#I'll try to find The Mandalorian

[dyns33]

I can wait Disney and Netflix... I'm very patient

[oflgtfol]

also yknow what im kinda iffy about the bathing in living waters thing as a means of redemption (for reasons that belong to their own post, if i ever figure out how to word it), but the fact that there even is redemption offered despite how strict the helmet rule is, is like. well proof actually that it's not very strict

and the fact is that prior to The Purge, the mines would not have been so hard to access. literally if the city is inhabited, if the surface is not glassed, if there is no debris and shit in the way, then it should by all means just be a walk and a skip down some stairs and there you've arrived to the living waters. it all around seems like a very easy method of redemption which just blows the whole "unforgiving cult!!!" thing out of the water because, like, well it seems very forgiving actually

[stardust-kenobi]

A Good Night's Rest

Din Djarin x Fem!Reader

Summary: Din was your best friend, but you wanted him to be so much more. Turns out he feels the same way.

Word count: 3k

Warnings: SMUT, drinking, helmetless din, virgin!reader, SOFT MANDO <3

A/N: we will all collectively just pretend there’s a little guest room in the razorcrest, otherwise everyone’s fuckin on the cold floor ok and we cannot allow it.

“Dammit” You cursed at the dreaded transmitter that was probably older than you were.

Being a mechanic had its perks, but it truly had its challenges, too. Especially when you’d been assigned long-term work on a ship as old as the Razor Crest. Of course, a perk to that would be traveling with a Mandalorian. It was a rough couple of months getting him just to hold a conversation with you, but almost a year later, you'd never been more connected or closer to anyone else in your whole life. He was undoubtedly your best friend.

“Don’t worry about it. That thing has never worked right” Din said, startling you as he entered the cockpit. He was dismissive of the transmitter, which was all the more reason you wanted to fix it.

Sighing out in frustration, you accepted defeat. For now, anyways.

“I’ll get it figured out eventually” You assured him.

“If you say so" He chuckled softly.

"Are you doubting my capabilities?" You teased him.

"No, I am doubting the probability of that thing ever working again"

"That's fair" You smirked before looking back to your unfinished work.

"How are the engines looking? Are we good to go?" He asked.

"Yep. Everything else is looking good. Are we leaving tonight?"

"I'd like to get a good night's rest first. We can leave in the morning" He confirmed, leaning against the metal siding of the cockpit.

"Sounds good to me" You smiled back softly, subtly admiring his stance beside you.

"I'll probably go to bed soon" Din said, his sleeplessness showing itself in his voice.

A fun idea crept into your mind.

"Why waste such a perfect night to break this baby in?" You giggled as you pulled the bottle of liquor from the cabinet in the cockpit.

"How did you get that?" He said with a head tilt, questioning where and when you had the opportunity to acquire alcohol.

You raised your brows and shrugged your shoulders, "I stole it"

"Well, I assumed that" Din iterated, taking the bottle into his hand and observing the label, "but I am not surprised"

You watched as he looked around, as if trying to find some reason why he shouldn't indulge in some light drinking with his best friend tonight.

"I'll just be drinking all by myself, if you're not joining me" You raised your eyebrows at him.

"Fine” He gave in, sitting himself down in the pilot’s seat next to you in the copilot’s seat.

For a little while, you two indulged in the intoxicating effects of the liquor. You knew your limits and so did he. You stopped just before feeling your inhibitions slip away but felt fuzzy enough inside to enjoy the feeling.

Respectfully, you opted to look away whenever he took a sip, so as to not catch a glimpse of even his chin as he tipped the liquor into his mouth. His movements were slow as he set his glass down, and with your peripheral vision, you noted that he was done. With all the time you’d spent around him, you couldn’t actually imagine him actually having a face, he was just a helmet with a gentle voice. But you loved him.

Oh stars, you loved him…

The chances of him feeling the same were slim, but one more sip and you might just tell him.

As you stared at him, you were met with flashbacks of one particular night not too long ago. Din had accidentally walked in on you masturbating, and you didn’t notice he was there until a couple of seconds had passed. He couldn’t make himself look away from you in such a state, but the guilt of unintentionally invading your privacy ate at him every day since. Since that night, things had been a little bit awkward between you two

Not a single word was exchanged between you two, he just slowly walked out. You probably didn’t come out of your room for another day, and even now, you still hadn’t talked about it.

What he didn’t know it was him you were thinking about while you pleasured yourself.

“This stuff is…” You began, holding the bottle out and tilting your gaze at it.

“Strong?” Din finished your sentence.

“Very” you giggled in response.

Din stared at you for what felt like forever, the tension pulling tighter between your gazes. There was something so odd about the way his head pointed in your general direction just gave you butterflies. You wished so desperately to look into his eyes for real.

“I, um” He began, tripping on his own words before his thoughts were fully developed.

“What is it?” You tilted your head.

He paused, and looked at the ground, before turning back to you.

“I need to sleep” He sighed.

“Okay. It just seemed like you were going to say something?”

Please let him say that he loves you too.

“I don’t think I’ve drank enough to say it”

“Maybe I have” You pondered. It spilled off your tongue like honey, “I'm in love with you"

Okay where the fuck did that confidence come from?

He was still. More still than usual, if that were even possible. The thumping of your heart against the restraints of your chest rang terribly loud in your ears. If he’d said anything in the seconds that followed, you wouldn’t have even heard it. Any attempt to read his emotions was blocked by the shining reflection of his visor.

But he was silent, and you could only guess why…he didn’t feel the same way about you.

“I’m..” He tried to begin, but fell short of his words.

“Don’t” You began as mortification consumed you, “don’t say anything”

He remained stoic, and painfully quiet. Providing no goodbye or goodnight, you got up and made your way to your quarters on the Crest. Din didn’t stop you. He didn’t flinch, in fact, he barely breathed.

The frigid metal against your arms shot chills down your spine as you leaned against the door you had just closed behind you to your room.

The distant sounds of his footsteps carrying across the ship, led right to your door very shortly after you stormed off.

"Y/N" His soft, modulated voice rang the other side of the door, following a gentle knock.

What do you even say to him now that you've confessed something so bold to someone you're in such close proximity to all the time?

You slowly pulled the door open and were met with Din’s towering figure.

"I'm in love with you, too" He admitted quickly.

Now you found that it was you whose words were failing them. A choked breath hitched in your throat as you processed what he said.

"Y-you do?" You stuttered in disbelief.

"Yes. I did not know what to say before. I wasn't expecting you to say that" He said softly, his tone growing timid.

You stepped back and let him enter your crowded quarters, which truly was only enough space for your small bed and a cabinet. The forced proximity to him heightened the tension even further. You sat on the edge of your bed, and he mirrored you, finding only inches of space next to you.

"I want to kiss you" You blurted softly.

"I want to kiss you too, Y/N. I'm sorry I can't" He responded, cautiously placing his hand on your knee.

"I know what you can do" You suggested.

Your trembling fingers wrapped around the gloved material of his hand and guided it in between your legs. There was no resistance from either of you, but you sensed his nerves as well as your own.

The shifting of your hips told him you wanted him to move. He rubbed against your aching and sensitive bud through the rough of your pants. You wanted him bare against your skin, but you knew this needed to be slow.

Too shy to just let him watch the look of pleasure upon your face, you buried your head into his shoulder while he rubbed your clit. He groaned as you let a faint whimper escape you…a sound he’d only dreamed of hearing before.

"Are you sure?" He begged for reassurance.

"Are you?" You countered him.

“Yes” He assured with no hesitation, like he’d been waiting for you for years.

“I’ve never done this before” You muttered lowly, ashamed to admit it, but knowing it was necessary for him to be aware that you were a virgin.

“Ever?” He leaned back.

You shook your head in confirmation.

Din froze in his tracks, halting his rhythmic motions at your core. You worried he wouldn’t want to be your first. You worried it would be too much pressure for him to make it special for you.

He pulled away completely.

Something you’d never seen him do before caught your immediate attention. Slowly, his fingers curled underneath the bottom edge of his helmet and lifted it from his head. He didn’t hesitate for a second.

“Din what are y-”

You couldn’t even remember to breathe as his face came to view. His brown hair lay so perfectly pressed to his head, restricted for so long by the constraints of his mask. He wasn't a stranger. This wasn't unfamiliar. It was him.

And he was beautiful.

His creed meant nothing to him in that moment…the moment he finally was able to stare into your eyes for real. Nothing mattered to him except you. A lump grew quickly in your throat, and you welcomed it as a tear fell from your eye.

"You deserve for this to be special, Y/N. You deserve to look into the eyes of the man who loves you"

The rapid fire of your beating heart skipped over itself. His voice was smooth and raw...and scared. His entire life has been spent hiding away from everyone he has ever cared about behind that helmet. But now...he truly sees you.

"Din" You breathed.

The second that his lips brushed against yours, the world around you fell silent. Fingertips trailed along your jaw before moving to wrap themselves in your hair. Din was delicate and careful. He worried he'd break you if he didn't control his desire that had pent itself up for months of being near you.

You were tremendously overwhelmed with surprise and butterflies, which fueled your hunger for him as he found familiarity in your lips, and pressed harder into the kiss. His trembling hand returned in between your legs, applying pressure against your clit through your pants.

Din was no stranger to sex, but he was a stranger to your body, and a stranger to loving you in the way he was always aching to.

“I’m going to take care of you, Y/N” Din whispered against your lips.

He motioned for you to lie back, and guided you with his arm pressed gently into the curve of your back. You fiddled with the clasp of your pants, but his hand replaced your own and successfully unfastened it. You worked to remove them, but Din helped you peel them down your legs.

Nothing could have pulled your admirable gaze away from him. There were no words to describe how beautiful he was. Din hovered above you, staring right back in disbelief of having you beneath him like this. Your fingertips traced the line of his jaw, your palm finally resting against the scruff of his cheek. His eyes fell shut, being so touch-starved that he melted in your grasp.

Din knew that he wanted to stay like this forever, but he also knew how badly he needed to be inside you. As he stood to his feet and removed his armor, revealing the soft material beneath it that clung to his skin, your thighs clenched together in anticipation. With his continued help, he carefully lifted your shirt above your head, revealing you wore nothing beneath it. The guttural moan that grazed your ear when he saw your breasts sent a wave of heat between your legs.

His finger looped around the hem of your panties and awaited your confirmation before eagerly removing them.

You were nervous. Stars you were so nervous. Somehow you found comfort in studying his face, watching his reaction to seeing your exposed body on display for him.

Your lips intertwined again. The supple caress of his hand traveling up your thigh sent chills down your spine. It only took one light touch against your folds for him to feel how bad you wanted him. Suddenly you felt one finger slide inside of you.

He broke away from devouring your lips, “Is this okay?”

“Yes” You breathed.

What he did with his fingers felt beyond anything you’d ever done to yourself. He curled his finger as he pumped it in and out of you, savoring the sound of your slickness wrapped around his digits. You grinded against his hand, signaling him to move faster.

Din watched you, enamored with your expression and how you melted for him just by the touch of his hand. Stars began forming in your eyes as the haze of your orgasm crept up slowly. Din felt the walls of your cunt tightening slightly as he went faster.

“It feels so good, Din, please don’t stop”

And he didn’t stop. Stars, he’d do anything you asked of him. Especially now.

With the arching of your back, Din knew you’d reached your release. You cried out for him, digging your nails into the skin of his neck, shutting your eyes tight, overwhelmed with pure pleasure.

“Look at me, cyar’ika” He instructed. Your eyes flew up to stare deep into his beautiful brown eyes.

Your release overtook your entire body, sending a heated flash of vibration across your skin, tingling and centering at the thrusts of his fingers.

“There you go sweetheart, you’re doing so good” He praised.

You rode out your high as he talked you through it. Unable to fathom the total ecstasy you were feeling. Your breathing was heavy as you floated back down, and you then realized how tightly your hands were gripping his body. As you flashed him a smile, he softly smiled back, his eyes scanning your body and face.

As you reached for his pants, he hurriedly removed his shirt followed by his pants, now leaving him completely bare for you too. You stared at his cock, impressed by his size, and clenched your cunt around nothing as your body begged for him.

You spread your legs for him, as his hips situated themselves to fit perfectly between them.

“I’ll go as slow as you need me to” he assured you, “I don’t want to hurt you”. Just then, the tip of his cock pressed against your entrance, before he finally buried himself completely inside of you. A whimper of slight discomfort escaped you, and Din planted a soft kiss upon your open mouth to soothe you. You were so tightly wrapped around him that he almost lost it immediately. It was such a wonderful new feeling to experience being this close to Din.

Your body adjusted itself quicker than you anticipated to his size. He began to thrust slowly, still giving you time to relax. A lustful whimper fell from your lips, showing Din that you were experiencing pleasure rather than pain now. Once his thrusts found perfect and steady rhythm inside you, he began to moan softly with you. 

Your eyes meet and lock on each other while he continues to curl his hips passionately into yours.

