#self-propulsion

[fuckyeahfluiddynamics]

Skittering Drops

Drip some ethanol on a hot surface, and you'd expect it to spread into a thin layer and evaporate. But that doesn't always happen, and a recent study looks at why. (Image and research credit: P. Kant et al.; via APS Physics) Read the full article

[okaydiscount]

balls :) (of 2 different flavors bc i couldnt decide which i liked more)

[farkleysparkley]

Base on this image! If a Jet plushie existed i'd get it immediately, no question.

[natandacat]

I hate this flat so much. Hopefully only until July at most.

[sweetrebelpersona]

Saturday 24th February 2024

For some reason, I really wanted those space chocolates for someone else who is an astronomically talented person.

Someone like Jet Propulsion, maybe? I really need to stop crushing on make-believe boys…

What about the boyfriend I used to know back whom I had a crush on?

Seriously though, stop. Adrien/Chat Noir?

ARE YOU GOING TO KEEP CRUSHING ON YOUR MAKE-BELIEVE BOYFRIENDS?

I’m sorry, I will try to move forward with my plans. Please forgive me…

Work:

Continued my draft soundtrack case study for my visual media composition module, of course

Took more notes for the hyperpop music poster presentation I have to do next Monday

Play/Self-Care:

Took two walks with my mum to the city and back

Went looking for shoes, even though I got them

Ate kebabs and drank a milkshake from GDK and Creams respectively

I wasn't being too productive today since my deadline for the draft soundtrack case study is in two days. I haven't made an Excel cue sheet for the visual media music module besides making two compositions in video form and one composition in audio, so fuck it. I need to go one step further and get started on the next module as soon as it is assigned. The event group meeting deadline getting past due was bad enough, but I won't go for another one this time. Looks like I'll be needing my music to take away the stress, or my breathing technique.

I want to shut off the world when I listen to music because no matter if I'm reading a book, playing an open-world video game, taking a nap, or doing a mini-study session, it helps me get rid of the drama around me on a real-life basis, dissipating the fury inside of me. It's like Hans Christian Anderson always said: "When words fail, music speaks." Only a hot-tempered moron would get stressed out over nothing to the realization they had done something silly that released their temper to start off with.

[times-of-drought]

I had a cool plot-filled, cohesive dream today. It was fun and scifi. Fuck yeah.

[ceilidho]

fear of god

prompt: There's someone outside the spacecraft. You don't remember them being part of the crew. Part 1 masterlist

-

In the end, gazing out of the ship's portholes into the dark vastness of space proves to be less comforting than the architects must have originally anticipated. You can attest to this more than most.

Every morning, you get up an hour earlier than the rest of your crew and make your way to the galley to make your morning cup of coffee. A pack of instant crystals into your favorite mug and hot recycled water from the kettle. Sometimes you stay to have breakfast, but often you take your coffee with you to the main viewing deck for your morning sojourn. 

There, you sit curled up in the navigator’s chair and stare out of the flight deck window until your breathing levels out. Early morning meditations. With the sun only visible through the rear porthole, the Milky Way stretches out before you, immeasurably vast. Ancient cosmic entities, some already long dead. 

Stars fill your field of vision like an intricate latticework of varying brightness. The watery glass warps at the edges, bending the far off light. All things with their propensity for brightness and decay.

A deep, steady hum fills the room. It’s cathartic to be alone. Sometimes, when you look out into the depths of space, you imagine yourself as a cartographer of old, labeling everything beyond this point: “here there be dragons.” 

Farah is the first person to join you, the ship’s maintenance technician already washed and dressed, floral cumberbund cinched around her midriff and her headwrap pinned in place. She greets you with a firm nod upon her entry, never one to mince words. In the months since your ship set off on its course for Jupiter, you’ve exchanged all of ten words, most of your conversation one-sided. 

She glides in like she’s been up for hours, likely running through her routine maintenance checklist. Monitoring propulsion, life support, and all critical systems. You wouldn’t doubt if she had been, descending into the bowels of the ship and cataloging every minute difference from the day before. Nothing if not thorough. 

Graves sweeps in not twenty minutes later, his uniform pressed and ironed. When he glances your way, you shrink under his gaze, self-conscious about something unidentifiable. He is every bit the commander you met briefly back on Earth, never a hair out of place. If he were less intimidating, he’d be insufferable. 

“Morning,” you murmur, the mug still close to your lips making your voice reverberate. He doesn’t respond. You wonder if he even heard you greet him. It likely wouldn't matter.

Medic has a different connotation this far from Earth. Hierarchy out in space is typically determined by way of one’s importance to the ship, and the scope of your role does not, unfortunately, include maintaining the ship. What that means, unofficially, is that you speak when spoken to, and not for any other reason. 

In the months to come, there may be moments or days when your usefulness is acknowledged, usually much to your colleagues’ chagrin. Though it’s not likely that any of the crew will encounter foreign pathogens while on a hermetically sealed ship in the middle of space, they’re all still susceptible to falls and cuts and worse. Nikolai, the chief engineer on board, had sprained his wrist during the first week of the mission, lending you immediate purpose and validation. 

You make way for the second officer when he finally deigns to make an appearance, sliding quietly out of his seat and stepping to the back of the cockpit, back pressed to the wall closest to the door. 

“Morning, everyone,” he greets, peppier than the three of you despite his rumpled appearance. His thick mustache twitches with the force of his smile. “Ready to seize another day?”

“Jesus Christ, Keller, let’s tone it down ‘til about ten o’clock, alright?” Graves sighs. He pinches the bridge of his nose as if to ward off a headache.  

“Our clocks are off, commander,” Alex jokes, coming over to give him a little shake by the shoulder. It would be insubordination from anyone else. “I’m about ready to eat lunch.” 

“Let’s just get through formation and then you can go fill up the bottomless pit you call a stomach.”

The morning briefing never takes up too much time. It’s as much of an excuse to have coffee together as it is to go through the day’s schedule. Graves spends most of the time reviewing the flight course, charting where the ship will be by day’s end. 

“Almost through the belt,” Alex remarks, staring down at the monitor in front of him. It’s an incomprehensible jumble when you try to peer over his shoulder, but he must be able to make sense of it. 

The crew had been on high alert since entering the torus-shaped region between Mars and Jupiter a month back. For the most part, they needn’t have been so on edge—the average distance of the asteroids in the circumstellar disc between the two planets tended to be quite substantial—but a collision the previous day had reinstated their earlier anxiety. 

“Can we switch from manual yet, Farah?” Graves asks from his seat at the helm of the ship. 

She shakes her head, lips tightening with frustration. “I still have to figure out what’s going on with cruise control—it’s not responding correctly.”

“Was that from that little ding the other day?” you ask, blurting out the question without thinking.

Farah’s expression is flat when she glances over at you. “That ‘little ding’ nearly took out our communications system altogether.” 

You wince at that, staring down at your feet instead. Better to just shut your mouth than make a fool of yourself. Had you not blurted out the question, you might have even surmised the nature of the situation given the comm specialist’s notable absence from the cockpit. 

When Nikolai eventually ambles in with a thermos of coffee and deep troughs under his eyes, Farah looks up and frowns. “Where’s Hadir?”

The man shrugs, nonplussed. “Cargo?” he grunts, rolling the toothpick between his teeth around the words. 

She sighs. “I’ll go find him.”

No one says anything when she leaves, the double doors sliding open and shut automatically at her approach, and she doesn’t bother saying goodbye. 

“Dismissed, I guess,” Graves sighs, collapsing into his chair and spinning around to face the stars proliferating in front of him. 

The informality digs at you sometimes because you know you can’t indulge in it. The times you’ve attempted to, you’ve been rebuffed. Sometimes unintentionally, but often to remind you of your place.

This isn’t a crew you’ve ever worked with before. From conversations you’ve overheard, you’ve gleaned that they’ve all worked together in different capacities before, years of familiarity breeding an easy trust and companionship between them. Two of them might even be lovers—though Farah maintains a neutral facade at all times, the same can’t be said for Alex, the man always hovering nearby, eyes going soft at the sight of her. 

You’re the only odd man out. The newcomer. And though you sit with them in the mess for meals and partake in conversation and pass jokes like small stones from hand to hand, you know deep down, in the dark well of your heart, that you are not one of them. You are a passenger that they picked up along the way. A straggler. 

This wasn’t supposed to be the case. When you signed on to the mission months ago, the circumstances were wholly different. A newer ship, a different crew, some of which you’d worked with before. Then ownership changed hands and budgets were cut. Slashed to ribbons even. You had a chance to tour the ship before the launch date, and even down on Earth with all the glitz and glam available to trick the eye, you hadn’t been convinced of the vessel’s ability to withstand the extreme conditions of space.  

But by then, you were locked into a contract so iron-clad that the consequences of breaking it seemed worse than simply seeing the mission through. 

Most days, you feel like you’re waiting for something to give. You pass through halls that echo with low creaks and a deep, rhythmic thrum. Sometimes the walls of the ship groan so loud that you wait with baited breath for the hull to implode around you, to feel the metal crush the delicate eggshell of your body beneath its weight. 

It’s not any better to just stay in your room, your quarters too cramped to nurture anything other than claustrophobia. A recent, unfortunate side effect of spending months on such a small ship. You’ve become accustomed to crews numbering in the tens and hundreds, ships so colossal in size that even months spent aboard weren’t enough to explore all of its nooks and crannies. Cargo holds with excavators and backhoes for excavations on Mars and humvees for getting around the rough terrain. 

This ship barely holds six people and the payload you’ve been hauling to Europa. Pipes hiss in the corridors. Once a week, the radiator splutters or the intercom overhead crackles, kicking your heart into hyperdrive. 

You leave formation more out of sorts than ever. Vaguely aimless. With nothing to do, you grab breakfast in the galley and eat at the counter, too uncomfortable to venture over to the mess. Your days consist mainly of hovering around the ship or sitting quietly in the medbay, waiting for something to happen. A morbid preoccupation. 

The stairs clunk under your feet as you make your way down towards the medbay. You’ve long grown used to the sharp sound of your boots against the metal floor. 

Rationally, you know they don’t dislike you. You might even venture to say that you get along with the majority of them, particularly the chief engineer and Farah’s brother. The big man likes that it only takes a single drink to get you plastered, often howls with laughter when you stumble out of the mess after drinking with the crew, always the first to turn in for the night. Farah herself is only frosty because she works twice as hard as anyone else, burning the midnight oil on the regular. 

You swallow half-truths like stones to help settle your stomach. 

