#because at least then you have a general path to follow and aren’t trying to pave the way right from the start

[oscquinn]

MIND OVER MATTER, lip gallagher

chapter two of BORDERLINE. lip x bsf!reader (nickname: MK)

TAGS & WARNINGS → general shameless themes, smoking, swearing, karen's here and she's a bitch, lots of best friend moments <333

CHAPTER SUMMARY → the days get colder and lip remains stubborn. it's mostly due to his on again off again relationship with karen jackson, the girl who says she's pregnant with his baby. and, conveniently, the girl that hates your guts.

A/N → thank you so much for waiting on this one!!! took me a while to update because i just want every little detail to be perfect 🥹

WC → 1.7k

As autumn gave way to the icy cold of winter you found yourself staring out the window of your seventh period classroom. An old pair of wired earbuds connects both you and Lip to your school issued laptop, which the two of you were using to form your monthly shared playlist. It was a tradition you had started yourself at the beginning of this year, but Lip had wormed his way in as he seemed to do with everything else in your life, insisting he be allowed to add songs since he had to ride along with you everywhere. You’d told him it came with his lack of license, and he’d pestered you until you allowed him ten songs per playlist. 

Lip’s elbow digs into your ribs and pulls your focus away from the flurries starting to fall outside the window. “Skip this shit,” he mumbles, referencing the Taylor Swift song that just started.

You roll your eyes but skip it regardless, it didn’t fit in with your november lineup. Satisfied with the song that follows, you navigate away from the playlist, opening up your email. “I signed us up for a tour at UChi,” you say casually, eyes flicking over to gauge his reaction. He rolls his eyes and ignores you entirely, clearly annoyed with your choice. So this is still an uphill battle. Got it. “If you won’t go for yourself, at least come along for me? That way ‘m not alone.”

You watch Lip as he considers it, finally nodding his head after a moment of silence. The dismissal bell rings and your teacher gives some spiel about homework but neither of you care to listen. Like a well oiled system you return each other’s borrowed things���your pretty pack of highlighters Lip liked to use for annotation, the pencil he miraculously had when you forgot your own, the laptop which belongs to you and earbuds that belong to him–packing them up and practically racing each other out the door. You stumble through the back row as Lip dashes in front of you, pulling out a chair to leave in your path. It’s easy to laugh, easy to forget how much you’re having to push him to take his future seriously. 

By the time you catch up to him in the hall, there’s a little blonde nuisance at his side. She kisses him obnoxiously, which you think is a little much for the fact they aren’t even official. You’d never say it aloud but you’re not convinced her baby even belongs to him. Her school slut reputation hadn’t come from being a prude after all.  But of course you’re willing to play the part, to be the supportive best friend, because you knew the alternative; being painted as a jealous whore, for the simple act of looking out for your friend. Safe to say, Karen Jackson makes you seethe with rage. 

She doesn’t even offer a greeting, just looks you up and down with a disgusted glare. Lip says she doesn’t talk about you behind your back, but you think he’s just trying to save your feelings. You understand it can be hard to keep the peace between two girls who are equally important to him. Though, you wish he’d wake up from his lust induced haze to see she’s just using him. As always you play the part you’re meant to play. The best friend, ever supportive, standing quietly to the side as they have their moment. A moment that makes you sick to your stomach, but is theirs nonetheless. Not your place to intervene. 

You decide to wait in your car instead of dwelling on it.

Hours pass idly by before you’re in the Gallagher house for the night, too cold and tired to walk the twenty or so steps across the street to your own home. It wasn’t your fault Ian rolled a joint and passed it up when you were already dozing off in Lip’s bed.

When you stub out the joint, Lip tosses a pillow down to the foot of the bed. You can’t help but find it odd, the way you sleep head to foot to keep air between you as if you haven’t shared each other’s space for as long as you can remember. Lip was always wherever you were, and the same went for you. Inseparable for as long as you could remember. But then there came this… tension. The awkward energy] that came with growing up, getting crushes, going on dates. Suddenly it wasn’t normal to curl into your best friend’s side. Instead, he slept on an air mattress when he visited your house, and you occupied opposite ends of the bed at his. 

You’re not sure when the change came about. You find that you hate it. 

With nightfall comes snowfall, and when you wake from an uncomfortable strain in your back you see the soft, white flakes falling outside the window. You sit up, accidentally bumping your head in your excitement. The thud along with the pained groan from your chest wake Lip up, blue eyes blinking blearily up at you in the dim glow of the streetlight. 

“Fuck’re you doin’ MK?” he grumbles, swatting away your hand when it gently shakes his hip. “Go back t’sleep.”

“Look, ‘s snowing,” you murmur, awe painted in your tone as you lean down to turn his head towards the window. 

His next words are muffled by the pillow he shoves over his face, attempting to hide from you and your antics. “We live ‘n fuckin’ Chicago, it snows here. Not like its a miracle.”

“Come outside with me?” you ask simply. The pillow is pulled away from his face and Lip gives you a puzzled look, which you fight with a drawn out whisper of “pleeeeaseeee?”

Lip has never been able to say no to your pleading. Tonight is no exception. Within ten minutes the two of you are outside in your pajamas, fingers clad in fuzzy gloves and feet nestled into too-big snow boots. The snowfall is already slowing when Lip pulls one of his gloves off, struggling to light a cigarette against the icy wind. Without a word you step closer and shelter the light with your body until it catches the end of the cig. When he exhales you mimic the motion with frosted breath. 

Lip is still laughing at your antics when you grab his bicep, tugging his body to the ground with you. “Wha- what the fuck!?”

“Snow angels,” you reply simply, “come on, have a little whimsy, some childlike wonder.” The snow is cold against your back but you begin to move your arms and legs regardless. You tilt your head and are pleasantly surprised to see a boyish grin formed around the cig tucked neatly between his lips. He mimics your motion, arms and legs pushing snow aside until his elbows are brushing grass. 

He offers you the last drag or two from his cig, propping himself up with his elbows dug into the compressed snow where his back had been. “Y’know, I don’t think I’ve made a snow angel since I was–shit–like, five or six?” He hauls himself up and uses his teeth to remove the remaining glove, his hands dipping down into the snow.

“Don’t you dare,” you warn him, your teeth baring with a nervous smile as he steps closer, “Lip! Don’t you fucking-” it’s too late, there’s snow down the back of your crew neck sweatshirt. You shriek, jumping to your feet and packing a snowball of your own for revenge. It’s easy to laugh with him. To forget the troubles that plague your young hearts, subjects far too mature which were introduced at far too young of an age.

You end your little snow escapade on the steps. Lip brushes the gathering snow off the wood to give the two of you room to share a seat and a cigarette. The smoke warms your body and the comfortable silence warms your soul. You watch as he rubs his hands together, lifting them up to feel the little heat provided by the tendrils of smoke. 

When he passes it to you, you take a drag and exhale through your nose, taking both of his hands in your own. You want to scold him lightly, it’s not smart to go without gloves in the snow, but with two hands occupied you can’t exactly hold the cig anywhere other than your mouth. So you stay quiet, and so does he.

Minutes pass in familiar silence. You write your name in the snow at your feet, digging out the letters with the heel of your boot. Lip does the same with the cigarette butt when it’s finished, and you complain how unfair it is that his writing looks much neater compared to yours. He smooths out the snow over your name, rewriting ‘MK’ in the space. 

As you head inside you become aware of how wet your clothes are, the snow melting in the slightly warmer temperatures, though you notice it’s not much. Lip lends you some clothes of his and politely turns his back while you change. Not that you would’ve cared much, anyway. 

“Fuckin’ freezin’ in here Lip,” you mumble, shivering in your hoodie and borrowed boxers as you climb the ladder after him. 

He laughs in response, reaching out to tug you into the softness of his chest. “C’mere, snow miser,” he grumbles, referencing a childhood favorite movie the two of you would watch every Christmas. A smile graces your lips as you settle against his chest, his warmth more familiar than anything you’ve ever known.

Lip tells you quietly about how Frank blew his most recent disability check, leaving Fiona scrambling for the small but important number he often contributed to the heat bill. He rambles on about how each of his siblings were dealing with the cold–something about Carl convincing Debbie her frosted breath was a magical power–and you feel yourself drifting off to the gentle sound of his voice.

In the morning the sun peeks through the worn curtains of the boys’ room. Gentle rays attempt to tug you from the comfortable embrace, but your unconscious mind only snuggles further into Lip’s chest. Carl is the first to take notice of this, snickering and elbowing a distracted Ian in the ribs as he pulls on warmer clothes. The older boy eyes the two of you and grabs Lip’s phone from his desk to snap a quick picture before ushering his younger brother out of the room. 

And when Fiona heads out to head to work, there are still two names written in the snow. With careful footing, she allows them to stay.

THX 4 READING → dedicated to my lovely @notsonian. beta'd by @tinyphantomsalad.

[sleep-i-ness]

6 Café Confrontations (Anthony Lockwood x Reader)

SERIES MASTERLIST | LOCKWOOD & CO MASTERLIST | GENERAL MASTERLIST

After the whole ordeal the day before, Kipps refused to let you out of his sight, tailing you to work and taking up a permanent position in the corner of the café. You kept his mug topped up with tea, giving him a look every time he tried to sneak money into the pocket of your apron, although you knew already that he would somehow win this battle. He hasn’t had to do this in a while; it’s been long enough since you left that the sweaty nights of tossing and turning had become a thing of the past. But you appreciate it nonetheless, even if you think he’s being rather overprotective. It’s not as if your dreams could follow you into the day.

Arif took one look at you when you’d come to open and shaken his head, eyes creasing at the sight of your dark bags and the slump to your shoulders. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what happened when Kipps hovered over your shoulder, giving him a weary smile that told far too much, and you hated the feeling of déjà vu that washes over the entire day. Much like before, Arif kept you busy with bussing tables and manning the register, not allowing you the opportunity to dwell on the itchy feeling bruised into your flesh. 

And so, you spent your day swept off your feet, darting between customers as you carried a slightly dented tray filled with mugs and various pastries. At least now you have the skill to avoid customers, rather than crashing straight into those who decided to suddenly stop in their path to stare at something interesting they’d spotted. They still irritate you to no end; what on earth could be so astounding outside the window that they needed to come to a complete halt in the middle of the café?

A polite cough interrupts your musings as you lie down the double espresso and almond croissant in front of the man in the bowler hat, who’d spent his entire time ordering trying to get a good glimpse down your shirt and made sure to use your name at the end of every sentence.

“Sorry, sir,” you smile, all teeth, as you turn to face whichever customer had decided that the coffee wasn’t made to their liking or whatever the problem is now. You really hate customer service sometimes, especially on a day like this when half of London chose to descend on the shop, undoubtedly because it had been mentioned in some article or TikTok as a “hidden gem”. Not that you aren’t happy that Arif was getting the business he finally deserved.

And you freeze, smile flickering slightly. “Lucy. What a pleasure. Can I get you anything?”

She nods a hello at you, casting her gaze quickly over your uniform, but whatever conclusion she comes to doesn’t show on her face. “I’m just here to collect some doughnuts; not sure if the boys rang ahead or anything.”

If they had, you hadn’t been the one on the phone and you purse your lips. “I’ll have a look for you; Anna’s been on takeaway orders today, so she’ll probably have written it down somewhere.”

“Anna?” Lucy frowns, and you catch Kipps’ stare as you head to the counter, Lucy trailing behind.

“My coworker; she’s just clocked out actually, so we’ll just hope that she left a list of orders for pick-up.” You grab a sheet of paper laying beside the phone which is covered in Anna’s unintelligible scrawl and sigh. As always, Anna appeared to have spent her time writing pretty lines of poetry rather than putting down anything of note, but you can hardly begrudge her for it. Being by the phone is by the far the most boring job in the store, other than closing, but you’ve done the latter so often that it’s a chore of muscle memory now.

You cast your eyes over her writing, looking for anything that might say Lockwood, Anthony, or Portland Row, but apart from a few strange squiggles, nothing looks quite right. “Sorry, Lucy, doesn’t look like they did. I can see what I can scrounge up from the cabinet, but it’ll be the day’s leftovers rather than your usual.”

“Fine by me. It’s on the boys and if they start complaining, I’ll remind them of it.”

You smile and grab a paper bag from the shelf. “Unfortunately, we’ve got mostly powdered left, and they’ll be pretty dry by now. If you want, I can set aside the last jam one in a separate bag for you.”

Lucy grins, and part of you notes that that was probably the first time she’s genuinely smiled at you before, and she looks quite pretty when she does. Her face is normally settled into a light sneer around you, although you don’t get the impression it’s because she thinks you’re below her. Then again you don’t get much of an impression from her anyway, other than the fact that she isn’t your biggest fan.

“Everything alright?” Kipps appears from nowhere, startling both you and Lucy and shattering whatever fragile amicability is starting to build.

“Yeah, Lucy’s here to pick up some doughnuts,” your mouth tilts, “and Lockwood forgot to order ahead.”

“Classic Lockwood.” Kipps rolls his eyes with a snort, and you catch the glare slipping onto Lucy’s face before she smooths it away. Someone’s protective.

She leans against the cabinet, and you have to bite your tongue to stop yourself from reprimanding her as you would the small children who press their sticky fingers against the glass and panted at the sight of sugar. “He also wanted to know if you two would stop by for dinner.”

“For dinner?” You grimace, not at the thought of having dinner with them – well only slightly – but more because of the strangeness of the invitation. Wasn’t one night in your company enough for them?

“Dinner?” Kipps echoes, and you glance over to see a similar expression as to your own, eyes widened, and one eyebrow quirked up.

Lucy shrugs. “I assume he wanted to have a bit more of a discussion than we managed last night.”

Your palms are sweaty, you realise, fingers white where they clench around the tongs, and so you let it clatter onto the counter to wipe your hands against your apron. Kipps flinches ever so slightly at the sound, head snapping in your direction.

“I don’t think that’s-”

“We could do dinner,” you interrupt, plastering on a better smile than the one you mustered for that customer earlier. “I’m off in half an hour so we can head up straight after.”

“Sounds good, do you mind if I hover around until then?” Lucy gives you a softer look than the complete glare she’s been sporting moments earlier, and there’s something tired about her. You can appreciate that Lockwood isn’t always the person you want to be around, and so you nod.

“Take any table you’d like. D’you want tea or anything?”

“I’m alright, thanks.” She grabs the paper bags you’ve left to one side for her, puts a fiver in their place, and takes up a perch at the table in the corner. How strange. The entire interaction feels like something out of an odd dream, although it does make sense as to why Lockwood would want to have dinner with you both. It would probably be more of a meeting than an actual dinner though.

--

“Good evening, good evening,” Lockwood beams as he holds the door open, Lucy, Kipps and finally you traipsing into the hallway, shivering slightly. He’s made you wait a good few minutes on the porch in the cold, and it got to the point where you were seriously considered huddling for warmth before he finally made it to the door.

As you diligently kick off your shoes and knock them to one side, using the bookshelf to steady yourself, you feel a hand caress your cheek and flinch. Not obviously, mind you; you have gotten used to the echoes in the building over your last few house calls, but it still catches you off guard at times. You glance up at the odd group in the hallway and spot Lockwood’s eyes fixed on you.

“Can I get your coat?” He’s at your side as you let go of the bookshelf, feeling yourself wobble before his hand catches your elbow and steadies you without a word. When you stand back upright, Lucy’s watching you; you can see her head tilted towards the two of you out of the corner of your eye, and the look on her face makes your stomach drop.

You nod, allowing him to help you out of the heavy wool, something you’d picked up for a bargain at a car boot sale when you’d got your first ever paycheck and it had seen you through far too much at this point. His fingers brush against your neck as he clasps the collar, fire trailing in their wake and you don’t know what to say as he continues to just watch you, even when hanging your coat on a hook. You don’t know quite what you’ve done to deserve Lockwood’s undivided attention, but it unnerves you in a way that you can’t quite put your finger on. Heat begins to crawl up the back of your neck at his direct stare, much like last night’s, ensnaring you in their odd fire. You swallow, throat bobbing as you wait for him to say something; you can’t stand the anticipation as his eyes remain fixed.

Until he breaks away at Lucy’s complaining.

“Could you not have got here any quicker?” She grouses, shaking for good measure. “It’s freezing out there.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Lockwood replies rather flippantly, and you aren’t quite sure what is up with his constant repetition. If you didn’t know better, you would assume he’s nervous. “George is busy with dinner, and I didn’t hear you until I’d come up from the basement. Come to the kitchen and I’m sure we can warm you up with tea. Did you get the doughnuts, Luce?”

She presses a crumpled bag into his hands, and you hide a smile at the other still peeking out of her pocket.

Lockwood’s face falls as he rifles through the bag. “Only powdered?”

“Well, someone forgot to ring ahead and so this was all they had.”

He looks so forlorn that you almost feel sorry for him, which is ridiculous, especially over something so trivial. And, as Lucy said, entirely his fault. But, even still, the pout he wore on his face bugs you as you head to the kitchen, hanging back as Lucy and Lockwood fall into a well-rehearsed chatter, tossing around half-hearted jibes which have even Kipps smirking. There’s something stilted in the way they’re holding themselves, an odd stiffness that you’ve never noticed in their interactions before.

George is already grumbling about the amount of people in his way as he cooks, and why Lockwood had decided to bring you all there is beyond him. You chuckle, peeking over his shoulder at the pots on the stove before backing away at his warning glare, raising your hands in surrender.

“Anything I can do to help?” You ask once you’ve reached a safe distance, out of spatula reach. With the way he’s wielding the kitchen implement, you wouldn’t be surprised if he decides to use it as a weapon on anyone who gets to close.

“You can sit down. All of you.” He snaps and turns his back. Okay. Something had definitely happened whilst you were gone, and you don’t blame Lucy one bit for running away to Arif’s. You’d done the same in the past.

As the others hustle into seats, chairs screeching against the tile, you hesitate, hovering at the edge of the counter. “Do you want me to set the table or anything, George?”

He opens his mouth before thinking better of whatever he was going to say, for which you’re grateful, and takes a deep breath. “Yes, that would be lovely, thank you.”

You dart to the cupboard he motions at, finding a stack of slightly chipped and faded floral plates, which you count out slowly, all borne of desire to avoid whatever conversation is going on at the table behind you. There’s a bite behind words, a hidden sneer that you really cannot be bothered to deal with, and perhaps you should have listened to Kipps.

As you rifle through the cutlery drawers, jolting to the side as George nears with a sour grunt, the conversation behind you quietens to a whisper and you strain to hear, but to no avail. All you catch is Lockwood murmuring and Lucy’s hushed ‘No!’ of outrage in response. When you spin around, plates in hand, Kipps and Lockwood are locked into some kind of stare down and Lucy looks just so totally over it all. And when Lockwood is the first to look away to give you a smile, Lucy huffs and rolls her eyes.

[silentlilyy]

didn’t want to start mist discourse but i’m mad. i think this fandom has a rather glaring issue about how they treat female characters in general. so anyways a rant towards a few certain anons who have decided hating on mist is the new hot thing!