“Does that feel good, Y/N?” He moaned and kissed your neck gently.

“Yes, Din” You managed to mumble through your new feeling of pleasure.

The sensation of him filling you was overwhelming, and your skin burned with such a wonderful fire. You were sure that you’d never get enough of his lips against yours.

“You are so beautiful, cyar’ika” He whispered, his hand traveling down between your breasts, familiarizing himself with the feeling of your skin against his. Taking one of your breasts into his hand, he squeezed it gently.

“Harder” You begged him. He looked at you with uncertainty, but wouldn’t dare deny you.

He began fucking you faster, now. As his cock brushed against your most sensitive spot inside you with every snap of his hips, your moans grew louder and more intense. Din loved every sound you made. He was quieter than you, but his whimpering was music to your ears.

“Y/N, I won’t last much longer” He faltered in his thrusts as he got close to his release.

You nodded and pulled his face into yours, kissing him hard. Your lips against his pushed him over the edge. His fist gripped the sheets as he came, his moans deeper and louder than before.

“Fuck, Y/N” He cried out.

The warmth of his release coated your walls, and you cherished the feeling of truly being filled by him. All of him.

The room was filled with only the sound of your beating hearts and the gradual rate of your breathing coming down to normal. Din was careful when he removed himself from you, and the second he did, you already missed feeling him so close. He lay next to you, your warm bodies still pressed close to each other. The silence between you spoke louder than any words you could manage to speak.

“Are you okay?” He asked while caressing your cheek.

You smiled warmly at him. There was a soreness you felt inside, but it was a sensation you welcomed if it meant that Din was the one to take your virginity.

“I’m more than okay” You assured him, “that was everything I ever hoped it would be”

“I love you, Y/N” He said sweetly, warming your soul as he said it.

“I love you, too”

———————

Taglist: @lokigirlszendaya

[antianakin]

Pong Krell. It’s universally agreed that he deserved worse than what he got and I get that. I just wished we got to see what he was like before he Fell. Did he always hate clones, was it gradual? Did he suspect something off and went over paranoid?

I’ll say this one and I’ll say this probably a thousand more times but I wished the creators focused on more details with characters. It’s absolutely fascinating that they created a Jedi that Fell but did nothing with it besides outright evil.

How other Jedi reacted to learning that a fellow Jedi betrayed everyone? How did the Republic?

I just wished they did more with him than just, yeah that dude was a dick and killed clones.

Yeah, it's one of the things I don't like as much about TCW, the extremely episodic nature of it means that there really is never any build-up to anything or lasting impact from anything. Unless it's happening within one of the 2-4 episode arcs, we RARELY get to see any kind of build-up or fallout. It's one of the major issues with Barriss, too, we see her ONCE in season 2 and she's calm, kind, methodical, and selfless. And then three seasons later in season 5 she's suddenly ruthless, selfish, doubting everything and everyone, merciless, etc. There is NO BUILD UP to that radical 180 to her character and there's no real exploration of how Ahsoka really feels about that particular betrayal afterwards, the focus in later episodes after the Wrong Jedi focuses only on Ahsoka feeling betrayed by the COUNCIL and her feelings about that. Nothing since TCW has ever touched it either (Rebels, Mandalorian, the Ahsoka show). Satine's death never really comes up again after it happens aside from Bo-Katan being an asshole. Obi-Wan goes from being totally fucked up about Maul coming back to being chill enough to take on Maul and Savage alone and winning without us getting to see him actually deal with those emotions.

Pong Krell and the Umbara arc IN GENERAL falls into this category easily (so do the Zyggeria and the Deception arc tbh). Krell is such a basic evil character, there's so little nuance to him and we never get to see the Jedi react to the revelation that one of their own turned at all. Dooku turned after he had already left the Order as far as any of them really know, but Krell was still IN the Order when he decided to betray them and it would've been really interesting to see the impact of that on them. It would've been ESPECIALLY interesting to explore that more during the Wrong Jedi arc in particular in how the Jedi feel like they can't trust their own people not to betray them anymore after Dooku and Krell.

Krell is presented with like. Zero nuance. He is just unequivocally evil and despite Anakin greeting him in a friendly way at the beginning, the visuals tell you this dude's no good right from his first appearance. There isn't really any chance that he's going to be a good guy at all. So all we are left with are headcanons.

And I remember discussing my Krell headcanons somewhere, but I think it might've been on a Discord server I've since left, so I unfortunately cannot find them again. So I'll try to remember them and immortalize them here, I guess.

Here's the thing about Krell. NO ONE suspects him. So he cannot be overtly acting like a bigoted asshole from the jump at any point, he HAS to be acting in such a way that it's not trickling out to the other clones and to the Jedi themselves that Krell is an absolute monster. Even Fives takes a moment to decide that Krell is suspicious and only brings up Krell's casualty numbers after he sees Krell's behavior for a minute and combines that knowledge with what he's now personally experiencing and is starting to come to conclusions based on that. He doesn't go into the relationship thinking Krell is worse than any other Jedi already.

And based on what we know of EVERY OTHER FALLEN JEDI (Dooku, Anakin, Barriss), they didn't start out as monsters. Dooku was a highly respected Jedi Master who seems to have had a really positive relationship with Yoda and Qui-Gon and simply became disillusioned with the Senate and his care for the people of the galaxy got twisted into something darker over time. Barriss was kind, selfless, compassionate, brave, and resourceful, and it was the war that caused her to start letting her fears and pain consume her into turning on the Jedi. Anakin was kind and spent years having his fears and doubts twisted into selfishness and greed and darkness that allowed him to justify murder and genocide for power. So it wouldn't make sense to me that Pong Krell wouldn't fall into the same pattern where he was once kind and good and selfless and brave, but that the circumstances surrounding the war caused him to lose faith and fall.

My headcanon is that he lost an entire battalion early in the war, much like we see happen to Plo Koon during the Malevolence arc and that that loss and failure just BROKE him. Krell DID care about the clones, he cared about his men, and he FAILED them all. And I think that he saw all of these clones dying by the dozens in all of the other battalions and instead of choosing to let go of his pain and fear and lean into his compassion, he chose to distance himself from them entirely to make it hurt less. If he didn't care about the clones, if he just saw them as the cannon fodder that the Senate treated them all as, then it would hurt less when they died. Maybe the Senate itself even dragged him over the coals for that initial loss. Or perhaps it was the opposite, maybe most of his battalion was killed, but it ultimately ended in a victory anyway because they were forced to just keep going despite the consequences. And so Krell decides to enter this mindset where he is disillusioned with the Senate and just CANNOT allow himself to care about the clones, because it won't change what the Senate is going to do to them anyway, so he may as well just treat them the same way.

And this wouldn't have happened overnight. It wouldn't have been a sudden 180 where he decided he was just going to treat them like shit. But he maybe decided to put some more professional distance between himself and his new battalion, not get close to them, not use their names (although he still knows them, still remembers them all). Maybe one day they're in a tricky situation and all of his options are bad, he HAS to sacrifice some of his men in order to salvage the situation at all, and it's a choice between a full retreat that he KNOWS the Senate won't take well, or sacrificing the men to achieve the victory. So he sacrifices the men. It's not an entire battalion, it's not even a whole company, but it's more than it would've been if he'd retreated. Maybe next time, there's a choice between going back to save some of the men even if it poses a risk to his own life or the mission or something, and he chooses not to go back for them because the mission is more important, or he rationalizes that his life is more important as the Jedi General. And it's just more and more little decisions like that that add up over time to being able to see the clones as nothing more than tools.

The disillusionment with the Senate leads to him sort-of agreeing with things Dooku and the Separatists have said and he can look at the war and realize that it's entirely possible that the Republic is going to LOSE, and he CANNOT be the one who loses again, so maybe he starts bouncing around the concept of maybe switching sides. And of course initially he rejects the idea. He's a Jedi, he won't just abandon the Republic, he can't be a traitor, who in the Separatist side would ever trust him anyway. But once that seed is planted, it doesn't go away and it keeps coming back up and he keeps finding ways to rationalize why it might be a good idea and then deciding not to do it over and over again. Until one day, he can't convince himself that it's a bad idea or that it wouldn't work. He tells himself it's the ONLY option, if he doesn't change sides then he's dead. But Dooku WON'T trust him unless he can prove that he's not on the Republic's side, so he has to come up with a plan to gain their trust. And what better way to earn that trust than to ensure a Separatist victory in an important campaign by double-crossing the Republic.

And once he's chosen to go down that path, it's even EASIER to stop caring about the clones because, well, they're all dead anyway. The Republic is going to lose, the clones are all dead men walking no matter what, so why bother caring about them or trying to keep them alive? He can't lose so often that the Jedi or the Senate become suspicious of him, of course, but it's REALLY easy then to get to Umbara and treat the clones like crap and turn them against each other and intentionally try to get them all killed. They're dead anyway, he's not the one killing them really, is he, the Senate is, the Jedi are, the war is. They were dead from the moment they were created in that test tube because they were created for this specific purpose. It's not his fault.

And much like Barriss turns against the Jedi in part because she did LOVE the Jedi and was devastated by what she saw happening to them and the pain of seeing her people forced to become something they were never supposed to be, as much as her actions were intended as some kind of message to try to sort-of save the Jedi from a course of action she saw as their downfall, I think that Krell turns on the clones because at some point he DID care about them. A lot. And that care became his downfall, the pain at what was being done to them just absolutely gutted him and it threw him down a path that ultimately led him to turn against the very people whose deaths had hurt him so badly just a few short years ago.

Krell might not have been the most effusive or emotional person prior to the war or anything, he might've been a more reserved person similar to Mace or Dooku or Luminara, but I think he probably was a perfectly good Jedi who was kind and selfless and compassionate once upon a time.

And none of the headcanons above have even touched what his relationships with other JEDI must have been like. It's just as possible that he did have friends and people he considered family among the Jedi. Maybe he had a padawan once at some point. And maybe all of those people had died by the time we get to Umbara. Maybe he had to watch a lot of the people he was closest to just fall like flies, and so it starts feeling like nothing matters. Maybe one of the Jedi who died on Geonosis was a former padawan of his, but Krell himself obviously wasn't there and the pain of THAT loss and the guilt he feels at not having been there (even though this padawan had been knighted for a while and there was a good reason Krell wasn't there that day) just sticks with him, too, and he never quite manages to let that go, either.

I think a lot of people choose to just headcanon Krell as having just always been kind-of an asshole even when he was a Jedi, but that doesn't work for me. If Krell was always an asshole, I feel like the Jedi would've stepped in at some point before the war even HAPPENED and tried to manage that situation. And it doesn't match up with the way pretty much every other fallen Jedi has ever been written, where they were GOOD PEOPLE once upon a time who saw awful things happen that they couldn't stop or had an awful thing happen TO them that they couldn't stop and the pain of that experience consumes them to the point that they spiral into darkness as a result. Krell should be the same way, which means he likely was a perfectly good normal Jedi before the war. He would've been kind, he might've been good with younglings (he's tall, maybe he was the one the younglings went to all the time for piggy back rides, maybe he often taught dual wielding to padawans who asked because of how clearly proficient he is at it), he might've taught a student of his own successfully, he would've been wise and selfless and compassionate, he would've loved the Jedi and the people of the galaxy.

Like, to be frank, if Tales of the Jedi HAD to explore a fallen Jedi story, they should've explored Krell instead of Dooku. Dooku has been explored before, we know quite a lot about him and his motivations and his backstory, but Krell, as you noted, is left a mystery and is stuck in the realm of being just purely evil for the sake of the story they were telling in this one arc. Krell needed more nuance in a way Dooku just did not.