It doesn’t replace real companionship though; it approximates, but doesn’t quite replicate it. You feel its absence most acutely in the sidelong glances you sometimes get of real affection: Alex grazing his pinkie across Farah’s when he thinks no one is looking; Farah’s eyes softening at the sight of her brother; Graves and Nikolai reminiscing about something a decade past, hardly even aware of your presence in the room. 

It’s something you’ve endured before, but never for such an extended period of time. Prolonged isolation prickles at the mind, feathering the edges. It purples space; passes through the vents. The crew rarely goes on spacewalks (hardly any need for it), but sometimes you swear the ship’s oxygen has a faint sulfuric undertone, like rotten eggs. It permeates the air wherever you go. 

Someone knocks at the window just as you walk by.

You pause mid-sip, the mug raised to your lips and just pressing into your bottom lip, not yet tilted. 

“Hello,” you hear through the thick-paned glass, the voice muffled through the layers of glass and plastic partitions. “Could you let me in, please?”

Though your reflex is to look up, you don’t for some reason. The muscles in your neck stay locked instead. Shoulders stiff, weighed down by an unnatural force. 

The thing outside the ship knocks again. “Love? Can you hear me?”

Your head turns towards the porthole, the hand holding your mug drifting away from your mouth. It tips in your hand and a drop leaks down the side. Your lips tingle, almost numb. 

There’s a man outside the porthole, clear as day. He hovers outside the window, a hand raised in a friendly wave and full lips splitting to reveal perfect, white teeth when he smiles. He’s dressed in a spacesuit, no different than any of the crew on a spacewalk. Through the helmet, you can make out dark eyes and dimples. A close cropped beard.

It’s not a face you’ve ever seen before though. You think you might’ve remembered someone so handsome working on the ship with you.

Something needles inside of you though. A sickening feeling, like something you’ve forgotten but you desperately need to remember. 

“Hi there,” the man says, voice as charming as you’ve ever heard, so velvety rich that you feel the blood heat your cheeks. “Glad you were passing by. Mind letting me in?”

[literaryvein-reblogs]

I’m not sure if you do nsfw words or phrases. But is there something you can post for the writers who need words for sex scenes? Ones that won’t make reader cringe or throw up? And ones that won’t sound repetitive?

110 "Beautiful" Words for Your Sex Scenes

A-E

Agitate - to move with an irregular, rapid, or violent action

Amatory - of, relating to, or expressing sexual love

Ardor - sexual excitement; extreme vigor or energy

Assail - to encounter energetically; to afflict in a manner that threatens to overwhelm

Austere - harsh and threatening in manner

Bemoan - to feel sorry or dissatisfied about

Bestrew - to lie scattered over

Carnal - given to crude bodily pleasures and appetites

Cavernous - suggesting a cavern; composed largely of vascular sinuses and capable of dilating with blood to bring about the erection of a body part

Coax - to gently urge by caressing or flattering

Compulsion - an irresistible persistent impulse to perform an act

Concrete - to become physically firm or solid

Constriction - the act or process of reducing the size or volume of something by pressing

Curvature - a curved surface of an organ

Delectation - delight, enjoyment

Deluge - a great flow of water or of something that overwhelms

Devoir - something one must do because of prior agreement

Dew - moisture especially when appearing in minute droplets

Douse - a heavy drenching

Ecstasy - rapturous delight; a state of being beyond reason and self-control

Enraptured - to fill with delight

Entreat - to make an earnest request; plead

Entwine - to become twisted or twined

Erogenous - of, relating to, or arousing sexual feelings; sexually sensitive

Exult - to be extremely joyful; rejoice

F-O

Fervid - marked by often extreme fervor (i.e., intensity of feeling or expression; intense heat)

Feverish - marked by intense emotion, activity, or instability

Flushed - tinged with red especially in the face (e.g., from physical exertion)

Flutter - to vibrate in irregular spasms

Foment - to promote the growth or development of; rouse, incite

Fragmentize - fragment (i.e., to fall to pieces)

Frisson - a brief moment of emotional excitement; shudder, thrill

Fuse - to come together to form a single unit

Gasp - to catch the breath convulsively and audibly (as with shock)

Gluttony - greedy or excessive indulgence

Harmony - pleasing arrangement of parts

Ichorous - of a thin watery or blood-tinged discharge

Immovable - incapable of being moved

Impetus - stimulation resulting in increased activity

Imprint - to mark by pressure

Impure - lewd, unchaste

Incantation - a written or recited formula of words designed to produce a particular effect

Intensity - extreme degree of strength, force, energy, or feeling

Inundate - overwhelm; overflow

Kindle - to stir up; arouse

Lecherous - given to or suggestive of lechery (i.e., inordinate indulgence in sexual activity; lasciviousness)

Levitating - to rise or float in or as if in the air especially in seeming defiance of gravitation

Licentious - disregarding sexual restraints

Lissome - easily flexed; lithe (i.e., characterized by easy flexibility and grace)

Luscious - sexually attractive; seductive, sexy

Mantra - a statement repeated frequently

Murmur - a soft or gentle utterance

Nectar - something delicious to drink

Nimble - quick and light in motion; agile; responsive, sensitive

Oceanic - vast, great

Overflowing - a flowing over; inundation

P-S

Palpate - to examine by touch

Palpitate - to beat rapidly and strongly; throb

Partake - to take part in or experience something along with others

Pearl - something resembling a pearl; precious

Pining - to yearn intensely and persistently especially for something unattainable

Piquant - agreeably stimulating to the taste; engagingly provocative

Plaint - wail

Plunge - to cause to penetrate or enter quickly and forcibly into something

Propulsion - the action or process of propelling (i.e., to drive forward or onward by means of a force that imparts motion

Pulsate - to throb or move rhythmically; vibrate

Rapacious - ravenous (i.e., very eager or greedy for satisfaction or gratification

Rasp - a rasping sound, sensation, or effect

Relish - enjoyment of or delight in something that satisfies one's tastes, inclinations, or desires

Repine - to long for something

Rhapsody - rapture, ecstasy

Ripple - to have or produce a ripple effect; spread

Salacious - arousing or appealing to sexual desire or imagination

Silken - soft, lustrous; harmonious

Siren - resembling that of a siren; enticing

Slaver - to let saliva or some other substance flow from the mouth

Sluice - to drench with a sudden flow

Sob - to catch the breath audibly in a spasmodic contraction of the throat

Sodden - heavy with or as if with moisture or water; to be soaked

Stirring - marked by much life, movement, or activity

Sublime - to elevate or exalt

Succulent - full of juice; moist and tasty; toothsome

Succumb - to yield to superior strength or force or overpowering appeal or desire

Sumptuous - extremely costly, rich, luxurious, or magnificent

Supple - capable of being bent/folded without creases, cracks, or breaks; able to perform bending/twisting movements with ease

Supplicate - to ask for earnestly and humbly

Surge - to rise and move in waves or billows; swell

Surrender - to give oneself up into the power of another; yield

Svelte - lithe (i.e., easily bent or flexed)

Swirl - to have a twist or convolution

T-Y

Taut - tense; not relaxed; rigid, stiff

Tempestuous - marked by bursts of intense activity

Tenderness - sensitivity to touch or palpation

Throes - pangs, spasms

Thrum - to sound with a monotonous hum

Torrid - ardent, passionate; hot

Undulate - to move in waves; to rise and fall in volume

Unyielding - characterized by lack of softness or flexibility

Unyoke - to take apart; to force apart

Vehement - marked by forceful energy

Vigorous - carried out forcefully and energetically

Vitality - power of enduring

Voluptuous - conducive to or arising from sensuous or sensual gratification

Voracity - the quality or state of being voracious (i.e., ravenous; excessively eager)

Wanton - causing sexual excitement; lustful, sensual

Whet - to make keen or more acute; excite, stimulate

Winded - cause (someone) to have difficulty breathing because of exertion; panting, gasping for breath

Worship - extravagant respect or admiration for or devotion to

Writhe - to move with twists and turns; intertwine

Yearn - to long persistently; to feel tenderness or compassion

Hope you use these words in ways that won't make your readers cringe or throw up, dear Anon! But it's fine if some of them do—as long as you are satiated with your own writing :)

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 ⚜ More: Word Lists

[dailyadventureprompts]

Settlement: Errishaan, where Inspiration Rises with the Tide

Artsource1 Artsource2

Though it boasts no mighty navy or renowned trading port, the harbour town of Errishaan has seen an unexpected surge in prosperity in recent years as it's become something of a hotspot for some of the most brillaint minds in the realm.

Tinkerers and scholars of all kinds have begun flocking to the cliffside settlement in droves, hoping to obtain the attention of its ruler, Countess Milsa Bonharte , who's become a famed patron of the inventive arts over the past decade and a half.

What began as an informal gathering of minds has breathed new life into Errishaan which now boasts numerous workshops, annual innovator's competitions, and a thriving trade in clockworks.

Adventure Hooks:

Of the region's biggest attractions is the Savyswell Rally, an annual competition where various the boatbuilders and artificers of Errishaan race self made vessels to see who can be the first one to cross the notoriously turbulent waters to the town's lighthouse and back, with the caveat that their creations can only use magical forms of propulsion AFTER the half way mark. The party might be seeking the aid of one of these artificers and be drawn into the competition as a means of paying off their services, or they may have a friend/relation/contact who's in need of a hand as the deadline draws near.

Beyond drawing it's livelyhood from the sea, the cliffs surrounding Errishaan do a tidy trade in copper, and the local mines and metalworks are always willing to pay adventurers to help drive off cavedwelling monsters or runaway elementals. Cannonmakers Heldok & Loyid are having a bit of trouble with one of the latter, as the ignis bound to their foundry has become a bit hyperactive after one too many overtime shifts doing important work for the Countess. Now it's slipped its arcane bonds and is going about town manicly smelting things like a blacksmith's forge hopped up on one too many 5 hour energy shots.

Seeing the potential in all the curious minds drawn to Errishaan by the influx of Artifice and Lady Bonharte's patronage, a travelling dedicate of the Archheart named Dijdek has taken it upon himself to found an academy where the magics, crafts, and sciences can be recorded and taught formally. Doing so is easier said than done, as he'll need to convince at least a few of the infamously protective master artificers to consider teaching, and convince the Countess to help provide funding. The first step in this endeavour will be finding a place to establish the academy, an abandoned monastery not far from town might be just the place, but something dangerous is lairing there and most folk have written it off. Perhaps a little divine meddling can bring the priest and the party together for common cause.

