, baby. Life is cruel and short, and ends violently, but at least we've got each other. We don't get info about Izzy's background, but his interactions with Ed vs. everyone else, and especially his possessiveness of Edward behind the Blackbeard persona, suggests a man for whom personal relationships are Serious Business. It's not about fun. It's about survival.

I think to Izzy, being someone's only safe person to be around, being the only two people in the world who understand each other, being constantly under threat and prepared to kill to protect one another, is heart-stoppingly romantic.

But it's not romantic for Ed at all. It's terrifying.

Ed's worried he's unlovable. He's worried he's a monster deep down. It's not going to make him feel safe, to be told that there's only one person in the world who really gets him. It's going to feel terribly isolating, and on top of that, it feels so serious. Ed doesn't want a relationship rooted in violence- he grew up around that, and it destroyed his family.

And Izzy has no idea.

He doesn't know about any of Ed's baggage with his father, or the self-esteem issues that make him worry he's unlovable. He doesn't know how alone it makes Ed feel to be told there's no one like him, even in the context of a compliment ("the most brilliant sailor I had ever met") or how triggering it would be to watch one person he loves hurt another (how could Ed not have been thinking of his parents during the duel scene?)

I think a lot of people assume that when Izzy says "I fed your darkness," he's referring to the "namby pamby in a silk gown" scene. But that was Izzy in a state of near-panic, desperate to say something that would get Ed to take him seriously, and I don't think that's what their relationship normally looked like.

I think Izzy fed Ed's darkness "for years" by telling him, through words or actions, that there was only ever the two of them, that they couldn't trust anybody else, that one of them would die defending the other.

"I fed your darkness" was Izzy realizing that to Ed, that didn't sound like, "I love you." It sounded like, "Without me, you're completely alone." And being alone is the thing that frightens Ed the most.

[moongothic]

Tbh I wanna see crocodile fight someone so we can see how strong he is because the last time he’s gotten in a real fight was in marineford. Does crocodile have haki? Does he need it at all to survive the new world? Like with most of the relevant pirates knowing haki, retroactively or otherwise, it’s kinda hard to gauge what he’s capable of

Anon I am so sorry I'm gonna go slightly off-topic/become deranged because I've been thinking about writing a whole ass post about this very subject and now you just gave me an excuse to word vomit incoherently instead. So I'm just gonna do that. I'm so sorry

(Hey won't you look at that I actually came back and edited this so it's vaguely legible and there's like a proper point to my thesis lmao)

Also I am. So sorry. For how obscenely long this got. Holy shit I have no idea how this happened I am so sorry

I can not put into words just how badly I want to see this man have an actual, proper 1-v-1 fight with someone. Oda, for the love of god let him fuck up someone, please, I c̵͍͛r̶̢͠a̴͕̾v̷̠͆ḛ̶̐ ̸̤͝t̷̟̋h̷̳̓ḙ̵̀ ̷̱͌b̶͓͑l̸̦̚ô̶̠ȯ̸͇d̴̲̕

No for real though, the one, true, proper 1v1 we ever saw Crocodile have WAS with fucking Luffy and like, to be fair they did fight three times, but still, during Summit War? Sure we see him exchange a few blows but it's never a proper 1v1 because we keep on cutting from one thing to another and the opponents keep on changing etc. So there was no time for a proper battle with anyone

So out of principle alone I want to see him have a proper fight with someone (who isn't a Strawhat preferably) at least once before the series ends (though honestly if we could have more than just one fight scene with Crocodile I would not complain at all, but I might be asking too much at that point)

But also yes. I want to know Croc's actual Power Level in the story right now (and I don't mean that in a powerscaling-kinda way, just in a "I want my husband to look cool because it's what he deserves" kinda way)

Like. The Crocodile we've seen in the past absolutely under no circumstances deserves the fucking unit of a bounty he has on his head right now. And I mean, to be fair Buggy doesn't deserve his gigantic bounty either, canonically the numbers don't matter or mean THAT MUCH-- They just reflect what the WG thinks a person is worth, not the true level of threat the person actually poses But also. Croc's bounty has literally gotten like 24 times bigger from his OG pre-Shichibukai era bounty. To be fair, according to trivia his OG bounty would've at least doubled had the WG known about Baroque Works, but his current bounty would still be like 12 times bigger than before. And god fucking knows Crocodile does not fucking deserve a bounty this fucking big if he hasn't gotten any more powerful since Alabasta. No amount of hanging around with Mihawk and running evil organizations should beef up his bounty that much

So surely, he must've gotten more powerful since we last saw him action, right? Surely? Somehow?