[mcflymemes]

PROMPTS FROM THE MANDALORIAN SEASON 2 *  assorted dialogue from the tv show, adjust as necessary

enjoy the fights.

they say it lives here. they say it sleeps.

i know you're good at killing.

where did you get the armor?

i'm sure you call the shots where you come from, but 'round here, i'm the one who tells folks what to do.

take it off. or i will.

i'm prepared to pay you for the information.

i'm not leaving my fate up to chance.

thank you for coming to me.

give it to me now, or i will peel it off your corpse.

you must promise you won't kill me.

i promise that you will not die by my hand.

that wasn't part of the deal.

you don't understand what it was like.

i've got an idea. get its attention.

maybe we can work something out.

they might be open to some fresh ideas.

i hope someday our paths will cross again.

we've heard the stories.

what am i supposed to do with this?

am i under arrest?

you might be in luck.

oh, stop your crying. you'll rust.

i'm not a taxi service.

i paraphrased.

what can i say? i'm an excellent judge of character.

i'll let you know if i see any.

how much will it cost me?

thank you for letting me know. i'll get right on it.

what the hell are you doing?

this was not a part of the deal.

if you hadn't guessed, we're in a tight spot.

that old thing's gonna break apart in this atmosphere.

are you sure you won't join us?

there's something i need to do.

this is more than i signed up for.

that planet is cursed. anyone who goes there dies.

i can lead you to one of their kind.

do you copy?

put some tea on. we'll be up in a minute.

i'll let you live.

we've been hitting them pretty hard.

this was the best you could do?

were you able to eliminate them?

looks like we made it. get ready for landing.

according to records, you're quite a soldier. we could really use you.

that was some pretty impressive flying.

can i at least buy you a drink?

i believe you two have met.

i'm surprised to see this place is still standing.

i'll take my chances down here.

we'll watch the doors.

can we talk business?

i'm only here for repairs.

you wanna come back here and try this? be my guest!

i'm sure we can work something out.

i cannot train him.

you've seen what he can do.

i must get back to the village.

i've seen him do things i can't explain.

show yourself. i've been expecting you.

you will learn nothing from me.

surrender, or face the consequences.

we must find a way to free them.

my price is high.

i believe this is your payment.

you made me a promise, and i held up my end.

your bounty hunter failed.

if you want my armor, you'll have to peel it off my dead body.

i give my allegiance to no one.

nice shot.

you look like you've just seen a ghost.

you may think you have some idea of what you're in possession of, but you do not.

it's all the same to these people.

hey, i'm just a realist. i'm a survivor, just like you.

let's get one thing straight. you and i are nothing alike.

everybody's got their line they don't cross until things get messy.

you did what you had to do.

everybody thinks they want freedom, but what they really want is order.

we got company. hang on.

you get to the roof. i'll drop in and pull you out.

hey, if you want to accuse me of something, then just say it.

let's just say they might recognize my face.

you're not going alone. i'm coming with you.

that's not how this works.

that was some nice shooting back there.

wish i could say it looked good on you, but i'd be lying.

i can't go in there.

are you a jedi?

that's who you belong with.

may the force be with you.

you're a disgrace to your armor.

i've heard your voice thousands of times.

i thought you were dead.

don't be afraid.

drop your weapon.

don't worry about me. just be careful in there.

i need your help.

you're sparing my life?

open the doors.

i suggest you shut your mouth.

[dindjarindiaries]

Dincember - December 5: Cold

character: Din Djarin (The Mandalorian)

prompt: Cold

main masterlist • dincember masterlist

⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆ ⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆ ⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆ ⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙

The cockpit was haphazardly pressurized, the Razor Crest was puttering along its path, and both the child and your frog-like passenger were asleep. That left only you and Din awake, though you could tell he was trying to feign sleep - as if he hoped you wouldn't notice what was truly going on.

"Din."

You whispered his name, both in an effort to keep it private and to keep the others from waking. Din's helmet leaned towards you, though he kept his visor fixed on the viewport. You reached forward and brushed your fingertips along his pauldron, the metal biting your fingers with the most bitter kind of cold.

"You're still frozen over." Din tightened the arms he had crossed over his chest, as if it would keep them from trembling more. It didn't. "You must be even colder under there."

"I'm fine." Din raised a gloved hand to find yours on his shoulder, patting it as reassuringly as he could. "Don't worry about me. You need to rest."

"As do you." You raised your brow at him. "And there's no way you can when you're still shivering."

Din shrugged. "I'll manage."

You frowned at him. "We don't have any spare blankets in here."

"The ice will melt eventually."

You fought the urge to sigh at him. "Once we're already in orbit of Trask, maybe."

Din sat up more, spinning in his chair to face you. "Cyar'ika, I'm f-f...," a rather violent shiver kept him from finishing the word at first, "fine." He sounded defeated as he finished the phrase, obviously having been given away.

You wrinkled your brow and take his hand between your own. "Can I help?"

Din gives his helmet a tilt. "How?"

You smiled and stood from your seat, taking the child from your lap and letting him have it to himself. Stepping towards Din, you nodded, silently asking for permission to sit. Din widened his arms for you, allowing you to take your place upon him with your front side against his own. You set your hands upon your cuirass for a moment, letting Din's visor face you with concern that was evident through the beskar.

"Doesn't this make you cold?" Din's question was coated in worry.

You shook your head. "Not for long." Your arms wrapped around his middle as you rested the side of your head against his cowl, closing your eyes and breathing in the comfort of him. "It'll melt."

Din's arms do the same to you as you had just done to him. "Was this really in the interest of warming me up?" His gloved fingertips brushed gently over you for further comfort. "Or did you just want to sit like this?"

You smiled against him. "A little bit of both." You tightened your grasp around him. "But mostly to keep you warm." You lifted a hand for only a moment to run your finger along the frost on his armor, leaving a heart behind in its wake. "Promise."

Din huffed in both amusement and affection. "Thank you." His helmet gently rested upon your head. "You're very warm."

Your smile grew at that. "Good."

[penvisions]

of beskar and kyber {chapter 15}

Pairing: Din Djarin x Force Sensitive! Reader (the Mandalorian x Force Sensitive! Reader)

Summary: Moff Gideon's troops close in on your position as you try to make an escape.

Word Count: 12.5k (!!)

Warnings: canon typical violence, canon typical language, canon typical gore, fighting, fight scenes, conflict, emotional trauma, emotional manipulation, physical manipulation, coercion, manipulation, reader goes momentarily mute, emotional outbursts, argumentative language, din raises his voice, din yells at reader two times, loss of temper for both reader and din, moff gideon gets his own warning, description of injuries, blood, descriptions of nausea, concussions, minor character death, major character injury, angst, emotional rollercoaster, reader has a name that is sparingly used for plot points, if i forgot anything please let me know and i'll add it!

A/N: so, this happened nearly immediately after i posted the last one. had the general scenes of this chapter outlined for ages, but it took a darker turn than even i anticipated. this chapter is dedicated to @sawymredfox for allowing me to bounce ideas off of them! i don't know what to say other than, i'm sorry and please feel free to (kindly) yell at me if you need to

ao3 || series masterlist || main masterlist || ko-fi

“We need to move.”

“Who put you in charge?”

“I’m sorry, do you speak Mando’a? Do you know the customs and cultural presets for interacting with them on their own terms, in their own setting?” One last tear trailed down your cheek and you roughly wiped it away. Trying your best to keep the heated gaze you shared with the older man.

Neither person said anything as you walked past them to take the lead, ad’ika cooing after you with one of his small claws. He began to wriggle in Cara’s grip, unhappy with the woman holding him, a cry breaking the silence of the darkened tunnel. She tried her best to keep him secure against her chest, but he pushed at her, little fists thumping hard. He kept his gazed trained on you, another bellowing cry gaining volume the further you walked away.

“I think he wants you, cyar’ika.” Cara called out, unsure of what else to do. She followed after you, steps echoing all around. You turned with a blank face that quickly softened as you looked down at the child. Heart thudding as you reached out for him, he practically threw himself at you, jumping from Cara’s hold and toward you. You caught him with a small huff, trying to keep a solid hold on him as he buried his face into your neck and whimpered.

“I’ve got you, ad’ika.” You murmured, away of Karga watching you, something in his eyes that you couldn’t quite decipher. With quiet words, you secured him in the bag he had been handed to Kuiil in during your separation and adjusted it over your shoulder. You fixed it to rest along your left hip, his weight barely anything as he kept one hand wrapped around the hem of your tank top for comfort.

The tunnels were deserted, no sign of recent occupation or life, traveling further into them. You couldn’t have been making progress, the winding underground world expansive and deliberately set up to deter people from finding the pockets of life hidden within. With a frustrated sigh, you shined your vambrace’s flashlight on the walls around you. Trying to catch a glimpse of anything scribed along them, using the red of it to pick up on anything gilded in hidden ink.

You wished for the helmet Akiz had left to you, for the cover of it and the different visor settings to aid you in your search. But you had lost it, like you had everything else. It was hopefully still secured in the chest buried in the remnants of your hideaway deep in the desert of Tatooine.

Maybe…maybe it was time to return there, with ad’ika, if you ever managed to get off world. Place the pendant Din had gifted you along side it. Remnants of a life you had tried to start over twice now and unable to maintain. The sacrifice of two Mandalorians weighing you down and urging you to hide away once again. The threat after you, after you both too strong to fight and overcome.

An explosion overhead had you reaching for the child, hand firm on his small back as he fussed.

All three of you turned toward the direction you had just come from, wary of the tunnels beginning to cave in and trap you. Your breath hitched at the sound of twin steps, the unsteady light dancing o the wall as figures approached and rounded the corner you had just turned.

But it wasn’t soldiers or Mandalorians intent on protecting their space, nor civilians running from the fighting and occupation of the city overhead.

It was IG-11, leading and supporting a weak Din.

Your body wouldn’t move, mind going blank as Din’s amor glinted in the low light of the tunnels.

Cara rushed forward, a smile breaking out on her face. Karga right behind her as she reached out a tentative hand to his cuirass. His helmet bobbed, unsteady on his feet and balance shot as he swayed from the light pressure. He didn’t say anything as she curled an arm around his back and took the brunt of his weight. Light emanating from the side of his helmet swinging around as he jostled from the movements.

“Want to lend a hand here?” She looked toward you, frozen in your spot.

When you didn’t say anything, eyes avoiding looking directly at the armored figure and fingers twitching with the urge to reach out an ensure he was real, he was alive, he was right in front of you; Karga took point.

“Do you know which way to go?”

“No. I don’t know these tunnels.” His voice was still raspy, a scratchy quality that prickled the skin of your back as it fell on your ears. Secure in his pouch, ad’ika cooed in response, ears wiggling as he watching his guardian with wide eyes. When the helmet raised and focused on your completely, you couldn’t even find it in yourself to care that his light was shining directly on you. “I’ve only entered from the bazaar. Mesh’la, have you found any clues?”

You turned your back on him and began to walk, not trusting your voice. A grunt of pain displayed through the helmet, Cara murmuring quiet words to ensure he was okay enough to move. When he agreed, she adjusted his arm over her shoulder and began to follow after you.

“She’s been quiet since we left you behind.”

“Well, if we get the smell of sulfur and we follow it, it’ll lead us up to the plains where the river flows.

“The Imps will catch us before we make it to the ship. We need the Mandalorians to escort us to safety.

“Ugh, this place is a maze.

“Stop.” He sounded more clear than he had as of yet. Slowly pulling away from Cara, flanked by them both as they prepared to catch him should he fall. “I can stand.”

“The bacta infusion is working.” IG-11 assured and it eased your heart a bit, to know that the man had taken help from the droid, even if he hadn’t taken it from you. But bacta could only do so much, mentally making a note to pick up more the first chance you had. If not in the controlled city, then on the next world as soon as the ship was docked and you ensured he would be okay while in your absence.

“I’ll try to find tracks. Mesh’la have you found any up there?” Din tried to call out, rasp to his voice stirring concern in you, it swirled alongside the dark tendrils keeping their hold on you. Amalgamating into an uncomfortable weight carried inside of you as you continued to press on through the tunnels.

When you didn’t answer, only stepped out from the middle of the space, did he see what you had been faintly following without even knowing it. He slowly walked forward, still limping slightly, though he did seem a bit steadier on his feet now.

“We’re close.” He pointed towards your feet, his visor allowing him to see the highlighted trail of footprints from someone within the last few hours. You leaned away from his touch to brush your arm as he stood beside you, helmet watching your downcast face. He whispered your name, voice cracking on the feel of it through his sore throat. He reached out for you again, gloved hand barely brushing the side of your cheek before you were pulling away and moving behind the rest of the group.

He could only watch in concern when you removed the bag ad’ika was settled in from your shoulders and handed it to a willing IG-11 to hold. Words stuck in his own throat as he wanted desperately for a moment alone with you to talk things out and comfort you. But time was a luxury none of you had, if the sporadic explosions from up above were any more of an indication of the predicament. 

With a sigh that crackled through the modulator, he began to move once again. A few winding tunnels and turns revealed pockets of life as furniture and barrels began to fill the underground space in pockets.

He came to a slow halt, flashlight making a pile of Mandalorian armor visible right in front of him. It took up most of the current tunnel, the visors of the helmets glinting in the direct light as he stared at them. You held back a gasp at the sight of them, keeping some of your focus on the empty, dark space behind you lest you had followers.

The click of Din turning off his light was loud in the tense silence, the air charged with the emotions he was feeling at such a hopeless and painful sight. He approached the pile slowly, steps stilted as the bacta worked to get him somewhat healed. He kneeled down in front of it, shoulders slumped, and head bowed.

Ad’ika cried out, picking up on the armored man’s emotions. Fussing in the hold IG-11 had on him though he didn’t try to detach.

A helmet was between his hands, lifted up for him to gauge it better. When he was still for longer than a few heartbeats, Cara inched forward and leaned down toward him.

“We should go.”