Mist Is A Good Character, Actually: Why This Fandom Needs to Treat Female Characters Better

(she likes to pick apples! good for her! …or are those tomatoes?)

i can tell that one of those anons never played the tellius duology simply because in a cutscene in the PROLOGUE mist is literally playing in a field of flowers??? the cutscene with the famous “ ‘bout time!” line from the questionable english dub??? established right off the bat is that she enjoys nature, confirmed by her official art above showing her with a basket of apples! listen i hate being a gatekeeper, the tellius games aren’t the easiest to emulate and physical copies are pricey, but come on. you can’t be sending anon hate when you barely know the characters. i’ve also seen someone talk about how her only trait is being ike’s sister??? what??? okay listen to me for a second. their mom is dead at the start of path of radiance. greil is still alive at this point. mists behaviour is a bit different from how she is in later chapters and in radiant dawn at this point, such as poking fun at ike and boyd. however, once greil dies, she breaks down, and is a lot more attached to ike from then on. she literally follows him into the final black knight fight in path of radiance. SOREN of all people stayed out of it and lord knows he’s with ike all the time. so don’t come at me with this “she’s just ike’s sister 🤓” stuff, she’s scared to lose him after losing both parents before she’s even an adult, because when greil went off to fight by himself, he died!

you also can’t just dictate whether or not a character is good because of a tiny list of what they like. that’s not how it works. mist is not a “mini housewife”, she is a fifteen year old who lost her mother at a young age and is one of two girls in the Greil Mercenaries before Mia joins - it’s pretty clear, to me at least, that that’s probably affected her and who she is as a character. the duality of a fifteen year old girl who enjoys playing in flower fields and teases her brother, but is also one of two girls in a male-dominated mercenary group, stuck doing most of the chores because aside from oscar being a cook, i can’t see people like boyd or gatrie coming in to help with the domestic stuff like sewing!

i would also like to add that i do agree that fire emblem is weird about character ages, but listen. stop getting mad about how she should’ve been ten years old or whatever. that’s not helpful when looking at a character from an analytical angle. use it to ask WHY the creators chose to design her that way or why she acts childish at times. my english teacher once said to us, nothing is by accident in a short story. the author has limited space to tell their story, so everything serves a purpose. why is this relevant? the same philosophy holds here, in my opinion. fire emblem is a series that has a huge cast of characters that all have to share that limited amount of screen time. when taking a look at someone’s character, you can’t just immediately write something off as the designers being silly. so why is mists age 15 when she looks and acts in such a way? to me, the designers wanted to show how she didn’t get the chance to grow up like most girls, raised in a place where she had to learn to take care of herself pretty fast, and she’s trying to hold on to what she has left of her childhood - when she had the time to focus on hobbies aside from domestic ones. this isn’t a knock on greil or titania or the other mercenaries, though; it’s just the nature of having to leave their base quite often, and i think mist had to find comfort in the small things that started off as chores, hence why they’re in her list of liked things.

this whole mist debacle has kinda exposed something within the fire emblem fandom that isn’t talked about much. yes this was only two anons who came after her, but it’s something i find prevalent with other female characters like deirdre. a lot of people don’t take the time to look into female characters and who they are, and write them off as being boring and having no personality. and i don’t think the guys of fire emblem get that same treatment at all. the fact that SHE was singled out in a cast of over 70 playable characters by radiant dawn is just nuts to me. “dragging down tellius”. the same games with a character who’s been called out for being a racist stereotype. and it just makes me angry that this kind of treatment of the girls of fire emblem goes unchecked a lot of the time. hyping up Lyn or whoever is generally perceived as a “good character” doesn’t mean you’re automatically exempt from contributing to fandom misogyny. and the reason i say this is because a lot of these fans don’t really care about taking a deeper look into the women. it’s a surface level glance at them. there’s a reason why micaiah used to be called a mary-sue. they just assume that they won’t be as “well-written” compared to the men. if you want to combat fandom misogyny, you have to uplift all women in the cast, and that includes women you think are uninteresting or bland, because there’s some really interesting stories being told that have been ignored. again taking the tellius fandom as an example: there are so many amazing female characters in the duology, like there’s Jill of course but they genuinely did a great job with so many of the women. lethe, elincia, micaiah, titania, almedha, ena, to name a few. and while yes, they’re generally regarded as good characters, they don’t get the same amount of love the others do - there’s hardly anyone digging into them and their motivations. and it’s criminal.

in conclusion, do better. mist isn’t a bad character. fandom misogyny runs deep, and the only way to fight it is to start appreciating the women of the series as characters, and to give them the same in-depth analyses the men get.

[enjoythesilentworld]

Wille's Month - Music (Room)

day 29 ! @youngroyals-events

Ex-Prince Wilhelm, hoping to escape the turmoil following the end of the monarchy, enrolls in university in New York City. He meets fourth-year music student Simon Eriksson in a music room on campus. AU.

read below the cut or on ao3. (T, 2k)

It’s a random Monday afternoon in September when he first meets him. Well, first sees him. 

Wille has been taking advantage of the rentable music rooms on Columbia’s campus, despite not technically being a music student. One day, enjoying the general listlessness of his new life in New York, no path, no expectations, he’s playing a tune on the piano that he still somehow remembers from his childhood. He must have gotten carried away, distracted by the music, because he jumps out of his skin when someone bursts through the thick, sound-proofed door. 

“Listen, I just made it to the practice rooms so,” a voice is saying in– Is that Swedish? Wille turns around in surprise as the intruder halts, quickly ending his phone call and dropping his hand to hang loosely by his side. He switches to halting English to say, “Oh, sorry, I thought I had—”

Ever used to it, Wille notices the exact moment the recognition flooded the other’s face. He braces himself, feeling a bit sick because he hasn’t been recognized yet in New York, which has been a welcome change of pace, and also because this man is the most beautiful person Wille has ever seen. 

This time, the stranger doesn’t bother switching to English to say, “Aren’t you—?”

He stands up abruptly, saying “I– Just, just Wilhelm,” then gives a curt nod and starts frantically collecting his things. Hesitating for a moment, he cools his expression, trying not to stare too hard at the man’s smooth skin and silky curls. “Forgive me, I must have lost track of time. I didn’t realize anyone had booked this after me. I’ll get out of your way.” 

In a matter of seconds, he’s slipping out of the room, ignoring the warmth when his arm lightly brushes the stranger’s as he passes, and fleeing down the hallway.

Feeling guilty, he thinks about it the rest of the week, hoping he’ll run into the pretty man with the brown eyes and brown curls again so he can apologize. He’s back in the music room on Wednesday at the same time and he stays a few minutes after, but no one else arrives.

On Friday, he does the same, pacing the room as the last few minutes of his reserved time tick over. Just like Monday, the same man bursts through the door, looking slightly ruffled. 

“Oh.” The man stands in the doorway again, awkwardly staring. 

Wille comes to a stop next to the piano. 

“Hej.” 

“Uh,” the stranger glances over his shoulder, like he expects to find someone else standing there.  “Hej.”

“I’m sorry, I was rude last time. I didn’t expect to—” He shakes his head and steps forward, extending a hand. “I’m Wilhelm.”

The man stares down at his hand for a moment, looking shocked, before slowly extending his hand.

“Simon,” he says, brown eyes boring into Wille’s. Wille tries not to think about how well Simon’s hand fits in his. Thankfully, he’s distracted by the other man saying, “You were kind of a dick.”

“Simon,” Wilhelm repeats, feeling both a slight grimace and an embarrassed flush rise on his face. “I am really sorry.”

Simon shrugs and his perfect mouth curls into a smirk. Wille’s shoulders sag a bit at the realization that Simon might be fucking with him just a little bit. That, he can deal with. 

“I was hoping to run into you again,” he says earnestly, hoping to make up for his lack of manners earlier that week. “It’s nice to meet you. You… You speak Swedish?”

“I am Swedish,” Simon deadpans. Wilhelm’s cheeks blush pink again. “Half, at least. I was born there. We moved away when I was, like, 13.”

Wilhelm nods understandingly. At that moment, they both seem to realize that they’re still shaking hands. They drop each other's hands quickly, chuckling awkwardly. Wille feels the blush on his cheeks darken further, but he sees a slight pinkness appear on Simon’s cheeks, too, and feels a bit better. 

“I have to admit, you caught me off guard.” Wille folds his hands behind his back and rocks a bit on his feet. “Most people here either don’t know who I am or don’t care.” 

“Oh, I don’t care,” Simon says nonchalantly. Wille lets out a surprised laugh. “I just mean— I never really cared about the monarchy, you know. I thought it was a stupid waste of taxpayers’ money and upheld harmful traditions of the elitist class. I mean, I lived in a small town with a fancy rich-kid school. They all assumed the absolute worst of me and just solidified my theory that the upper class sees those below them as ‘less than’. The monarchy really only encouraged that mindset, I think. Rich people helping other rich people get more rich, perpetuating the gap. I wasn’t living in Sweden when the vote happened, but I would’ve voted for the end of it. Thankfully they didn’t need my vote, anyway, but—” 

Trying to school his expression into something that hopefully doesn’t say I want to kiss you so badly right now – one, because that’s inappropriate and two, because they’ve quite literally just met – Wille pulls his bottom lip into his mouth and bites on it, hard. 

The other man looks sheepish by the time he cuts off his own rant, then blushes and looks down at his feet. “Sorry, I just…” He trails off and Wille grins. 

“It’s okay. You’re right. It was a harmful system. The vote passed for a reason.” 

Simon tilts his head to the side, considering Wilhelm, which, is fair. Most don’t expect him to be staunchly against the institution that he was a part of for most of his life. 

“What are you doing here?” Simon asks. 

“Uh,” Wille glances behind him at the piano. “Practicing?”

The pretty man waves his hands, “No, here, in New York. But, yes, I suppose also why are you in the Columbia practice rooms?” 

“Oh. I’m a student here. I wanted to escape Sweden for a bit after… everything. My, um,” Wille pauses, twisting his fingers together, “My brother and I always talked about taking a trip here when I turned 18, too. So… Here I am.” 

A silence fills the room and Wille is grateful when Simon diverts the topic. 

“Are you focusing on music then? What are you working on?” Simon rounds the room to look at the papers propped up on the piano. Wille feels suddenly embarrassed by the music sheets that are just messy scratches of black ink. 

“It’s not really—“ Wilhelm rushes forward, collecting the sheets and shuffling them together. “I’m registered for sociology, but I haven’t really decided on a focus yet. This – the piano – is more of a… hobby. It was a hobby. I’m not really sure how I feel about it.” There’s another long pause and Wille blushes more, holding the papers to his chest. He looks down at his feet. “I wasn’t really allowed a lot of hobbies growing up, but music classes were required so I figured…” 

“Right, that makes sense,” Simon says gently. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to overstep.”

“No!” Wille bursts out, nearly dropping the sheets in the process, eager to reassure the other. “No, no. It’s okay. I’m just not very good so I…” He releases the music from his tight grip and shuffles them in front of himself, frowning slightly at the scribbles. 

“I could,” Simon begins slowly, “take a look, if you want? This is kind of my whole degree. No pressure.”

Wille looks between the black ink and Simon’s face, chewing on his bottom lip again. Reluctantly, he slowly returns the paper to the music shelf. “I mean, if you don’t mind. I don’t want to steal your reserved time.” 

Waving him off again, Simon slides onto the bench and begins to sort through the notes. “It’s fine. No one has this room booked after me so I can stay later. Like I said, it’s literally why I’m here.” 

Simon looks up at Wille hovering over him and Wille looks down, thinking, oh fuck this is going to be a big problem isn’t it? 

Before he can doubt himself any further, Simon says, “Show me how it goes so far?”

That entire weekend, this time not out of guilt but out of fascination, he thinks about Simon. He can’t help it. The beautiful man with his beautiful laugh, his snarky remarks and complete disregard for Wille’s past is the perfect storm for Wille immediately falling head over heels.

On Monday, he lingers awkwardly in the music room, praying Simon will show up. He does, much to Wille’s delight, and brushes past any lingering unease, offering to show Wille the production program he’s been learning about in class. Simon is very smart and a very good teacher, easily moving through the parts of the program and kindly explaining them to Wille without complication.

Apparently the program is rather large, because after only about ten minutes, Simon’s laptop slips into buffering mode. He frustratedly smacks the side.

“God, this dumb laptop,” Simon groans, tossing his head back. Wille does not look at the long, lean line of his neck.

Wille smiles at the dramatics, and says, politely, “I don't think hitting it will encourage it to work, Simon.”

Simon groans again and sends a scowl at him. “You don’t know what my computer likes.”

“I can’t imagine it likes being jostled around like that.”

Simon rolls his eyes and Wille laughs.

“Why don’t you leave it alone for a bit and let it work itself out?” he suggests, wanting to reach out to comfortingly pat Simon’s shoulder but not knowing if they’re to that point, yet. “We can do something else?”

Shrugging, Simon puts the laptop down on the piano and folds his arms, glaring at it like he’s willing it to work.

Motivated by the rapport they’ve established, and itching to learn more about Simon, Wille asks, “Do you like it here?” He’s embarrased by how shy and timid his own voice sounds.

Simon turns to him and studies his face.

“Do you like it here?”

Wille holds eye contact for as long as he can, before looking away to stare at his shoes. There’s something about Simon’s stare that pierces his soul and completely disarms him.  

“Yeah.” It sounds a bit like a question, which it kind of is, because he’s unsure if he’s telling the truth but also doesn’t know if he’s lying. He steels himself enough to look back up to meet Simon’s eyes.

New York has been fine, a nice change of pace at the very least, but he’s still lonely. A different type of lonely, but no matter how far he flees, his brother is still dead and the monarchy is still gone and he still has no idea what his future was going to look like. (Now, though, for the first time in a long time, thanks to brown eyes and a blinding smile, he has some idea of what he might want it to look like.)

“What did you want to be?” Simon blurts, startling Wille out of his musings. “Before this. When you were a kid. Before you were… a prince. Before you weren’t anymore.”

Wille smiles slightly. “An astronaut.”

“Really?” Simon sounds surprised.

“Yes,” Wille frowns. “What’s wrong with astronaut?”

Simon shrugs. “Cliche.”

“Oh, alright,” Wilhelm quips sassily, and enjoys the amused look that arrives on Simon’s face. “What did you want to be, then, if my answer is no good?”

“A fish.”

Wille’s mouth drops open. He closes it, then opens it again but can’t seem to make any sound come out.

“Yes, exactly like that!” Simon grins widely, pointing at Wille. This makes Wille splutter, which makes Simon burst into laughter.

“That’s not– You can’t be a fish, Simon,” he gasps incredulously.

Simon continues to giggle. “Why not?”

“It’s not possible!”

“Oh and you becoming an astronaut is possible?”

“Hey, if I wanted to I could. You are a human person. You cannot be a fish.”

“Well, that’s what I wanted to be. You asked.”

Thirty minutes later, their booked time in the music room is up and Wille realizes Simon’s laptop has stopped buffering. He’s not sure how long it’s been done, he’d been too busy laughing and joking with Simon. He’s also not sure how long it’s been since he laughed like this. It feels really, really nice. Comfortable. He books the same time slot for Wednesday as they bid their goodbyes.

[taurusreads]

for who it may concern…

masterlist || paid services || ko-fi

random messages for whoever this needs to find 🫶🏽

some of you may have been feeling like a connection you have with someone is starting to come to an end. you may have lost a bit of contact with a friend, or have been trying to find a way to end a connection with a person. you or this person may be a water sign, or have prominent water placements. i feel like you may be ignoring some of the signs that that universe is giving to you, in favor of staying in a comfortable situation. this may be a long term friendship for some of you, as i’m seeing a reluctance to let go because of the time you’ve spent with that person. a bit of advice from your guides: if the time you spent wasn’t fulfilling, then should it really be in your life? and for others, the good times are nice to reminisce on, but when a certain relationship had run its course, it’s time to do what’s best for you. make the courageous choice of taking care of yourself, rather than expending all of your energy on others.

for some of you, a major piece of advice is to be a bit easier on yourself. you’re allowed to have fun without feeling like you’re wasting time, because you’re no wasting time. you’re actually right on track, and the universe wants you to learn to enjoy life, rather than be so serious about it. stop ignoring the things that you’re being called to do, and let go of the things you know aren’t meant for you. follow the lead of your heart, and let the universe align your energy to the things that you have been manifesting. stop resisting the change. be honest with yourself about the career path that you want to do. are you picking the career you’re in because you want to do it, or because society, your friends, your family, etc. all expect you to do it? are you truly living your highest calling, or are you trying to make the people around you happy? why is that? why do you feel undeserving of happiness, and substitute it with the happiness of others? it’s okay to ask these questions, and acknowledge that work needs to be done within oneself.

it’s time to relearn all of the life lessons that you needed. what lessons did you learn too late due to the formation of your trauma? what lessons did the situation you were in teach you and how does that reflect your beliefs and values? i think this has turned into a lesson on shadow work for whoever this may concern lol.

some of you could possibly be starseeds and if you are or that thought resonated with you, welcome bbies 🫶🏽 you may have started this lifetime with someone else in your soul tribe on a double mission. this relationship is going to provide a lot of healing to both you, your person, and the general collective as well. your mission is to raise the vibration of the universe, and bring light and happiness back into a darkened world. you will be healing past wounds, breaking generational curses, and bringing about a new age.

i think that you, your person, or perhaps the both of you could be public figures. i think your life lessons and experiences both separated and together provide more insight and understanding to a lot of other peoples situations. if not public figures, then you’re at least well known in your current community. people look up to you guys, i can see people actually using you as role models for how they want to live their lives. i feel like the connection between you and this other energy is definitely romantic, it’s giving unconditional love and adoration for another, someone who fits them like a key to a lock. one of you could also be spiritual, or have psychic abilities.

you could have been in a period where you were very spiritually aware, or at least were seeing a lot of signs and synchronicities, or you’re going to experience this soon. there will have been a surge in spiritual knowledge, getting intuitive hits randomly throughout the day, gaining clarity on very foggy areas of your life, being more trusting and open with your guides, yourself, and the universe, etc. this will have come after a period of solitude. you took the time to yourself to meet your shadow, to understand everything that makes you you, and to accept those parts of yourself and finally live authentically. things will start to shift radically in your life at that point. during this time, it is a call to action. this is the moment for you to go after the things you want, floor the gas pedal and go for the finish line!

okay this is turning into a love reading lmao hold on.

a sign that you might be meeting your person is that you start to become more expressive. you may not be someone who voices their opinions a lot, but you find yourself speaking out more where you’d usually stay silent. the four of wands fell out, which is a heavy indication of happy endings, family, healthy homes, children, pregnancy, etc. i feel like this person gets these feelings immediately, and the feeling is probably mutual lol. i think that this connection either moves really quickly once you meet, or the connection is going to surface very soon for you. either of you could have prominent fire placements in your chart as well.

i think you two share very similar mindsets, and have similar passions as well. i think that you guys could bond over a common interest in your careers as well. you may even meet because of a work project. you both needed to create the foundation you needed within yourselves to meet each other and start your mission together, and you both have reached a point where you’re ready for union. you have the ace or swords, which indicates clear intentions, deep, intellectual conversations, and new incoming contact with someone.

this connection is everything that you could have ever asked for. i feel like this is something you and your person both manifested, and it was finally the right time for you two to come together. start preparing yourself now, for you have a lot of things coming for you! it’s time to start getting ready to live your dream life 🫶🏽

if this reading resonated, please consider checking out my personal readings and packages!

[dgttwisted]

The invitation {fake event}

part one of two

story includes some of my Oc’s as well as cannon characters

“To who this letter

may concern the owner

of these fine pair of wings

resides in the abandoned castle

due north of the portal on lost isle

in the peter meadows

we hope to see you there~”

Matilda received this letter during the middle of her shift at the mostro lounge it alarmed her to say the least. she left in the middle of her shift without a word to Azul which was strange already but what really let the others know that something was up is that she left her coffee untouched.

This caught Jade’s attention immediately it would have caught Floyd’s attention if he had showed up to work at all that day. Jade left Azul at least a small heads up before he disappeared following Matilda who moved quite fast for someone as tired as she was.

in the hallway stumbled across the note he had noticed she was reading it must have slipped from her grasp when she was rushing off. Well waste not want not Jade caught himself up to speed with the letter. he was surprised a letter with this many typo’s could set Matilda off like this till he noticed the picture of a pair of wings. “hmm” Jade remembered while it was a brief exchange that Matilda had a fea friend that she was rather fond of but can’t see all the time because she’s a rather busy fairy. 

Now Jade couldn’t let this opportunity slide a chance to visit meadows on a island that most humans aren’t allowed to enter. ‘three day camping trip’ sprang to his mind an that made him smile.

“she hadn’t packed anything i would be a terrible classmen not to help in her plight~” he practically cued as he grabbed a back pack of camping supplies made his way to the portal room. running into an upset Matilda an the Headmaster, Lilia, Sebek an little prefect Lilith were there as well.

-

Crowley was blocking her path an the fact that Lilia was supporting him was frustrating to say the least she doesn’t have time for this. 

“the longer time i waste here the more danger Christiane is in move from my path before i make you!” Matilda standing her ground the magic surrounding her made it known she was serious 

“you’re not thinking clearly Matilda this could be a trap they could be luring you that to trap you” Lilia said also standing his ground not the first time he’s had to fight her over small things that she took very seriously.

“LADY MATILDA SHOULD TAKE HER SAFETY SERIOUSLY!” Sebek shouts spooking Lilith a little

“are you implying I am incapable of taking care of myself?” she states already very irritated

“nonsense he’s worried after all you as well as your brother are fea royalty they can’t just send you someplace unguarded especially if that place might me a trap” Headmaster Crowley chimed in trying to calm everyone down

Lilith the smallest an probably the most confused in the room still spoke up “u-um if that's the case t-then I can go with her that way she won’t be alone!” everyone in the room immediately simmered down hearing a child of all people suggest such a thing.

Lilia knelt down an gave Lilith a head pat “that was very sweet of you to offer Lilith but this is probably to dangerous for you” this made lilith a little sad “but i want to help if Matilda’s friend is in danger i want to help!” 

“if her going alone is the only problem i’d be more then happy to lend a hand” Jade’s voice sprang up caused everyone to look in his general direction. Jade his polite scheming smile on his face as he approached. handing the letter back to Matilda “you dropped this”

Matilda took the letter back then showed it to Lilia “you think I’m just going to sit back an wait for a second letter? Lilia you know me better then that!”

Lilia thought for a moment then spoke “understood on one condition i will allow you to go”

Matilda didn’t hesitate as she spoke “name it an it’s done”

Lilia’s serious face turned into a smile “Sebek is going with you no take backs!”