But indeed, how?

And that's where we kinda get to the interesting part, don't we? We have no idea what Croc's been up to for the past two years. Like whatever he's been doing, surely it's been better than spending a decade sitting on his ass and barely ever lifting a muscle when overpowering rando pirates attacking Alabasta with his Logia powers, right. Like surely being in the New World alone would be enough to make him break a sweat for a change

But then like, the only two times we have seen Croc post-timeskip (pre-Cross Guild) he has been just sitting around reading the news (to be fair, the scenes were also about him catching the news about Luffy, it's not like he can't do anything else outside of those scenes). So like. I feel kind of conflicted, like on one hand to get stronger then surely he must've been working out or something. But also I do kind of mentally associate Training Arcs with much younger characters, and Crocodile is quite middle aged, like is he even allowed to go through a training arc anymore?? Especially when he's like a such a Proper Gentleman, it's so hard to imagine him to go back to the basics or anything

But also?? How else would he get stronger?? Like?? Maybe there really was?? AN OLD MAN TRAINING ARC??

But also, to be fair

Crocodile did make a big point about how he "keeps on honing and developing his Devil Fruit skills instead of stagnating like some other losers" back when he and Luffy had their first match. So I really would love it if Oda kept that actually true for the character, I'd love to see him actually whip out some new tricks, techniques and attacks instead of us seeing Sables again for the 839423th time

And really he can't really whip out new attacks if he hasn't at least tried to come up with new tricks (and preferably tried them out)

But that was just the basics right, Croc's Devil Fruit capabilities

Then there's the whole mystery of Crocodile's Haki Status. A whooole different can of worms. Considdering how the only actual damage he seemed to take during the entirety of Summit War was because of Jozu's Haki, and the fact that even fucking Blackbeard can use Haki now, it'd feel deranged if he doesn't have any kind of Haki capabilities. Like everybody knows Haki is going to be Croc's persona kryptonite, including Croc himself! And Haki Mastery really is The Thing that decides whether a pirate crew can actually make it or not in the New World (Kaidou made a specific point about that too). So surely, considdering Croc's supposed to be A Smart Boy and all, he knows he'll need to actually figure out how to use Haki if he doesn't want to lose another limb, right. Like surely he's figured that shit out, right???

Now people have been speculating for years if both Crocodile AND Moria used to be Haki users who lost their Haki after getting their asses kicked in the New World. Which, in theory would make sense, since Haki is essentially just willpower, and getting crushed the way they did would give them good in-universe reasons to why they didn't use the ability, as their traumas could translate to them losing their wills. But also it is willpower, that's not really a tangible thing you can really lose, and the idea of "Haki loss" isn't actually canon (yet at least). So although it's great fanon, we can't assume it's true. Like just as an example, we know Hancock can supposedly use Conqueror's Haki but we've never actually seen her demonstrate the ability

And to be fair to Croc (and Moria), the concept of Haki didn't really start to get Truly Solidified in the story until post-War, so expecting Alabasta!Croc to use it a whole decade earlier in real world time would be ridiculous since Oda hadn't figured out the system yet.

And while that is 100% true and fair.

Thing is. Although extremely vague, I do think Oda had been slowly starting to build the IDEA of Haki already in Alabasta. Like we know the concept gets properly introduced during the Skypiea Saga where Blackbeard both namedrops it and we get to see Observation Haki in action, under the name Mantra. But already in Alabasta, when Zoro is trying to figure out how to cut steel (to defeat Daz), that whole "breath of things" and hyper-awareness he gains when near death... I'm not the first one to point out how much that sounds like rudamentary Haki. And like, yes, on paper the idea of the battle was that Zoro became strong enough to cut steel. But also, learning to use Haki would be what would allow anyone to cut through a Devi Fruit ability like that. The same applies to Luffy's final attack on Crocodile too, his punch destroying the sand blade that before would've sliced his entire hand in half before is poetic on its own, but makes even more in-universe sense if you considder the possilibity Luffy might have subconciously been using Haki at the very end, his sheer willpower allowing him to punch Croc.

The reason I'm pointing all that out is that I kinda wonder if we might've gotten hints at Crocodile having not just Haki, but fucking Conqueror's Haki in Alabasta

This is based on two things:

First, Crocodile's pet bananawani. Yes, he could just be Really Good with animals and that would be adorable on its own. But we know Conqueror's can be used to intimidate and tame animals, including really fierce beasts. Keeping in mind that bananawani are meant to be one of the few species of animals that prey on Sea Kings, IDK, if you told me the reason Crocodile was able to tame them and keep them as pets thanks to Conqueror's, I would believe you. It's nothing solid, there's no proof one way or another, but it would make sense in-universe, it is plausible.