Though no one would speak it publicly, it's commonly thought that Countess Milsa's interest in inventions is a distraction from the sorrow she feels at her husband's untimely death, a means to feel close to the famously brilliant man by surrounding herself with the science he loved.

People think too little of Milsa Bonharte, they always have. She was the pretty daughter of a wealthy merchant, courted by an eccentric noble ten years her senior thought mostly unmarrigeable for his habit of splashing about in tidepools and fucking off for weeks at a time to study the migration patterns and mating habits of the local sea birds.

Milsa loved Daedalyn, loved him for being someone who would deny the decorum of his station to chase his passion, loved him for being one of the few to see the clever mind behind her pretty face, loved him with a fierceness that neither death nor the ocean could deny.

So when his ship went down in a storm, she made a vow: The water could have her tears, it would not keep his bones.

Milsa was not a mage, nor was she an engineer, but with her husband's title, her family's connections, and her own business acumen, she could bend the talents of mages and engineers to her purpose: to build a craft that could recover Daedalyn's ship ( the Sandpiper) from the deep and bring his remains to rest in the Bonharte family crypt where she would one day join him.

After fifteen years her vessel, her Vow, is nearly complete, ready to delve into the depths and bring her husband home. All that's needed are some final preparations, some last mechanical and course adjustments, and maybe the addiction of a few worthy heroes to the crew.

Further Adventures:

The Bonhartes had three children before the Daedalyn was lost to the waves, and all three feel the tragedy of his loss in a different way. Madalyn, the youngest was an infant when her father died, and grew up the dutiful daughter of a mother who's attentions were largely elsewhere. Mildryd, eldest, remembers the happy times the best, and has felt their loss most sharply, sinking into sullenness , spending most of her time in the castle library or listlessly watching the sea. The family's servants are worried about her melancholy, having found a diary overfull with vivid and poetic descriptions of death and drowning. In reality the budding little goth is just working through her emotions... partially with the help of her secret merfolk boyfriend named Eddy who's also so done with like, everything. Teenagers, am I right?

Then there's Delsyn, the tempestuous middle child. with a lot of mixed up feelings and no way to channel them, Delsyn has a history of acting out...the latest of which happens to be using a fake name to sign up for the same Savyswell team the party are on, recklessly pushing them forward to the point where he'll likely get himself or others hurt.

The sandpiper was lost on a scholarly expedition, using Daedalyn's newly acquired diving bell to explore the wonders of a not so distant coral reef. With more than one wreck site reported and no confirmations, Milsa and the crew of the Vow will need to check all of them, an exacting process that will have the party encountering all kinds of hostile sea life (big and small and very, very big) as well as negotiating with territorial merfolk (hey, maybe Eddy can help smooth things over).

What Milsa couldn't have known is that the storm that destroyed Daedalyn's ship was a magical one, creating a whirlpool that sucked the vessel and all those aboard it into an aquatic demiplane before smashing it into the ruins of a sunken city. Her husband was in the diving bell at the time, and managed to make a desperate swim for shelter when it was evident that rescue was impossible. Trapped in a series of half flooded ruins, Daedalyn has managed to survive the intervening years in the half flooded ruins, barely staving off madness and the dark influences of the Demiplane. If the party do it right, they might just might be able to give this double tragedy a happy ending after all.

[letterful]

Unmediated presence has funded concepts of value in the Western metaphysical tradition since its origins, but Knausgaard’s ingenuity, and the global resonance of his voice (blockbuster sales and translation into thirty-five languages; an avant-garde cohort at work on the antifiction he enunciates) foretell something historically situated right now. Indeed, he names it: value crisis. Nothing more than what phenomenally exists can be produced; all that remains is fluid, effulgent, sui generis exchange. Fiction, narrative, impersonality, and collectivity withdraw; reality, voice, personality, and atomism ascend. To get at value, get rid of mediation.

Among literati, immediacy as literary style goes more readily by the name “autofiction.” Auto is a Greek reflexive pronoun: self, same, of itself, independent, natural, not made. In English compounds, it usually means self-acting and spontaneous, as in “automatic.” The recently surging autofictions acquit as fictions that are not fictions, not made but just extant, exalting a presence preceding representation. As a rule, autofictions follow the fight plan Knausgaard outlines for eschewing the devices of fictification (character, plot, and narrative). Rather than building character, they advance a protagonist who is the same as the author in name and circumstance and real friends and real family and, above all, real voice. Rather than narrativity and plot, they purvey first-person present-tense uneventful short-spans, just elliptical ruminations in real time. Redacting fictional construction, duration, and figuration, autofiction delivers identity, instantaneity, it-ness. It moves “to get to the things in themselves.” Through these varying neutralizations of literary synthesis, autofictions put fictionality itself under erasure, crowning immediacy as writerly imperative for the moment.

(...) Anti-mediation coalesces the literary field at present into a dominant style—one that converges hitherto-distinct genres of theory, fiction, memoir, the essay, and informal personal expression in a ubiquitous polyvalent writing. In the liquid emulsion of these modes, in their propensity for indistinct blur, in their churning flow, glides the writerly guise of propulsive circulation: frictionless uptake, fluid exchange, pouring directness, jet speed. Slick with this style, we may fail to read how the “auto” of autofiction inscribes the self-manifestive quality common to the governmental ideology of human capital, how the engulfing formlessness of genre melt ferries less the genius of authors than the flooded ruins of institutions like the university or the publishing house, how the defigurative realness of unadorned charismatic persons suffering execrably presages the dystopia already here. Immediacy as literary style holds incredible lure, but it sticks too close. In resigning the potential of writing to estrange, abstract, and mediate; in castigating the capacity of writing to collectivize and convoke; in deflating the power of writing to fabricate more than the immediately tangible detritus of evacuated sociality, immediacy writing collapses into self-identical emission: “This!”

— ANNA KORNBLUH, from Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism.

[illumose]

Lovesick • castiel

⋆⭒˚.⋆ PAIRINGS: female reader × Castiel + the winchester brothers

⋆⭒˚.⋆ CONTENT: fluff

⋆⭒˚.⋆ SUMMARY : Castiel has fallen in love with you but he does not realize it.

masterlist

Prompt : I was wondering if you could write Castiel x reader , the angel being completly unaware that he is smitten with the reader and thinks he’s potentially ill or that she’s practicing witchcraft 😂 Just pure fluff bonus points If dean helps set him up with the reader

author's note: thanks you @drowninghell for the request! Hope you’ll enjoy it.

Castiel quickly glanced at your angelic form in the backseat of Dean's car. When the Winchester brothers called for his help, they did not say that you'd be tagging along. He was now stuck with you. A mere human, with no power or self-defense skills. A human that he'd hate to see dead, somehow.

As you played with the hem of your sweatshirt and chewed on your lip, Castiel felt a weird feeling in his thoracic cage. A sort of explosion that he could no longer bear. Beads of sweat dripped down from his forehead. Was he falling sick? He did not know of any angel who fell sick with a human disease. He touched his forehead. No fever.

"Alright, demon’s dead and Sam’s got an arm to patch up. I think we did great," announced Dean, emerging from the dilapidated barn on the side of the winding road. "You don’t look…. normal." He squinted at Castiel’s trembling silhouette.

"You do look like a sick Victorian child," added Sam, holding his right arm close to his chest. Blood drops were spattered on his denim.

Castiel ignored both comments. His attention returned to you. You had fallen asleep. Your cheeks were rosy from the heat and your eyes fluttered once in a while. So fragile. Innocent. All these words came to his mind whenever he thought of you.

"Stop staring. You look like a creep, dude." Dean patted his back, with such force that the angel was propulsed forward.

"I was not staring."

"You were. Damn it, you’re supposed to be smart, given your age. How can you not realize what’s happening?" The man appeared exasperated by his friend’s total lack of awareness. Angels acted as if they were superior beings, but in the end, they had no clue what to do when they felt a tiny bit of emotion.

You represented a problem. An issue he couldn't fix. The more he tried to forget you, the more you haunted his mind. Perhaps he was not falling sick. Perhaps, he was falling in love. Something no angel had ever experienced.

"Want a tip?"

The angel shook his head, pushing Dean to roll his eyes and exhale loudly.

"You’re smitten, dude. You’ve got those lovesick eyes whenever you look at her. You always come flying when she calls you. You get her food when she’s on her period. That’s not friend behavior if you want my opinion."

"Cas?"

As soon as he heard you, he rushed to the car.

"D’you think I’d be unreasonable if I asked you to teleport to a bakery on the other side of the world? I’m so craving a French croissant." You batted your eyes, knowing that this was over the top.

The angel nodded.

"Really?"

Again, he nodded. However, before he left for France to steal a croissant from a random bakery in a crowded street, he planted a kiss on your cheek. Taken aback, you held out your hand to grab his coat, but he was gone in the blink of an eye.

[shroudedscribequill]

So I was just thinking about Revali's Gale, and Tulin's wind ability, and was quite captivated at the differences behind the motives of the respective abilities.

The comparison between Revali's Gale and Tulin's wind ability beautifully highlights their differing motivations and relationships with Link.

Revali's Gale originated from his ambition to prove himself and surpass others, and later on specifically Link. It was a display of self-elevation, a vertical ascent symbolizing personal achievement and rivalry. His focus was on solely elevating himself higher, continuing to improve skill until his unfortunate demise, where his spirit ironically used that very same power that he used to elevate himself, to elevate Link.

Tulin's technique operates from a place of loyalty and partnership. Instead of self-propulsion, his gust pushes Link forward horizontally, offering direct assistance to navigate obstacles and reach new areas, that Link couldn't do alone, while remaining by his side at all time. This reflects his desire to remain by Link's side, embodying collaboration and shared progress.

The abilities visually represent their core values when it came to how perceived Link. Revali's rivalry and desire to surpass, which was vastly different to Tulin's loyalty and commitment to empowering his companion.

[cyanide-cafe]

Z-283-BLITZ

self explanatory,, blitz sketch i wanted to share!! arms are big n' bulky because it shoots down the hallways by pulling itself forward and then continuing that propulsion w/ its tail

still consists of smoke, so regardless of the presence of water, that thing go FAST

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Fiction Free-for-All Book Bracket Tournament: Round 5

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

The Murderbot Diaries series (All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, Network Effect, Fugitive Telemetry, System Collapse, and other stories) by Martha Wells

Endorsement from submitter: "My favorite sci-fi spacefuture world where being queer + polyam is normal and yet the protag is still queer in its own special way <3"

"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."