Matilda was to tired to be fully annoyed but acknowledged she fully walked into that of her own accord an had to accept that. “very well he can accompany me”

Sebek was shining with pride over being able to help Matilda on the other end Lilith was sad “Sebek’s allowed to go why can’t i go?”

Matilda spoke to her “we don’t know who we are up against i don’t want anything to happen to our little prefect don’t worry Lilith when i return i promise that you will be the first person i visit” she holds out her pinkie knowing that Lilith takes pinkie promises very seriously.

Lilith holds her pinkie with her own “you better or I’m gonna be upset” sounds like a childish threat but Lilith is a child after all.

-

Jade, Sebek an Matilda have been sent to the lost isle the portal is dead center of the island. Matilda didn’t stop to take the sights in she stided north from the portal the fact she could see the castle so far off only pissed her off more she’d fly all the way there however she promised to do this with Sebek an Jade.

they seemed to be at pace with her though she seems more dead set on the castle then they are. “don’t slow me down” she spoke though it sounded more cold then her usual deadpan tired way of speaking.

Jade followed behind with almost a pep in his step he brought a camrea though he will have to hold off on taking pictures until there return trip. he was feeling very optimistic despite what is basically a hostage situation they would be walking into.

they practically hiked all day Jade suggested camp Matilda wanted to keep going but Jade interjected with “while it is very admirable that you want to keep moving until your legs give out it’s not very practical you won’t be able to help your friend if all of us are sleep deprived an starving”

though Matilda is in a consent state of sleep deprived she did understand what he was getting at with a heavy heart she relented for now “fine but i will take first watch!” she demanded 

Jade who was already setting up the tent “no arguments here!” he said with delight

“I SHALL TAKE ON THE SECOND WATCH!” Sebek spoke up

“not so loud sebek whoever has Christiane might hear you” Matilda spoke with a sigh

“my apologize lady Matilda!” Sebek spoke now feeling bad

“it’s fine, Sebek you should gets some wood for the fire but don’t wander off where i can’t see you” Sebek getting this order from Matilda made his confidences sore he collected way to much firewood in the span of 5 minutes 

Jade had packed food for the three day travel though had only packed for two of them. “it’s not a big deal i can kill something if we need more food” Matilda said bluntly as she ate her soup

later in the night when Sebek woke up to take his shift Matilda said “no need Jade actually took the first watch so i shall be taking the second one go back to sleep Sebek” Sebek just accepted this as the truth went back to sleep after all they had another two days of hiking to do.

[tivonasworld]

Ting Mama’s Nagging Voice · 08 | Our Generation Must Learn to Be Human

Your aunts and uncles, struggling through life themselves, are often the loudest voices telling you how to live yours:

What you shouldn’t do, what you must hurry up and do—

Change jobs, get married early, be obedient.

But you have to ask yourself this:

If their advice really worked, why did their own lives turn out the way they did?

A person’s current life is the result of their past thinking and choices.

They’ve become who they are now—do you really want to copy their life script?

⸻

01. Only Those Who Live Clearly Are Worth Emulating

The people you take advice from should at least have their own lives sorted:

Clear careers, emotional stability, balanced relationships.

If someone’s never even been on a train or plane,

why should they be qualified to guide your entire life path?

Sure, their tips on growing vegetables might be useful—

but for lifestyle, marriage, or major life decisions?

They may not know as much as you.

Don’t force-fit someone else’s “standard answer” into your unique life.

Even your parents are just regular people.

They make mistakes, feel lost, and blindly follow others.

They don’t hold the truth.

⸻

02. We’re Not Here to Satisfy Their Emotional Needs

Our generation was raised to play a role:

To meet our parents’ emotional needs.

Crying meant you were immature,

Wanting something meant you were greedy,

Pushing back meant you were disobedient.

So we learned to suppress ourselves—terrified of being “unfilial.”

But have you ever really thought about this:

They had you because they wanted to.

Not for you.

Not because they promised to love you for a lifetime.

And since they chose to have a child, they had to raise you—

Even rats and cockroaches raise their young.

That’s not a favor. That’s the minimum responsibility of being human.

⸻

03. “Filial Piety” Is the Most Common Tool of Manipulation

If your parents love you, it flows naturally.

Children will want to give back—not from duty, but from the heart.

But if all they offered was the bare minimum,

then used “filial piety” to guilt-trip and emotionally blackmail you—

That’s not love. That’s exploitation.

The concept of “filial piety” has long been used as a tool of control.

Remember: Confucius’s own ideas on filial piety got him killed—

because the ruling class needed “filial piety” to keep society in line.

But we’re not living in the Eastern Han Dynasty anymore.

We live in an age of awakening.

We are not bound by thousand-year-old logic anymore.

⸻

04. Psychological Separation Is a Lifelong Assignment

The greatest task for our generation is psychological separation.

Stop trying to escape responsibility through marriage.

Stop fantasizing that having kids will “fix” your life.

Stop thinking you can save your parents.

You’re only responsible for yourself.

Their life is their karma.

Yours is your choice.

You need to build healthy boundaries and walk your own path.

Once you’re strong enough—once your own tree bears fruit—

then you can give, then you can support.

But not before.

Don’t rip your own dry roots to pretend to grow a tree.

⸻

05. No More “One Generation Feeding the Next”: End the Toxic Cycle

So many people wake up because of marriage,

or get trapped in the same patterns their parents lived.

Then they have children, and pass their emotional baggage down.

“I raised you with so much hardship.”

“Everything I did was for you.”

These aren’t words of love. They’re chains.

Generation after generation has survived by emotionally draining each other,

depending on children to give meaning to their own lives.

This ends with us.

We can’t keep living like this.

We must learn to become whole people, before we can raise others.

⸻

06. Real Love Comes Only After You Have Enough to Give

You’re not heartless.

You’re finally awake.

You’re not unloving.

You’ve finally started living for yourself.

When you’re still weak—cut off, block, and distance.

Whether it’s your parents, relatives, or anyone draining your energy—

The farther away they are, the better.

As you grow stronger, when you have your own orchard,

You will naturally want to share and support—

That is real love.

Not given from guilt, shame, or fear—

But from freedom.

⸻

Final Words: When We Become Whole, Our Children Can Become Human Too

A person who has truly “grown into a whole human”

understands what it means to nurture, not just raise.

Not to raise obedient robots,

But to support the birth of a free soul.

We are the generation who must end this cycle—

No more parenting through fear, lack, or control.

Let’s move from survival to living,

From being drained to having the capacity to love.

We must take responsibility for ourselves,

And create new possibilities for the future.

No more one generation feeding the next.

We are the generation that must become fully human.

《婷妈妈的唠叨声 08 | 我们这一代，必须活成人》

七大姑八大姨，自己日子过得苦巴巴的，却特别爱教你怎么过人生：

这个不该干，那个要赶紧；让你换工作、早结婚、多听话。

但你得先问自己一句：

如果他们的建议真有用，他们的人生为什么成了现在这个样子？

一个人的当下状态，就是他过往思维与选择的结果。

他们活成了那样，你确定要复制他们的人生剧本吗？

⸻

01. 有参考价值的人，才值得借鉴

你要借鉴的人，最起码得能把自己活明白。

起码工作清晰、情绪稳定、婚姻平衡。

一个自己连高铁飞机都没坐过的人，天天教育你怎么活；

他们讲的，可能种菜可以听听，但关于生活方式、婚姻选择、人生方向——

他们甚至不如你。

别拿别人的“标准答案”硬套自己的人生。

父母也只是普通人，他们会错、会乱、会盲目，并不拥有真理。

⸻

02. 我们不是来满足他们情感需求的

我们这一代人，从小被养成一个“角色”：

满足父母的情绪需求。

哭是不懂事，想要是贪心，反抗是忤逆。

于是我们开始习惯性压抑，生怕“不孝”。

可你有没有想��：

他们生你，是因为他们想生。

不是为了你，不是为了承诺爱你一生。

既然选择生下来了，就必须养——

连老鼠蟑螂都能把孩子带大，这不是“恩德”，而是最低人类责任。

⸻

03. “孝道”是最容易被用来操控的枷锁

如果父母爱你，那是爱的自然流动，孩子会自然反哺；

不是因为被道德要求，而是因为心甘情愿。

但如果他们不爱你，只是付出最低养育成本，

然后用“孝顺”来道德绑架你、情感勒索你，那不是爱，是收割。

“孝道”这个词，从古至今，往往被当作控制工具使用。

别忘了，孔融就是因为说了点不一样的“孝顺观”，被杀掉了。

因为统治阶级需要稳定，需要用“孝”来管住人心。

但我们现在不是活在东汉。

我们活在可以觉醒的新时代，不需要用几千年前的逻辑来绑架现在的我们。

⸻

04. 精神切割，是我们这代人的必修课

我们这一代人，最重要的功课就是：精神切割。

别再试图通过婚姻逃避责任，

别幻想通过孩子让人生“翻盘”，

也别再想拯救你的父母。

你只���对你自己负责。

他们的人生，是他们的果报；你的人生，是你的选择。

你需要建立清晰的边界，走你自己的路。

你有一天强大了，有余力了，当然可以反哺、可以给予。

但前提是：你有果子了。不是拿自己干瘪的根，硬撑出一棵大树。

⸻

05. 不再一代吸一代，我们终止恶性循环

很多人，被婚姻烧醒，被原生家庭困住，

结果生了孩子，又把自己人生的锅，甩给孩子背。

“我养你这么大不容易”“我这一切都是为了你”——

这些话，是绑架，不是爱。

一代又一代靠情感索取活着，靠匮乏延续，

靠孩子来为自己人生托底，这样的循环必须终止。

我们不能再这样活着。

我们必须学会先活成人，才能懂得如何养育人。

⸻

06. 真正的爱，是有余力之后的给予

你不是冷血，而是终于清醒。

你不是无情，而是终于开始为自己活。

当你还虚弱的时候，请勇敢地拉黑、切割、屏蔽。

不管是父母、亲戚、还是任何吸食你情绪的人——

他们有多远，就走多远。

当你慢慢强大起来，有了自己的果园，

你自然愿意去分享，去给予，甚至去扶持——那是真正的爱。

不是出于恐惧、愧疚、耻感，而是出于自由。

⸻

结语：我们活成人，孩子才有可能活得像人

一个真正“活成人”的人，才懂得什么叫“养育”。

不是养出听话的人，而是扶持出一个自由灵魂。

我们这一代人，必须终止那种靠本能、靠匮乏、靠控制延续的育儿方式。

从“生存”走向“生活”，从“被消耗”走向“有能力爱”。

我们要为自己负责，也要为未来创造新的可能。

我们不再一代吸一代，我们这一代，要活成人。

[ladyeloisee]

Dig up your treasure.

I’m in my early twenties, and only now am I beginning to truly understand the religious texts, those so-called holy books of the faith I am living in. I come from a family where vacations often meant pilgrimages. We visited temples far more often than fantasy parks. We stood in long queues for a two-second glimpse of the deity more frequently than we ever stood in line for movie tickets.

But did I even know why I was there? Did I understand the theories, the facts, or the stories behind the creators I was worshipping?

I’ve always believed in energies, though my personal experiences with them are few. Still, I’ve always been curious, eager to learn more. I believe in the existence of the Creator and the Destroyer, the divine and the demonic. During school, I was introduced to several Vedic concepts, just enough to be able to teach my future children, if I have any. Later, I studied in Christian institutions, and my friends came from a variety of religious backgrounds. That exposure taught me a lot. That’s where everything started.

I began to question things. And for me, that was a wonderful sign of growth. But for my family and relatives, it was alarming, especially because I’m a girl. You know the stereotype: girls aren’t supposed to question; we’re just expected to follow blindly. We’re taught to “learn by experience,” but not to ask why, what, how, or when. That’s suffocating. And I’ve made a conscious choice: I’m not going to live like that.

My friends go to their places of worship every Sunday. I used to join them sometimes. They never miss it. Every day, they sit with their holy books for at least an hour. It gives them peace. They believe deeply in their prayers. They know the verses by heart and apply them in their lives.

Meanwhile, I would wake up groggy, barely manage to bathe on time, and put on a smear of chandan on my forehead just to “look complete”—because that’s how I was raised. But I had never opened the Bhagavad Gita or the Vishnu Sahasranamam or any of our other scriptures. I wandered, looking for peace.

Yes, I did go to temples—but mostly to chat, eat prasad, and leave. Then I’d scroll on my phone and fall asleep. What kind of life was that? Why didn’t I realize that I was wasting opportunities all around me? Why didn’t I use the very phone in my hand to start reading the Gita, to apply it to my life?

It took me five years to realize.

I went back to the school I once studied in. And I thank my father for enrolling my sisters and me there. Beyond just my work at the school, I felt something deeper—like God was guiding me, showing me the path I was meant to follow. I was happy. My mind felt calm. Spiritually, I felt involved.

Of course, my family and relatives worry. They fear that I might choose a life of renunciation, become a nun or sannyasin. But honestly? That’s a path I would gladly take.

So here’s the truth: it took me five years to begin learning the Bhagavad Gita. Years to understand what I was supposed to do in a temple. Today, when I stand in line, I don’t just look around aimlessly. I chant the Lord’s name. I visualize Him. I read scriptures and texts, just trusting the process(trying my best as I am a beginner). I try my best not to get distracted.

And I know I’m not alone. So many in our generation know little to nothing about our scriptures or how powerful and helpful they can be in life. I now attend weekly Gita classes, and one of my teachers often shares insights that go beyond the verses. He once spoke about how future generations may lose touch with our Vedic heritage. That hit me hard. Something has to change.

We’re not bound by compulsions, but we do have options. We just need to know the right path and follow it. Right now, I feel that only He, the divine, can protect me, guide me, and keep my soul calm.

A sloka a day. A Vedic story a day. Wouldn’t that make a difference?

It’s high time for us to open our eyes and stop ignoring what we already have. Every religion deserves respect. None should be disregarded. Religion is not a competition. No one is here to outdo another. No god is trying to win over another. Shouldn’t we preserve each other’s and not destroy them? Think.

[willowser]

plotting a fic can be so fun and actually feel so good once you've connected everything but writing it ??? another story all together.

how od you sit down to write i am suffering

oh my honey-dear, if that is not the age old question !! 😭

i think the physical act of writing is the hardest part of the process. which sounds a bit silly when you say it, because — it's literally just sitting down and writing the words out !! but i think shaping an idea for a fic has a lot to do with that, because by the time you've thought over your plot points and developed your characters and figured out your twists and filled in the holes — your idea has, in a way, been perfected. by the time you sit down to write, you are usually at a stage where the idea has undergone change after change, edit after edit, kinda like drafts. but when you sit down to type the words out — that's your first draft of the physical, told story, and it's never how we imagined this final, sculpted vision.

i think that's where a lot of the joy of pantsing comes in, at least for me, because i'm discovering it all as i'm writing it, and so there is no disconnect between the first draft of my idea and the last draft because there is only the one draft. the problem that i often find here though is that i hate re-writing LOL it's a huge motivation killer for me, and the only way to find plot holes or conflict in the writing when pantsing is to actually write it — so then when you find the issue, you have to backtrack. AH BUT ANYWAY.

i think that typing the words isn't the hard part, in the literal sense, it's accepting what you've written. because you can type whatever, easy, into the keyboard, but allowing yourself to accept that it isn't perfect is hard. if i write a sentence two or three times and i can't get it right I WANNA QUIT, but at the same time, editing is my favorite part of the process ?? so you'd think i'd be okay with moving on, knowing i can come back later, but IDK. IDK WHY I'M LIKE THIS.

something i'm really going to work on this year is to just let myself have a shitty first draft. and a second and a third, until i find the words i want to say. and i think giving yourself the grace to do it ugly and then fix it up later is really, really difficult, and that's why writing can be so hard sometimes, because we want to do our best ofc !! but a first draft is better than no draft, i think, because then it can be molded and shaped into exactly what you want it to be 💕✨️

[mdhwrites]

Jumbled Thoughts: Dream Sequences, Featuring Luz’s Nightmare From The Owl House

“It was just a dream.”

...Was it though? In reality, dreams are one of the few times we get to interact with our subconscious without the active conscious getting in the way of whatever it’s trying tell us. This is often confusing and weird though because, well, our brains are commonly confusing and weird. They can’t always properly voice their anxieties so it can often be a mess of imagery and scenes that follow a general theme but the point of it is lost. It is TRYING to say something though.

And for most media, that’s also the point. Now don’t get me wrong: A LOT of dream sequences out there are bad mouthed for good reason. Their points can commonly end up being just “Look at this shocking imagery!” before snapping back to reality. At best, these sequences are actually just reinforcing a character conflict we already had at least some inkling about, like when Zuko in Avatar sees himself as Aang in the mirror. It is mirroring how he effectively is trying to decide between himself and following the path of the Avatar.

That showcases the strength and temptation of the dream sequence though. Not only do you get imagery that otherwise would be impossible but you get to say a LOT about the character experiencing the dream through that imagery. Through their reactions. The imagery might be muddled but the character comes out clearer than ever. LOTS of great dream sequences have managed this, like Superman from The Justice League Cartoon or Batman The Animated series when both explored what a perfect life to the character was and their reaction to it being shattered. We’re not here to talk about a good example though. I could honestly theoretically stop this blog here if I wanted to just talk about the strengths. Clark Kent comforting his fake son, Bruce deciding to give up on a happy lie so he can continue pursuing justice and Zuko battling his inner demons all really highlight the strengths of this trope. Shocking imagery contrasted by inner conflict, clarity and even chaos. Images you couldn’t do otherwise that help reinforce the character, much like what a good backstory will do. It gives context for who they are and what is to come, even if none of it’s real.

I think most people would agree that those are the EXCEPTIONS though and that’s why I think it’s actually more important to talk about why so many of them suck. Because most people hear ‘dream sequence’ and expect it to mean nothing. That it’s just pointless fluff or a chance to give backstory. Hell, I’m going to be talking one dream sequence of The Owl House, also abbreviated as TOH, but they have a second one that is very little more than a flashback sequence with a commentary track until its end where it hardly feels like a dream and more like meditation, which are different in narrative structure and execution. Dreams aren’t the worst way to get backstory across but... It’s also a very blunt way because usually it feels less like and more like a flashback because the writer is just getting the job done.

And this is the crucial problem with most dream sequences. They’re... kind of lazy for most writers. Because you can say “It’s not real so there are no rules”, most writers will use it as a get out of jail free card to do whatever the fuck they want, regardless of the effort needed to sell it. Because there’s a key component those good examples have that most bad dream sequences lack.

Patience. And if we’re gonna talk about a lack of patience, let’s talk about Luz’s Nightmare in the finale for The Owl House. This would be the point where I say SPOILERS but... It’s a dream sequence. And a pretty shitty one at that because the writers, not the character, have ZERO patience for this. And if you’re expecting “They got shortened” because you’re more familiar with it: No. They had a lot of other options they could have gone with. This is literally just seven minutes of wasted time for the sake of shocking imagery. I need to have some patience though. First let’s just cover what happens in those seven minutes. The characters are pulled into the sky, darkness envelops the screen, Luz shows confusion, is told to wake up by a mysterious figure wakes up in the robes of the main villain, questions if this is a dream finds everyone turned to stone except her girlfriend who now wants to kill her. Luz says the line “This isn’t a dream, it’s a nightmare,” then cuts to two other characters also experiencing what are obviously nightmares, moves back to Luz who has a moment with each of her friends trying to judge her actions harshly before trying to kill her, then all together her girlfriend misquotes a book they both like, this confirms to Luz it’s a dream, the OTHER CHARACTERS also wake up, give Luz the answer to what she needs to do to get out, and then it’s over.

For a temporal anchor, the line “This isn’t a dream, it’s a nightmare” comes RIGHT at the two minute mark of this entire sequence. Even before then, we’ve had one reference by the character that this is a dream and a voice telling her to wake up. It then spends FIVE. MORE. MINUTES pretending like it’s a real dream sequence where Luz keeps finding a friend and acting like they’re just not acting like themselves instead of, you know... The fact that she’s already figured out what’s going on, and the show has explicitly stated, to the audience THREE TIMES that this isn’t reality.

Here’s the thing: From a structural standpoint, questioning the dream IS a good idea. It happens in a lot of dream sequences because it creates an arc. First there is the uncertainty caused by things suddenly being different, then a slow possibility that this may just be real and the character may just have to live in this new status quote and then something fractures or even shatters that, especially for the audience. This is when the fight to free Superman in Justice League begins because now the trick of “IF this is a dream” is gone, it’s time to start working to fixing that. This is also when usually the dream might start breaking down and so the characters get a line like “This isn’t a dream, it’s a nightmare.” TOH literally plays this backwards. It wants the line before cutting away from Luz to the other nightmares, who only get one weak appearance each that just destroys credibility further, without understanding that the point is to NOT cut away from the dream. Not until you as the writer have given up on selling this as reality. But then it explicitly goes on to have Luz act like she hasn’t figured out what’s going on. Which brings up the next issue: Clarity. If a character starts acting inconsistently, you start to lose the strength of the sequence. How are we supposed to learn from how they react to the dream, or even the imagery their mind chose (put a pin in that for a moment) if their actions aren’t clear? It’s a problem in general but when the strength of the trope is explicitly about providing character clarity... It’s a death knell. After all, even if the audience never buys into the reality, they might buy into the emotions or the ability to learn about the character in ways they wouldn’t otherwise.