“You go. Take the ship. I can’t leave it this way.” Somber voice spoken through the modulator, it had you stepping forward but you thought better of it. Not sure if he would welcome your presence beside him at the moment, the memory of approaching a broad figure wearing blue armor replaying in your mind. It was the catalyst for the scene in front of you, Din hunched on the ground, the helmet of one of his fallen gripped in his hands. More evidence of fallen warriors piled in front of him. And it felt like an omen, that it wouldn’t be the last loss for the man to experience. It couldn’t be, not as long as you were with him. As long as ad’ika was with him. Targets marked on your backs, welcoming more conflict, more battles, more gunfire, more loss.

“Did you know about this? Is this the work of your bounty hunters?” Anger flared in his voice, words biting as he turned toward Karga. His legs were stable as he harnessed his anger and closed in on the surprised man. He didn’t move against the approaching man, completely taken off guard by the pile of armor just as everyone else. You felt that same pull of darkness thrum, the memory of Akiz passing too sharp in your mind, striking through you and leaving a chasm for the pull to fill. Dark energy flowed into the chasm, brimming over the edges of it, beginning to take more space in your psyche.

“No. When you left the system and took the prize, the fighting ended, and the hunters just melted away. You know how it is. They’re mercenaries. They’re not zealots.”

“Did you do this? Did you?” Surging up, the helmet clunked to the ground. Din was on Karga in a second, dominant hand coming out to push at the older man’s chest, words demanding and furious.

“No!” Was all the older man could shout back, knowing he was no match for even an injured Mandalorian in close combat. The hand not holding fast to a blaster came up to try and placate the approaching man, though he didn’t make an actual move to push back.  

“It was not his fault.” A woman’s modulated voice broke the tension suddenly. Din turned around slowly, peering into the darkness that it came from. It was as if he recognized the voice, because he made no move to raise a weapon up. Cara startled, as did ad’ika. But you stood still, unwilling to make yourself a target lest the person be a threat.

“We revealed ourselves.” A tall woman appeared from the mouth of a tunnel that jutted off from this one. Her helmet glinted gold in the low light, small horns a decoration jutting along the top. She was dressed in a deep red, the armor painted over a dull brown outfit of leggings, a skirt, and a long-sleeved shirt. She had a shorter cape about her shoulders, though it was made of thick brown fur.

She was completely calm, voice controlled and the cadence in line with those who seldom used Basic.

She leaned down to retrieve some of the armor, motions precise and almost leisurely.

“We knew what could happen if we left the covert. We were made aware of your situation by that one there hiding among the shadows. The Imperials arrived shortly thereafter. This is what resulted.”

She explained easily, no remorse or malice in her tone. It simply became a part of what happened, something she would carry silently with her. A part of her history that would one day be a verse in her song, but for now it was something that she must take in stride and move forward.

But you weren’t so collected.

You felt nausea rise up from your stomach and into your chest, recalling the way you had tracked the blue armored man and approached him. You had only wanted to help, only wanted to ensure Din hadn’t walked into a death trap in his escape with ad’ika. You hadn’t meant for the chain of events to end like this. With so many dead and now lost to the never-ending fight against the Empire. The fault for it once again. Adding another regret to the long list you carried with inside yourself.

They had already lost so much, very life eradicated from their home world, an entire culture nearly wiped out. And you had played a part in it, once again proving those who manipulated you right. You were capable of dangerous, powerful things. Breathing shaky, you couldn’t tear your gaze away from the pile of armor. The beskar began to rattle, the tendrils that wrapped around your psyche tightened and pulled. Causing you to crash to your knees with a painful gasp.

“Did any survive?” As Din carefully asked, you untucked the pendant he had gifted you from your pocket, the cord he had used to keep it around his neck secured to your belt. You clenched your hand around it until the beskar it was made up bit into your palm, the pain centering you in a way that you both hated and were grateful for.

“I hope so. Some may have escaped off world.”

“Come with us.”

“No.” She continued to load pieces of the armor to the cart pulled up behind her, an inkling of the reason on the tip of your tongue. “I will not abandon this place until I have salved what remains.”

Din followed her, turning to enter the space that opened up to the left. Cara and Karga shared a look before they turned to you, moving to follow him when you didn’t look up from your spot on kneeled on the ground, hand still gripped tight around the pendant hanging from your belt.

The forge nestled in the middle of the space was quiet, the soft hush of the constant fires a small comfort to the man who followed behind the armorer of his people. He watched silently as she began to feed pieces into the forge and melt them down.

“Bring her to me, I wish to speak to her.”

Din obliged silently, walking back out into the main tunnel. He kneeled down in front of you with a few heavy pants of exertion, hands reaching out for you but he thought better of it and voiced a soft call of your name to garner your attention. Your head snapped up, eyes filled with tears and a shadow of regret in them. They glinted in the low light and he worried what it meant.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t-“ You took a deep breath in, voice cracking and filled with emotion. “I didn’t mean for anyone to die. I just- I just wanted to help. You were outnumbered beyond capability and I was too weak to fight.”

“You did help, mesh’la. You approached them for help, and they rallied to heed the call. This is the Way.”

He reached out for your hands when he noticed them clenched into tight fists, digging his fingers beneath your own and relieving the tension. The mythosaur pendant was revealed and he watched as it fell to rest against your thigh. “Please don’t hurt yourself, you don’t deserve it.”

You couldn’t bring yourself to look directly into the visor, guilt rolling off of you in waves. He could feel the trembling of your arms as he gripped your hands, trying his best to gently pull you up with him as he stood. You probably helped him get back to his feet as much as he had done for you, sharing in the simple task that was too much at the moment. He dropped the contact as soon as you were both on your feet, not wanting to push you or make you uncomfortable. It was obvious you were still reeling from what happened in the cantina. From him not allowing you to heal him and urging you to save yourself. But it would have to wait, the discussion of the day, for you two. To occur between closed doors and with secured privacy for you both.

“She wants to talk with you, the Armorer.”

Following behind him, you watched the way he was moving gingerly, focusing on pulling up the weight of his legs to move forward, his arms nearly motionless at his sides. The woman was standing before the impressive forge, silhouette bold. 

“Show me the one whose safety deemed such destruction.”

“This is the one.” Din motioned to the bad being carried by IG-11, ad’ika preened under the attention, glad that his guardian was back alongside him. Even if the young being could sense the pain and discomfort the armored man was in. That he was pushing through to continue to protect him, to shield him from those threats with which he had directly challenged all those days ago after first meeting him…

“This is the one that you hunted, then saved?”

“Yes. The one that saved me as well.” Din’s response was even, polite.

“From the mudhorn?"

“Yes.”

“It looks helpless.”

“Ad’ika is injured, but he is not helpless. His species can move objects with its mind.”

“Ad’ika? It is unusual that you’ve deemed it a nickname. Have you bonded?”

“….a little. But Mesh’la-“

“Another nickname, how…personal of you.” Her interest was piqued, the tone of her voice lightening a smidge. Almost as if her lips were quirked up in a knowing smile.

“I gave him the nickname, he will not communicate his given name with me and it’s made things easier as time moved on and we traveled with him in our charge. In…burc’ya’s charge.” You spoke up, hoping you weren’t overstepping any unspoken rules. You had never interacted with this woman, but your experience with previous Mandalorian Armorers had been different. They had held high, important positions in the culture but something about her seemed….more. She was the head of her faction, if you had to guess. A guiding member of her own covert, if her remaining behind to care for those in death as she had looked after them in life was any indication.

Children of the Watch, Akiz would describe them, had described them to you. He had been a part of that faction of Mandalorian culture as well, though his covert had been wiped out before his time on K’ath. Where your paths crossed and your time together was solidified in the stars. Their practice of the culture more in tune with the religious scripture. Stricter adherence to the mentality of concealing one’s identity, that they were all of one identity.

Tension existed between them and the general population of Mandalore, you had noticed even as a child, due to their beliefs. It wasn’t anything that caused conflict, thankfully, just a strained interaction or two depending on how individuals reacted to the knowledge. Mandalorian’s were accepting people, an accepting culture for the most part. But there were bad seeds and ill notions as with any large population.  

But he had been nothing but loving and kind to you, giving you a chance at a life you wouldn’t have had without him responding to your distress call and rescuing you. The same for Din, despite having been his target of capture to return to your mother in a business transaction. The man had overlooked his responsibilities in order to allow you freedom, saved by a selfless Mandalorian once again. Gifted his intentions of personal pursuit, a connection that was proving to be so much more than either of you could have guessed back in that desert compound….

“I know of such things. And she is the one who did so when another appeared to defend its fallen mate?”

“Yes.” He nodded to you, signaling that it was indeed okay to respond to the woman’s rather direct and simple questions.

“Elek, vod.”

Yes, ma’am.

“Gar jorhaa’ir Mando’a.”

You speak Mando’a.

“Elek, ni kar’taylir jorcu be ner cabur. Akiz Noves.”

Yes, I know because of my guardian. Akiz Noves.

“Gar cuyir a evaar'la solus.”

You are a foundling.

She moved with an easy confidence, pulling more ladles of molten beskar from within the forge. Taking them to her work bench and pouring it into a set of molds she had laid out. Taking from the old to create new, a cycle that allowed for her culture to persevere.

“Nayc, ni cuy be a nuarra. A kaysh ogir par ni tion’tuur ni gaa’tayl.”

No, I am of a different Creed. But he was there for me when I needed help.

“Tion gar gal?”

What is your name?

“Noves, gifted to me from my guardian. San, is my given name.”

“And you hold the same power?”

“Yes.”

“The songs of eons past tell of battles between Mandalore the Great and an order of sorcerers called Jedi that fought with such powers.”

“He’s an enemy?” Din seemed surprised, while he may only know what he did of them through you, you hadn’t mentioned that those who followed his way of life and yours were sworn enemies. He looked over to you, the woman taking notice of the shared look between you both as you slightly shook your head to assure him that you hadn’t been deceiving him all this time. He wouldn’t have believed it of you, with how things had developed between you both, the connection you two shared. Surely you would’ve told him if the child was a being typically raised with a disposition toward his own.

“No. Its kind were enemies in the sense that battles took place throughout history when ideals did not align. But these two individuals are not. It is a foundling.” She turned her back on to the line your group made in front of her and began to move about the workspace. “By Creed, it is in your care. And she is your key to reuniting it with its own kind should she not want the responsibility herself.”

Items in her grip as she tilted her helmet toward you, another question sounding from her.

“You are sworn to the Jedi Creed, are you not?”

“I…I was. I no longer adhere to either side of the Force. I am sensitive to it, can wield it.” It was an honest half answer, the morality of the question too detailed to get into at the moment. Something you weren’t sure anyone who wasn’t Force sensitive would even begin to understand. But you wanted her to know that you weren’t trying to deceive her or her authority. You were simply being as plain as you could with her, knowing it would mean a great deal to Din for you to do so. That you didn’t want to anything other than show her the respect she deserved.

“You allowed her aboard your ship, share your wares with her as an equal. She can aid you in this mission. Your journeys are intertwined, it was almost as if the Maker knew and set your paths parallel. This is the Way.”

“I have stated my intention of courtship.” Din announced, completely honest with the woman leading the conversation. He respected her, deeply. It was obvious in the way that he stood, at attention despite his injuries no doubt making it hard for him to even concentrate and stand up at all. He should be resting, a luxury you knew all too well was something out of reach when the lives you led seldom allowed for it.

“And have you accepted?” The visor settled into the gold of her helmet was trained on you fully now, watching you with an intensity that made the hairs on the back of your neck rise.

You could sense the stillness of Din across the room, his breath baited as he waited for your answer. It would be so easy to lie, to cut the ties between you both that have developed in the wake of losing control. The connection intense enough to influence the balance that had taken you years to find within yourself, all-encompassing and completely terrifying. The confession he whispered to you as he lay injured echoed in your ear, the return of it on the forefront of your mind. Feeling heat blossom in your chest as you recalled the emotions he stirred in you, all the good, you nodded in affirmation. Knowing the importance of declaring such a thing to the woman before you. Of declaring it to Din plainly, even in the wake of the day’s events.

“Yes, he means a great deal to me.” You breathed out, conviction obvious, the sentiment behind the words not lost on you.

“Hey, not that this isn’t exciting information, but these tunnels will be lousy with Imps in a matter of minutes. We should at least discuss an escape plan.” Her lips quirked again, similar to how they had done when Din admitted to you knowing his name, that he had shared it with you and allowed you to use it.

“If you follow the descending tunnel, it will lead you to the underground river. It flows downstream toward the lava flats.” She turned her attention back to the forge, extending a long handled ladle into the depts of it and retrieving out the molten beskar of the armor she had carefully placed in it moments before.

“I think we should go.” Cara urged, not wanting to become trapped beneath the city as the troops above figured out a way into the tunnels. However winding and confusing they were, it was only a matter of time until they closed in on your position. Especially if you weren’t moving. You had a better chance out in the open landscape, could hide out somewhere and bid your time until nightfall. Get back to the Crest or manage to steal a ship from the city outskirts.  

“I’m staying, I need to help her, and I need to heal. Mesh’la can take ad’ika and go with you, hide out until we can reconvene.”