In a corporate-dominated space-faring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. For their own safety, exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists is conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid—a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, Murderbot wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is, but when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and Murderbot to get to the truth.

Science fiction, queernorm, novella, series, adult

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

Endorsement from submitter #1: "This is a seminal work of queer literature. It is a brilliant story that both deeply roots the reader in 1950s lesbian communities, and transcends it's historical context to be deeply relatable to this day."

Endorsement from submitter #2: "A classic. We're following a butch from basically her birth up to her forties. The book talks about the homophobia she's facing and how she - and other lesbians - adapts to that, relationship between butch and femme, the older butches that inspired her when she was a teen… So many other lesbian experience that makes it such an important book"

Woman or man? This internationally acclaimed novel looks at the world through the eyes of Jess Goldberg, a masculine girl growing up in the "Ozzie and Harriet" McCarthy era and coming out as a young butch lesbian in the pre-Stonewall gay drag bars of a blue-collar town.

Stone Butch Blues traces a propulsive journey, powerfully evoking history and politics while portraying an extraordinary protagonist full of longing, vulnerability, and working-class grit. This once-underground classic takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride of gender transformation and exploration and ultimately speaks to the heart of anyone who has ever suffered or gloried in being different.

Classics, literary fiction, queer history, adult

[osakanone]

Are you a fan of hard science fiction?

tl;dr:

This is a very complicated question, and it depends on what the author considers technology, science or culture.

long version:

Super, super depends honestly and the deciding factor is usually the author's own self-awareness.

A lot of hard SF spends months perfecting its technical research and then for whatever reason has writing that has done zero research in humanities or social studies and is just someone repeating the bits of world history they like not realizing the irony.

I like hard SF when it uses the machine to tell a story, otherwise its not playing to its strengths. Clarke got this. Morgan less so.

This also depends on how you define it: Do you mean hard SF as in its all technically plausable or Hard SF, where how the technology matters to the story?

These mean very different things!

Likewise, there's also then the question of most hard SF not understanding science well enough to understand what post-science [...]

eg, the idea that science is more than just the sum of research, and that how we do peer-review analysis needs to be seriously changed because of the replication crisis, and how we store and educate science needs to change due to the knowledge and expertise collapse crisis, or the fundamental change of how knowledge and information and abstraction functions with respect to reality itself, etc, etc, none of which hard SF acknowledges at all whatsoever which is the least realistic thing about it

[...]

is or where engineering is going next so they're just repackaging speculative fiction's methodology from 40 years ago without actually doing the leg-work beyond "what the next doohicky is", instead of seriously asking how science itself is going to change.

Its tempting to think that technology is the active human interface with the material world, but I would argue for all intents and purposes there is no material world beyond what humans experience either directly or indirectly and the reason we would want to preserve that non-experience without exploiting it is because some day we'd like to experience it to gain revelations both scientific and cultural.

The idea that science is automatically synonymous with technology is a frankly rediculous one because it refuses to recognize that one does not automatically become the other just as tomes of knowledge do not become useful effectve contexturalized understandings within your mind the moment you exchange money for them.

At for example, is in a way a sort of technology but its a cultural technology yet I never hear of hard SF exploring this angle. Instead, its the fetishization of how you can use tungsten orbs and catching nets to devise the most efficient cooling system possible or how fast your imaginary drive can go because you studied pusher plates and nuclear propulsion on wikipedia once and felt a tingle in your hind brain about it. We're all fundamentally excited children when we see big numbers, but but numbers alone don't make a compelling story I think.

As an example, I genuinely don't think of The Expanse has hard SF and it has nothing to do with its warp drive but instead its total lack of understanding that the fundamental ways in which society functions would drastically change in such a time.

Humans who act like we do today even fifty years in the future are the "guys painted green with deelyboppers" of science fiction of today and nobody outside of study seems to notice this.

If an author can't imagine a fundamentally very different social system but an go on for hours about how optomagnetic holographic storage and nano-vacuum tubes with switching speeds in the terrahertz range are wonderful I think the author just wants to talk about cool things they like indulgantly and not really even do science fiction.

That's particularly difficult for me becuase I'm someone who often does exactly that! I am a VERY self-indulgant writer!

In conclusion I'd say its less I'm either a fan or not a fan of hard SF (I do love using technology to tell a story which is what hard SF does) but the fact "hard" SF is held in higher esteem than "soft" SF speaks to an emotional insecurity in the audience that they should want to forgo the humanities and uninform themselves of the human condition as if they are above it in some way which I frankly find rather ghastly.

I think science fiction's most important lesson is not to do the torture nexus again and I think without the humanities that becomes rather difficult.

Sorry if this is a bit of a funny answer.

I appreciate the question, and thank-you for your time.

[slimybeth69]

Touch: Part 11

Chapter Summary: Din and yourself spend some time apart.

Series Rating: Explicit

warnings/tags: heavy angst, some self-deprecating speech (reader), cliffhanger, use of alcohol and being intoxicated, healthy but sad relationship talks, idiots in love, unreliable narration, moff gideon (peep the new header)

a/n: all mistakes are mine because I move too fast-- also thanks again to @immarocketman for letting me use some of their art for my header!! (reader finally knows what Mr. Djarin looks like). I still can 't believe how perfect if fits with the theme of my fic 🥹 and being lucky enough to use it <3)

Just one time it would be nice to wake up next to Din still asleep next to you. The ship is completely empty, not even R5 is here. It’s so quiet, eerily silent as you walk around, exploring rooms you’ve only ever looked at the door of. So many guns and other weapons you hadn’t ever seen before. You play with the darksaber for a while. 

You’re in the hull with more room to move around in. Okay. This is gonna be easy. You press the button with your left thumb and your whole left arm is propelled backwards but you hold on tight and force it back in front of you with a grunt. 

“Fuckin’ knock it off.” You growl at it, and for some reason, the propulsion lessens in the other direction and you’re able to wield it more easily. Not very easy, but easier. You left arm feels weird holding a saber. You don't normally hold anything in this hand unless your right one is helping. You do spin it around a couple times and take a couple slashes through the air with it though. It starts to fight you again like it did before. “Knock it the fuck off, my guy. ” You stare at it and instead of fighting you…it’s purring. “Oh…do you like that? You stupid swamp-rat?”

The handle of the grip starts to vibrate like it’s telling you yes. What the fuck? You turn it off and set it down on the floor. Nope. Not today. Maybe.

Okay, you pick it back up and turn it on and again, your left arm almost get ripped off. You just think about how much you hate the thing in your hand. It purrs again. “No fuckin’ way.” You whisper. “You really do gotta be mean to it.”  

With the lightsaber it was about respect and calmness. This was the opposite of a lightsaber so it’s about anger and chaos. It makes you laugh when your thoughts make the darksaber purr softly like it loves your bad thoughts and wants you to have more of them. You turn the saber off and put it back in the weapons room because you could have easily had more thoughts like that if you had held on to it. Kept working with it. It’s terrifying. 

Then a crazy idea comes to you. You run to the cockpit and press a button. 

With all the sun-shields down in the ship now, and no one can see in even if they try to, you look into your reflection in the helmet. You were told to wait but you don’t think you can. It’s too pretty, and you need to see what it’s like in there. You place it on top of your head as steadily as you can with one hand and then press it down slowly. It’s tight, you have to fight to get it down over your cheeks but once it’s on it fits like a glove. Din’s was way too big, you realize now. This is how a helmet should fit. You wish you could see yourself but it doesn’t matter. The heads-up display you’re looking into looks exactly like Din’s did. You can see fully almost completely around to the back of you. 

Din had explained how his helmet worked to you one night in the darkness of the ship. 

You press an unseen button on the left temple of the helmet and the HUD changes, “Infrared,” you whisper into the modulator. Hearing your own raspy voice through the static in your ears sends a shock through you. Now the display inside shows you an infrared picture of the inside of the ship. The only thing warm in the ship is where the engine is and that is only warm because it’s idling so the ship and you and Din and the child don’t freeze in the night. Din normally turns it off by now. You use your new helmet to go turn the engine off completely. 

Another tap of that hidden button and the screen goes black for a moment and then changes back to just the normal ship. You press the button on the dash now that shuts the engine of the ship off and sigh. 

You press the comms button and rasp his name but get no response. Shit.

Where is he? 

You have a much bigger problem right now.

You’re stuck in your helmet. You cannot lift it off your head with just one hand. It’s too tight. You start to panic, because what if Din comes back before you can figure out how to get it off? What if everyone sees and then The Armorer hates you? Ugh no this cannot be happening. 

“Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit.” Your modulated whisper echoes quietly thorough the ship. You’ve been trying for ten minutes. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.” You run around the ship in your helmet and nightgown like a fool. You look like a fool, such a fool. Why didn’t you just wait!? Din could have been here to see it and you could have had him help you get it off and now you’re going to get caught not following the rules. Being a brat. You could cry inside your helmet.

“Okay...” You’re panting. This is the last resort. Nothing else has worked. You have the heel of your left hand and the ball of your right foot inside the underside of the helmet and you’re sitting on the edge of the bed. “Okay. I can do this.” You rasp softly. You push as hard as you can and finally, the helmet slips off your head. You gasp as your hair falls into your face. “Okay. I can take it off.” Very satisfied with yourself. 

It’s dark again now. Dark as shit outside. You almost thought the sun visor was still down after you had put it back up. What the fuck!? Where was Din?! Where the hell was anyone? Not like you had gone to check. You hadn’t left the ship once today. Too sad. Too scared. You lay on the mat on the floor and sigh.

It’s been a thought pressing into your asshole all day. It’s painful and uncomfortable and you’d like it to go away but it persists. You can’t even speak it out into your brain, it's too painful. 

Does Din lie to you?

He clearly has no quarrels eating your candy. Or telling you that you are not maimed when he clearly thought you had been. There were more lies too. You could feel it. He lied about your doodles! He had already seen what was in your notebook when he asked what you were doing! Another lie! Where does it end? When do the lies end and the truth begins with Lyin’ Din Djarin. Would he be capable of lying about loving you? Is he capable of lying to you to touch you? Is that all you're here for? He loves you but apparently you’re just a friend.

Okay. A normal person might die for their friend right? If they cared for them deeply enough? Yes. You guess. Would a friend let their friend stick an Amban Stun Gun in both of their holes at the same time and then let the friend watch through their stupid night vision helmet? Hpmh.

You don’t think so.

Friends also don’t jerk off and come on their friends' bellies or fill them with their seed and tell them they want you to carry their helmeted babies! No! Friend’s don’t do that stuff. 