But if Luz isn’t acting clear, well, the show brings in a lot of other characters during the sequence too. If they’re clear, even blunt, doesn’t THAT say something about Luz? Absolutely! That is a great call because it allows a chance to see what the character either thinks of other characters or what they perceive they think of them. So do the words stick in this sequence? Well, this is where the framing of a dream sequence is important and this is also where we need to pull that pin back out. For Superman, he is literally being made to live out his most ideal fantasy from something that is non-judgemental and so the fantasy is entirely his. Anything we see here is presenting things that Clark himself would want. Zuko is literally having a fever dream but there’s no supernatural force so those are his thoughts. As such, all the imagery and words are theirs. They’re a reflection of their psyche. For TOH, the frame is that the big villain, through another villain, is literally doing this to fuck with her. So... Nope! It isn’t organic in anyway. That’s why the fuck up is made actually that breaks the illusion. If this was based on Luz’s mind... Her girlfriend wouldn’t have gotten the reference wrong. Because Luz wouldn’t. But it’s a fabrication so the lines and reactions aren’t made by Luz’s subconscious, they aren’t a reflection of her, but whatever the big bad asshole (or someone being controlled by the big bad asshole technically) thinks will make her give up.

It causes the whole thing to be LITERALLY pointless. Seven minutes of wasted time that don’t even really say anything about the character. What’s worse... Is that it commits the other cardinal sin of a bad dream sequence: It presents something the viewer WANTS.

The idea of her friends finally snapping and actually putting Luz to task fits in with the theme of the show of “Fantasy vs Reality.” These are the consequences of her actions. Even if it were entirely internal, it’d still be satisfying to know the little ball of sunshine who wants to be the hero truly does fear the consequences of her actions as a root part of herself. Instead... She makes a joke based on another character getting a reference wrong and is immediately ready to fight. Even the cruel words haven’t shaken her properly so that she can’t let her nerd self get annoyed at a continuity error.

Then again, why would they? She has no reason to believe any of this and her reaction first was to call it a nightmare. To state explicitly that she knows it’s a lie. It’s almost like character consistency MATTERS.

This is almost a textbook example of the sort of scene that makes audiences go “It was just a dream.” It’s not something to think about. It says nothing. It accomplishes nothing. It’s just there for shock value. To get to do whatever you want while knowing the audience is probably waiting for something to actually happen that they need to care about.

And for a writer, that shouldn’t be a dream. It should be the greatest nightmare of all.

[sunshinereddie]

an au where, after you die, if you would like to come back as a ghost, you can choose what kind of ghost you want to be. there are lots of different ghost careers to choose from, but the two most popular ones are protector ghosts, and of course, haunting ghosts. protector ghosts act like a sort of guardian angel, helping out folks whose lives aren’t too good and helping them get back on track from behind the veil. and then there are the haunting ghosts, which are pretty self explanatory: their only job is to scare people shitless. 

there’s been a millenia-old rivalry between haunting ghosts and protector ghosts, it’s never pleasant whenever they cross paths down in the underworld or while on duty on earth. but, generally, they keep out of each others hair and try to limit their bickering.

that is, until there’s some sort of mix up in the system, and one human gets assigned both a haunting ghost and protector ghost. 

eddie kaspbrak has been dead for quite a while, and he’s spent most of that time with people who remind him too much of himself, trying to help them before they die the same as he did: living a life he hated. he’s got an impressive success rate as a protector: 100% of his assignments go on to live happily ever after, until they join him down in the underworld. 

richie tozier is a haunting ghost. he loves the job, more than he liked the job he had when he was alive, and he’s really, really, good at it. he can have a family running screaming out of their new house in less than a week after he’s done with them. there’s about five different popular ghost stories told around the country that were all started with little ol’ him. death and the afterlife is a long, long, ride, so richie thought he might as well make it fun. 

protector ghosts get assigned to people, while haunting ghosts usually get assigned to places, though being assigned to haunt a specific person isn’t out of the ordinary (you know, show up at the foot of their bed, follow them to work, peek out at them from down the street, the whole shabang). and through some kind of mixup, eddie gets assigned to a man struggling his way through life, and richie gets assigned to the man’s house. 

so. an enemies to lovers au where richie and eddie start off fighting against each other, as eddie tries to put a stop to richie’s hauntings and richie tries to break through eddie’s strong bubble of protection to get at least one good scare in, but honestly, they spend more time bickering with each other than focusing on the person they’re supposed to be protecting/haunting. but the longer they spend together, the more they realize, hey, this guy isn’t too bad, and they come to... an agreement. eddie lets richie get 2 scares a day, but they can’t be traumatizing. a glass knocked off the table or a shadowy figure down the hall or making the floorboards creak at night, but that’s it- just enough for richie to hit his scare quota and not get fired. and richie promises to put a hold on the hauntings whenever eddie is working to get this guy’s life flipped around. 

it’s only when the man has finally had enough of his suddenly-haunted house, moves out and subsequently quits the job that was taking all the joy of his life and finally starts to be happy, that richie and eddie realize, hey, maybe we are a good team after all. and it’s definitely just because they got the job done and it was a success.... definitely not because eddie’s starting to have feelings for richie, feelings he never felt when he was alive, and definitely not because spending his days hanging out with eddie is more fun than any day of haunting that richie’s had. 

definitely not. 

[no-droids]

Ask Me Again Tomorrow

gif credit @pedros-pascal​

Part Sixteen of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 16.3K

Warnings: SMUTTTTT, following/stalking, some fluffy moments but mostly just a lil action and interaction, I don’t think there’s any other warning besides language and the smut (comm sex WITH A TWIST YALLLLL) but if you happen to find something else that warrants a tag, please let me know and I will do so accordingly!

A/N: The response to this story has grown beyond anything I could’ve ever imagined and I genuinely thank you all from the bottom of my heart for the privilege of writing for you.  Hope this one ends up being okay and I’ll get to work on the next chapter soon!

***

Headstart—12:17pm:

The sky is so pretty.  There isn’t much to look at on the surface—rolling hills and plains, grassy but with dry bare spots breaking up the green stretches, but the sky.  It’s an oil painting above you, pastel swishes of yellows and pinks and purples with an enormous ringed planet taking up half the horizon and another sizable moon hanging high.

You should probably be running.  Like, for real sprinting, but you can’t push yourself to go faster than a brisk walk.  It’s so… free out here, more hills springing up every time you get to the top of the next, warm air filling your lungs.  Even though you know realistically that the beginning will likely be the hardest—where you need to focus most on running and putting distance between you instead of hiding—truth be told, you’re not foreseeing making it more than a full day.  You’re going to try, obviously, but in the grand scheme, you wouldn’t be surprised in the least if he finds you tomorrow.  So, instead of wasting all your energy going as fast as you physically can right out of the gate, you just decide to stroll and think for a little bit.

You know what your goal is.  Obviously, to last as long as you can, but more specifically… well, if Din is going to chase after you, then he’s going to try to think like you.  Anticipate your movements, if he can’t already see the tracks you leave plain as day.  Very soon, he’ll be walking this same exact pathing, following the footprints you’re leaving behind, but if you’re ever able to shake him or throw him off course, he doesn’t have a tracking fob.  He doesn’t have any mechanical device that points him in your direction—if you can lose him with the footprints, then he’ll have to rely solely on predicting you. Which means you need to think… exactly the opposite of yourself if you want to outsmart him.

That’s harder than it sounds though, because… is he going to predict you predicting him?  At what point does it stop?  You somehow have trouble seeing this as an advantage the way he said it would be—you almost wish you had someone else chasing you, someone you didn’t know and someone who didn’t know you if only so this paradox could end before it begins.

You’re walking for about ten minutes before spotting a dirt road in the distance.  There’s a person following it in the direction of the sun—you don’t know this planet’s magnetic field but you do know it’s after noon and the sun would set on Arvala-7 in the west, so that’s what you’ll call it for now.  You call out to them as soon as you’re in range, and the stranger turns to you.

“Excuse me!”  It’s a woman, you see it as you get closer.  “I’m so sorry to bother you, but can you tell me where this road leads?”

She removes a sheer yellow shawl covering her dark hair and gives you a friendly smile.  “Hello,” the lady greets, before spinning around and pointing back the way she came.  “Osiruu is a few hours that way.  There’s not much there, but it will take you to G’ila, a transport hub with many opportunities for drifters, or Nariss, the capital.  I’m on my way to Shabeth,” she points in the other direction.  “It’s far—a day’s walk, but it’s a holy place and offers quite the view.  I would be glad for the company, but I understand its lack of practical appeal.”

So this place is safe enough to be inviting strangers along on your travels, noted.  You’re going to have to make the decision right now, then.  Which path should you take?

Something deep inside you tells you that you want to see this holy place, and just from a few sentences, you already like this woman and feel safe with her.  But then all of a sudden, you remember something.

Last known locations tell you a lot about a quarry, Din’s voice drifts back to you, sounding soft and distant from the dark forests of Naboo.  Smart ones go to populated planets, planets like Coruscant, planets that make it nearly impossible to find people.  Brave ones go to dangerous planets, suicidal ones try their luck in the Unknown Regions, idiots continue to go about their business on their homeworld without caring.  But planets like this—like Naboo… those are the pacifists.  The ones that don’t ever put up a fight.

You suppose you should decide what kind of quarry you want to be.  Friendly company and a view is something you normally crave—it’s something your soul speaks to after going without it for so long during your previous life.  You never pictured yourself as the fighting type.  When Din first asked you, you told him you wouldn’t run from him if he was chasing you, and choosing to accompany this kind stranger to her destination is essentially just that.  Sacrificing a chase for a pretty view.

“Does Shabeth have a sizable population?”  You ask her, and she shakes her head.

“It’s the sight of an annual pilgrimage that happens in a few months, but it’s beautiful there and I like to go whenever I can,” she tells you with a soft smile.  “But there’s nothing for miles outside it, I’m afraid.”

Your footprints will lead directly there.  He’ll find you easily.

“It sounds very nice, but I need to find somewhere with a lot of people,” you give her an apologetic smile.  Truly, you think she would’ve made for a nice friend.  “Thank you for your help, though, and good luck with your journey!  I hope we meet again.”

“Do you need any food or supplies?”  She asks you, and you stop short of passing her by.  “I don’t have much with me, but know what it’s like to be a newcomer to Sanctuary II.  I’d be glad to help.”

Good Maker, is this how everybody is here or did you just hit the jackpot with this lady?  She seems like… you, almost.  Her voice is gentle, she looks like she’d give nice hugs.  You’re about to politely turn her down, but then you realize the brilliant opportunity that’s presented itself in her image.

“Actually, this might sound like a really strange question, but…” you tell her, before looking down at her feet.  “Wanna trade shoes with me?”

***

Headstart—6:12pm:

You don’t think it’ll work, but as you walk into a small settlement a few hours later in a unfamiliar and worn pair of sandals, you decide that you’ll need to do this as often as possible.  You can’t come up with anything else that’ll throw him off your physical trail besides constantly switching shoes—is that bad?  Are you just an idiot with no hope?  You’ve had—you check your watch—like, five hours to think of a game plan, and all you’ve come up with is shoes?  You’re screwed.

At least there’s food here.  Plenty.  There’s vendors stationed along the street, multiple people passing by and going about their business.  Osiruu, that nice woman said—not much here, but you think she was wrong.  There’s children giggling and jumping rope on the corner, a shopkeeper sweeping her storefront, a graying man with an empty cup plucking an unfamiliar melody on an unfamiliar instrument—and while your tummy growls and you know you should quickly buy supplies and be on your way, you still stop for just a few minutes to listen.

It’s a lovely tune.  You drop a few credits in his cup after he finishes and find yourself humming it as you look at the plethora of goods being offered by the vendors.  Water, food—you buy enough of everything to sustain you for at least a couple days, not wanting to go hungry but also feeling realistic over optimistic.  The cuisine is foreign and you just point to things that look appetizing since you’re not sure about the name or pronunciation, but after paying and taking a bite into a rather large piece of purple fruit, your eyes nearly cross at how sweet and tasty it is.  Holy Maker, that might just be the best thing you’ve ever tasted.  You ask for two more after you finish the first, tucking one in your backpack next to your blaster and munching on the other as you keep browsing.

Suddenly you see shoes—yes.  Fucking shoes, your salvation.  You take a good look at all your options, of which, there aren’t many.  Generic men's, women's, and children's, all in the same color and design.  It’s good in a way—you see most people walking around in the same type of clothing here and you pray there’s not a way for him to track your gait or the whole thing is a bust, but truthfully, what you’re most worried about is the fact that you’ll create a brand new set of footprints wherever your old ones disappear.  Unless you trade with someone else, you won’t ever have a back pathing, you know that Din will probably be able to easily spot it.

“Three pairs of these, please,” you point to the correct shoes and tell him your size, but then—“Oh wait, actually, can I actually have one of them that’s the next size up?  And another that’s the same but in men's?”

The man behind the counter gives you an odd look but acquiesces, measuring the size of your preferred pair to multiple men’s shoes to find one that looks roughly the same—you doubt he’s ever had a request like this, but you’re also a generous tipper.  His smile is grateful when you tell him to keep the change and then you’re stuffing the new shoes into your backpack and moving onward.

Would there be some kind of map here, you wonder?  One that shows distance so you won’t waste time trying to reach a place you won’t be able to walk to?  That lady said a transport hub and the capital are through this settlement, but she didn’t provide much information beyond that.  You don’t want to be in the middle of nowhere when he finally catches up to you, you’ll need some place to hide.

When you stop to ask an elderly gentleman as he passes by, he freely provides you a basic gist.  There’s a large forest beyond Osiruu—after it will be a road that passes through a few notable places, with a town called Sijua to the west that leads north to G’ila, and Devain to the east that leads northeast to Nariss.  Both are within walking distance, though it may take a couple days to reach your destination.

Alright then.  Through the forest, you suppose.  You probably should’ve asked which way is east, but he’s already leaving and you don’t have the nerve to ask him to stop again.  You have a finger point, that’s all you need.  Making sure to use one of the small restrooms near the square before heading out, you eventually decide to make your way towards the direction he said this forest would be.

***

Headstart—6:58pm:

A bus.

You’re not going to take it, of course, but it’s the perfect solution to the problem you’ve been mulling over.  It’s at the very edge of the small settlement, and you quickly speed up into a half-jog as soon as you hear its engine running.

“Last call for the seven o’clock!”  A large man stationed near the doors yells as you approach.  “Last bus to G’ila until tomorrow!”

The sun is setting and you have to extend your hand out in front of you to not be blinded by it.  “Hello,” you give him a smile, before grabbing one of the handles on the side and stepping up onto the metal platform.

“Ah!”  The man quickly stops you, moving to stand in front of the open doors.  He’s as wide as he is tall, big enough that he blocks the entire exit.  “That’ll be ten credits, miss.”

“Oh,” you say, patting your empty pockets and pulling your eyebrows inwards, trying not to move too much in case the sizable amount of credits you have stashed in your backpack happen to rattle.  “Oh, no.  I think I lost my wallet.”

He sighs.  “Off the bus then please, miss.  Come back tomorrow if you find it.”

You nod, leaning your forearm against the paneling and beginning to take your shoes off.  “Will it be parked in the same place exactly?”

The driver looks curiously at you, clearly confused at both the strange question and your strange actions.  “I’m sorry?  Please—off the bus.”

“One second,” you tell him, now barefoot on the platform and digging into your backpack for the slightly larger sized shoes you bought earlier.  The sound of credits clink against your blaster, but you hope he takes your lead in purposefully ignoring them.  “Does the bus to G’ila park in this spot every single day?”

“Yes,” the man tells you impatiently, eyeing the way you’re stepping into the new pair with a subtle look of distaste.  Everyone is polite here, it seems.  “It will arrive back at seven am sharp with passengers from G’ila, in the same exact place.  Please get off the bus.”

“Thank you, sir,” you tell him with a smile, watching him step to the side to allow you to drop down into the dirt again and continue on your way.

Brilliant, if you do say so your fucking self.  Eliminate the need for a back pathing.  All footprints facing this direction are going to be the first footprints, and all of them facing the opposite way are going to be the last; if Din manages to figure out you didn’t take the bus, then he won’t be able to tell which new set are yours and which belong to the other passengers.  You pray the helmet can’t track gaits, but while you’re still paying enough attention, you make sure to keep your steps just slightly longer and even try placing more weight on the edges of your feet to make it look like you have a slightly higher arch than you actually do.  You’d put a pebble inside of them or something, but you know you’re going to be walking through the night and you don’t want to commit to having your feet hurt more than you already know they’re going to.

Eventually the quaint shops and small houses disappear behind you, and the sun setting over the horizon turns the clouds above turn more dusty green and brown than yellow and pink.  You hope Din opened up the ramp after you left.  You want him to see the sky.

***

Headstart—9:34pm

The forest here is different from Naboo, too.

Maybe it was because you only saw it while you were in crisis-mode, but that forest seemed much scarier and darker than this one.  The vegetation there was thick and overgrowing, but these trees look like they’ve never had leaves on them at all.  No twigs or small branches that sprout from the trunks—the branches are all thick and gnarly, criss-crossing with each other with how close they’ve grown together.  You bet their roots are practically one at this point, stretching for miles and miles but all sharing the same system.

Because there aren’t any leaves, there's nothing to block the moonlight shining clear and crystalline through the twisting maze of branches.  Sanctuary II appears to have a sister moon—Sanctuary I, perhaps?—that’s likely a similar size, because it’s the same one you've seen all day and it’s barely moved a few degrees that you can tell.  It must orbit incredibly close and be tidal-locked with this one then.  Two massive satellites swinging around each other as they circle a ringed gas giant, but it makes a stunning view and reflects more than enough light to see.

The sky is deep blue and maroon and you’ve been walking in a straight line for hours, using the stationary moon overhead as your guide.  The only issue with this plan that you’ve been able to come up with is that there’s no widely traveled path through the trees—even you can see your footprints and the clear trail you’re leaving behind.  You’ve been trying for a while to figure out another clever evasion tactic, but it’s harder than it sounds.  Can’t just change shoes again, that’ll be a dead giveaway.  How do you lose him?

You stop for a second, reaching into your bag to grab some water and stay hydrated.  Looking up once more at the beauty of the swirling colors peeking through the branches above you, you find yourself pausing after returning the bottle to your pack.  There are… an atrocious number of branches up there, and all of them are long and tangled and thick.  Sturdy.

You’ve… never climbed a tree before.

Without thinking much beyond that, you decide to bend your knees and jump, grabbing hold of one of the strong wooden tubes over your head and then swinging your legs up.  Ouch—the bark scrapes against your palms and you have to hold on tight with your thighs while you shimmy yourself upwards, but at least the wood is solid as fuck.  It takes you a minute or two, but you’re eventually able to shuffle yourself around so you’re straddling the thick branch, and then you look out to see the large collection of them criss-crossing in every direction around you.

Oof, this is dangerous.  You know it even before you start.  The gaps leading to the ground are bigger and more numerous than your potential pathing forward, but the only thing that gives you reassurance is how thick the wood is—you’re almost certain the branches aren’t going to break as long as you’re careful.

Okay.  Shoes, these are too big for the kind of dexterity you’re going to need.  You take them off slowly, being extra careful not to drop them, and then exchange them with the better-fitting pair you bought earlier, making a mental note that the sandals and the larger shoes are the two you’ve already worn.  If your pursuer manages to catch on to the multiple footprint changes, your most recent ones should ideally just… disappear right there, shouldn’t they?

You grin, before struggling into a low crouch and looking around your wooden cage for a safe way forwards.

***

Headstart—11:37pm:

Water.

A blessing, and not because you’re thirsty.  You have clean water in your bag and decades of habits formed in the desert to ensure you’re taking breaks and drinking enough—what you need is a way to disguise your footprints once you get back on the ground again.  This was good; scuttling your way along thick and twisting branches for as long as you have was time-consuming and exhausting, but it allowed you to avoid touching the ground for at least a mile or so, which means he’ll have to comb that entire radius to look for your drop.

And it was fun.

You even found yourself giggling as you ducked and scooted, ignoring the bark scraping your skin and your panting breaths, the way your face got sweaty and hot.  You had to do some brave maneuvers at tricky spots—jumping, balancing, hugging—but it almost just felt like an exciting little obstacle course for you and you’re honestly having a fucking blast right now.