“You must go. A foundling is in your care. By Creed, until it is of age or reunited with its own kind, you are as its father. This is the Way.”

The room stilled, it was obvious Din wanted to argue his point, but he remained quiet. His need to provide for his people an integral part of the man that he was and he was being instructed to leave the only known surviving one behind. You weren’t sure if you would be able to do so either.

“You have earned your signet.” She walked over to him, a metal plate in her hand and a small welding tool. She fastened it to his right pauldron with quick work. When she stepped back, it was revealed to be the skull of a mudhorn. While you and Din gazed at the addition to his beautiful armor, she moved about the space with admirable concentration and ease.

She walked back to her work bench, retrieving the molds she had filled earlier and removing the now cooler metal. She gathered them with a pair of tongs, moving to plunge them into the vat of water used to set pieces. After a few moments, she deemed them perfect and pulled them out. Wiping them down and taking the mallet to a few places, she revealed her work to be a pair of pauldrons.

She held the armor out to you.

“When a Mandalorian courts, that is a very important bond.” You stepped forward at her beckoning, allowing her to fasten the pieces of armor to your shoulders, her gloved fingers moving your cape out of the way with careful motions. Feeling the presence of Akiz watching over you as she did so. You closed your eyes, immersing yourself in the feeling of being accepted by the woman, by the leader of Din’s covert. Of being folded into Mandalorian culture once again. Thankful for the endless kindness and protection its people had provided to you throughout your life.

The weight of the armor was foreign, beskar being known as one of the strongest and most dense metals in the galaxy. But it was also comforting, akin to being wrapped up in the arms of someone you trusted.

“And though you are not to be riduurok just yet, that makes you a part of his clan. A clan of three.”

She fastened a twin signet into your right pauldron, mirroring the way she had done with Din.

“Thank you. I will wear this with honor.” Reverence coated his somber tone, aware of the importance of finally being given such a symbol from the leader of his covert. The importance of the Armorer gifting you the set of pauldrons, his signet. That it was not given lightly, nor without thought.

“I will as well, your craftmanship is inspiring.”

“While you still follow another Creed, you have been folded in our own, it is a great honor.”

An explosion sounded overhead, too close for comfort. The commotion broke the scene, calling everyone back to reality in a harsh way.

“IG, please guard the other hallway. A scouting party draws near.”

Heeding the woman’s command, the droid handed the bag in its hold to Cara.

“Hang on. I don’t do the baby thing.” Ad’ika squealed happily as he reached out to wave his claws in her face. She moved to hand the bag over to you, but you held your hands up in surrender.

“He likes you, accept it cyar’ika.”

“I have one more gift for your journey.” The Armorer announced. Moving behind Din and toward a chest that was up against the wall of the workspace.

“Have you trained in the Rising Phoenix?”

“When I was a boy, yes.”

“Then this will make you complete.” She turned around, revealing a purely silver beskar pack. It was beautiful, the details of it amazing as you looked over it. Din seemed to be taken aback by such an offering, his voice low when he thanked her.

“When you have healed, you will begin your drills. Until you know it, it will not listen to your commands.”

“I understand.”

“Ensure that he is completely healed before he begins, it is your responsibility to care for him until he is recovered. Do not allow him to harm himself with his notion of impatience. As I’m sure you’ve picked up on it in your time together.”

You felt a smile tug at your lips as you stepped forward, placing a hand atop Din’s left shoulder. You nodded an affirmation of the woman’s words, teasing quality to them as she displayed how well she knew the man standing between you.

Any remark you were about to make was lost as the sound of blaster fire echoed down the tunnels. Far too close for comfort. There was a loud thud, before the form of IG-11 appeared in the mouth of the workspace. Two blasters in its grip it turned to the group and assured that the threat had been taken care of.

“More will come. You must go.”

“Come with us.” Din breathed out, not a question but a silent plea of the woman before him.

“My place is here. Restock your munitions. Both of you.” When you didn’t follow the man’s steps toward the cache of weaponry, he turned to you with a tilt of his helmet.

“Mesh’la, take what you need.”

“I-I can’t. The armor is already-“ You stumbled over your worlds, overcome with meaning behind declaring your intentions with Din. With the pull toward the dark pit that had opened up inside of you that took conscious effort not to fall into its pull every second since it formed.

“You are a part of this, you’ve been accepted into the covert. You have a right to the supplies offered for battle.”

“IG, carry this for Din Djarin until he is well enough to wear it.”

“Now, go.” The Armorer held out the jet pack for the droid, ensuring it was secure before bidding you goodbye. “Down to the river and across the plains. Be safe on your journey.”

“Thank you.” Din followed after the others, allowing you a moment alone with the Armorer as you moved to stand in front of her beside the forge.

“Thank you, vod. I-I have no words to express my gratitude.”

“You are welcome, anyone who intends to become riduurok with one of our kind is accepted as one of our own. Though, I’m sure you know of such customs from your guardian. Do you still carry his armor with you?

“I have his helmet, he gifted it to me upon his death. The rest was lost in a plasma explosion. I’m sorry for not being able to deliver it to his home planet or another covert to recycle.” You bowed your head, sincere in your words.

“I hereby give you permission to alter it for yourself, should you wish to don it in battle. I will not enforce the rule of anonymity on you that the rest of us follow. Look out for him, he…means a great deal to our covert, what remains of it. He was the sole provider for many years while we stayed hidden in the shadows for our own protection.”

“I will, I swear to you.”

“Go, may our paths cross again, San Noves.” She reached out and placed a hand on your shoulder, nodding at you before turning her back on you.

After what felt like far too long, the tunnels finally opened up into a wide chasm. The space filled with a flowing river, lava making up the currents as it slowly moved to the east. It was a mesmerizing sight, beautiful in the way it glowed red and orange through the crust of volcanic rock that began to harden along the top.

The heat from the river was intense, making the air too dry to breath in without feeling a sting in your lungs. You worried for ad’ika in Cara’s hold. His smaller body struggling with the new environment.

Both men dashed forward, inspecting the abandoned vehicle hovering above the river at the bank. A motionless droid was covered in hardened lava, the rock encasing the entire figure save for a part of its front and the top of its head. It looked like it had been abandoned a long while ago, days, perhaps weeks at this point if the city had been overrun for as long as Karga described. The bottom and body of the vehicle seemed to be in good shape, but more hardened lava had bridged the space between it and the shore, locking it into place.  

Both men began to push at the boat, trying their best to loosen the melding of it to the makeshift dock of the riverbank. You and Cara shared an exasperated look at their efforts, knowing there was no way one man at full strength and one at half would be able to shift it.

Din showed his growing frustration by surging up and kicking at the side of the speeder. He stumbled from the reverb of his action, and you rushed to wrap your arms around his shoulders and catch and prevent him from falling completely. There was no telling what it would’ve done to the partial recovery he had made. You didn’t want him to lose consciousness again or irritate the injuries he was fighting against. It didn’t matter how well the bacta was working, he could always make the problem worse. To the point beyond a general healing spray and that…that wouldn’t be good. You doubted he would allow you to take him to a med center, even if it was run primarily by droids. Especially if it was run primarily by droids.

“Come on! What’re you doing?”

Din pulled from your grip, nearly shrugging you off in his move to retrieve a broken piece of piping that was scattered on the bank.

“Let’s try this.” Thankfully Cara had the same train of thought as you did, that it was futile to try and force the vehicle to separate from the shoreline. She adjusted the large blaster in her hold, keeping one arm wrapped securely around ad’ika.

“You guys mind getting out of the way?”

When the bolts didn’t work to detach the speeder, you held your hands out and harnessed the power curled up inside of you, feeling it in full force as you controlled it to focus on the body of the vehicle. A low whine sounded from deep in your chest as it didn’t budge, urging you to shift your focus on the rock keeping it tethered in place. It was silent for a moment, Din stepping up beside you to assure you that it wasn’t necessary for you to do so. His words were cut off by the metallic groaning of the boat prying away from the shore to float freely in the river.

He curled a hand around your shoulder, silently praising you. As he stepped forward to board, his gloved fingers trailed down the beskar protection you had been adorned with, almost caressing the signet fastened proudly into the metal. He held out a hand to help you bridge the gap between it and the heightened shore. Your heart thudding with a few heavy beats as you took it and boarded alongside him.

Mechanical beeping and whirring had all four of you turning with blasters raised toward the ferry droid that had suddenly activated. The rock attached to it crumbled away as it activated and stood. It was tall, towering over even Din, moving to displace a metal oar from where it had been hidden among the rock.

“I don’t suppose anyone here speaks droid?”

“I believe he is asking where we would like to go.” IG-11 translated.

“Down river. To the lava flat.” Karga spoke strongly, his voice holding an air of command to it, ensuring that there was no confusion to be taken by the new droid.

Minutes passed, a lot of them, your anxiety humming as you kept your head on a swivel to catch any warning signs of an ambush, of any swarms of soldiers erupting from within the tunnels sparse openings and out into the underground one that the river flowed through.

The skittering of small rodent like creatures along the shoreline caught your attention, more than a few of them pausing in their activity to gaze at you as the speeder past by. They were cute and ad’ika seemed to agree as he raised his claws from within the bag and waved at them. They chittered at him before moving on, unsure of what to make of the odd sight of your group traveling downstream.

“That’s it! We’re free!”

“No, we’re not.” A gloved hand pressed to the side of his helmet, displaying a view for Din that he described for everyone else. “Stormtroopers. They’re flanking the mouth of the tunnel. It looks like an entire platoon. They must know we’re coming.”

“They were ordered there to prevent us from escaping, even if we didn’t take this route. Moff Gideon wouldn’t chance it.” It had to have been him ensuring he didn’t lose you to the wilds of the planet, the landscape endless and easy to secure a hideaway. With the sun setting in mere hours, you could be lost for the night, enough time for your group to figure out a way off world.

Commanding the droid to stop the speeder from traveling down river was fruitless. It merely chirped and beeped, not heeding the sudden flux of words aimed at it. When it didn’t seem to understand anything, Karga fired on it. But that didn’t seem to stop the momentum of the speeder, now floating of its own accord toward the mouth of the tunnel, toward the sunlight and waiting ambush.

“We’re still moving.”

“Looks like we fight.”

“There are too many.”

“Then what do you suggest? Cause I can’t surrender.” Cara hissed, setting the bag down atop a seat in the bed of the speeder. Ad’ika gurgled, hands reaching up for someone, anyone to pick him back up. You were about to reach for him when IG-11 stepped forward to take him in its arms again.

“They will not be satisfied with anything less than the child and the Sith.”

“Not a Sith.” You hissed out, pinning the droid with a glare, lava spouting up around the speeder. Some of it splattered up against the side of the vehicle, the metal steaming as it melted under the contact.

“Apologies, I was inferring from-“

“You inferred wrong.”

“Understood. This is unacceptable. I will eliminate the enemy and you will escape.”

“You don’t have that kind of firepower, pal. You wouldn’t even get to daylight.” Din was quick to put a pin in that idea, not willing to give up the extra set of hands.

“That is not my objective.”

“We’re getting close. Saddle up.” Karga pointed towards the entrance mere yards away now.

“I still have the security protocols from my manufacturer. If my designs are compromised, I must self-destruct.”

“What are you talking about?” Confusion in his tone, Din faced the droid head on, trying to understand exactly the point it was trying to make.

“I am not permitted to be captured. I must be destroyed.”

“Are we gonna keep talking, or get out of here?”

“I can no longer carry this for you. Nor can I watch over the child.” IG-11 reached down to hand ad’ika over to Din, the armored man taking the bag with steady arms. Quiet thuds of tiny hands against his cuirass displayed the child’s delight.

“Wait. You can’t self-destruct. Your base command is to watch the child. That supersedes your manufacturer’s protocol, right?”

A pause.

“That is correct.”

“Good. Now grab a blaster and help us shoot our way out.”

“Victory through combat is impossible. We will be captured. The child will be lost. The woman will be lost.” IG-11 began to cross the width of the speeders bay, toward the right side of the vehicle. “Sadly, there is no scenario where the child is saved, in which I survive.”

“Listen, you’re not going anywhere. We need you. Let’s just come up with a…” Din’s words trailed off, no other solution coming to mind for him to voice.

“Please tell me the child will be safe in your care.” Head turned toward the armored man, waiting for confirmation. “If you do so, I can default to my secondary command.”

“But you’ll be destroyed.”

“And you will live, and I will have served my purpose.”

“No,” He sounded almost…remorseful. You could feel the conflicting emotions wafting from him, read it in the stance he had, the way his shoulders were set. “We need you.”

“There’s nothing to be sad about. I have never been alive.”

“I’m not…sad.” Din argued weakly.

“Yes, you are. I’m a nurse droid. I’ve analyzed your voice.”

IG-11 reached out a hand and caressed the tip of ad’ika’s ear in a parting gesture.