Fuck. 

So Din lies and now you don’t know if you trust him? Is that what’s happening in that broken, dumb brain? Yes. That’s exactly what’s happening.

You gasp in horror.

Did Din ever even come visit you in the temple like he said he did?

No one ever mentioned him coming to see you, or stopping by-- not Ahsoka or Luke. None of the younglings or other Jedi's!

The reasoning could be that Luke and Ahsoka were trying to keep you levelheaded with a clear mind and un-desiring heart.

Or it could be because that lying metal man never even came to see you like he said he did. How would you ever know without asking the Jedi's outright?

What The Armorer said yesterday in the cockpit rings in your head. Din Djarin hid you away.

That’s exactly what that lying sonofabitch did! Hid you away on the Crest, hid you away on some celibacy planet full of children and Jedi.

Din Djarin didnt' seem very reluctant to watch you walk into your new sexless home while he said goodbye to Grogu.

Old feelings of anger and new ones mix together inside of you. 

Nothing makes sense anymore...you’ve been alone too long. Alone with your thoughts for too long. Maybe. Or maybe this is good? Are you thinking clearly? You don’t know. You just know that one day you trusted Din with your whole life and now you’re questioning everything he’s ever told you.

Perfect. Beautiful.

Ugh. Those words make you feel sick because are you beautiful? You’re definitely not perfect.

You roll over onto your left side and just lay there with your eyes open until you hear the ramp drop down. You’ve had hours to stew in your newfound anger. It’s very justified.

He lies to you and now you don’t know what about. He admitted it himself-- he lies.

Din meets you in the hallway. You point at him with your index finger. Din stops in his tracks and holds the baby out to you. You take a step forward and Din takes a step back. 

“Put the green child down.” You growl at Din.

He just shakes his helmet from side to side dramatically.

“Put. Him. Down.”

Din goes to put the child down, but then snaps back up and holds Grogu in his elbow crook. He shakes his head no at you again.

“I would like to yell at you. Really yell because I don’t think I ever have before. I’m not doing it in front of the baby, so put him down.” You speak more calmly than you thought you would. You thought you would be yelling already.

“I will never put this child down.” Din rasps through the modulator just as calmly.

You press two fingers into the bridge of your nose where there is a small cut and bruise. It hurts but you don’t care.

“You’re–” Din starts then stops suddenly, he tilts his helmet to the side. “Annoyed with me?” 

The words fling you back into the past somehow, just like you flung through the air before you slammed into the rock in that bug-robots room and broke your back; it’s feeling much better now though. You’re sitting around the small fire, looking up at Din and you had no idea what was in store for you yet. He had just asked you the same question, if you were annoyed with him. Your response then was much more pleasant than what you say to him in the present. 

“Annoyed doesn’t even begin to cover it, you lying sonofabitch!" You point at him again. “Full of lies. I wanna know what else you lie to me about, but you know what?” You raise your eyebrows at him.

He shakes his helmet no slowly- almost like he doesn't want to answer you at all.

“I wouldn’t believe you!” Your brain doesn’t feel as foggy or as heavy as it did the other day, but oh man, you are just pissed off and you know why.

A real anger...with roots to it. You genuinely didn’t think Din could or would lie to you. You don’t know why. He was just a good honest man until he admitted he lied.

Told you to lie about the scars on your face. Like you’d lower yourself to his lying standards.

“I don’t lie?” Din sounds confused about where this is coming from. “Are you mad about the orange candies?”

You nod slowly and squint your eyes at him.

“I got you more. I was just on Nevarro.” Din pulls a bag from behind his back. Bigger than the first bag you got.

Sonofabitch. Why? You were just so mad at him, a good mad, a real mad and now he does this? You almost tell him to stop being cute but then you remember that you are mad! And not just about the orange treats.

“It’s not about the candies!” You exclaim.

Din tilts his head again. “You just said that it was about the candies.” He holds the bag out to you like you didn’t just watch him pull a giant sack of neon candy from behind his back. Like he’s a magician who performs at the casino when he’s done with his comedy sets! 

“You lied about my face!” You flick your eyebrows up at him once and point to your mechnosutures.

Din’s head rolls backward and he stares at the ceiling. “Did you want me to say it looked bad? It did. It looked bad. Are you happy? Did that feel nice?” His helmet snaps to you as you take several angry steps towards him.

He takes several steps back but bumps into the table behind him. 

“What else do you lie about, Djarin?” 

Din’s helmet is staring down at you. He has the child in one hand and the bag of candy in the other. 

“I don’t lie.” He sighs listlessly. “Why are you so upset? I thought our—” He looks down at the child in his arms and leans into you. “- talk last night made everything alright?”

“Oh, all the things you said to get me into bed and then also—” You glance at the child and then back to the helmet, “- get you in someplace else!? How very convenient that you had all those nice things to say suddenly. You couldn’t speak them to me before I was upset with you.” You cross your one good arm over your chest and take a step away and look down at the candy. 

Din finally puts the child down now and sets the candy on the table behind him.  “You think I lie? To you?” His helmet cocks to the side. “I don’t lie to you. Tease maybe. Poke fun at sometimes. I don’t lie to you.” 

“You admitted you did. You said it last night yourself. And then I wake up this morning and you’re not here. You didn’t even wake me to say goodbye or tell me where you were going.” You uncross your one arm and Din puts one gloved hand over his pressure point in his shoulder. “I don’t know why I feel these things. I don’t like being left behind. Makes my mind wander. It’s terrible.” 

Din rasps through the modulator, “It’s because you are a brat.”

You stare up at him, blinking.

“If you had left the ship and talked to my clan, been social with them at all, they would have told you where I went. They said you stayed here all day.”

"Well I--" You don't have a good reason for not going outside of the ship all day. Other than feeling sorry for yourself that Din had abandoned you once again. There isn't an excuse why you couldn't have gone to ask the Armorer or anyone else for that matter.

"A perfect opportunity for you to socialize-- potentially accrue friendships that are apparently so important to you, and I am the villain once again?" He sounds irritated with you more than anything now. He walks around you, leaving you to think about his kind gesture alone. "Brat," he mumbles under his breath through the voice modulator as he passes by.

You stay in your spot looking at the candies on the table and getting new scratches on your legs from Grogu who is trying to crawl up them with the razors on the ends of his fingers.

Are you still upset? Do you believe him?

You pick up Grogu and give him a small kiss on the forehead before you put him to bed in his little closet room.

The metal man does nice things, but he does them in such a strange way that it's hard to recognize them for what they are.

Din is on the floor in just his helmet and the blankets. He gasps in mock surprise, “The brat is here to sleep next to the liar?”

The words hurt, but you don't have anything to say because you do feel slightly foolish. All you had wanted to do was meet new people when you first started this gig. Din Djarin gave you a chance to do just that, and you stayed locked inside the ship all day.

“You tried on your helmet?” Din nods to it sitting on your bed.

You nod silently, wondering if he's going to be upset about that, too.

“Did you like it?” He asks apathetically, like he would rather talk about anything else.

“It got stuck. I had to use my foot to get it off.” You hold your right foot out in front of you and point to it with your left hand. “I was stuck for several minutes.” You don’t know why you’re telling him that. You had planned on never telling a single soul you got stuck in that thing.

Din chuckles, "I would have paid good credits to see that."

“Now you’re upset with me?” You ask, taking a step towards him. He shrugs.

Din turns his head to look at you. “I have every right to be upset with you if I want to be," he rasps. T

his makes your stomach flutter. But in a bad way. The worst way. You don’t know if Din has ever been upset with you unless it was for dying for two long minutes in the mines. Shit.

“I come back from helping High Magistrate Karga on Nevarro with my clan. You call me a liar and a sonofabitch .” Din shakes his helmet at you disappointingly. 

Ouch that fucking hurts. Din’s right. You are a brat. 

“I accepted that tract of land on Nevarro for us.” Din brings his hands under his helmet and rests it on them while he looks out of the window. 

Us. 

“You and Grogu?” You sink to your knees now and sit a couple feet behind him.

Din shakes his head still refusing to look at you again. “Brat," he rasps pointedly. “Of course not. I come home to try and tell you the good news and I get accused of lying about loving you before my boots are inside.” Din doesn’t look at you still.

Your heart is shattering in your chest. 

“I’m sorry," you whisper softly. You feel like a fool, as foolish as you felt earlier with your helmet stuck on your head. 

“Of course you are," Din sighs.

What does that mean? Why did he say it like that?

"You had a right to be upset yesterday--but not today. I did kiss you goodbye. I did not want to wake you because you are broken and healing. Was that so wrong of me?” 

No it wasn't, it's actually very sweet and thoughtful of him. Very thoughtful. Fool. You’re a fool and now you think you may be sick, and possibly your heart will come out with the little food you’ve eaten today. You inch yourself closer to him slowly on the floor. Din tilts his helmet a little backwards so you can see his face visor. 

“Are you upset because I said I don’t want you to swear the Creed?” Din respires softly into the modulator. “I wasn’t forbidding it. You are a free person to do as they wish. But why do you want it?” Din is still looking back at you as you inch now closer to him so you are right beside his helmet. 

“So that we can be together.” You whisper.

Din’s helmet stares at you. “Are we not together right now?” Din sounds worried and now you’re confused. 

“I…mean we’re physically together… right here and now. Yes.” You look around the room and back to Din. 

“Why would you have to swear the Creed for us to be together?” Din sounds just as confused as you are.

You blink at him. 

“Do–” The words you say next scare you because you’re afraid it’s going to scare him. “Don’t you have to marry another Mandalorian?” You look away because you are too afraid to see his reaction. You’re sure that when you look back he’s going to be gone. Back in the cave with his clan telling everyone how you’re crazy. Surely. But when you look back Din is sitting up. Yep just like you thought, getting ready to leave. 

“No. Why would you think that?” Din rasps, turning his body towards you.

He is naked under those blankets and you just got a peek when he turned and now you’re not thinking about anything else. You’re just staring at that little trail of hair under his belly button and you can’t even hold back the smirk you have on your face because he is perfect. Actually perfect. Din snaps his fingers at you. It makes you jump and you look up into his helmet. 

“What?” You’re smiling at yourself in his visor and he’s just looking at you. What does he want? You were enjoying yourself. You never get to look. It’s always dark when he’s not in beskar. You’ve seen him very few times without it. “What?” You ask again because he doesn’t say anything. 

“Why would you think that?” He rasps, unentertained with you. You’re confused. What were you guys talking about?