Water, though.  Water is an unexpected beauty, even more than you’ve always considered it to be.  Water is an eroder.  Not only powerful enough to smooth down the rough edges of strong elements over time, but it will hide your footprints as soon as you create them and leave no indication that you were ever there.

Eventually you see it—a babbling stream cutting a considerably wide line through the trees.  You creep forward and hang tight to a branch above you to make sure you won’t fall, wiping the sweat on your brow with your other hand as you study the terrain.  The water is… a considerable distance below you, maybe about ten or so feet, and there’s quite a few branches on either side that extend and hang out over it.  You could probably find your way to the other side somehow, but something tells you to avoid the road beyond the forest if you can.  It leads to multiple places, it would be better to follow the stream until you can eventually merge with it later.

That means you’re… fuck.  You’re going to have to jump, aren’t you?

It’s the only way—you can’t leave footprints which means you’re going to need to land in the water.  The trees clear too far from the shoreline, so you can’t shimmy down the trunk of one for a shorter fall.  You’re going to have to climb out on one of those long branches until you’re suspended over the stream, and then you’re going to have to lower yourself as far as you can and then let go.  With your height already accounting for at least half the distance plus the length of your arms as you hang, you should only have to drop two or three feet before reaching water, and then maybe another two feet to the floor under it.  It looks forgiving enough—the moonlight shines and the stream is clear and you can mainly just see sand at the bottom, no sharp rocks or other potential dangers to be found.  This… this is doable.

Okay.  If you pull this off, you’re a badass.  If you don’t break any bones or seriously injure yourself in any way, you deserve some kind of commendation.  This is probably kiddie shit to Din, who keeps literal rockets strapped to his back and jumps out of ships flying thousands of feet above the ground, but this is a challenge for you and you’re feeling just excited enough to be up to it.

You’re eventually able to climb onto the thickest, sturdiest branch you can see that happens to hang over the water, straddling it and beginning to scoot.  Your thighs are killing you at this point but you’re holding deathly tight to the wood, your movements becoming more and more cautious the further away from the trunk you get.

You’re directly above the water now, but you need to go out a little further.  Aim for right in the middle so you don’t accidentally leave any tracks or prints on the shoreline if you need to catch yourself.  The unfamiliar wood in this forest is admittedly sturdy, but the branch begins to subtly sag with your weight as you keep slowly scooting forward, and you’re just about to the correct spot when—

Day 1–12:00am:

“Sweet girl.”

—You nearly fucking fall.

“Maker,” you gasp, suddenly scrambling to catch yourself on the branch before you can plummet.  It creaks and groans under your weight but supports you nonetheless, and when you’re one hundred percent certain it isn’t going to break, you jerk your head down to the communicator and see that it’s midnight, on the dot.

Shit.

Your heart slams against your ribs and your arms shake with adrenaline while you study it for just a moment longer, trying to calm the fuck down.

“Hey,” Din’s voice comes sharply from your wrist, crackling and tinny through the comm, nearly scaring you again.  “Answer me.”

You don’t want to sacrifice your grip right now, but you have no doubt he’ll fly the Crest out to you if you don’t respond.  So you quickly let go to press a button on the front face and then latch onto the branch tight once more, raising your voice because you can’t risk bringing your wrist up to your mouth to speak.  You hope he’ll be able to hear without the microphone picking up the sound of the stream below.  “Uh.  Ahem.  Hello.  Yes?”

“You’re too quiet,” Din’s disembodied voice immediately informs you.  “Or something on your side is too loud.  There’s an earpiece built into the side of the communicator, take it out and use it instead.”

You study the wrist brace without moving, until you finally see what he’s talking about.  It’s a small, wireless piece of machinery hidden on the left side of the electronic display, and you quickly pop it out and stuff it into your ear just in time to hear the sound of hydraulics clanging through the speaker as you clutch the branch again.  You’d know that sound anywhere, it’s the ramp of the hull closing.

“Are you already on the move?”  You ask him incredulously, your thighs starting to go numb with how deathly tight you’ve been squeezing this tree.

“Can’t sleep,” Din murmurs, sounding so much closer and deeper than before.  Does he have his earpiece on under the helmet or something?  Stars, is that why his voice sounds that good?  It’s like it’s coming from inside your own head, bassy and rough.  “Ready or not.”

You huff, your tummy going warm.  Of course he can’t sleep, of course he’s going to look for you as soon as he’s allowed to.  If he waited until morning, you’d probably be slightly offended.  You try to slow your heart rate into something acceptable, but being this far above water and hearing his baritone murmur directly in your ear make it difficult.  “But I’m… sleepy.”

“You’re always sleepy,” he tells you, and though you can’t actually hear him walking, the sound of his footsteps shake through his voice just slightly as he speaks.

“Hang on,” you huff, ducking your head to drag it against your shoulder, keeping the sweat from your eyes without using your hands, “you’re gonna make me stay up all night just because you do?  This isn’t fair—”

“Fair wasn’t part of the rules.”

Well.  Fair.

Stars, you can’t stay here.  You don’t know how long he wants to check-in for, but you’re also not confident with this branch’s ability to hold you for an extended time when you’re this far out from the trunk.  You need to get in that stream one way or another, but now that he’s here, you have an extra problem.  Din is going to hear you no matter what.

“Um.  Can you give me a second?”  You ask him, glancing around to make sure there’s no better way of doing this.  Nope, you realize very quickly—this is the best idea you’ve got, and you don’t really know what that says about the quality of all your other ideas.

“What?”  Din grunts shortly, but you just clear your throat.

“I need to… mute myself.  Give me like… five minutes.”

“What are you talking abou—”

“You of all people cannot be upset about asking for five minutes of quiet,” you return testily, looking down at the distance to the stream once more.  That’s a long way.  You… you can’t swim obviously, but again, the water doesn’t look too deep.  Just a couple feet likely, shouldn’t go past your knees.

It’s fitting that he doesn’t say anything, which you eventually take as disgruntled acceptance, so you quickly press the proper button on your wrist to silence the mic and then take a few deep breaths.  You have a time limit now, you have to do this.

With incredible patience and precision, you eventually slide until you’re clutching the branch upside down like an only slightly quicker and less coordinated sloth, before slowly dropping your legs and hanging over the water.

It’s… admittedly a bit further down than you anticipated, or maybe that’s just you making things worse than they actually are, but you’re committed at this point and there’s no going back.

You close your eyes, count to three, and then you let go.

The sandy floor meets your feet with considerable force and you make a hell of a splash doing it, nearly falling but just barely managing to keep yourself balanced and upright at the last second.  The water is cool and comes up just over your knees, your backpack miraculously didn’t get wet and all your limbs remain shaky but unbroken.

Okay.  Okay, fucking success.  It feels… thrilling, accomplishing a dangerous feat, and you quickly let out a loud whoop before clearing your throat, trying to sound normal as you press a button on the communicator’s face once more.

“Mando?”  You ask, slightly out of breath.  “Sorry about that, I’m back.”

Okay, now which way do you go?  Downstream seems like the easier path after getting in so much unexpected exercise, so that’s the one you go with.  As soon as you lift your foot from the sand bed, you watch your footprint almost immediately disappear through the moonlit water, and you bite your lip at just how well everything turned out for you.

After a moment though, you realize he hasn’t answered you.  You look down at the communicator again to make sure you pressed the right thing.  “Hello?  Shiny?”

“Did you trade shoes with someone?”  Din’s voice suddenly comes through the earpiece, sounding absolutely incredulous.

“Shit,” you tell him, trying not to smile.  “Hoped that was gonna buy me more time.”

“It… might’ve, if you kept walking in the same direction as they were,” he informs you after a moment.  “Your shoes went south, but this other pair got all the way out here just to turn back around again?  Good idea, but the execution needs work.”

Maker, he’s smart.  It was the first attempt at a footprint change so you weren’t thinking much beyond tricking the tracking mechanism in his helmet, you ignored his logic completely.  Essentially, the exact opposite of what he told you to do.  You like to think you’re getting better at it by this point, thinking beyond just the original exchange, and you’re hoping you’ll be able to trick him with at least one of the other fifty times you changed shoes today.  You’ll have to see tomorrow night, if you can make it that long.

Also, the road you were on apparently goes north-south, that’s important information you make sure to take note of.  The man in Osiruu said Devain and Nariss are to the east, and that Sijua and G’ila are westward, right?  Remembering that you thought south was west earlier, you do some quick calculating and immediately come to a stop in the moving water as soon as you figure out your positioning, turning around and walking upstream instead.

You want to go to Nariss.  The capital, and the biggest city in walking distance.  Smart quarry go to populated places, places that make it nearly impossible to find people.

“Alright.  Mando: one, Me: zero,” you finally acknowledge, swinging your backpack around and unzipping it to dig inside for another piece of fruit.  You’ve been hungry for hours but had to use both hands to stay safe and far above the ground, it’s the perfect time to eat.  “How’s the baby?  Behaving himself?”

“He kept trying to follow you after you left,” comes Din’s response, and you stop with just your teeth piercing the flesh, wondering if you heard him right.  You actually open your jaw and pull the fruit away with just a bite mark in it.

“You’re joking.”  No fucking way, not that little demon.

“Wish I was,” he tells you solemnly.  “Made a fuss, tried to open the ramp a few times.  Didn’t cause any trouble after, just… pouted.”

That’s… that’s exactly how he responded the very first time Din left the kid on the ship with you instead of bringing him along.  He threw a fit, tried to ditch you for his dad multiple times, and then ultimately just looked cute and mopey with his limp ears until Din came back.  Do you think it’s just him rebelling against change?  That has to be it, right?

“He better not be giving you any hints about where I am,” you warn his father.  “I’d tell you to put him on but I don’t want the earpiece getting lost forever.”

You hear it.  The softest laugh—barely a breath, coming after years of learning to make it just quiet enough not to be registered by the helmet.  It gets picked up by the communicator in all its understated beauty when normally it’d be silent, and it’s just jarring enough to make you careless.

On your next step, you accidentally lift your foot too high and make a splash, and you already know you fucked up before he can say a single word.

“What’s that sound?”

You immediately stop moving, allowing the cool water to move as silently as possible past your stationary knees.  Shit.  “Uh.  What sound?”

You think he purposefully doesn’t say anything.  Probably because it feels a little like cheating, doesn’t it?  It’s to your disadvantage, having him be able to catch hints from your environment when he’s the one who made check-ins mandatory, but then again… how smart do you think he is?  Something tells you that he might not need to track you at all—what are the chances he stumbles upon this little stream and just naturally assumes you were clever enough to use it to hide your trail?  Did you waste time trying to engineer a vanishing act when it’s not going to matter regardless?

Oh well, too late now.  You quickly decide to change the subject.

“You should try the big purple fruit that one vendor sells when you get into Osiruu, by the way,” you tell him pleasantly, taking a big chomp out of it and then letting out an extended hum of delight that only really fucking good food or sex causes a person to make.  “I’m eating one right now, it’s so good.  Be the best thing you’ve ever tasted.”

“Mm.  Doubt it,”  immediately comes his low response.  Fucking immediately.

“Mando,” you gasp, scandalized and giddy enough that juice dribbles down your chin a bit.

“Are you having fun?”  Din asks, instead of pushing the conversation any further in that direction.  You don’t know if you’re thankful or disappointed with how quickly he decided to abort, but you take a moment to consider his question while swallowing and wiping your mouth.  Not the answer, you know the answer—but why he bothered to ask.  Did he know you were going to enjoy yourself as much as you have?  Your only possible lament is how you’re talking to him through a communicator instead of having him next to you.

“I am,” you say warmly.  “Be… be better if you were here, though.”

“Give me your coordinates,” Din proposes, and his voice is just low and rumbly enough to make you pause.

You’re really, really proud of yourself for only considering it for a few seconds before scoffing.  “Psh.  Nice try.”

“Was worth a shot,” he sighs through the earpiece, and you smile, taking another bite of fruit.

“Ask me again tomorrow,” you offer, grinning at the implication.

“We’ll see,” you hear him return, and though his tone doesn’t really change, you know he’s probably rolling his eyes.  He won’t have to ask for your coordinates because he’ll already be there, but it’s nice to pretend for a while longer.

And then you both walk all through the night, sharing casual banter with each other for hours.  He never once implies he wants to disconnect, even when you hit him with more nonsensical questions—

“What’s your favorite food?”  (“I don’t have one.”)

“Okay, well what about just a food that you like?”  (“I don’t like food that much.”)

“What do you mean?  Everyone loves food.”  (“Not me.”)

“Alright, well um.  What’s your favorite color, then?”  (“I don’t have one, either.”)

“Come on, you must have some kind of color you like.”  (“What’s your favorite color?”)

“…Brown.”  (“Then that’s my favorite, too.”)

—until the sun rises and you both say your goodbyes.

***

Day 1–6:15am:

You resolve to waiting until you see another person to allow your feet to touch dry land, figuring the longer you stay untraceable, the better off you’ll be.  Your toes are wrinkly and your pantlegs and shoes have been drenched for hours, but then you finally spot a few fishermen standing upstream with their backs to you, speaking to each other in the dawning light.  Two look to be full-grown, but there’s a smaller one in the middle, maybe a teenage boy, and you pause for a second, looking at the riverbank next to them.  All their valuables—water, food, bait, extra rods, but also… their shoes.

Quietly, you reach into your backpack and remove the pair of men’s shoes you bought earlier.  The ones closest to you on the shore seem to be the smallest, so you sneak over as silent as possible and rapidly make an exchange, fitting the new ones on your wet feet before allowing yourself to touch dry land and then speed walking away.

The ones you left him are newer and roughly the same size anyways—yikes, maybe slightly smaller now that you’re thinking about it—but at least you have a back pathing.  If that kid decides to take your offering and the shoes fit, Din will follow him, and if he decides to go barefoot instead, he should still follow him, right?  You’re not really aiming to trick him outright, mostly you just want him to waste more and more time.  This likely wouldn’t work if there wasn’t a time limit attached to this hunt, but you’re going to do everything you can to disappear while he’s still far enough behind you.

***

Day 1–7:06am:

You get to Devain remarkably quickly after finding the correct road.  The pit stop is much bigger than Osiruu, big enough to call an actual town instead of just a settlement, but still not large enough to feel concealed.  You want a city.  This place at least has cars and ships moving about and overhead respectively, but you’re looking for somewhere with lines.  Somewhere that feels as cramped and busy as possible.

Still, you find a restroom to use and then decide to grab some more food for your trip, happily spotting your new favorite purple fruit in one of the shop windows.  As you’re reaching out to hand the storekeeper the appropriate amount of credits, Din’s gruff voice comes through the earpiece so suddenly that you jump, nearly dropping them all on the counter.  “Hey.”

“Holy shit, what?”  You gasp, earning a confused look from the lady in front of you.  You quickly shake your head at her and mouth an apology while Din grumbles in vexation.

“You were supposed to stay on foot.”

Ah.  So he got to the bus, then.  Okay.

“Oh,” you answer ambiguously, exchanging the money for your bag of food and giving her a polite smile.  Din stays completely mute while you grab your snack, stuffing the rest of the goods in your backpack and then turning to leave—mute for so long that you have to double check you didn’t accidentally do it yourself.

“…Smart girl,” you finally hear him say.  Quietly muttered under his breath, half proud of you and half frustrated for making his job more difficult.  “Which one of these is yours then?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” you announce, before taking a large bite as you leave the establishment and talking with your mouth full.  “You really gotta try the purple fruit, it’s great.”

The communicator abruptly clicks to silence on his end without anything else and you laugh so unexpectedly that a few pieces of it fly out of your mouth.

***

Day 1–1:32pm:

Somewhere miles away from you, Din jerks to a halt in the middle of a forest.

He looks around the dirt floor, walks a few paces and hears the kid coo gently from his cradle.  Behind the visor, the red footprints he’s circling are the last ones around for hundreds of meters, as far as his display can read.

His helmet slowly tilts upwards, and follows the endless maze of thick branches overhead.

With the beskar hiding his face, no one can see the way he slowly breaks into a beautiful grin.

***

Day 1–9:51pm:

Oh.  Oh stars, you’re tired.

You’ve been walking all day without really seeing anything, not having any place to disguise your tracks in the wide open plains.  You could’ve stuck to the road, but you started to feel the exhaustion creep in during the early afternoon and you wanted to be far away from other travelers and potential danger if you needed to rest.  You knew this would be a long journey when you left Devain earlier—over a day’s walk, a group of children told you—you even tried skipping or jogging a bit to see if that would inspire more energy in you, but it didn’t help much.

The large cup of caf you bought while in town was drained hours ago and it didn’t help much either, probably because your exhaustion is more physical and not necessarily mental.  It just felt like a sweet warm drink to sip before you go to sleep, that’s how much the caf helped.  Still, you kept walking, kept moving forward even as you squinted in the setting sun, your feet aching from traveling for this long wearing unfamiliar shoes.  The last time you changed them was hours ago, pulling another bus maneuver but with an air shuttle instead.  Still, you don’t think it’ll be enough.  You don’t even know where Din is but you already feel like you’re losing ground just knowing that he’s the one in pursuit.

You feel it—the hair standing up on your neck, the tingles in your hands, the stirring of your tummy—whatever the incessant gogogo that your instincts happen to scream when you’re in first place but you know the person behind you is quickly closing in.  It’s day fucking one, it’s day one and you feel him in the wind as it brushes through your hair, you can’t even pause to rest because nobody knows better than you that he’s an absolute fucking machine when he wants to be.  The kid may have powers beyond that which can be explained by the laws of nature, but Din is a force all his own.  He drives you forward when everything inside you is telling you to stop.  He keeps you awake and determined when you just desperately need to rest.

But that only goes so far.  You’re bordering on two full days without sleep, and though you’d normally be able to suffer through, the constant movement is just brutal after being confined to a stationary ship for so long.

There’s a lone tree in the distance, you think.  It’s hard to see.  Not because it’s dark—well it is, just a bit darker tonight compared to last, but mostly because your eyelids have grown heavier and more burdensome than the bag around your shoulders.  That looks like a good place to just sit for a second, right?  Maybe eat some more food, try and wake yourself up?  Yeah, that’s a good idea, you’ll head towards the tree and just… sit…

***

Day 2–12:00am:

Completely dead to the galaxy and sitting on your ass with your back against rough bark, the comm clicks and Din’s voice comes through the earpiece.

“Wake up.”

It startles you enough to make you lurch forward and jerk your head around in a panic, looking for any flash of beskar so you can instantly break opposite to it.  You scramble on all fours to look around but you don’t see anything, not even behind the trunk when you crawl, and then you take a deep breath and use the bone of your wrists to rub your eyes vigorously after a moment, knowing your hands are filthy.  “Fuck, how’d you—”

“You’re always sleepy,” Din repeats, and you collapse back into the tree with an exhausted groan, not entertained but not even having the energy to get mad about it.

“I… I gotta sleep,” you tell him, already feeling your body let go of its tension and search for the darkness of unconsciousness once more.  “Shit.  How d’you… mm.  Stay awake all the time…”

“Sleep,” Din encourages, you can still hear him walking.  “You need rest.  I’ll see you soon.”

No—

“No,” you whine like a child, moaning and shoving yourself upright.  Maker, you’re trying to focus, but asking that of yourself is almost impossible right now.  Everything swims—you were dreaming, you think, but you can’t remember and it’s not important other than to emphasize how woozy you are.  Things still feel like a dream, somehow.

You think he can hear your struggling through the comm, because the sound of his footsteps pause.  “Go to sleep.”

“You go to sleep,” you tell him bluntly, giving your head a violent shake to try and wake you up.  You want to slap your own cheek but you don’t want him to hear it.  “I can’t sleep if you don’t.”

“I’ve have at least a couple more days in me before that happens,” Din murmurs, and you bet he knows exactly what the fuck he’s doing to you.  You start to slouch, hearing the voice he uses when he’s curled around your body in the darkness of the hull.  So warm, so gentle.  If you use your imagination, you can feel his fingers drawing slow circles on your back, the vibration of his low voice rumbling against your ear as you lay your head on his chest.  “If I hunt you the way I’d hunt a quarry, I’m going to find you before you wake up.”

“Then I’ll jus’ have to… not let tha’ happen,” you slur.  Even this close to unconsciousness, you try your best to throw in a misdirect.  “Already… paid for the bed an’ everything.”

“Sure you did.  You in another tree?”

You immediately frown even as your eyes drop closed, too tired to fight but still managing to sound upset.  “You makin’ fun of me?”  You ask him with a harumph.  Genuinely, you’re not smart enough to figure it out right now.

“Not hardly,” Din sighs, sounding… you don’t know.  Is that displeasure or not?  It’s not immediately clear.  Does it sound that way because you’re just dumb stupid right now?  Or because Din can’t actually decide how he feels about it?  “Lucky I heard water over the comm last night, I would’ve wasted hours in that forest.”