“What’re you doing?” Karga demanded as you all watched the droid step out from the deck of the speeder and down into the slow-moving river. The metal of its legs hissing at the sudden barrage of temperature. The mechanics tried to hold out as it trudged forward, flames licking up the sides slowly.

A pulsating alarm began to beep, a chasm in the chest piece opening up the second IG-11 was outside the mouth of the tunnel. A blinding explosion erupting seconds later. The screams of the waiting soldiers hurt your ears, the flash bright even behind shielded eyes. The speeder continued on, moving through the cloud of smoke and ash that lingered in the air.

The bodies of the dead soldiers were scattered and you tamped down a flood of memories from the last time you had been at the sight of such a directed attack on them.

There was no time to revel in the defeat, the screeching of a TIE fighter hurtling through the air and right at your groups position. Moff Gideon not giving up even in the face of losing another faction under his command. Cara and Din raised their blasters, prepared to shoot his ship from the air. It was not a match for the focused fire he laid down as the ship swooped low, though no hits landed directly over you.

“He missed!” Cara shouted out, hope coloring her words.

“He won’t next time.” You spoke evenly, wanting them to understand the situation at hand. The only way this was going to end was with someone’s death. Be it one of yours, all of yours, or Gideon’s. The conflict would drone on until the threat was eradicated, you just hoped that your side was the one that came out victorious.

“Our blasters are useless against him.”

“Hey, let’s make the baby do the magic hand thing. Come on, baby! Do the magic hand thing.” Karga waved his hand frantically in the air, prompting ad’ika to follow his command. But all the child did was wave back at him, cooing all the while with a curious expression.

“He doesn’t have that type of control.” You reasoned, not wanting to rely on ad’ika’s powers when thwarting the flame thrower had taken so much from him.

“He did it back in the cantina!” Karga argued, brow furrowed at his lack of understanding the nuances of something that could really help in their favor.

“He was emulating me, he doesn’t really have an understanding of harnessing his powers like that.”

“Give him some credit, jeez.”

“He needs to rest, he’s overwhelmed!”

“Then I’m out of ideas. If you refuse to use it yourself.”

“I never said I refused, I need a clean line of sight.” You looked over your shoulder, worried for ad’ika as he cried out at the heightened emotions between all four of you. You leaned down to rub a hand over his small back, ensuring he was snug in the bag. You tried to push a good feeling through the connection, wanting to comfort him in any way. A strike of pain rained down from the crown of your head and ad’ika’s small claws dug into the front of your tank top.

“I’m not out of ideas.” Din interrupted your harmless bickering, something in his town making you turn to him fully.

“Here he comes!” Distant roaring signaled that the ship was maneuvering and about to return.

Din set his blaster back in the holster on his hip. Reaching down with a grunt of effort to lift up the jetpack that had just been gifted to him, confirming your suspicions. There was no way he was healed enough to maneuver through the air with it, that he could pick it up so quickly and focus with his head having been cracked open. The phantom feel of his blood thick on your hands making you shake them out.

“She said to wait until you were healed!” You rushed forward and cupped your hands over his shoulders, hoping a gentle touch would help to convince him not to go through with what he was thinking. Urging him to listen, to consider that it was too much of a risk that he didn’t need to take. “You’ll injure yourself further, it’s not the only option.”

“It’s what we’ve got right now.” He reasoned calmly, chest heaving with deep breaths as he tried to move about like normal. He was feeling the weight of his full armor, you suspected, the jet pack adding to the struggle to keep up and focus.

The ship swooped low, too close for comfort, firing out in a wide line around the river’s edge. With a shout you stretched your arms out, the ship pivoting heavily to the right. The unexpected movement caused the remaining blasts to hit along the mouth of the tunnel. Deep rumbling signaled the collapse of the tunnels inside, the support of the opening damaged, sheets of broken rock crumbling into the river as the natural structure dissolved.

While you had turned your attention from him, Din had successfully docked the jet pack into the back panel of his armor. Eyes roving over the sight of him completely pieced together, you felt your heart skip a beat. Admiring the image he created against the expansive landscape, armor glinting in the lowering sun in a beautiful way.

And you couldn’t lose him. You wouldn’t.

Recovering from the manipulation, the TIE fighter was soaring directly toward you. Din was standing at the front of the speeder, stepped up on the lip of the vehicle. The engines on the TIE fighter lit up, whirring as they settled on their target. Din’s broad silhouette backed by the incoming threat sent chills down your spine. You blinked rapidly, his figure morphing into the image of a taller man, adorned in a deep blue armor instead of his pure beskar. The explosion of the shots along the ground as the ship neared shook the ground, dirt and pieces of the volcanic rock rising up high into the air. At the last second, before the shot inevitably hit the vehicle, Din bent his knees.

Without a look back at you, he took off into the air.

A cable flew from his vambrace at clicked onto the top of the ship, whipping the man forward as it surged past. You cringed, worry for his head flooding you. If he were to lose consciousness that high up in the air, got tossed off the ship….

You could only watch with the breath stolen from your lungs as he was whipped around, unable to gather his bearings. But he did, finally, jetpack sparking to life, and he grappled a desperate hold onto the body of the ship.

It suddenly began to spiral, controlled surely by a concerned Gideon. You gasped out, hands coming up to your mouth as you watched the body of armor crash into the wings of the ship, scrabbling to keep hold and not get tossed off.

“He’ll be okay, cyar’ika. We have to have faith in him.”

She had spoken a moment too soon because his body was flung from the ship, hurling through the air without a tether.

“No!” Voice hoarse, you scrambled over the errant items inside the space of the speeder. You jumped from the bed of the vehicle, onto the rocky shore of the river and began to sprint. Halting a few yards into the vast landscape, you held both your arms out and focused on the sight of a falling Din. The speed of his fall slowed, allowing him to swivel his head to take in the sight of you so far down below trying to aid him.

His arms flailed as he tried to help align himself as he tumbled through the air, thankful you were doing what you could to slow his rapid descent. As the TIE fighter lost a wing to a sudden explosion, flames and black smoke billowing up, did Din finally manage to engage his jetpack. As soon as he landed clumsily on the ground beside you, grunting at the force of the landing on his body, the ship crashed to the ground just beyond the small crest of a ridge.

Not even a second passed before you were rushing off toward it. Passing by Din with a focus he had only seen when you were in battle. Brows furrowed and eyes alight. Your name being shouted behind you as your legs carried you as fast as you could. You could faintly hear the scuffle between Cara and Din, her catching him as he tried to follow after you, warning him to be careful and that you could take care of yourself. That he had to trust in you that you wouldn’t go too far.

You panted, feeling immeasurable power surge through you. But it wasn’t the pure side of the Force you typically harnessed.

“That was impressive, Mando. Very Impressive.” Karga praised as he approached them. Din had convinced Cara he wouldn’t run after you, allowing her to focus on the child in her grip. Small claws reaching out for the armored man. Extending a shaking hand out, Din allowed the child to grip his gloved fingers.

“It looks like your Guild rates have just gone up. And Sarad’s set at an exceptional rate for a newcomer should she be interested.”

“I can’t speak on her behalf.” He gazed out at the landscape, in the direction of the ridge. He could make out with the help of his helmet, that you had just scaled the top of it, disappearing on the other side. You were upon the crash of the ship.

“Let’s get this speeder running, we can pick her up on the way back to the city.” Cara suggested, not wanting to leave you out in the plains along for too long. Agreement rang out, and they all loaded back up into the vehicle, Din slumping into a seat.

“Let’s go get your girl, Mando.”

“She’s not a possession.” Din hissed out, annoyance flaring.

“Oh, you know what I mean. Don’t read into the phrasing.”

The speeder was slow, mechanics lagging from being exposed to the heat of the river for so long.

Silence tense as it trudged across the open land.

“Her saber turned red.”

Din remained silent, not wanting to delve into speculation over what it meant.

The others seemed to understand that it wasn’t their place, even if they were simply showing concern for your wellbeing.

“You have no control!” You swung your saber, the hum of it lowering in pitch as you cut into the shoulder of the man beginning to crawl through the broken glass of the ship’s viewpoint. The body of it was smoldering, flames licking over the expanse of it, the result of the charges Din had managed to fasten to it.

“You’re weak. You will always be weak. That’s why the pull to the dark side is so strong in you. It can sense that you need guidance, that you need control. And it will take everything from you as it transforms you in its image.” Gideon huffed out, surging forward despite the blood seeping into the fabric of his clothing.

“You’ll fall to it, you’ll give into it with no one to guide you. And you’ll turn that innocent, unsuspecting child in your image. You will experience nothing else, only darkness and destruction and the death of those around you.”

He tore himself out of the debris, standing to his full height and engaging a blade that hummed in much the same way as your lightsaber. It was lined like a true blade, black that gave way to bright white of a kyber crystal housed in the handle.

It stopped you in your tracks. The bright glow of it captivating you, whispers seeping from it and tickling your mind. So distracted as you were, you could only step back with each approaching one of his. Your own weapon hanging low at your side, crackling in a response to the enchanting blade in the man’s hand. 

“Couldn’t save your beloved guardian and you’re not going to be able to save your delusional Mandalorian now. I will have his head if it’s the last thing I do. I will have the head of your precious child if it’s the last thing I do. They will die, they will both fall. You won’t be able to save the man you love. Again. It means more to me than anything to bring them down and take what I want from your lifeless bodies.”

You exhaled heavily as you plunged your saber out. The harsh crack of the blades connecting echoed across the plains. You merely blocked his attacks, gauging his style and still too enamored by the twin pulls of the dark tendrils wrapping around your ankles and that of the weapon in the man’s possession. When it glided across the armor you had been gifted, you snapped out of your defensive reverie, teeth gritting as you returned the gesture.

He grunted when you sliced into his shoulder a second time, arm going limp at his side as the blade cut into the space between his own armor that allowed for movement. His eyes widened as he realized you weren’t going to succumb to the energy wafting from you, that it wasn’t overpowering you in the way that he had anticipated, that he had seen before as you struggled against it. Unwilling to succumb to the pull of it, the almost sentient energy. You were harnessing it. And he allowed a smirk to pull at his lips.

“So predictable, dear San.” He pressed forward, holding his useless arm to his side. Taking the injury in stride if it meant that you were crumbling. “Falling into the same traps time and time again. So easily manipulated. When will you learn that there is nothing more for you than the title of a Sith?”

Your blade crackled, gaining intensity to its glow, white tinted at the base of it. The red seeping into the entire thing, casting your face in the light.

“There is no love for someone like you. Not of a parent, not of a guardian, not that of a partner. You were born to this, the rise to power with the dark side. Nothing else will come to you, your foolish Mandalorian will see your true nature soon enough and abandon you. His history suggests he only cares about his people, his Creed. What could he possibly want from you, so steeped in emotion and vulnerability.”

Swiping at his feet, he stumbled, cape fluttering as tried to catch himself on his knees. But you were throwing him toward the rubble of the ship with an outstretched hand. He could do nothing as he felt the energy wrap itself around him and command his body as if it was its own. He cried out as the broken metal of the frame bit into his back. The snap of his armor against it was loud. Gasping suddenly as he couldn’t breathe in, the air stolen from his very lungs.

Wide eyes turned to you, hand clenched in a fist as you constricted his airways. Watching with an unnerving calmness as the blood vessels in his eyes began to bleed, the veins in his neck began to bulge, his dark skin taking on a ruddy tone as he struggled.

With heaving breaths, you dismantled the TIE fighter down with your saber until it was nothing but a pile of smoldering metal and broken glass. Barricading the man inside.

Just as you began to distance yourself from the ship, the speeder from the river appeared over the ridge, moving toward you. Sighing, you waited for it to stop at the bottom before trudging on. Not risking it getting too close to the flames and smoke of the TIE fighters remains.

“You should get checked out, ad’ika too.” Your words were flat as you approached the group of them alongside the speeder. Din was leaning heavily against the side of it, helmet slumped, the bottom of it resting on his cuirass. Everyone perked up at the scuff of your approaching form.

“No.” Breathless, he could barely get the word out though it sounded strong to your ears through the modulator. The mechanics hiding the way his expression was pinched and his eyes were blinking rapidly against the pain reverberating through his entire body. You could sense his discomfort, the way his heart was beating irregularly, attuned to him in such a personal way enhanced through the pulse of dark energy flowing through you still.

You sighed, frustration building up at the recollection of how he could barely move mere hours ago and his refusal to let you try to heal him. Gideon’s confident words echoing in your head, incessantly.

“I’m not letting you fly without medical clearance.”

“Let me?” His helmet rounded on you, surprise through the modulator. The glint of the sun on the visor mirrored how his eyes did so underneath as he pushed away from the side of the vehicle. “I’m a grown man.”

“Yes.”

“All I need to do is get back to the ship.”

“Then you’ll go alone.”

“…you’re staying behind?” Hesitancy clear through the modulator. His back was to you, having turned to take in the smoking pile of what was once the TIE fighter in the distance.