“Think what?” You say before you actually think about it because really, all you want to do is touch him and you have to stop yourself. Your eyes flick back down to his stomach and his little trail of hair and then back up to his helmet and then back down. Din covers himself with the blankets. “Hey, why’d you go and do that?” You look up into his helmet. 

“ Why… would I only be able to marry another Mandalorian?” Din is still covering himself with the blankets when you remember what you were talking about. You still don’t have an answer because you don’t know why you thought that. It…just made sense? You’re staring at yourself in his helmet when he snaps at you again with his fingers. 

“Would you stop doing that!” You exclaim quietly. “I’m not a small animal. You can speak to me!” You tap your index finger on the floor of the ship one time and hold it there between the two of you. Din taps his finger in a similar fashion on the floor next to yours but more times and rapidly as he rasps through the modulator quickly and annoyed. 

“I have been speaking to you! You don’t speak back. Say something—stop staring at me, and I will stop snapping at you.” 

“I don’t know why I make these things up in my head! You not being able to lie. Then you only lying to me. Why must a mandalorian marry within a clan. I was convinced you slept in your beskar for Makers sake! I don’t know. I just do it!” You start tapping your finger on the floor of the ship quickly like him. “I don’t know! Stop snapping your fingers at me!” 

Din does it. He just snaps his ungloved fingers right in your face and as soon as he’s done he crosses his arms over his chest and covers his pressure points with his hands.

You gasp. How dare he snap and then block himself?!

“I’m learning,” Din rasps softly, nodding slowly. “You think you are the only one whose brain tells them false truths?” Din shakes his head at you. “The things I told myself you were doing at that temple without me—I’d come to see you and Ahsoka wouldn’t even let me inside. Luke wouldn’t even answer my questions about you. They just said you were fine. When I asked if you’d like to come with me they said no—”

You gasp louder than you have ever gasped before in your whole life. 

“They did what!?” you almost shout. “They never told me you asked for me. I would have said yes .” You look all around the floor around you, thinking of ways you can hurt Luke and Ahsoka. How could they do that to you? Make that choice for you. Now you not receiving a gift at the temple makes sense. He didn’t think you wanted to come back to him

“Yes, so you’re not the only one who has untrue thoughts in your head. Did I accuse you of being with another, or not caring for me after two years of waiting for you as soon as you got off that return ship? No! I did not!” Din is very annoyed with you. You’ve never heard him talk that fast. 

You are a dumb brat. A real idiot. 

“I figured out the darksaber while you were on Nevarro!” You snap at him because you are unwilling to accept that you are in fact a giant dumb idiot brat. Din called it. You feel stupid. You try to change the subject. It works. 

“You did? You wielded it well in the mines. You wielded it well here on the ship.” Din’s head turns to the window for a moment and then snaps back to you. “We can talk about that later. Admit that you are wrong. Apologize to me. Because what you do is wrong. Accuse me? You say you love me. Love me so much. Yet you can’t speak to me. Can’t ask me simple questions that would ease your beautiful bruised brain. You want to yell at me. You want to call me names. I call you my little one and I get called sonofabitch. So loving . I don’t get a nice name from you.” Din lays back down on his pillows and his raspy sigh breaks your heart. 

You are a hotheaded…stupid…ungrateful brat. You accept it in your heart now. You try to move closer to him but he pulls his arm away. 

“I am upset with you now.” Din rasps. Your heart no longer exists. You reach for him but he pulls away again.

“Can I fix this right now…or should I go…to the cockpit for a while?” You’re not really sure what you’re saying, but maybe he just needs a minute to cool down. 

“Go look at buttons for a while if that’s what you wish to do. I don’t care where you go. I’ll come to you when I’m no longer upset.” 

It’s a struggle to get to your feet. You have been hunched for so long. You finally do though. You grab a blanket off your bed and your helmet and hold the tears back until you get out into the hallway and shut the door. The crying you're doing has no sound. You can’t breathe. It’s not coming to you when you try. This is worse. This is the worst feeling in the whole world because Din had never cast you away like this. He leaves. He walks away. It feels like it takes twenty years to get to the cockpit. Once the door there is shut, you can gasp. All the air in the cockpit is now in your lungs and you think you’re going to explode. 

The button to close the sun shields feels like it fights back against you when you press it. They close and you’re plunged into darkness. The helmet goes on like last time, with a struggle. But then you sit in the co-pilot's chair in the dark. Looking at everything through your night vision. Din still hasn’t seen you in your helmet. He might never want to.

The door to the cockpit opening jolts you almost out of the chair you fell asleep crying in. Your helmet is still on when Din walks in, wearing his black undergarments and his helmet.  Everything is still in night vision and you don’t know what time it is or how long you’ve been asleep. You know you cried for a long time. Din sit’s down in his chair silently after he shuts the door. He doesn’t even look at you. It feels like time has stopped. Somehow being able to see into the void makes the now soft constant static ticking in your ear less comforting. Din just stared forward like a droid. 

“Peli needs some help on Tatooine. She asked me if I knew anyone who could help her out for a while and I think you should go.” Din’s rasp sounds just like it does when you have your helmet off.

You start thinking of arguments of why you should stay and why you need to be here with him. You want to tell him that you’ll share the floor bed on this ship with him forever if that’s what he wanted. 

“Okay.” You don’t say any of those things, because if Din doesn’t want you here, what’s the point of being here? Grogu loves you. You love Grogu but he is not your child. As much as you wish he was, he is Din’s child. Din’s alone. R5 is your child though, whether Din likes it or not. 

“Not for long, two weeks possibly.” Din still hasn’t looked in your direction, you haven’t stopped looking in his direction. Things feel so different right now. “I have things to attend to. I’ll leave this ship and take the N-1.” So he has to come back for you. He can’t just leave you there. “I’ll be taking Grogu though.” 

You just nod in response because you know he can see your helmet nodding at him in his display. Even if he’s not looking in your direction. You think about swearing the Creed. You could just stay here. Walk the Way. This doesn’t feel like the Way though. None of this feels noble or honorable or brave. 

“I’m sorry.” You rasp to him in the dark. He nods in response. Still not looking at you. “I shouldn’t have called you mean things.” You whisper into your modulator. You could keep this thing on forever. If Din never wanted to kiss you again? You’re never taking this helmet off. 

“I’ll drop you at Peli’s in a couple hours. You should rest before we get there. One shoulder or not she’ll put you to work.” Din rasps. You also like this helmet because Din can’t see your tears. 

“Have you rested?” You ask softly. He shakes his head from side to side. “Would you like to come rest with me? It can be quiet and dark.” Din does nothing for a long time and then he stands and opens the door to the cockpit and walks out. You follow him into the bedroom. 

Din has his hands on the side of your helmet and is pulling it off for you. He sets it on your bed you think, it’s dark again. Then you lay down on the mats below your feet and wait for him. When he crawls in next to you can feel that he took his black undershirt off. When he lays down onto your chest and you wrap your hand around his neck and twist his hair in your finger he sighs. It makes you sigh. 

You keep your promise and stay quiet until you hear him snoring softly. You can feel it in his chest when he breathes too. Just a deep rumble. You keep twirling his hair in your fingers taking in this feeling because you wont be with him for two weeks and then who knows if he will want you to be around after that. Bo-Katan has been around more than normal. Maybe she did all this to get in between you two because she was jealous. You don’t know. You don’t seem to know anything. You make up lies. You’re the liar. You lie to yourself. 

Din’s arm suddenly flinches softly and then he tightens it around your waist and pulls you closer into him. 

“I love you. Death cannot part us. Mine forever.” You whisper it down into his ears and hope your words are delivered to him like gifts wrapped in bows as he dreams. If he dreams. Tired Din. Working so hard all the time. Barely rested. Cares for you deeply. Loves you. 

The night passes you and sleep avoids your eyes. Passes them right by and you just lay with your eyes open in the dark. You touched Din all night long. Across his strong, muscular back and you twirled his hair in your fingers until he stirred against your chest. It stays quiet in the ship as his breathing goes from soft rumbly snoring to his regular, soft breaths of air. His hair stays in your fingers until he’s pulling himself away from you. 

“I need you to show me how to use the darksaber.” Din whispers into the dark. You could cry again. No kiss or any sign of affection that he still meant those words he spoke to you so gently the other night. 

“Okay.” It takes everything in you to keep it together while you get dressed in real clothes. You put your boots on. You put your helmet on because you're ashamed of your selfish face and don’t want Din to see your selfish eyes. 

You grab the darksaber and your lightsaber from the weapons room and meet him in the hull. Din watches as you set both handles on the ground in front of him. 

“This one,” You point to the lightsaber with your foot. “You need to be able to control your mind. Have peace and serenity in your heart and mind. You don’t think when you hold the saber. It’s almost like the saber thinks for you. Leads you to what your heart really wants almost. It’s helping you during your fight.” You rasp. You pick it up in your left hand and let the plasma extend. “You love it. You care for your saber like it was an extension of your own arm.” You hold it out in front of you as it hums quietly. Din nods. You sheathe the plasma and clip the lightsaber to your waistband. 

The darksaber feels like one hundred of your lightsabers. 

“You don’t need any of that when it comes to this though.” You respire as you hold the handle of the darksaber out to him. He takes it within his gloved hand and grasps it gently. “You hate to hate it.” Din’s helmet snaps up to yours. Your helmet nods at him. “Turn it on and let all the bad inside of you flow through it. It feels and propels itself against your positivity. Away from your serenity.” Din looks back down at the saber and you take several large steps back as he presses the button. You can see him fighting back against it. 

“Fuck.” Din rasps as he has to wrap his left hand around the grip now, forcing it forward with his body weight. “Shit.” You see his hands slipping from the handle. 

“Din, be mad at it. Think about all the terrible things you could do with it.” You hold your hands at your side. It’s like he didn’t listen to a single word you said. The lightsaber on your belt feels cool in your hands as you unsheathe the plasma again. “C’mon. Think about how terrible it is and lift it over your head. Bring it down onto mine.” You hold your lightsaber up sideways above your head so you can block Din’s attempt to slice into the air. 

Din can’t lift the saber over his head. It’s fighting him too much. 

“Hard.” Din’s rasp is strained like he’s really fighting with it. 

“You’re not being angry enough. Let the saber feed off any anger inside you. The chaos, the bad. Let the saber take it from you.” You try to explain to Din over the buzzing of the sabers in your hands. Din hesitates for a second and then you watch as he brings the darksaber over his head and brings it down onto your plasma blade hard. It vibrates in your hand when he connects. 