“Noooo,” you whine in response, trying to push yourself off the tree but tipping sideways in the process, “that’s not fair—”

“Fair wasn’t part of the rules,” he repeats himself again and… nope, you don’t even have the energy to snark something back.  You just grumble your best imitation of him while you do everything you can to heave yourself upright.  It’s pitiful, you lose your balance not even halfway through and just plop on the grass for a second and groan.

“Stop,” Din eventually orders through the earpiece, tired of it.  “What’s sixteen times itself?”

You’re loopy to the point where you don’t even question why he decided to ask you that.  You just furrow your brows for a second and try to think about it, before suddenly realizing you… don’t know, you can’t remember.  Multiplication tables and squares up to twenty are elementary to you, you know them by heart.  Sixteen times sixteen.  One forty-four.  No… no that doesn’t sound right, is that twelv—

You take way too long answering what would’ve been an immediate response two days ago.

“I’ll stop here for tonight,” Din tells you with a resolved sigh.  “I won’t move until you wake up.  Go to sleep.  You’re putting yourself in danger, you can’t even do the basics.”

Later, this moment will come back to you.  That problem isn’t basic, not many adults would be able to tell you very quickly that the answer is two fifty-six.  You don’t even think Din would.  You would, though.  On Naboo, you used rapidly applied trigonometry in your head to find his location, and that was barely two minutes after waking up.  You should know this.  And he knows you.

But for right now, you don’t pay it a single lick of attention.

“You promise?”  You ask quietly, voice incredibly small as your head tilts back towards the sky, already feeling yourself beginning to fall back into the darkness again.

“I promise,” he vows in return, gentle but a promise nonetheless.  He doesn’t have to do this.  You wouldn’t be able to keep going even if he didn’t offer up this temporary truce, but knowing he isn’t currently gaining ground on you makes the idea of sleep so much more welcoming, something you want to seek out instead of fight.

“Will you, um…” your expression furrows.  How do you say this?  You sigh, giving up before even trying to figure it out.  “I’m… not in a bed.  I’m outside.”

Din doesn’t say anything when you pause, and even through the haze wanting to take over, you know it’s going to sound needy.  You want him to stay.  Even in the midst of an adventure, you want him to stay, you want to hear him breathe as you rest, but there’s not really an integrous way to ask.

You don’t need to ask.

“I’ll keep the comm open and wake you when the sun rises,” comes his lulling baritone before you can elaborate anymore, enveloping you in comfort in this dreadfully uncomfortable bed of grass and dirt.  “Sleep, sweet girl.  I’m right here.”

***

Day 2–5:34am:

The sun shines over the hills and you lift your head up to squint your eyes at it, confused as fuck.  Looking down at your wrist to check the time in the warm rays, hands and clothes dirty from laying on the ground that long—you stay groggy and clueless for just a moment longer, before your heart lurches when you remember Din’s promise to you.

You open your mouth to address him but then catch yourself just in time.  Wait.  Don’t panic.  Listen.

Breathing.  Slow and relaxed through the earpiece, a rhythm now branded into your memory from months of nights spent in pitch black.  He’s… asleep.

Din is asleep?  Seriously?

You can count like… twice that this has happened, and one of those was because he got you to touch him just right after closing up a wound on his back, and his body couldn’t handle the strain and passed out.  You’re never awake when he’s asleep—you’re just not, it doesn’t happen.  Din… sleeps like it’s just a choice for him, he doesn’t ever really need it.  Almost like how he used to eat before he started sharing meals with you, he said he doesn’t even like food that much.  You think he just severed all of those things long ago, things that are basic fundamentals of survival and operated like a bounty droid that lost its voice box.  It’s… nice, feeling like you’re somehow giving back some of the things he lost.  Unintentionally encouraging him to find sleep again.  Making sure he eats more, listening to him speak.

You struggle to your feet as quietly as possible, hearing him continue to breathe slow and relaxed through the communicator.  This isn’t purposeful, you don’t think he actually allowed it.  He promised you, and Din doesn’t take shit back.  If he tells you he’ll do something and he doesn’t follow through, it’s either out of his control or a mistake, it’s never been purposeful.  He didn’t mean to fall asleep.

And, in other circumstances, you most definitely would not find some way to take advantage of this.  You’d let him sleep and do other things in the meantime—make some food for you and the kid, find something on the Crest that isn’t spotless and clean until it is, or just… lay there next to him until he woke up.  But… these circumstances are their own.  You have to capitalize now, this is your chance.  You passed out last night around… ten pm, you think it was, and then he promised to stop at midnight.  That means you have to walk at least two hours before he wakes up if you want to prevent any loss of ground—you don’t know where he stopped, he could be a few miles back even.

You have to find Nariss—you have to.  It’s your only option, if you keep trying to run, it’s just going to make it so much easier for him.  Now is the time to hide.  You know it hasn’t been long, it’s barely been two days since you first left the Crest but it feels like you’re already in endgame, already making moves in self-defense instead of actually planning your maneuvers ahead of time.

The capital should be half a day’s walk from here, then.  As long as you get there, you think you’ll be okay.

***

Day 2–8:28am:

Din’s groan suddenly comes through your ear.

You immediately stop, seeing a busy road in the distance and glad you haven’t quite made it there yet, before trying to disguise your voice as drowsy.  “Mm?”

“Shit,” he breathes, and you hear him get up, the sound of beskar moving as he grunts.

“Mpph,” you groan back, squinting your eyes to see if that’ll help sell the act.  “I thought you… Mando, fuck, y’said you’d wake me when the sun came up.”

“I… fell asleep,” he admits, voice rough with it, sounding just as confused as you felt earlier.

“You said you had days in you before that happened,” you murmur, taking a deep breath and stretching your arms up above your head.  Stars, your back hurts, how does he possibly manage to carry a fucking jet pack around all the time?

“Yeah, I…”  He pauses for a moment and you bite your lip, not liking the quiet as soon as you hear it.  “How long have you been up?”

Op.  Not good.  “Wha?”

He’s not falling for it.  “How long?”

How in Maker’s name?  This is impossible.  How can you hope to hide from him when you can’t even manage to hide the smallest fucking truth from him?  Can you salvage this somehow?  “…Like ten minutes.”

“Least a few hours, then,” he sighs, and you get ready to hit him with the same line he used when you complained about his leg-up, opening your mouth as soon as you hear him speak.  “That was smar—”

“Fair wasn’t part of—”

Oh.  Well.  Apparently you didn’t have a reason to feel shitty about deciding to haul ass while he was passed out even though you kind of ended up doing so anyways.  There was no agreement besides that he wouldn’t move until you woke up.  Reason is on your side, but it still feels a bit like you fucked him over.  Is that valid or are you just so used to being nice that putting yourself first feels like a wrong you’ve committed?

“Don’t feel bad,” Din tells you, and you hear a soft coo in the background.  It makes you smile the smallest bit, your shoulders relaxing even as they ache from carrying your pack around.  “You should feel bad about stealing that poor kid’s shoes, though.  He walked home barefoot.”

You smack your forehead.  “It was just….”

“Yeah,” he scoffs when you don’t finish your sentence, and you can’t keep back a giggle.  “Alright, I’m up now.  See you when you get here.”

And then the communicator clicks, and you’re…

Uh.  What the fuck was that?

No.  Nope, you’re not going to get played.  That was a brilliant attempt at fucking with you, but you’re not falling for it this time.  You’ve grown since that night on Canto Bight, you know him, he can’t just say shit to fuck with your head and then smile at your flailing response from under the helmet anymore.  You normally would stew in that last comment until it got to you, made you make a mistake most likely, but the more you think about it, the more certain you are that he has nothing.  He was just trying to see if you’ll abandon your entire plan just by implying he already knows it.  That’s beginner shit, you’re not falling for it.  Din wanted to leave the conversation with the upper-hand since you gained at least an hour of extra ground while he slept.  You’re certain of it.

***

Day 2–12:35pm:

Nariss is big.  Nowhere near the size of Coruscanti sectors of course, where billions of people are packed from surface to exosphere and require oxygen recirculation towers to breathe at the very top, but just slightly bigger than you expected.  It’s bustling and you haven’t even made it through the city gates yet—you’re approaching them and the large number of people waiting in line, seeing buildings stretch out for miles in front of you and grinning.  Yes, this will work nicely.

As you peek over shoulders in the sizable crowd, you see only two or three people allowing people to enter one at a time… is that a biometric scanner?

Oh.  That looks good and it also doesn’t look good at the same time.  If Din’s safety meant nothing to you, you’d have no trouble whatsoever getting in line and waiting to do a retinal scan, but you immediately pause and consider the potential consequences.

Your dumb ass almost weighs the option of clicking the communicator on and asking his opinion.  You’d give away your location in a heartbeat (if he doesn’t know it already) just because you’re worried he’d… what, exactly?  Stand in line for an hour, take his helmet off in front of a crowd of people, have the system ping his scan, and then hang out and wait for New Republic reinforcements to show?  You have to stop worrying about him.  He’s not a baby, he can handle himself and you need to stop considering the possibility of taking a loss just so he doesn’t have to, even if the self-destructive sentiment feels ingrained in your nature to do so.

So you wait in line, moving at a slow pace but at least moving.  While you’re standing there quietly, a man in front of you decides to strike up a conversation.  You don’t come from a place with an excess of people, but the ones in your sector were friendly and did this kind of thing often, so perhaps for that reason, you decide to chat.

“Do you have some place to stay?”  He asks at one point.  So far the conversation has revolved around him—every time he asks about you, you deflect.  He doesn’t need to know.  “Nariss isn’t kind to drifters.”

This catches your attention, though.  This is relevant.  “What does that mean?”

“It’s expensive?”  He scratches his blonde hair, giving you a soft smile.  “Food, housing, all of it is way out of my price-range.  I stay with my uncle and work overnights at the eastern docks.  It’s not much, but it’s enough to keep a roof over our heads.  We used to live in Gibrath, but then we moved to the city because he’s a good architect and they’re always expanding.  It’s nice, of course, but really expensive.”

He’s handsome, you think… in kind of a boyish, charming way.  Blonde hair, sparkly blue eyes.  He doesn’t look much older than you, and maybe in another lifetime you would’ve found him appealing, but… you like darker features, you think.  Someone a little less expressive.  This guy… talks a lot.

“I thought this moon was a safe world for people displaced by the Empire,” you offer, taking a step forward as the entire crowd shifts.

“Sanctuary II is,” he comments.  “The capital is safe, too—what, with all the orangies walking around,” he tilts his head to two jumpsuited guards trying to organize the glob of people so the line can move faster, rolling his eyes as if they’re some kind of joke.  “But not… welcoming, not if you’re looking for a place to settle.  You would’ve been better off in G’ila.”

“Is there anywhere you know that would take me for free?”  You ask.  You have quite a few credits left, but you don’t think it’s a good idea to stay in an inn.  It’ll be the first place Din checks.

“Are you a virgin?”  He returns, and you immediately pull back at the unexpected question, your heart thudding at the possibility of danger.  The man’s sandy eyebrows shoot up at your response and he quickly apologizes—“Heavens, I’m so sorry to ask like that!  It’s just… the only place I know is the Holy Keja Orphanage on the northern outskirts.  Their signs say they only house children and teenagers, but I’ve heard from other girls your age that they’ll accept any woman as long as they’ve stayed pure in the eyes of the Maker.”

“Oh,” you say after a moment, leaning sideways to see just a few people standing in front of him.  Good, this is almost over.  “Um.  Yep.  That’s me.”

He smiles at you once more, giving you a nod.  “When you get to the city, just go straight through.  It’s about a mile outside of the gates, no more than a day’s walk from this side of town.”

Okay, that’s… interesting.  You think about it while you thank him and begin to exchange polite goodbyes, moving up another step until he’s next in line.  That might actually be a good move.  Din could spend a long time in the city without ever finding you.  Smart quarry go to populated places, but… smarter quarry defy the expectations placed upon them, right?  He knows you’re smart, and even though you’re confident his “See you when you get here” was purely psychological fuckery, that also implies… at the very least, that he’s assuming there is a here to get to.  Meaning, he knows you’re not going into the wilderness to evade him.  He’s not going to comb the outskirts when there are so many places to hide within the city gates, with an entire perimeter of New Republic guards stationed around it.  Even if he does, the signs will say only children and teenagers—categories you do not fall into.

The unnamed man is soon ushered forward but you stop him quickly.  “Oh, by the way.  I doubt this will happen, but if a man in a big metal suit with a tiny green baby happen to ask you the same thing, please don’t tell him what you just told me.”

He furrows his eyebrows at you and cocks his head, but smiles and agrees nonetheless.

***

Day 2–5:43pm:

You have an idea.

You’ve been working on it all afternoon, but you were hit with it the second you were looking for another pair of shoes to buy and find a clever way of putting on.

The cheapest ones were ridiculously overpriced, blonde dude was right.  You blinked down at the tag and asked the salesman where the cheapest shoes in this part of town were, and then he just wrinkled his nose at you and shooed you out of the store.  Granted, you slept in dirt and spent two days walking—you bet you reek, but he didn’t have to be like that.

Though, the man’s displeasure with you had an upside.  You were holding a possible pair of pants and a shirt to buy when he threw you out, not yet having checked the atrocious pricetag on them, but it appeared as if he’d rather let you have them for free than rip them from your… admittedly, pretty filthy arms.  Oh well, you weren’t complaining.  Fancy clothes for free, score.

But now you’re here, and you have the best idea.  You don’t need to change shoes, not yet.  Why?  Because you’ve figured out how to turn your incessant detriment into an advantage.

You’re in the middle of downtown, you think, maybe just some random crowded square, and there’s an inn in front of you.  It’s fucking enormous, and you already know it’s gotta be incredibly expensive just looking at the sheer number of stories.  It’s an eyesore, it sticks out.  But that’s okay, because you’re only planning on staying for a night.

It’s also… right next to New Republic headquarters.  Or fuck, at least a station of some sort, because they’re swarming in and out of the constant crowd, passing by the valet doors.

At first you naturally wanted to steer away from the jumpsuits, since you know they’re bad news for Din, but then you remember what he said before you left.  I’m only telling you so that you’ll know your advantage and find a way to exploit it.  I can’t be seen by any officers, or they might arrest me.

It’s to your advantage, he said so himself.  Everything lines up perfectly—the street is bustling, the inn is well protected, it’s nice—it’s everything you’re looking for.

And there’s another upside, see.  An omnipresent, omniscient ghost in the form of a communicator clipped to your wrist right now.  If Din is always going to be able to predict you, he’s always going to know when you’re lying, always be able to read you… then you’ll just have to let him.

Let him know.  Let him know exactly where you are.  Right in the middle of the most populated street you’ve seen thus far, a constant barrage of people walking by and New Republic officers patrolling.  If you were planning on staying in the city, this would probably be your best option to hide.  He could waste days here if you’re smart about it.

The concierge doesn’t appear too pleased with your lack of cleanliness and neither do you, honestly, but at least he allows you to book a suite for the night.  It’s… not as bad as you were originally assuming, credits-wise, but it’s worth more than half your stash and you’re going to have to conserve from this point on.  It shouldn’t be too bad—your destination is a holy orphanage, you’re sure they’ll have some extra food and a bed for you even if it won’t be ideal.  Still, you think you’re going to enjoy some lavish experiences for once in your life before you go.

***

Day 2–11:54pm:

Alright, so this was the best idea ever.  This is the shit.

You’re leaning back against a fluffy stack of pillows, squeaky clean from an absolutely glorious bath and watching the flickering drama on the large holonet display in front of you.  You don’t have any idea what’s going on, as it’s being broadcast in Rodian, but you haven’t been able to change the frequency because it’s so fucking intense—somebody’s sister is their mother, you think?  No, that must be a mistranslation, right?

You’re also in a robe.  Yes, there is a motherfucking robe in here.  And… and slippers, it’s like a dream.  Do people normally wear slippers in bed?  You do.  Hell, maybe you should stay here, screw the credits and the chase.  This mattress is even better than the one on Naboo and you’re basking in the luxury after being outdoors for so long.

The lights are off other than that and you’ve opened the drapes wide, knowing you’re on something like the fifteenth floor and nobody would be able to see you anyways.  You just like being able to turn your head and look out at the sky.  Violent and periwinkle tonight.  You wonder if he’s looking, too.

Luckily, you snap yourself back out of it and glance down at the time on your communicator, quickly pressing a button on the remote to mute the Rodian show and then opening the line the moment the hour changes.

Day 3–12:00am:

“Hiya, Shiny,” you say before anything else, laying back and running a few fingers through your damp hair.  Your eyes close against the flickering light, taking a slow, relaxed breath.  Maker, this feels nice.

“You sound happy,” Din comments.  Astute, you feel happy.  Well… you’d obviously feel happier if he was here.  Your eyes flick over to the open bathroom door, still steamy from your bubble bath earlier, imagining him walking through it completely naked and then climbing over you on the covers.  You can only really picture it from the neck down—no, hang on… you can see his shaggy brown curls, that one spot on his forehead you know, how his facial hair would be dark and frame his mouth.  No face, though.  Missing just one fraction of him from your imagination, feeling incomplete but also somehow… complete in a way.

“I feel better after sleeping last night,” you tell him, purposefully leaving out the softness of the sheets underneath you, the sheer comfort of all this extravagance.  You don’t need it, you’ll never need it, but it feels nice to have for once.

“I do, too,” he replies quietly, and your eyes flutter closed.  You… miss him.  This mattress would feel softer with him next to you.  He’d probably be able to translate this show for you, even though you already know he’d fucking hate it.  You can imagine it—you with your eyes closed, him propped up on an elbow next to you and grumbling vague descriptions of the nonsense happening on screen just to hear your chuckles.  Adventures are great, but maybe they aren’t as great by yourself, you think.

“You should sleep tonight, too,” you encourage, but he scoffs.

“Not a chance,” Din mutters.  “Oh, before I forget, we need to charge the communicators today.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”  You ask him, glancing at all the multiple wireless charging outlets stationed around you.  “I’m in the middle of nowhere.”

He doesn’t even take a fucking second before responding.  “Good one.”

You grin up at the ceiling, warmth flooding you.  You love him.  Literally every single time, he just knows.  Your curiosity is too overwhelming after this happening so often.  Your plan to distract him relies on him being able to read you, but that doesn’t prevent you from wondering how he does it so accurately, time and time again.  “How do you know?”

“You slept outside last night,” he immediately tells you, like that should mean anything to you.

Does he… does he truly know you well enough to know how much your back and shoulders hurt today?  How much you were aching for a shower and clean clothes?  A bed to sleep on that isn’t dirt or metal?  You give into the accurate prediction with shameless honesty, not caring if he knows it’s the truth.

“This bed is soft,” you murmur gently, dragging your hand across the mattress next to you.  “You should be here.  I’d make you feel good.”

Admittedly, your comfort is making you a bit drowsy and you said it in the easiest way possible, but you didn’t necessarily mean it sexually.  Well… you sort of did—you’d make him feel so good in this bed—but what you meant was more… comforting.  He could take a bath, or a shower, and get all the grime off him.  He could feel clean and unburdened, take a break instead of constantly moving around.  The baby could have a whole bed to himself if he wanted, though you know he’d probably want to be on this one instead.  You could all look at the sky together.

Din is quiet for a little bit, before his voice comes back through the earpiece.  “Are you in an inn?”

“No,” you say, a little too quickly.  Perfect, that sounded just right for a lie.  You are lying, you absolutely are in an inn, the only difference is that you want him to catch on that it’s a lie, so… why does he take way too long before responding?

“Hm.”

What the fuck—why… how is it even physically possible?  He read you that deeply from one single word?  You’re not sure if he’s somehow psychic and figured the whole fucking thing out or if he just knows there’s something off, but it’s still enough to blow you away.

“Are you doing this on purpose?”  You blurt without thinking.

“Doing what?”  He grunts, sounding like he’s stepping over something, his breath changing intensity as he walks.

“If I look out this window right now, am I gonna see you standing out there just messing with me?”  You don’t even know what to believe anymore.  How do you beat this?  If you don’t want him to know the truth, he’ll figure it out, and if you do want him to know the truth, he’ll still figure it out.  His perception is unbelievable.

After a moment of silence, he murmurs gently through the comm.  “I thought you said you were in the middle of nowhere.”  It sounds like he’s smiling.

“I…”  your eyes shift around awkwardly, “am…”

Din lets out a deep sigh.  He’s right, that was bad, even for you.  “I found your bed a few hours ago,” he admits.  You close your eyes as you listen to him make his way closer to you, step by step.  “I’m nowhere near the city yet.  You have time to sleep.”

Your expression furrows and you frown.  “Why are you helping me?”

“Why do you want me to think you’re in an inn?”  He tosses back, and you huff.

“Because I’m trying to outsmart you but you make it really fucking difficult,” you grumble, not happy about him catching on so quick.