Second, this scene.

Does that blast of Ominous Air/Energy on the third page not remind you of one of those Conqueror's Haki shockwaves?

Of course, considdering Luffy was able to knock out Bon-chan with his untrained, uncontrolled Conqueror's in Impel Down (though to be fair, in the Impel Down scene Bon-chan was in rough condition anyways), if Crocodile was displaying his Haki here, either

A) Shit's real fucking weak or

B) He must've intentionally "kept it down" in this scene just to make sure his agents didn't actually pass out on the spot

But of course, if Croc had fullblown Conqueror's that he was able to control that well, you'd think he might've actually used it to subdue weaker enemies at some point or something (though, again, Hancock also supposedly has it and we haven't seen her use it, and if we had seen him use it on Luffy or something then the story really would've ended in Alabasta). So if that really was Conqueror's, I'd personally maybe rather lean on it being weak as hell (especially if Haki Loss was canon) over him having perfect control over it

Of course, just because that ominous blast of air in hindsight might resemble a weak ass Conqueror's Haki Blast, it doesn't mean that's what it was. Just like with the Bananawani example, there's nothing solid here to go off of, it's just plausible

(Also just for clarity's sake, Crocodile doesn't need Conqueror's Haki. I just think there could be evidence to suggest it if you overthink it just right)

All of this to say

Regardless of what Croc's Haki Status was during Alabasta and Summit War, the fact is that the dude really does kind of need Haki just to survive in the current storyline. So if he can't use ANY KIND OF HAKI, I'm just gonna be speechless. Like Luffy could kill him by just farting on him at that point Not to mention I'd actually love to see the Haki Loss-concept explored in the canon. Like either have it debunked, or somehow confirm it's a thing and show off what a horrifying threat Crocodile can be when he's actually putting his everything into a fight (same for Moria btw, if all he has to protect rn is Perona I'd love to see him go apeship and use Haki to protect her)

BUT THEN THERE'S A WHOLE DIFFERENT DIRECTION WE COULD GO WITH CROCODILE'S POWER LEVEL

OH DID YOU THINK I WAS FUCKING DONE WITH THIS POST? NO, WE'RE STILL FUCKING GOING MAN

So I've seen a lot people speculate about Logia Awakenings and what they could be like. Most people seem to agree on the theory that Punk Hazard being the way it is could be a result of two awakened Logias (namely Akainu and Aokiji) clashing. Similarly that Enies Lobby could be where an Awakened Light Fruit did a thing in the distant past, causing the eternal daytime on the island

I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced that's what Logia Awakenings will be like (some people have also suggested Enel's Final Form was a Logia Awakening, which I kinda doubt but okay), it's a neat idea in any case, we'll just have to wait and see what Oda has cooking for us

Regardless. On a mere narrative level, if they're even possible then I think it'd be cool as hell if Crocodile could act as an introduction to Logia Awakenings and what they're actually like. Because, depending on the role the bastard is going to take going forward, it could prepare us and Luffy for what's to come with Akainu (the real threat)

And again, depending on his role in the story, I think he could be an actual candidate for someone who could deserve to be Awakened-- like the whole Awakening State is sliiightly OP, and Logias are also kind of OP by default. So between OG Croc being kinda weak as hell (by current standards), but also him being an experienced pirate who's known his abilities for god knows how many decades... IDK I think he could deserve The Honors, y'know?

Like compare him to someone like Sabo or Blackbeard who got their Logias only recently and are still learning to use their abilities (more or less). If either of those fuckers somehow Awakened their Logias before Sir Fucking Crocodile I'd be kinda pissed off y'know?

The Admirals are kinda OP to begin with anyways too, I kinda just don't want Smoker to get The Honor of being the first on-screen Awakened Logia either, and really that would leave us with like... Ceasar and Enel as our only remaining options

And Dragon, if he does have a Wind Logia (which remains to be seen)

So. Yeah. If Logia Awakenings can be a thing, I think Crocodile could be the perfect guy to actually introduce them in the story (depending what his role will be).

All of this nonsense to say

Mr Oda, please, I would like to see Sir Crocodile in action pwease

And I want to know what the hell that weird spike thing was

Mr Oda please, I wish to see the Husband and see what kind of tricks he can do now after all these years, please allow him to commit a murder or two or three