You’re full of excitement for Din. It’s short lived as he retracts the white plasma back into the handle and clips it to his belt. 

“Thank you. Good job.” And then he leaves you in the hull and walks to the cockpit. 

Okay. This is terrible. The actual worst feeling in the whole world. 

“Good morning.” Grogu looks up at you through the crack in the door and presses himself into the wall. The helmet must be scaring him. “It’s just me. I just have a helmet on like your Dad.” You open the door completely but Grogu doesn’t move. “Do you not like it?” You show off your helmet to him and he shakes his head. “Why? Is it frightening to you?” The child nods as you bend at the knees to his level. “Don’t be frightened, young foundling. It’s just I. Your caretaker. Your bratty helmeted babysitter.” You whisper down to him through the modulator. 

Grogu hesitantly peels himself away from the wall and takes a step towards you. You extend your arm to him and he scrambles up it and to your shoulder where he inspects his own reflection in the side of your helmet. 

“A very handsome boy.” You rasp to him as you watch him look at himself. “Hey, listen to me.” You pull him down off your shoulder and hold him in the crook of your elbow as you make your way into your bedroom. You set the child down on the metal bedframe you no longer use. You sit down on the ground in front of him. “I have to go help Peli for a while.” Grogu gets so excited but you have to put your hand on one of his shoulders and calm him. “Just me. You’ll stay with your Dad while I’m gone.” Grogu looks up at you with big eyes and it makes your eyes water from behind your HUD. 

Grogu babbles sadly. 

“I know.” You try to hold back a sob. “I know. I’m gonna miss you too.” The tears well in your eyes and your nose burns for a moment while you hold it back. “A lot. I will. I’ll miss you but our friend Peli needs my help and I’m the only one who can do it.” You shrug your shoulders and say the words fast so you can get them out before you have to hold back a sob in front of the child. 

Grogu warbles sound downcast. 

“No, I’m not still mad about the scratches.” More fast spat out words because you’re crying behind the helmet but you don’t want to sound like you're crying. You tilt your helmet to the side when you look down at him now. “I love you very much. I always will. But I need to go for a while. And you ne–need to learn h-how to become a-a-a M-Mandalorian.” You stammer into the modulator. This is hard. “I love you.” You lean down and press the forehead of your helmet to his tiny little green head and sigh. “My good boy.” You whisper into the modulator. 

“What good is she to me with one shoulder and a helmet?” Peli looks at you, and you look back at her through the HUD. “Is she the same one who was here last time?” She leans down and looks at her reflection in the shiny beskar. “What’d ya do to her in the mines of Mand’alor? She mess that face up real bad? It’s ugly under there now? Shame. She was cute.” 

“She has a couple scratches.” Din rasps flatly. “She works hard. Is strong despite the shoulder.” Peli looks you up and down and you watch her through the display. “It’ll be good for her.” 

This makes you roll your eyes under the helmet. He’s not wrong though it’ll be good for your ungrateful ass and maybe you’ll actually learn something this time. What is the most frustrating about all of this is that Din is right. If you had just calmly sat down at the table after greeting him from being gone all day and thanked him for the candy and taken the child from him; you could have talked to him nicely and told him how you felt and he would have comforted you and made you feel reassured.

No. You went in yelling at him with your finger pointed. Calling him a sonofabitch for things you didn’t even know were true. Hurtful accusations that he manipulated you into allowing him to touch you when it was something you had been drawing in your notebook! For several days leading up to the first incident in the Crest! Din’s request was strange but it eventually gave you what you had been wanting so badly. Did it not!? To see the image of his lower stomach and the base of him! He does have a curly patch of dark pubic hair that rents space there! You had forgotten because you never saw that notebook again. 

“Alright. She’s gonna get put to work.” Peli gives you a big missing-one-tooth smile and you nod your head once at her slowly because you can’t smile back. She turns to Din now and sighs, rolling her eyes. “Okay. I’ll give you twenty percent off since she’s workin’ for free. Only ‘cause I gotta go find the part you need for that big honkin’ ship anyway.” 

Wait. Did Din just…trade your services here at Peli’s for discounted work on the ship? Sure seems like it. Who cares, maybe she can teach you something. 

“Two weeks seems like more than twenty percent.” Din rasps make you turn your helmet at him. Now he’s bargaining. Peli points an index finger and then looks at you; she looks back to Din and points her finger at his helmet.

“Fine. Forty but only ‘cause I like the kid.” Peli cradles him in her elbow. “You sure he can’t stay? I’ll throw in an extra ten percent if ya let him.” She wiggles her eyebrows up and down quickly at Din but frowns and rocks back on the heels of her foot when Din shakes his helmet from side to side.

“Kids gotta come with me this time.” Din rasps holding one gloved hand out to him. Grogu turns away from him and into Peli’s chest. Din tilts his head to the side because Grogu never does that. The child always goes to Dad Djarin. You gasp quietly enough but it registers in the modulator. Din’s helmet snaps at you and then back to the child. “Grogu, come on. We have to go.” 

Grogu shakes his head from side to side. He said no. You gasp again softly and take a step back in shock. Din’s helmet stays on Grogu but he points back at you with his free hands. 

“Stop making that sound.” Then he holds the hand that had been pointing behind him at you up to Grogu. “Okay, our visit with Peli is over. We need to go.” Din’s not messing around. Grogu pulls his ears into his head tightly and chomps with his little teeth at Din’s gloved hand. 

You make a very audible gasp. Your hand goes to your chest again, in shock, and Peli laughs loudly while Din’s hands fall to his sides. 

“See! Even he wants to stay with Peli!” She laughs again and holds the frowning child out to Din. Grogu is really frowning. His little ears are stiff against his head and his eyebrows are furrowed as Din takes him from Peli. As soon as the child is in Din’s hands he looks back at you, reaching for you with his little arms and now his eyes are sad and his ears are much less stiff. He’s whimpering. “Ohhh. He wants his mommy! Give ‘em to her, Mando! It’s sad!” Peli exclaims, pointing between you and the child now. 

Din turns and holds the child out to you. Grogu doesn’t wait for either of you to be close enough to exchange him, Grogu flings himself to you and wraps himself around your neck as tightly as he can with your helmet now. It knocks you back a couple of stumbled steps but you regain your balance. 

“Oh, it’ll be okay. I’ll see you soon, I promise.” You hold your one good hand up to his back to hold him to you even though you don’t need to, his grip is tight. “You have to go learn things with your dad. I’m going to miss you too.” You pat his back a couple of times. Grogu babbles quietly. He sounds different in your helmet. Raspier. Like Din. Everything rasps. Including you now too. “Shhhh. It’s gonna be alright.” You turn your back and start to walk back towards the ship. 

Din’s close behind you. 

Once inside the not-so-new ship– an X4 Gunship you just learned the name of it three minutes ago when Peli told you–Din never bothered to tell you but you had also never bothered to ask– Grogu would not let go of you. Din had his hand on his little waist and Grogu had his grip dug into your shoulders now. 

“Oohh my May-ker— stop pullin’ him! He’s got his lil’ razors in me again—Grogu! Knock it off!” Your knees buckle at the white hot pain searing into your flesh. “Grogu! Release! Drop it! Let me go!” You plead raspily with the child but he holds tight, whining and whimpering loudly. 

“Grogu. This is not funny.” Din’s modulated voice sounds serious. “I mean it. Let go of the blasted woman! Get your claws out of her!” Din’s not messing around. Grogu does not care. “I’m going to lift and you drop at the same time.” Din’s helmet peers around the side of Grogu’s head. You nod in confirmation because you cannot speak. 

Din lifts the child from off your chest and shoulders and at the same time, you bend your knees and drop to the floor and finally—relief of some sort as his lil’ fuckin’ knives come— get ripped out of your flesh. 

“You are a crikking little snot!” You exclaim from the floor. “You maim my face! You use me as a pin cushion! I am just a girl, Grogu! I feel pain! Just like you do! Oh my Maker! ” You bring one hand to your bad shoulder and sigh. It had just started to not ache dully all the time and he does this!

“I know you are going to miss her. We will only be gone for two or three weeks.” Din rasps. You have to fight everything inside of you telling to question him about this new, extra week he just mentioned for the first time. 

“I will miss you too.” You stand from the floor and pet his ears softly. “Don’t scratch or impale me anymore. I do not like it.” You scold him softly. “I love you dearly. Please be careful.” You press your helmeted forehead to his little green one. “Behave.” You rasp quietly. “Learn to Walk the Way.” You sigh into the modulator. 

“I will be back for you soon. There are just–” Din starts to rasp but you snap your helmet up at him. 

“Things to attend to. I understand.” You wish he would just leave if he’s going to leave you here for a month. “Time away will be good for me.” You lie. You lie to Din Djarin. But you wonder to yourself if it is in fact a lie. Will time with these new thoughts and feelings all alone be good for you? It’s all unknown now. R5 bleeps up at them sadly. You touch the top of his little domed head. 

“I’m glad you’re looking at it that way.” Din is short, turning his helmet to look at the wall now.

Nothing he has said makes you think that he actually wants to come back for you. 

“I’ll be thinking of you.” You rasp quietly, looking down at your feet. 

“And I you. I must go. I’ll send a call if I have time.” Din presses his helmet to yours very gently and very quickly before turning to enter the door that leads to the hangar. 

You waste no time going to Peli and asking what she needs help with. R5 follows you as she leads you to a giant room. Big. So big and so many shelves and a set of rolling stairs that go all the way to the top. 

“I need this—” She holds both her hands up and does a slow spin. “-cleaned and organized. My picker droids don’t do well on the stairs and the Jawas are too small.” 

You look around the room that is about the size of a cathedral. It has multiple shelves throughout and those shelves are covered with things! You don’t even know what most of those things are! 

“The picker droids and the Jawas will help with the organizing part. But you’ll need to clean, give everything a good wipe down. Make sure nothin’s too yucky .” Peli looks at you and nods. “You can be done when the sun goes down. You’ll start after we eat breakfast. I’ll feed you, I guess. But then you’re on your own. Don’t come knocking on my door looking for entertainment when it’s dark. I’ll be asleep.” 

“Okay. Thanks for letting me stay here.” Peli gives you a look of distaste. 

“Well Mando practically begged me, and he’s a friend so…Get to work!” She points at the shelves.

Begged. Begged Peli to let you stay. You don’t blame him, you had been a brat and were still healing so it’s not like you could be much used to him in whatever matters he has to attend to. Mando didn’t tell you. 

The rest of the evening is spent talking to R5. 