“You’ve also gained about four hours on me since we started.”  His voice is gruff.  You don’t know if he thinks it’s a good thing or a bad thing.  “You should give yourself more credit.  I thought I would’ve found you by now, never expected you to get all the way to Nariss.  It’s… not good for me.”

The honesty creeping in makes you go soft.  It makes you want to reciprocate, even if it’s dumb and you haven’t thought it all the way through.  “Wanna know a secret?”

“Tell me.”  His voice is a bed all its own, deep and gentle and safe.

You say it before you lose the nerve.  “I might just turn around and walk back.”

His footsteps stop and you hear a small sound in the background, a quiet little baby noise that suddenly makes your heart ache.  You’re comfortable but incredibly aware of how alone you are.  People pass by on the streets below, cars and hoverbikes honk in the distance and you’re by yourself.  For the first time in over a year, like you have been for years, you’re by yourself.

“Sweet girl,” Din sighs, and all of a sudden… you can feel his arms around you with it.  You feel so… known, somehow.  Every sentiment you could’ve possibly given in your last sentence, he relays his understanding back with his.  He makes you feel loved with it.  “Never wants to run.”

You don’t say anything, because you suddenly realize you’re totally fucking whipped, up down and sideways for his metal ass and the little floating grimlin that follows him around, and you would throw away the fifth quarry, adventure, the sky—literally everything if you could be with the both of them right now.

But again.  You don’t have to say anything, he already knows.  “Give me your coordinates.”

Your eyes pop open and you bite your lip.  Oh, stars.  You hate that you do genuinely consider it.  He could be here, and very soon.  With the jet pack, both of them could be here in less than an hour, probably.  He could take a shower.  Watch these stupid shows with you all night without needing to be on the move, help you build a bed of pillows for the kid on top of this one.  You could be with both of them again, even if it’s only for a little while.

“Ask me again tomorrow,” you finally whisper, looking down at the soft white fabric of your robe, the way one of your slippers is falling off your foot as the holonet program continues to play on mute.

Din’s footsteps eventually start up again, and you both relax in silence together.  You, squinting at the screen because your eyes are getting heavy; him, continuing to travel step by step and gain ground on you.  Let him come.  You’ll be long gone by the time he even makes it to the gates.

It’s been about ten minutes of shared, quiet existence before you hear him bite into something and chew, and your face suddenly lights up.

“Are you eating the purple fruit?”  You ask, your slipper falling off with excitement.  You don’t know why, but it’s like… you’re stoked for him.  Just as proud of him for doing normal things as he does when you step out of your own comfort zone.  You like to think you’re both better that way.  Balanced.

“Mm,” Din replies with his mouth full, and you grin down at your bare legs peeking through the robe while he swallows.

“Is it not the best thing you’ve ever tasted?”  Your voice goes a little breathless with it, and you hear his footsteps stop once more.

“Close,” Din murmurs lowly, sending a small shudder through you.  It suddenly feels a bit warm in here, doesn’t it?  This morning was one of the rare times you were awake while he was asleep… it’s almost always the other way around, and just from the implication in his tone, you’re reminded of the thing he likes doing most when you’re resting.  Maybe he’ll let you do it to him, next time around.  The thought gets you hot enough to warrant the other slipper falling to the floor.

“You’re alone, right?”  You whisper, knowing he must’ve pulled the helmet up to take a bite of the fruit.  He must still be following your path through the hillside, then, not yet reaching the road.

“The kid is awake,” Din tells you, sounding like he’s trying to stop everything before anything starts.  His words are short and clear in their meaning, but…

This has a very small chance of success, you already know.  “…Do you want to—”

“No,” he responds quickly, already way ahead of you.  “We can’t.”

Something in his voice… you don’t know, there’s just something there that makes you feel just a little reckless.  Should you push it?  You’re by yourself in this suite, what can go wrong?

“You can’t,” you correct him quietly, shifting around on the bed just a bit and biting your lip.  It’s a thrill—being able to tease him without having him in front of you, drive him crazy knowing you’re just out of his reach.  “But I can do whatever I want, can’t I?”

There’s a pause, a tense and knowing silence suspended between you before he eventually speaks.

“I’d be real careful,” Din mutters low in warning, but what is he gonna do?

“What are you gonna do?”  You whisper to him devilishly.  Quiet and breathy, beginning to snake your hand down.  Stars, your heart is already pounding.  You’d only likely mouth off like this in person just to see how hard he’d fuck you, but this feels extra dangerous for some reason.  He’s stuck, he can’t do anything about it right now, and you know it’s playing with fire.  “You could hang up if you don’t want to hear me.  Or you could find me before I’m finished.  Come make me stop.”

Din doesn’t say anything but he very much does not hang up, nor does he come busting into your room like you imagine he’d like to.  The sheer fact that your door is still closed and locked tells you for sure that he isn’t just hanging out in the hallway, just letting you have your fun.

You start pressing your fingers against your robe at the apex of your thighs, humming at how nice the pressure feels.  You don’t even spread your legs or push the fabric away, you just sigh into it and wiggle your hips a bit, pressing hard against your clit and listening to him breathe.

“Do you want to listen?”  You ask quietly after a moment, and Din still doesn’t respond.  Likely because there’s not a real answer, both yes and no would imply the wrong thing.  “I’ll talk.”

Still, nothing from him.  Dead silence through the comm.  You’re starting to understand.  For two days, you’ve felt like he could read your every thought just by the cadence of your voice.  He’s staying quiet so you can’t even attempt to do the same to him—if he doesn’t talk, you can’t find a weakness and pounce on it, you can’t feel any more confident or reassured about your own ability to read him.

You’ll just have to push a little harder, then.

“Hm.  If only this fancy communicator could…” you pause to look down at your wrist for a second, studying the menu.  You don’t think you’ve ever really looked at it, you never had the time.

Din’s growl is sudden and sharp through the earpiece.  “No, don’t even think—”

“Ah,” you smile, tapping the face and immediately finding the correct screen.  “Take pictures.”

He’s deadly quiet for a moment, and you bite your lip with excitement.  When he does speak, his voice is a pure threat, chilling you to the bone as much as it burns deep in your tummy.  “…You wouldn’t.”

Ignoring him, you suddenly locate a menu option that sounds phenomenal right now.  “Oh shit, does this holocall?  Or is it a video option?”

“Holo,” he says very seriously while you study the lack of complexity of the built-in camera in skepticism, “and the kid is awake, so you can’t—”

“Oh, it’s definitely a video,” you unclip it from your wrist and he curses as you sit up, and then you press a button and wait impatiently for him.  “Pick up.”

Din takes forever before responding, and you hear the continuous beeps as it attempts to connect, before his quiet baritone rumbles in your ear.  “What if I don’t?”

You feel your mouth pull down at the corners, not so much frowning as you are dubious.  He’s going to turn down the opportunity to see you and your surroundings when his whole goal is locating you?  Really?

“You sure?”  You ask softly, raising an eyebrow.  “You’d get to see me, where I am.  What I’m…” your eyes dip down to the loose robe riding your curves, your skin glowing against the white fabric, “…wearing.”

The beeps continue on for a few more seconds, until they finally stop.  You frown down at the black screen of the communicator, not seeing anything at all.  Did he decline the transmission request?  No… there’s a little red light next to the small lens that wasn’t there before.  Why can’t you see him?

“Why can’t I see you?”  You ask.  You want to look at him looking at you, you don’t want to always be stuck on the other side of a one-way mirror.

“I… have it linked to my helmet, but it only has a front-facing camera,” Din tells you after a moment, and he sounds… slightly out of breath.  “Easier to see, the watch is useless now besides the controls.”

Wait, does that mean you’re… being shown on the inner-display of his helmet instead of his wrist?  Right in front of his eyes, as if he were actually here with you?

“Nobody can see me but you?”  You clarify, and when he doesn’t respond, you bite your lip and lean back into the pillows.  You lift the watch up slightly, extending your arm out until you can get the angle as wide as possible.  “Can you see… this?”  You ask softly, before hooking your fingers in the collar of your white robe and slowly pulling it open for him.

“Where are you?”  Din asks instead, and you hear his footsteps through the earpiece, as if he’s walking away from something very quickly.

You don’t answer him, parting the soft fabric until your breasts are completely exposed and you sigh, closing your eyes and snuggling back into the pillows once more.  “I’ll tell you where I am if you keep watching me.”

“Why?”  Din grits in frustration, coming back around to the same dangerous question he had earlier.  “Why would you do that?”

“I don’t know.”  You slowly tilt the camera down until you can spread your legs and the robe falls open with the movement, letting him see your pussy peeking through in the flickering light of the muted screen in front of your bed.  “Can you see that?”

“Yeah,” he says shakily on the end of a breath, and you feel yourself get wet.  Fuck, he sounds so fucking tempted, the sight making his voice come without any of the self-assuredness as it usually has, but… he could also just be saying that.  How do you know he’s telling you the truth?

“What am I doing?”  You test him, lifting your knee just the slightest bit so you really give him something to look at.

“Spreading your legs for a camera,” Din responds without hesitation, voice scraping against your ear, making you shiver and your nipples harden.  Fuck, the way he says it, like it’s wrong and bad even though he’s the only one who can see or hear you do it… it makes you feel even more naughty and emboldened.

You bite your lip and reach your hand down to spread your lips for him, too, hearing his breath immediately catch on the other end.  Already your pussy makes your fingers slick against your soft skin, the sash of your robe still holding the fabric together on your body but also loose enough to allow it to part in the right places and reveal everything you want him to see.

“I am in an inn,” you whisper teasingly, letting your finger drop to brush against your clit and then sighing in soft delight.  Oh stars, that feels nice, it feels so good to treat yourself after being completely nomadic for two days, getting to be clean and soft and comfortable while you feel this pleasure, and Din’s voice growls through your communicator like you’re doing something painful to him.

“Fuck,” his breathing picks up while you begin circling your clit.  “Where?”

“Nariss,” comes your quiet moan, turning your head on the pillow to blink slowly at the camera.  Wanting him to see your eyes as well as your finger slowly dip into where you’re the hottest, caressing the sensitive skin there knowing he’s watching.

“Where in Nariss?”  Din’s voice is as pleading as it is sharp, desperately trying to keep either you or himself on track.

“I don’t know,” you say again.  Truthfully, you don’t—you don’t know the cross streets, you don’t know the part of town, you don’t know much of anything at all besides physical descriptors.  You quickly move the camera to the side as far as you can hold it and let him see you from a different angle with the window as a backdrop.  “But the window is open.  And there are lots of people outside.”

“Can they see you?”  Din immediately challenges.  Of course they can’t, you’re fifteen stories up and the room is darker than it is outside with all the city lights and swirling colors of the sky, but you suppose he doesn’t know that.  You think he just needs to relax—if this is what he’s always like during hunts, you now know exactly why he comes back to you all riled up and tense.

“I don’t know,” you murmur back, starting to rub your clit a little faster, trying to make it feel like him.  It doesn’t—your fingers aren’t large or strong enough to give you those perfect circles; you just feel like you’re meandering yourself towards ecstasy instead of picking you up and hauling your ass there like he does, but it’s okay.  Hearing Din’s rough breathing come through the earpiece, knowing his hands are probably clenched tight into fists, wondering if he’s hard yet… all of it culminates into a power trip unlike any you’ve experienced recently.  It makes you bold, tells you to open your mouth.  “Does it matter?  I’d still let you fuck me against it if you were here.”

“Stop it,” comes his growl, but what is he gonna do?

Your leg lifts a little wider so you can slowly slide your fingers down and push two of them inside yourself, and Din swears as you moan, “Come find me.”

“Give me your coordinates—”

“Are you giving up?”  You offer breathlessly, lifting your eyebrows and your hips up slightly at the question, but you’re… not expecting the extended silence following.  You assumed a growled no would immediately come next, or just another empty threat said with enough force to make you tremble with excitement, but not… nothing.

The response makes you pause just for a second, easing your fingers out and dragging them across your thigh to clean some of the wetness off before extending your arm out towards the communicator.  Din stays quiet while you navigate through the menu with trembling fingers, eventually finding your coordinates and hovering over the unchecked share location box.

You wait with your lip bit, confident he knows what you’re doing and you don’t have to narrate or repeat yourself.  Fuck, you knew you were considering abandoning this entire adventure just to be next to him again, but you had no idea.  No fucking idea that it could ever be a thought in his own mind as well.  You… assumed he likes this, hunting is what he does for a living and he’s the one who conceived of the idea in the first place.  Is he just that aroused by you?  Or is there something more?

“No,” Din eventually murmurs, and you immediately navigate out of the menu so you don’t accidentally press anything catastrophic, before pulling your hand away from the communicator with a resolved hum and settling back into the pillows again.  Making sure to look directly into the lens even if your eyelids are heavy with heat and desire, you slowly lick your fingers and then reach down once more.

His deep, shaky breath is so telling.  Exhausted after all this, but still not hanging up, still doing his hardest to tough it out when he’s only miles away from you and has jets attached to his back.  You don’t want to drag it out but you also do, you want to be kind but something about Din makes you also want to be as formidable as possible.  You’ll never be able to threaten like he does, you’ll never have anyone cower just because you walked into the room, you’ll never be as powerful or strong as he is, but you can still put up a fucking fight against him in your own way.

You whimper softly, your breathing beginning to find a quicker pace as surely as your fingers do.  It begins to spark and build, a red hot flame being kindled by the knowledge that he’s as close as possible without actually being close, right here with you when he always seems so far away.

“Mando,” you whisper, though your expression pulls inwards just slightly because it… in a scenario as sensual and intimate as this, it almost doesn’t sound righ—

“Din,” he whispers back, so quiet you almost don’t hear it, like he almost doesn’t want to but has to anyways, and then you just start to fucking burn.

“D-Din,” you whisper instead, trying to keep your voice as quiet as possible through the rising swell.  He’ll be able to see it, you think.  The way your tummy and chest start to heave, how your body begins to brace for it—and yeah, Maker, he sees it, because his voice suddenly changes.

“Stop,” Din growls roughly, knowing exactly how you cum—knowing exactly what it looks like, the way it sounds in your breathing, what it tastes like, how it feels on the inside.  It’s been so long since you’ve touched bliss without him, months and months since you brought yourself to completion on the floor of the Crest by yourself, and though he’s rarely ever denied you, your own high on newfound control causes it to slip.  He barks your name and tells you to stop once more, but it’s too late.

“I’m gonna cum, Din,” you breathe out—

“Don’t—”

It tears through you, rapid and surging, and he snarls a curse, something loud snapping and thudding and… did he just punch something?  You can’t think, it’s delicious and hard as fuck and everything you needed after two days of near constant movement and thought with little rest, and you bite your lip to keep quiet but a pained whimper still shoves its way out of your tense vocal cords regardless.  It sounds like it hurts because it does hurt; the orgasm shatters your body into pieces and you’re left trembling by yourself on this soft bed, wishing he was with you on a metal one.

You sink into the mattress in the moments following, sluggish and exhausted and just conscious enough to keep the watch facing you.  You bet the camerawork was terrible, shaky at best, but you can’t find it in yourself to care right now.  You just lay there and listen to his harsh breathing while you work to slow your heart rate, reveling in the filthy little show you just gave him and wanting to finish it out properly.

“Come find me,” you breathe out once more, lazing soft and naked for him, blinking dazedly at the watch as you pan it over you.  Your thighs are still twitching and there’s a thin sheen of sweat clinging to you, but you drag a finger through your swollen lips and carefully wipe the wetness across one of your nipples.  “Clean me up.”

“Fuck,” Din suddenly spits through the earpiece, furious.  “You think—y-you think—”

“What?”  You hum, basking in the afterglow and so, so curious.  Truly, you’re dumb as fuck, you have no clue what you’re thinking, but if anybody would be able to tell you, it’s him.

There’s a moment where his breathing stops.  It’s completely silent on the line, before you hear another few heavy footsteps on his end pick up and then halt just as quickly.

“You think you can taunt me?”   He murmurs, dangerous and deadly quiet.  “Show me exactly where you are, disappear and then make me waste forever trying to get there?  You think that’s gonna work?”

Your eyebrow lifts, considering.  He… may or may not have predicted your strategy perfectly, but his insight has stopped surprising you by now.  “Maybe…”

“Maybe you shouldn’t fall asleep tonight.”

Ooh.  That one sends goosebumps down your arms, but you’ve gained four hours on top of a twelve hour headstart.  He can’t scare you with that tone, not when you’re still woozy with pleasure and he isn’t right in front of you.  Instead of wilting beneath the hard threat, you just blink gently at the communicator, finding strength in being the only one to get him this mad when he’s always so composed, this talkative when he barely says a word.  “Maybe I’ll just stay here then?”

“Maybe you wanted me to know you’re in an inn because you already found someplace to hide that isn’t one,” Din reasons very, very adeptly.  Stars, your heart subtly begins to pick up, your legs continuing to tremble as the small red light next to the lens stares you down.  “Can’t be planning to stay with someone you just met because you’d already be there, can’t be going to a hostel because you found the one city on this moon built for commerce and not aid.  Not staying in another inn, you can’t afford it—the view looks high up, that robe is expensive, and you already bought food and at least five pairs of shoes in two days.  I don’t think the place you found is even in Nariss.  You think you can outsmart me, sweet girl?”

The chill down your spine doesn��t reach your eyes, you won’t let it.  You just feel yourself smile, tilting your head at him and licking your lips while your finger brushes one of your nipples, but Din doesn’t accept your silence the way you’ve always accepted his.  He wants an answer from you, right now, and it’s clear in the dark rumble of his voice, the danger slowly brewing beyond what you originally planned for.

“Tell me,” he orders, unamused and leaving no room to disobey.  “How long do you think you can keep running?”

Your eyelashes flutter, suddenly deciding… why not?  What have you got to lose?  Nothing that you didn’t already go into this situation completely expecting to lose anyways.  What’s the worst he can do?  Find you?

You close your eyes, pinching one of your nipples and wondering if you might just go for another one since he’s still here.  “Ask me again tomorrow.”

But then, instead of immediately responding, you just hear Din’s footsteps suddenly pick up, faster than any pace you’ve been able to keep over the past few days.  You don’t think it sounds like a run necessarily, but you know that his legs and strides are far longer than yours and it’s probably pretty much equivalent to a run for you.  You hear the rhythm of your demise speeding up, coming closer and closer, and everything in you both fears it and welcomes it.

“We’ll see,” he tells you, and then the red light vanishes and your earpiece clicks to silence.

***

Day 3—2:23am:

Even though it takes you much longer to do so than it normally would on a bed so large and comfortable, after such an exciting interaction and not being used to flickering light when you try to sleep but wanting to experience the rarity anyways, you’re eventually able to pass out.

But, not even a few minutes into a restless dream, you turn over and accidentally knock your communicator off the wireless charging station on the side table.  It blinks with four percent battery life.

***

To be continued!!

[cycleknots]

Following this post about the flower language used in Bob's mind, I have assigned flowers to some other people close to him, as if they also had bottles dedicated to them. Each was given a path flower, which usually represents Bob’s initial or surface-level emotions, and an ‘animate flower’. Think the living ones you fight at the end. Those are mostly deeper, showing his emotions that are more critical towards himself and the situation. This post covers Lili, Lucy, and Otto.

Lili

I feel like I have to specify that one of these flowers has multiple meanings, one commonly linked to romance. That is not the one I'm referring to here, of course. Floriography is a complex and multi-layered language, where context is always important.

I decided on Baby's Breath for her path. At its surface, these blooms represent innocence and new life. They're most commonly gifted to new mothers at baby showers, and placed on wedding cakes. However, Baby's Breath is toxic. Those cakes, while pretty, can cause poisoning in both humans and animals. Their innocent meaning is corrupted by the toxicity.

In terms of her true plant, I ended on Oleander; Caution and warning. I did have some other ideas, but I had to choose one (at least for this post, I will totally make more). When burned, it produces a toxic gas that can be fatal if inhaled. I think this could be a good representation of his sort of regret about not being in her life. He holds family as high priority ("You're my blood, why aren't you on my side?"). He wants to be there.

Lucy

Lucy's path is made of red tulips. They're most commonly associated with love and joy, but on the negative end they stand for wrath. An anger so strong, a resentment so deep, it could lead to violence. His initial feeling toward her after the Deluge is pure hatred.

Her other flower is the lily of the valley. A transformation flower. Representing grief, mourning, and sadness. At the same time, represents a return of a better time. Humility and sweetness. A hope that she could have come back as she once was.

Otto

I had a lot of trouble with him because I feel like there are very few flowers that completely cover my feelings about their relationship. In the end, though, his path is petunias. Instead of focusing on the difference in meanings between different coloured petunias, one general meaning of the flower is anger and resentment. A bouquet of these would tell the recipient to stay away.

For the animate flower, Snowdrop. Rebirth, hope, overcoming challenges. Truly Bob knows the hyperice incident wasn't Otto's fault. That was his friend (despite the constant arguments). He's struggling to overcome the rage that followed Helmut's death, but he's trying, which is why I think this one works so well.