“To help them free the city, yes. To ensure everyone is safe. To get supplies and more bacta for you. Whatever else we may need to combat your injuries.” You softened, features displaying the exhaustion weighing you down. Your hands were fiddling with the pendant he had given you, the shine of the beskar in the sunlight bright between your fingers. “I…I would really appreciate it if you humored me and got a scan done at the med center. Just…just so we know what’s wrong and how to heal it.”

“I’m fine.”

“But I’m not.” He whirled around quickly, too quickly, his footing unbalanced at the motion, and he stumbled. The question of what was wrong on the tip of his tongue when you trained your shining eyes on his visor. “Din, I- I need to know you’re okay. Truly okay. Please.”

He turned back around, unable to take in the sight of the earnest concerns falling from your lips, the tears threatening to fall.

He didn’t take his gaze from the distant crash sight, helmet overlooking the scene through different lenses, ensuring that the threat was truly eradicated.

“I can’t look after you if you don’t let me. And before you say it’s not my job, Din, it is. You made it so when you announced your intentions to court me with the Armorer.”

“You think I have regrets in doing so?” Timbre of his voice low, a warning in his tone that sent alarm bells ringing in your head. The first real conflict between you both, weighing heavily in the tense air.

“No.” Was your immediate answer, truth behind the word though it was spoken in a tight voice.

“Do you?”

“No! I just want to make sure you’re okay. That’s it, I’m not…I’m not trying to do anything except for that but if you think I’m trying to get your kriffing helmet off so I can see you when you’ve explicitly told me you didn’t want to and I know the customs then then-“ You scrambled to remove the beskar fastened around your shoulders and thrust it into his chest. You hadn’t even wanted to say those things, furl the accusation at him along with the armor, but something compelled you to. Anger striking harshly and taking hold. Manipulating you into succumbing to it, the feeling of a pit opening inside your mind. Dark and beckoning. He swayed back with the force of it pressed to him, modulator crackling as he realized you were completely serious. “Maybe we were foolish to entertain the thought. Leave. Just go, Din.”

“Mesh’la-“ His knuckles popped as he held the armor in his hands, wound as tight as he could ever remember, a thrumming low in his head that was steadily gaining momentum and making it hard to focus. He could feel the energy flowing from you, see it in the twitching of your muscles and the lack of control you seemed to have over your words. It was unlike you, to raise your voice, to be so unwilling to hear him out, to take his words into account. He was trying his best to keep up but he wasn’t handling it well, he knew that. He…he felt so nauseas and dizzy and he just wanted to rest.

“I have a name.”

“San, I didn’t- I don’t think that. I did not say that, do not put words in my mouth.”

“Well, you’re not exactly saying anything now are you!”

“Because I don’t have anything to say! It’s been a long day and I just want to return to the ship.”

“I think maybe we should all just- not calm down!” Cara rushed to say at the heated looks her way. The intensity of them unnerving her. “Not calm down but put a pin in this and get back to the city.”

“Fine with me.”

“I’ll meet you back at the Crest.”

Din took a few steps away from the speeder, preparing to take off with the aid of his jetpack once again.

He paused as you gasped out, trembling hands causing you to lose your hold on the speeders edge as you tried to climb in. Clenching his eyes tight and taking a deep breath, he walked back toward you. His hands didn’t linger when he helped you board this time, taking a seat at the back bench and facing out toward the plains.

When you sat down on the other side of the bench, he slowly moved to fasten the armor back to your shoulders. He silently thanked the Maker that you allowed him to do it, allowed him to fasten his signet back onto you. He wasn’t one for outward expressions but it eased his heart that you still wanted to display in even in the wake of an argument. The gravity of you choosing to wear something that signified him was not lost on him, words of a time past where you had cried out that you would never submit to anyone again echoing in his mind as the speeder traveled on.  

“Are you going to talk to me?” You knew you should give him some space, give him time to process the events of the day. To rest and feel more like himself. But you couldn’t help it, couldn’t fight the push to confront him, emotions a whirlwind inside your chest. Dark pit opened up right in the middle and tainting everything that you were. You watched on as if you weren’t in your own body, as you continued to push the man’s buttons until you both snapped.

The silence was heavy, his shoulders tight underneath his armor, hands busy searching for something within the panels making up the walls. For what, you weren’t sure. He had been silent the entire walk back to the ship, to where you had moved to closer to the entrance of the city while he underwent a general scan to ensure his injuries would heal completely. It had taken a lot of convincing, and he hadn’t been too happy with the way you begged him. Though he knew you hadn’t done so to intentionally manipulate him. You were just concerned.

It was just that he was accustomed to dealing with injuries on his own. Returning to the covert for serious things he needed help with. The migraine building in strength overwhelming him in the worst way paired with your insistence on sticking around for the rest of the day irking him. He knew it was unjustified, that he should find it endearing that you cared so much about the city and those within it, but he wanted nothing more than to retire to his personal space and put as much distance between the planet and himself as possible.

“Din, your skull was cracked open. You-your brain was exposed, and you wanted me to leave you there to die alone!”

“I didn’t want you to see it, to have to go through that, to carry that with you!” He turned sharply, voice a rumble as he realized there was no getting out of this conversation. He had hoped you wouldn’t bring it up so immediately, that you would approach him in a calmer manner when you could sense he was willing to talk.

This was unlike you. To yell and holler, to berate him with accusations. You were scared, he realized. And the dark pull of the Force was making you lash out. His actions had scared you beyond comprehension and control, you didn’t know how to cope with that chasm opened up in your psyche to allow for the tendrils to spark to life and the pit to open up. He didn’t fault you, though he did have an issue with the way you insisted on confrontation.

Emotions too bold overcoming him as he paired them with the words you had whispered to him as he lay dying in the rumble just hours ago.

“That’s not your choice to make!”

“I am not arguing about this!” He snapped, unable to quell the urge to match your volume.

“Too bad! You don’t get a say in that either!! You have to talk to me, please, just…help me understand.”

“You know the Creed, you know it’s an honor to die in battle. If I was willing to give up my life, it’s not your place to tell me otherwise.”

“Din, I could’ve healed you, I could’ve tried. I could’ve saved you.” You weren’t crying, body too worked up for even that, hurt and fear twisted into an ugly thing and making you something you weren’t.

They will die, they will both fall. You won’t be able to save the man you love. Again.

“I was ready to die.” He didn’t break the gaze he had on you, reading the emotions flitting across your face. “I was ready to die for you both to get to safety, for all of you to make an escape.”

“So you’re allowed to sacrifice yourself for me but I can’t do the same? That’s bullshit and you know it. Not allowing me to take on what I could’ve so you could live another day doesn’t warrant even a conversation?”

Anxiety was like a layer too tight skin over your entire body, making it hard to take in a full breath, to concentrate past the throbbing of your head.

“I could’ve saved you.” You repeated, lips pulled down in a frown, trying to keep the tears at bay, the trembling of your lips prone to give you away. “You-you said you loved me and then wanted to die. I could’ve saved you. I could’ve, I couldn’t, I-I-“

All of your breath left you in a sudden gasp and your words cut off as you snapped your mouth shut, teeth clacking with the motion. You tried to breathe in through your nose, but a wave of nausea overtook you and you clamped a hand over your mouth. The lingering scent of sulfur twisting your stomach. It was an ill-timed realization paired with how suddenly acutely aware of how intense you were being, how overwhelmed you were on already shot nerves. That it was the dark pit pulling you inward, inch by inch, dark temptations reaching out and wrapping around more and more of your legs while you could do nothing to fight it.

“Mesh’la…”

“I need a minute, please, just…give me a fucking minute!” You shouted, flinging out a hand toward the approaching shadow. Toward the rampage of memories plaguing you. Your voice raw as it tore through your throat. There was a sharp clang of metal on metal, but your mind was overrun by the barrage of screams and pleas overtaking your ears. The hum of your blade as it shown red all around you, reflecting in the dead eyes and on the metal walls of the ship you had destroyed in your grief. Of the wreckage caused by the crash, bathed in the sickly color.

Red, red, red. It was everywhere, all over the walls, all over your hands, your clothes, the warm feeling of it saturating you and seeping into your skin. The sight of it burned into the very synapses of your mind, pooled underneath the body of a man you loved, pooled underneath the body of a man you were in love with. Your ears began to ring, all sound muffled.

Nothing else will come to you, your foolish Mandalorian will see your true nature soon enough and abandon you. His history suggests he only cares about his people, his Creed.

Your chest hurt, heart stuttering as it tried to regulate itself in the wake of your hitching breath, unable to take a full one and calm down. The world tilted on its axis, and you went with it. Falling physically to the ground, mentally down into the void taking over more of your psyche until it was all you knew. Vision blacking out. As it did, the entire ship lurched. It took a moment for the mechanical software programmed into the ship to correct the trajectory.

All Din could do was watch as your unconscious form fell from where you had flung him across the hold, body pinned to the wall as your mind broke in a way he had been trying to prevent. Everything fastened to the walls and the panel covers had been vibrating with the force of your words and emotions, harnessing the Force unconsciously as you tried to confront him. As soon as your body hit the durasteel floor, muscles going loose did the hold you have on him diminish and everything went still.

He slumped down, backside hitting the ground, body aching all over.

It was only a moment until one of the engines began to spark then groaned. The ship lurched again, alarms beeping, lights flickering, spurring him into action. Din rushed up to the control room, remorse for having to leave you unconscious on the floor of the hold.

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dividers: by the lovely @saradika-graphics

[dyns33]

The way to communicate

Being a while since I did a Din Djarin x female reader.

It was rare for Din Djarin to get angry.

It's hard to say if it was because of his creed or if it was in his temperament, but he did his best to always keep his cool.

Becoming the father of a little green gremlin who had a hobby of getting into mischief probably forced him to be even more patient than he was before finding the kid, or meeting Y/N.

Even when the little one put himself in danger, Din didn't scream. Maybe he knew it wouldn't have any effect on Grogu, but he gently picked him up, using an equally gentle voice to scold him.

“I already told you not to do that.” he often sighed, patting the child's head. "You know you risk choking if you swallow a whole frog. Especially since you've already had two meals, you're not hungry."

“Gah !”

"No."

Y/N watched the scene with sparkling eyes and trying to hide her smile, because a great Mandalorian warrior, no matter how patient, probably wouldn't like to be thought of as adorable. He was supposed to be scary and awesome.

When he was with Grogu, Din Djarin wasn't scary at all. He didn't scream when the little one drew on the walls, or hid in a corner, or played with the buttons. Never.

Of course, it wasn't the same with enemies or bounties. He didn't like killing, he would avoid it if possible, but he had no problem accomplishing his mission without the slightest remorse. It was the Way.

Honor, strength, and protection of his clan were his priorities. As he was patient, Din was discreet. A man of few words, preferring actions.

Because of this, Y/N wasn’t sure where she stood in relation to his family. After she helped him find a former Empire general, while risking her life to protect his son, they had stayed together.

At first, Din had considered himself indebted to her. Then, he offered her a job, seeing that she took good care of Grogu when he was absent and that she had some knowledge of mechanics, very useful when the ship had some problems.

But could she consider herself a member of the clan ? Y/N wasn’t sure.

It would have been easy to ask the Mandalorian directly. He would then have clearly answered whether he saw her as a member, or as just a flying partner who took care of his child.

Asking the question directly meant taking the risk of having to face reality and accept the possibility that she wasn't as important to Din as he and Grogu were to her.

She therefore preferred to say nothing and take advantage of the time offered to her with them, experiencing many adventures, as well as wonderful moments.

Until the announcement.

"There are no new contracts at the moment and Grogu needs some rest, so we'll head back home to Nevarro."

"Oh. Okay. I'll probably go to Coruscant then. You can contact me if necessary." Y/N said without looking at him, continuing to play with the kid.

"… I'll drop you off."

The silence in the ship grew colder than calm as they headed toward Coruscant.

Rather than wait to get there, Din decreed that it was necessary to make several stops to buy supplies, check that they had enough energy, that the engine had no problems, and lots of small details that wasted their time unnecessarily.

"We could do all of this on Coruscant. It's not that far."

“I don’t want to take a risk.”

"But we checked everything before the last mission and…"

“I said we were stopping for water !” the Mandalorian then repeated with a loud voice and violently placing his hands on the dashboard.

This made Y/N jump, but also Grogu, who stared at his father with wide eyes, full of surprise and fear. Visibly ashamed of his reaction, Din sighed before muttering that he needed to cool off, leaving them alone in the cockpit.

Things didn't get better when they arrived in Mos Eisley. Not really wanting to stay idle, Y/N took advantage of the little one's nap to go for a walk in the market, while Din chatted with Peli.

She didn't want to go to Coruscant at all and all these stops might have been a blessing, but like with a bandage, she knew it would be better to leave right away rather than torture herself like this.