“Do you think this is too yucky?” You rasp to the droid; holding up a long cylindrical pipe covered in grease and rust and…hair or fur. The droid backs away, then bloops quickly in response. “Yeah, me too.” You say tossing it in a large bucket Peli had brought in. There are so many things. Old ship parts. New ship parts. Pieces of clothing. Helmets, shoulder pauldrons, shin guards of all kinds. There were podracer pieces! So many things. You organize it all into piles the best you can when Peli comes in and tells you that the work day is over. 

“Know of any good bars around here?” You ask, taking your helmet off for the first time with Peli’s help. 

“Didn’t think you guys could take these off.” She sighed, handing the helmet back to you after you fix your hair. 

“I’m not a Mandalorian. Just got the cool helmet.” You sigh at her and shrug your one good shoulder. 

“I see…” She looks you up and down, noticing the lightsaber on your hip. “Well…with that thing you could probably check out Mos Eisley. Not too far, you can walk. Just lil’ dangerous though. Be careful. I told Din I’d keep my eye out and you’re not going to blow me in for lying by gettin’ hurt more than you already are!” She exclaimed, pointing in the direction of the cantina. 

“What can I get for you?” The bartender smiled at you so sweetly. Even though you probably looked like you could cry and fall off your stool and die. 

“Can I please have a whiskey?” You sigh and set your bag down in your lap. She nods and grabs a bottle from behind her. 

“I have this! It’s a really nice Tevraki whiskey. A great year.” She explains as you nod mindlessly. You don’t care where it’s from or how old it is or who its’ mother could be. You just want to ease the pain in your heart and this is the only way you know how. 

“That’ll be eight credits.” She holds her hand out to you. Picking through your bag for the right amount, you hand them to her but not before stumbling across a loose piece of paper. From your notebook. 

How long has this been in here? You don’t really go through your bag often any more. You don’t need it much. You don’t remember this being in here the last time you looked inside though. When you unfold the wrinkled and soft paper in your hands and see the doodle inside it brings tears to your eyes. It’s a little doodle of the child you had done so so long ago. You don’t doodle much anymore. Lost the need for it very quickly when you stopped being bored all the time. 

You press the old piece of paper to your chest and drink the entire small glass of whiskey in front of you in one big gulp. It burns going down, you almost choke but you force it back, down deep into your belly where it’s still burning you. Is that lava!? Real life hot lava you just drank?! Why do people drink that!? You’ve never had it before, it was just something that you had heard people around you at the casino order! It was ordered so often that you assumed it had to be good and look at you now, assuming more things and now almost throwing up in the cantina. Like a fool. Assuming. Have you learned nothing? Stick to your fruity drinks that glow in the dark or that delicious mandalorian wine. 

“Would you like another?” The bartender notices your empty glass and you nod, too afraid to tell her you did not want another and would like something that glowed. Or tasted like sweet candy. She was already pouring more brown liquid into your glass. You pay her and stare at the shot in front of you. 

Brown. Who wants to drink things that are brown and taste like they came out of the engine of the X4 Gunship! And burn. You hold it in your hand like it might bite you as you bring it to your lips. You drink it so fast and it still burns. The previous drink did absolutely nothing to prepare your body for this one like you had been hoping. 

This time you almost spit it out. You almost reject it—but you make yourself swallow it. You are not going to throw up in this cantina. You are a grown woman and you already are on the verge of a mental breakdown. That would completely send you over the edge. Embarrassing yourself in front of all these people who are looking at you—

Why was everyone in this cantina staring right at you? You do a little look around the room and almost every single set of eyes or one eye or multiple sets of eyes on one face were looking at you. Some of them looked at you in awe, like they could not believe that you were actually sitting in front of them. Some of these faces and eyes looked at you with unease…distaste maybe. You couldn’t tell there were so many eyes your own two eyes were flashing between. 

You wish you had your helmet but you would have had to take it off to drink anyway. The hood of your robe goes up over your face because maybe…they’re just not used to seeing a small dala alone in their bar. Unarmored. Looking broken and fragile. Most of these people in the cantina looked like smugglers! Where had Peli sent you off to?!

“Do you want another?” The bartender was already pouring brown liquid in your glass again before you could respond that yes you did want more in your glass and in your belly because once that nasty brown shit got down there…it was kinda nice. You felt warm all over. Every inch of you was…loose. It was nice to not feel tense and angry and upset. 

You’ve been trying so hard to not think about Din, it’s only day one. You have so many days left of trying not to think about him. And he leaves you with no answers, nothing to know if you should be waiting for him or packing your things to get off the ship when he returns. You don’t know. Again, nothing makes sense and this all just hurts your heart too much. The doodle of Grogu is still pressed tightly to your chest with your right hand as your left takes the drink. You hand the bartender more credits and now…you can go home. 

Back to X4, not home. Your home would be on Nevarro with Din and the two little ones hopefully. Not this forsaken ship! You kick it when you get back to it. You stand right alongside the landing gear and give it a good ole whack with your foot and now that hurts too. Why are you such a fool? You limp into the ship and R5 bleep bloops at you happily. You lay down right on the floor inside the ship's entrance once the ramp is shut. 

“Do you still care for me, tiny droid child?” You turn your head to the droid who is rolling himself into your leg, bleeping over and over again. “I don’t want to get up. I’d like to die here. Honestly.” The droid increases his beeping and his rolling into your leg repeatedly. “Oh stop it. I’m not actually going to. I’m being dramatic. I like being dramatic. I like to complain and bitch and be an asshole to someone I love, apparently.” You exclaim exasperatedly. 

 “Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum.  Kyr'am Kelir kis'wa mhi.  Pal'vut ratiin. I love you. Death will part us. Mine always.” Din’s voice rings throughout the ship and you sit up so quickly it makes you lightheaded. 

“Din?” You look around but then he speaks again but it’s coming from the same room as you. You look around and it’s coming from R5. “Are you doing that? How are you doing that? Din?” You speak into the droid's dome but Din just keeps repeating it over and over again. It’s a recording. “You recorded us!?” You gasp at the droid who stops playing the recording and starts beeping again wildly and rolling away from you.

It’s a struggle to get to your feet but you stumble after him shouting obscenities at him for recording you like that. You fall asleep on your bed with R5 next to you playing that recording for you as you touch the top of his little head. 

“Do you think he still cares for me in that way?” You whisper to the flashing buttons in the dark.

He doesn’t respond to you this time.

The cantina isn’t too bad. You like whiskey now after your two long weeks. Peli said you did good when you showed her that you had finished that giant room. Your shoulder still hurts but you took the sling off. Now you must wait for Din to return, however long that will be. You feel a gloved hand on your shoulder and your stomach flutters. 

“I was just thinkin–” The glove on your shoulder is not the one of Din Djarin. Who is this strange glove that’s holding your shoulder this way?

“Hello little-loth. Aren’t you just lovely? The stories I hear of you do not do you justice.” A very calm and astute sounding voice from behind you says. It’s unmodulated. You turn and see a tall man with a dark complexion a black mustache and short, almost shaved black hair smiling at you kindly. There are nine storm-troopers standing behind him in all black. You sigh loudly. “I’m Moff Gideon. It’s a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.” 

“Moff Gideon?” You do not know this man. You’ve never even heard his name. You look back at the bartender but she is nowhere to be seen. It feels like it’s just the eleven of you here in this cantina. 

“Oh…Did Din Djarin not tell you about me?” He cocks his head to the side and takes a seat alongside you at the bar. “He didn’t tell you about how I captured the small green child you cared for so many years ago? Even if it was only for a couple hours.” Moff Gideon is smiling at you, like he knows a secret that you do not and he’s about to tell you. 

“I still care for the child.” You say, turning your nose up at him because who even was he? Obviously Din got the child back. So who cares? “Why are you here? What stories have you heard about me?” You’re curious, that's for sure. What could this man in black want with you? Why is he talking to you?

“Oh, I’ve heard many stories. That you have your own lightsaber made of beskar.” He raises his eyebrows once and smirks. “That is very impressive of a woman of your stature. Especially one without the Force. Or any previous militia training.” He nods his head at you like he really is impressed. “I’ve heard stories of your beauty.” Gideon raises one glove and very tenderly traces the back of three fingers across the scars where your mechnosutures used to be. “Scarred. Still beautiful though. Now I hear you have your own helmet. And that you’ve mastered the darksaber.”  

Panic. You’re not sure why but pure panic fills your body because the only person that knows that is Din you’re pretty sure. Unless he told people. How did Moff Gideon hear of this?

“Not mastered. I think I figured it out though.” You try to stay as calm as you can because if you panic you don’t know what this caped man in armor will do to you. 

“So you know about the anger?” Gideon asks curiously. You nod in response. “Think of what you could do if you hated your opponent.” Your eyes go wide when you do think about it because that has never crossed your mind. You had only thought about the hatred for the thing in your hand. If the lightsaber guided you towards the good things you fought for… what would the darksaber guide you to,with angry, hate filled thoughts of murder and massacre? “Have you ever killed anyone, beautiful little loth-cat? He whispers the last part to you. It makes you shiver.

“No.” You say because you honestly didn’t even kill the bug down in mines. Din did after you passed out. Why is he asking you these questions? What’s it to him?

“Would you like to? I hear you’re very skilled. I could use…what is it that Din Djarin calls you?” He looks to the ceiling and then to his stormtroopers like they would help him. “Oh. I remember now. Hired help.” 

“That was before.” You whisper softly. The words make you want to throw up but that’s exactly what you had been at one time. Help that he hired. And this was so many years ago. He’s just trying to anger you. 

“So what are you to The Mandalorian?” Moff Gideon raises an eyebrow. “Because right now…he’s in the stars with Bo-Katan Kryze. Flying in her ship. Potentially sleeping in her bed—alongside her .” 

You actually feel like you’re going to throw up. It’s been a nagging thought in your brain. He did take the N-1 but there is no place to sleep there. That’s no place to house a child. 

“I don’t know,” you murmur, looking away from Gideon now. 

“I know what you could be…to me.” He sounds so pleased with himself. 

“Oh and what is that? More hired help?” You’re annoyed and wished he would go away. 

“You would definitely be helping me with something.”

tag list: @thereaperisabitch @pedrospookie @furiousmushroom @harriedandharassed @realmamabear79 @blahkateisdone @picketniffler @cheekychaos28 @lilac-boo @pedrostories @wandamaximoff4578 @probablyreadinsmut @katw474 @cowboy-like-m3 @gummy-dummy @cathynstuff