[snarkywrites]

Synastry Series: Mars in Romantic Relationships

Romantic Synastry Series: Mars Synastry Connections are intense and can be very much needed in relationships because Mars represents movement and the expenditure of energy. The sparks in a relationship begin with Mars in synastry and the longevity is determined by strong Moon or Saturnian aspects. With Mars aspects, you can expect a travel companion, a business partner or someone who has you become their gym companion. This is a connection that can change your outlook and bring some potent transformations for both parties. Mars needs balance to bring true happiness and the person with Mars in the synastry must add compromise to make the relationship thrive. This post focuses on the harmonious aspects only.

Mars/Sun – This is the lust at first sight placement. Expect the chemistry levels to be through the roof assuming there aren’t any Saturn contacts especially with the conjunction. The conjunction adds a level of intimacy that will allow both parties to feel very comfortable with one another immediately. It can feel like a fated occurrence, that you have met one another before in another timeline. Mars here represents what the Sun is physically attracted to. The Sun is enchanted by Mars because of the attention they receive from their partner. This connection could be purely physical at first and can become something more with time. Mars is pleased with this connection since they retain most of the control, it appreciates the Sun and wants to build. This aspect can help both parties enter a business endeavor together as well, especially with the trine aspect. You can expect favorable outcomes here with Mars and Sun agreeing to a common goal. The sextile adds playfulness and romance but not as much of the blinding passion that the conjunction and trine will provide.

Mars/Moon – Passionate connection between these two people and an element of possession by Mars. Mars is enchanted by the Moon to the point where it wants to dominate and control. The masculine side of Mars will see the Moon as the ideal person to be with. Moon is someone they can protect or possibly control. With the positive aspects, the Moon will be happy that Mars will safeguard and care for them. It is not surprising if both parties feel the need to be together and commit immediately since Mars wants to live and share moments with the Moon with urgency. A connection like this can feel surreal and beautiful with the trine. As usual, the sextile brings a calmer energy that flows and yes, both parties will feel the urge to get to know one another and be together but it will take time. This aspect can be successful generally with the harmonious trines and sextiles. Conjunctions can go either sweet or sour, but generally should be fine if both parties are mature and have some influence of a Moon/Saturn or Mars/Saturn dynamic natally.

Mars/Mercury – Intense communication with this placement as both parties feel emotionally and intellectually stimulated. Mars is captivated by what Mercury has to say. If it is a conjunction, the conversation can become heated, but it will be more in an engaging and intriguing way. Mercury can teach Mars how to see all sides to an argument and provide clarity only if Mars is willing to respect their partner’s views and the relationship is balanced. The trine aspect can provide a playful and fun dynamic to their communication. They will be inspired by each other, bouncing off ideas. This is ideal for Mercurial people and Uranian types. If both partners are in the creative field, they can make some wonderful projects together, especially with the sextile since it will allow them to build in a respectful way by honoring what their partner has to say and appreciating their opinions.

Mars/Venus – Passionate Venus will enjoy the game with Mars. Venus can shine and feel a sense of confidence with this synastry aspect. Mars will be the soldier that will protect and captivate Venus. With the conjunction, this synastry aspect can make Mars obsessed with Venus but Venus here can hold their own. Like with the Moon, Mars will be focused on controlling Venus because they represent everything they want in a partner. However, Venus will be much more of a challenge here. Games will be played between the two until Mars sees themselves as the victorious one (or at least Venus will let them think that). The trine will allow the energy to flow between both people in a way that adds an element of compromise. Venus will be diplomatic, and Mars will follow suit but the romantic gestures and devotion will be much more appreciated by Venus. With the sextile, it will be easiest to handle since both parties will be even more receptive to creating balance and harmony. It will be more playful here and enjoyable.

Mars/Mars – Similar to the Sun and Mars aspect, Mars in the same sign or with a Trine can make partners filled with passion and a deeper connection since the energies are understood and can be shared in controlled ways. The conjunction will add a competitive feel and sparks will be flying for these people when they are together most of the time. The sextile adds restraint, cool, calm and the ability to bring up the passion seamlessly whenever they want. Building and creating can be wonderful for these people if they are able to meet a compromise or if they have a common adversary. When both have a goal they want to seek together, they can become unstoppable, and others may even envy the way that they can work together to get things done. This relationship gets better with time the longer they are together and the more opportunities they have to grow as a team.

Mars/Jupiter – Explosive connection and both parties will not be able to get enough of each other. There is a hunger that is not satiated when both are close. The conjunction makes them inseparable; the trine adds more of a romantic and controlled feel while the sextile is the smoothest energy of them all, allowing them to come together in harmony, seamlessly whenever. Mars will be challenged here as Jupiter prefers to do things on their own. This can make Mars respect Jupiter but also wary as Mars sees the strong independent spirit that their partner has. Jupiter can become a great teacher for Mars, allowing them to see things differently and open their mind. This can serve as a Mercury and Mars connection if Jupiter is more worldly or older than Mars, they can be a teacher or a guide for them. With this relationship there is the potential for growth as Mars will continue to be fascinated by Jupiter as time goes by.

Mars/Saturn – This could feel quite restrained and controlled as Saturn makes Mars hit the brakes. Saturn allows Mars to mature showing them how to express themselves in new ways; it can even make Mars want to commit, assuming both parties are focused on the long term and have set their sights on a path of growth. For partners with Uranian dominance, this can feel overwhelming, but with time they can settle in if all other aspects allow. The conjunction can feel heavy, especially for Mars since Saturn may be older or just carry themselves in a more mature way. Mars can feel restricted, but those obstacles can ease themselves with time. The trine is more cooperative and preferred for both parties since it can allow them to channel their energies into building a stronger foundation for their relationship. The sextile adds a level of commitment, but it might not be as strong as Saturn would like. Either way, this is a recipe for a relationship that gets better with years, and it is essential that both parties remain patient and understanding.

Mars/Neptune – Fairy Tale connection when Neptune meets Mars. This can be a sultry bond, one that you could only have imagined in your wildest of dreams. While Neptune can make this feel fated and spiritual, it can also make you feel like you have on rose colored glasses. Be aware of who you are with and try to be more analytical once the glamour drops. With the conjunction, both parties will be in their own little world. Things will feel surreal until the shoe drops and both parties begin to see who they are with. Sometimes, seeing the reality might be a little bit of a shock but assuming there are positive or grounding Saturnian aspects involved, both people can appreciate what the other has to offer. The trine adds some flare, but it will make both partners very hyper aware of who they are with. With the sextile it is by far the most pleasant aspect since Neptune’s mystery will be easily navigated. Mars will see Neptune as someone they can learn from, and this becomes similar to the Jupiter/Mars aspect where one can serve as a guide to the other without the smoke and mirrors the conjunction might provide.

Mars/Uranus – Other worldly connection as Mars is enchanted by Uranus because of how they view the world. Mars understands levels of structure like Saturn, but it is extremely impulsive and not as rigid. However, meeting Uranus will bring Mars into a more Saturnian role in this relationship. The conjunction will be explosive as Mars begins to pursue relentlessly for the freedom seeking and independent Uranian partner. This aspect surely delivers with excitement and unexpected moments that can wear down Mars over the years. At the beginning, things can feel experimental and surreal, adding a tinge of the Neptunian connection but none of the fairy tale moments. This feels interdimensional and transcendent for both. The trine allows these people to seek a compromise and if both parties want to be in non-exclusive terms, this aspect can provide that with ease. The sextile adds a calmer level of excitement. Uranus might surprise Mars with new experiences or travel opportunities and generally will be more of a welcoming aspect for both parties if they are not natally Uranian types.

Mars/Pluto – A connection that will be infamously viewed as epic due to the intensity. Mars and Pluto are both warrior signs and with the trine this connection can mean changes in the lives of both parties. Mars is driven and Pluto is willing to accept Mars as they are. A positive aspect with these two planets creates chemistry that can be deemed to be off the charts. However, this is all about power and control dynamics as Pluto wants to dominate and Mars does too. As long as both parties can create a balance, this can flow perfectly. They can achieve greatness together but if they let their ego or jealousies get to their heads, this can be destructive, even with the positive flow of the signs. The conjunction will unleash more of the negative qualities since both Mars and Pluto want to fight for ascendancy. With the trine, both parties can get things accomplished together and use their energies in more of a romantic way. As always, the sextile is still intense, but it is a more reserved energy compared to the other two. Both parties will unleash it together and express it in a more caring and receptive way.

[dissociative-disaster]

I haven’t been using tumblr a long time - I made my account in 2020, I think - but I’m genuinely concerned about these changes the staff are making. Like @aeolianblues said, Tumblr has always been somewhat an inverse of a typical social media platform, fundamentally. That is, the typical formula for a social media platform is:

Revenue is generated through ad deals.

Advertisers get more success from increased viewership of ads.

More ads are shown proportional to user engagement.

Therefore, more revenue is generated proportional to user engagement.

This inevitably leads to three main user-mental-health-fucker-overers:

Endless feeds organised by algorithms.

Built-in encouragement to tie your identity and self-worth to your social media presence.

Built-in encouragement of hostile argument.

So, point 1 is simple: your bottom line depends on users seeing more ads. Users see more ads if they spend more time on the site. They spend more time on the site if they see content that’s similar enough to what they see already that they won’t be repulsed, but different enough in substance that they won’t get bored. So, you make an algorithm that provides an endless amount of this, mathematically optimised to generate maximum user time retention. An intended part of this is to create echo chambers of argumentative people who agree with each-other just enough to sort themselves into an ingroup, and furthermore it leads the user down endless paths of ever-compounding ‘for you’ opinions, creating the perfect conditions to radicalise people to reactionary, conspiracy-theory, and fascist thinking. See all the mental health problems resultant.

Point 2: by encouraging users to tie their real-life identity closely with their social media presence, you can do two things: One, you can encourage them to spend more time on your platform, trying to get famous. Make an arbitrary reward that boosts their appearance in algorithms - likes - and get them to tie their self-worth to that number. Profit. Two, you can use data collected from their use of your platform (users followed, tags liked, etc.), combined with data about their person, to create a terrifying database of really specific personal profiles of your users, that you can sell to advertising companies to make targeted ads with. Profit. Just try and quietly ignore both the inherent and obvious mental health consequences of people tying their minds to internet numbers, and the millions-scale invasion of privacy you just did with the profile doo-biz.

3: Simple, really. People spend more time on your site if they feel like they’re accomplishing some moral thing with their posts. So you get them to argue over whatever issues they feel strongly about. The more vitriolic these arguments get, the better, even if the substance of the disagreement is completely meaningless. Because it drives engagement. And if the arguments do have real moral substance - say, the rights of minorities - then that’s even better! Because then people start arguing about the arguments, and suddenly your whole site is a battleground and you’re a carrion crow! Obviously this has many awful consequences for the users, like rampant bullying of minorities, the reinforcement of anti-intellectualism and conspiracy theories, and the inevitable normalisation of fascist rhetoric, but you don’t care! You’re rich!

Do you see the problem?

Tumblr has always been kind of the opposite of this. At least mostly. Because the user’s feed is mainly just a chronological list of posts from blogs and tags they follow, the user has a great degree control over what they see. They aren’t led down rabbit holes of increasingly-radical opinions by the algorithm, because that’s not how this algorithm works.

Users’ self-worth isn’t so tied to ‘getting famous’ or whatever because ‘getting famous’ on tumblr doesn’t have that illusion of authority you get on other platforms. Because posts circulate mainly via direct reblogging, likes don’t give you a significant algorithmic edge, and the culture is different here to a degree that -despite there being famous blogs- fame does not grant authority. Delightful though they are, I’d hazard a guess that very few people would seriously consider voting for pukicho in a real-life election.

User data also isn’t used to sell things in the same way. Because tumblr accounts are publicly anonymous, there’s usually very little that ties a tumblr blog to a real person. It’s one thing to recognise dissociativeDisaster the tumblr communist who likes hermitcraft, and quite another to use that information to sell shit to [REDACTED] the real person.

Finally, arguments are not so personal and vitriolic here - partly also as a result of anonymity. But because people don’t generally tie their sense of self to their tumblr blogs, and because the dashboard isn’t a recommendation feed, there’s not (as much of) that vitriolic, toxic brainrot that you get on reddit or The Platform Formerly Known As Twitter.

This is why I came here, actually. Although I’ve never had a twitter account and never will, I did spend about two years of my life (and I only get one life) using reddit. It made me genuinely anxious and insecure. I deleted my reddit account after breaking down crying over an argument I’d had with a transphobe actually, and while people will probably think that sounds stupid, I’d gotten so invested in what shouting heads on reddit thought of me that i became genuinely distraught over it. While I know stuff like that can happen on tumblr, it’s not the predominant experience, and it’s not (currently) being pushed by the platform.

The point is, a social media platform is defined by its functional features - the minute mechanics of notifications and algorithms effect the way people use the platform, which in turn influences the effect the platform has on its users. If Tumblr shifts its features to be fundamentally similar to the typical social media platform, it will be forfeiting the very quality that gave it longevity in the first place.

I know this was long and rambly, and probably reductive to the point of being at least partially incorrect, but I think the main point still stands. Also cut me some slack it’s ten-to-two in the morning for me.

Anyway. I’ve forgotten what I was trying to say. Um. Keep up with traffic safety. Brush your teeth. Goodnight.

They’re making it MORE Twitter like: multiple icons showing up when more than five people like/plain reblog a post. Why.

I feel insulted, over the last few weeks it’s felt like the entire site is becoming Twitter 2.0 to accommodate, what, 5% of the user base? Less than that? Not even all the new people are coming from Twitter. Some are coming from Reddit. What then, we change the entire site to become like Reddit? What about the other 95% of us, who have been here all this time, and I’m sure just the way you assume Twitter users want a familiar interface that they’ve used before, SO DO WE. SO DO FUCKING WE. THE REST OF THE TUMBLR USERS. WE WANT TO USE A SITE WE’VE USED BEFORE TOO: IT’S CALLED TUMBLR YOU FOOLS

I am at a loss, we’ve lost all the cool things that made Tumblr unique. They took away DM colours. Everything is now standard blue. We used to see messages in the colour of the blog we were chatting with. Now they all look the same. How many times has seeing the wrong colour saved me from accidentally sending something to the wrong blog. You had something going there. If Twitter expats were whining about there being colours in the chat, fuck them!? This was the non-conformist website what on Earth happened?? I don’t want to open Twitter DMs when I message a mutual on here. Let me see their blog colour. Let them pick that for me. This is ridiculous, there was no need for that. At all.

@staff

[rhysdarbyarchive]

Feature in February 2011 issue of Onfilm magazine on Love Birds. Will mostly be of interest to followers here for the lovely production stills featuring Rhys, but I’ll also include the informative interview with the director Paul Murphy:

How did you get involved with the project? Nick Ward, who I'd worked with on Second-Hand Wedding, contacted me and said, "Look, I've got this idea for a film that you might be interested in, about a man and a duck." And I said, "You might have to write something down, Nick, I'm not quite getting it from the pitch." [laughs] But I was sold at that point, in a funny way, because I know Nick's forte is developing ideas and characters that are funny and interesting. So he went away and started writing, and next thing he contacted me and said, "Look, I've also shown it to a producer friend of mine, Matthew Metcalfe." Matt was involved with Nick in The Ferryman, and had also just recently done Dean Spanley, which I thought was a lovely little film. I met up with Matthew when we were over in Cannes trying to sell Second-Hand Wedding in the marketplace. And when I saw the script Nick delivered I went, "Yeah, we can make a great film out of this", and we sort of moved on from there.

So this film only took a couple of years from go to whoa -- that's very quick. Oh absolutely. Feature film development can take a really long time or a short time, it depends on a couple of things -- how aggressive the team is in developing it, and also what sort of film it is. A romantic comedy like this, I guess, doesn't require as much depth as some more dramatic films might, although you still have to go through the same beats, and make sure the characters are true and their emotional paths are correct and that the story makes sense, you know. So there's an opportunity to maybe get it out a bit quicker than some more complex pieces. Although these sorts of films do have their own set of complications.

Romantic comedies are really demanding in terms of structure and so on, aren't they? That's right, there's a set of rules that you generally have to at least base your story or script around, or else you won't be meeting the expectations of the audience.

Presumably Icon Entertainment International came on after you'd secured your key cast and crew? No, actually, Icon was on board much earlier than that because Matthew did an incredible job right from the beginning of putting together a package it was very difficult to say no to. One of the things that Nick did that both Matthew and I raised our eyebrows at initially was he wrote the music of Queen into the script. We were like, "Oooookay Nick, that's a big ask..." [laughs] But, interestingly enough, it wasn't. Matthew -- and I imagine Alan Harris, the other producer, who was also involved -- basically went over, showed the script to Queen and asked if we could use their music. And extraordinarily, they agreed. Once we had them on board, it became very easy to attract Icon into the fold. And then we started to discuss who our cast would be, because that was the other commercial element they were very interested in. So it was in collaboration with them that we locked down our cast. Rhys Darby was one of the many options that were thrown up, and the most appealing thing about him was obviously he's funny, he's a Kiwi, and he has an international profile. So he served all our purposes really. The only thing we needed to confirm was the standard of his acting, because I hadn't seen him do anything on a dramatic level before. So we had a chat with him early on and went through a couple of things and I went, "Holy shit -- this is fantastic!" It confirmed to me that he was able to deliver on what I was hoping to achieve with that character. It was also really important that we got on personally, because part of the thing with actors is gaining their confidence and having them trust and be relaxed with you, so we sorted that out early in the piece. Once I was happy, we moved forward and went and searched for a female counterpart for him. Interestingly enough, even before we locked down Rhys, I'd talked about that role with Tina Cleary, my NZ casting agent, and one of the first names she came up with was Sally Hawkins. And the gods looked down on us and we were able to get her on board.

Was her character written as someone from overseas from the outset, with a view to increasing the film's international appeal? Yeah, and I'd have to take credit for that. Early on in the piece, I saw the opportunity with that character to open the film up more commercially, so we wrote her as someone who had come from England, which also helped her back story. It's always a fine line you walk, you know, but I've always believed that as a filmmaker, even at that writing stage, you need to keep an eye on how you can broaden the appeal of your film. And that was a great example of adjusting a little element of the script to give the opportunity to bring in a star from overseas.

You've got a very strong cast in terms of secondary characters, with the likes of Emily Barclay, Dave Fane and Craig Hall, and even with tiny walk on roles (eg, Sara Wiseman, Bronwyn Bradley, John Leigh). That must be really gratifying...? Yeah, look, it is. To me casting is 50% of the film, maybe more. Because half of directing is getting the right people and the rest of it is just giving them the opportunity to do their best work.

I imagine there was a fair bit of improvisation on set. Oh absolutely -- I mean, you get an actor like Sally Hawkins and a funny guy like Rhys and there's always trouble. [laughs] In the nicest possible way. One of Rhys' skills is adlibbing and just changing it up and the most enjoyable part of that was Sally, having done a lot of work with people like Mike Leigh, was totally up for it. So if she or Rhys wanted to try adding something to a scene or taking something away, I was always happy to run with it.

Given your background as a grip, did you have strong ideas about particular set-ups or camera moves you wanted for specific scenes? There were only a couple and most of them weren't actual moves. A lot of people think I'd use the camera movement more but it actually works in the opposite way -- I actually move the camera less. I think the background in gripping if anything gives you the comfort of knowing when not to move the camera. [laughs] There's three specific reasons for the movement of the camera: generally it's for dramatic or positional reasons -- you know, to make more of a scene by adjusting the camera to help the performance or choreography -- and the third one is just to make the shot more interesting, which is the one I don't use much.

What was the most challenging aspect of the shoot? I think it was the logistics. We had 20 locations in 35 days and they were all over Auckland. Given that we were at two of the locations for a week each, that left 25 days for 18 locations, so it was pretty full on. What you'd normally shoot out in two days we were shooting out in one day. And because we only had Sally for the first four weeks of the seven-week shoot, all the scheduling had to rotate around her availability, so even though we were at her location for a week, we had to move in and out of it a couple of times. So it was an incredibly rigorous schedule but I had a great team so we managed our way through it nicely.

What did you most enjoy about the production in general? I love being on set, that's my favourite part. What you create with the actors and the crew in the moment -- for me that's gold. Unfortunately, it's the shortest part of the process -- just seven weeks out of two years.

Did you have any test screenings? We had a couple of test screenings -- one here and one in the UK. They were both positive and gave us a lot of things we could use to make the film better and a good indication of who would watch the film and what our target [market] is.

So who do you see as the primary audience? I think the target audience is probably skewed female 25 years-plus but I think the film has the ability to reach quite a wide audience. There's no sex, drugs or rock 'n' roll, there's minimal swearing -- I think the 's' word is used a couple times and that's pretty much it. So it's pretty much a film the whole family can see.