It was normal that the clan wanted to go home to rest. It was normal that she wasn't invited since she wasn't part of the clan.

What was less normal was Din's behavior, who seemed to avoid her as much as possible and be tense whenever they were in the same room. He had no reason to be angry with her, who continued to work normally despite her sadness.

The situation was also complicated for Grogu, who felt that something was wrong between the two adults. The poor kid ate less, sticking to Y/N every chance he got. It was almost impossible to get him off.

So Y/N wanted to take advantage of this little moment alone to get out of the ship and clear her head.

She didn't expect to be caught by bounty hunters who had spotted the Mandalorian's arrival. Despite Moff Gideon's death, there were still some people who wanted Din Djarin's head.

Since he was training Grogu to be a fighter, Din had also shown her some techniques, so she could defend herself if needed. Although he always added that it wouldn't be necessary, since he would be there to protect her.

Fighting a nice Mandalorian who held back his punches was one thing. Trying to do the same thing with three guys who didn't care about hurting her was something else.

Fortunately for Y/N, when she had just taken a blow to the nose which had made her fall to the ground and the leader of the gang approached to pick her up, Din arrived at that moment, quickly shooting the brigands without missing a target.

He then ran to pick Y/N up and take her back to the ship to tend to her injuries. Wanting to help when he saw her bleeding, the kid used his powers before his father had time to grab the first aid kit.

The panic subsided, a long silence returned, only broken by the little noises of Grogu asking to be carried by Y/N. But when she moved to lean towards him, the Mandalorian spoke.

"What possessed you to leave alone ? Without a word, without saying where you were going ? You were lucky that I noticed your absence and went looking for you."

"I didn't think I needed permission. And I didn't ask to be attacked."

"That's not what I said. But you could have gotten kidnapped ! You could have died ! Why didn't you tell me you were leaving ?! I thought… I thought that you left us. That you had gone to find another means of transportation to Coruscant."

“Why would I do that, since you’re taking me there ?”

“Don’t pretend to be stupid !” Din then shouted, pointing at her, almost scaring her.

The gesture probably scared Grogu more than her, who knew he was going to do nothing but scream like an idiot, but something happened that they would have thought impossible.

With his powers, the child pushed his father against the wall of the ship, as far away from Y/N as possible, then he jumped on her knees, clinging to her while moaning in fear.

The two adults remained frozen. Even though she couldn't see his face, Y/N could guess Din's shocked and hurt look, who understood that his son had thought he was capable of hurting the one he seemed to consider his mother. He saw fear in Grogu's eyes.

"No, I… I shouldn't have shouted." he whispered as he sat on the ground, lowering his head in shame. "Sorry."

"It's okay. I know you weren't going to do anything."

“Obviously he doesn’t know.”

“He doesn’t like shouting.” Y/N said, stroking Grogu’s head to comfort him. "He doesn't like arguments. We should go to Coruscant quickly, it would be better for everyone."

“You really want to leave us so quickly ?”

Din's voice almost broke at the end of his sentence. Y/n stared at him, but he didn't raise his head to look back at her, thus not seeing that she didn't understand his question.

"… You're the one who wants me to leave. So you can return to your home to Nevarro."

"… I meant our home. Grogu, you and me. I thought… I thought you understood, Cyare, but you rejected the invitation. I thought I misunderstood and that you didn't want to to be part of our clan."

“You mean… I’m part of the clan ?”

"Of course." the Mandalorian whispered, finally looking at her. "Mesh'la, we have traveled together for so long. We fight together. We raise Grogu together. I know our customs are different, and we haven't taken our vows yet, but…"

"Our vows ?!"

"… Yes. I've been courting you for a while. You accepted the gifts. You train with me. You let me kiss you. I didn't think it wasn't clear. Forgive me, cyare, I shouldn't have had any illusions."

Words were less important than actions to the Mandalorians, even if they had certain songs and rites. Y/N totally didn't understand that receiving a weapon and touching the helmet with your forehead had special meanings, and Din hadn't told her that.

In his corner, Grogu had only understood that his parents loved each other, because that was obvious, and they just needed to be together to be happy. The rest didn't matter.

All it would have taken was for Din to take them back to Nevarro without opening his mouth, and Y/N would have been surprised but delighted to be welcomed into their little home. Instead, he had tried to communicate, and it had been a disaster.

Now the son was afraid, trembling against Y/N who was processing the fact that Din had been thinking about marrying her for some time, until he realized that he had done everything wrong.

He had yelled at his clan, even if it was because he was afraid of losing Y/N. He hadn't known how to protect them properly. He was covered with shame.

"I don't want to go to Coruscant."

Since he didn't move, too busy determining if he had poked his head by being thrown by the Force, Y/N slowly got up, keeping Grogu close to her, to join him on the ground.

"I was disappointed that you didn't ask me to come. It wasn't clear to me that I was part of the clan, but it was my dearest wish. To stay with you and the little one. If you still want of me…"

“Cyare !” Din sighed, taking her hand. “Nothing would make me happier.”

“Bah ga ba !”

Grogu stirred then, patting his father's hand insistently so that he let go of Y/N's, his large eyes piercing the Mandalorian's berskar.

"... I have already apologized."

“Pato !”

"… I'm sorry for scaring you, and for yelling at Y/N. I won't do it again. I will never hurt any of you. And I'll make sure there are no misunderstandings before drawing conclusions."

“Aaaaaaaah.” was Grogu's response, who smiled again, holding out his arms to be picked up by Din, who complied without hesitation.

This made his parents laugh. They hadn't laughed in a long time.

The ship's coordinates were changed to go directly to Nevarro. No need to make any more unnecessary detours, since all the stops they had made so far were useless. Din was only trying to buy time, not knowing how to get Y/N to stay.

“So, you talked about vows ?” she said shyly as they landed, the kid sleeping on top of her.

"Later, Mesh'la. My request wasn't very romantic."

“Mandalorians worry about romance ?”

"No. But I imagine it will please you."

Y/N could have said she didn’t need all this. Knowing that he saw her as a member of his clan, as the mother of his son, was enough. But she didn't want another misunderstanding that might hurt Din, and she would be happy to be his wife, so she just nodded.

There was no more arguing, no more shouting. Not even when Grogu swallowed the ring that Din had the Armorer make. He simply sat down in a corner, grunting while tapping his helmet, while the little one hiccupped, regretting having eaten the little shiny circle.

“We can get it back in a few days.”

"No."

“We’ll clean it up.”

"Cyare, there's no way I'm giving you a gift that was eaten by the kid and which passed… Hmm !"

Luckily, the ring was spat out, but it took a while for Din to agree to take it back, and then officially offer it to Y/N. He insisted on going to Mandalore to purify it in the waters, while announcing to his peers that he would soon have a riduur.

He didn't bring Y/N and Grogu with him on this trip. The little one was too tired, and someone had to watch over him.

“Karga could have kept him.” Y/N remarked when Din had returned.

"He would have ended up losing his mind after Grogu destroyed everything in his office. I don't think the kid would have liked to be left alone either. Besides…"

"What ?"

"You are beautiful, Mesh'la. Some Mandalorians might have wanted to take you. I would have had to fight and kill them to prove that you are mine. I preferred to avoid that."

It sounded ridiculous, but he said it very seriously, his tone quickly becoming dry and somber.

Din Djarin did not often get angry, except when it concerned the protection of his clan, when someone tried to hurt them or take them from him. He hid his anger and jealousy beneath his armor, but it was there, ready to come out against those who had the audacity to confront him.

But never against Y/N and Grogu. Only for them.

[clareguilty]

Kinktober 2024

Howdy y'all! I JUST turned in my dissertation so I'm all done with grad school. This means I'll be able to do Kinktober this year <3 I can't guarantee that I'll be able to continue after this year but I also don't want to feel like I'm scaring people into participating. I just want to let everyone know that I really do love these events and I look forward to it all year, so I may try and find a way to make it work even after this one.

I’m looking at opening up about 5 slots this year with recommended donations of $18-22 for ~2k words per piece.

Reserved

Open

Open

Open

Open

I'm starting early so I have plenty of time to write between my other projects, and also to hopefully give everyone more time to get a slot.

Fandoms I will write for include (I'm so sorry I've been living in a shack without internet I'm not caught up on anything):

COD MW2

RDR2

Resident Evil 8 Lady Dimitrescu

Mandalorian

Witcher

Signalis (NOT Adler)

Guidelines

Reader insert only as always

Specify the gender of the reader character. I write cis and trans characters I just need specifics

Give me a detailed prompt with enough specifics and meat for me to go off of. A setup, a trope, please specify who is dominant/giving/topping in NSFW scenarios.

I don’t write modern AU for RDR2 and pregnancy is a squick for me. Otherwise, I feel like I've gotten more comfortable with ALL the fucked up and weird kinks. Try me. I don't judge.

Also, feel free to combine 2 or 3 kinks into one prompt if you think they’d go well together!

[gffa]

The latest ending of Ahsoka really made me realize one of the big problems with Felony's writing and why so much of the Masndo-verse and Felony's modern writing falls flat compared to OWK and Andor. Shock value. A BIG twist cliffhanger that leaves us all mouth open and HYPING up the next episode in hope and filling the forums with discussions in anticipation. Understandably, he can't write what we wrote in our heads for 7 days and top that. 1.

2. But once that shock is gone when the story has moved onto the next big thing, or you watch it again when you know what it pays off in, or watch the whole series or season again, it just doesn't hold up. It's empty. Vapid. Because it's all about the shock. The twist. The discussion. The hype fodder. It's not saying anything or adding anything. OWK and Andor was a lot better at that, without the use of the nostalgia baiting that Felony relies on. 3. It becomes an endless circle of low lows and high highs, while OWK and Andor both slowly built up to the crescendo of discussions and speculations and both have stayed in the fandom consciousness alot longer thanks to that. And because they have something to say, both to the world and to the viewer. While with the Felony and the Fraudrou verses, it's just a constant barrage of oh wow, moving on, what's next? ehh, it's over, let's move on.

I feel like one day I'm going to do a longer analysis on why exactly Filoni's writing feels weak to me (where I try to be more fair than I'm usually feeling about his writing), because I don't think he's without a lot of talent and there's certain things he really does get about Star Wars, but I think so much comes back to that he's a writer who is caught in a difficult position--playing in someone else's sandbox but has to now establish his own new corners of that sandbox and I'm not sure he's strong enough to be a big picture kind of guy when he works better in smaller focus. His work on TCW and Rebels is content that we do come back to again and again for analysis, during my rewatches of both those series, those shows hold up! But I think they're ones where he had stronger guardrails up, and he was forced to stick to things in one place. I think live action has been bad for Filoni's writing because of the way so much is structured, that there are multiple series going on and I feel like his writing doesn't have the patience to actually tell a story in a single space, that's why we get Grogu's story being split between The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, that's why we get Mandalore's story being splintered across Rebels, The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and now Ahsoka. We still haven't even seen half of the events that happen in the Mandalore bigger story! And you're right that he and Favreau both lean too hard on the cameos and echoes/rhymes for nostalgia's sake. And those reference points are often extremely fun in the moment! And I'll grant that the Luke episodes are ones I go back to fairly often, because I think there's some really good content in there about what attachment actually means. But I don't think it's that surprising, looking back, how quickly the Favroni shows fell apart for us and how it doesn't feel like they're establishing anything that can support a bunch of books and comics. I suspect that Disney's not allowed to have books/comics/etc. based on Favroni's shows because they want creative control over those characters while they're still actively writing for them, but also I look at the OT and the PT and look how much was built off those movies+TCW as a foundation, I look at how much you're able to still watch those and find new things to analyze, and I just don't feel that with Filoni's writing anymore, not since Rebels, not to that level, anyway. (I'll grant that I've been a lot more excited about the Ahsoka series and what we can say about it/find in analyzing it than I expected, I expected nothing but shitposts like we did with Mandalorian s3, but I've had fun with serious meta in Ahsoka! I was genuinely excited to come on-line after episode 4 and talk about themes and structure and how well Filoni did with that there!) Ultimately, I think Filoni (and Favreau) both have a lot of talent, but I think they're being pushed too hard to make too much too quickly and that it shows that they're making this up as they go along, rather than that they had a vision they've been crafting for years and any kind of idea of where they want the end goal to be. Like, yeah, Lucas wrote some stuff on the fly, he changed his mind about things along the way, but he had an end point in mind for his story, so the echoes/rhymes felt more resonant for me. Favroni don't feel like they have any idea where they're going and so much winds up feeling like shock value and self-reference for nostalgia bad for me instead of something that's Going Somewhere.

[theewokingdead]

Morning Sickness - Din Djarin x f!Reader (Another Way Universe)

Pairing: Din Djarin/The Mandalorian x f!Reader (Another Way Universe) Summary: Din learns some things about pregnancy while helping you through a bout of morning sickness. Word Count: 800+ Rating: No rating, blog is 18+. Content: Nausea/vomiting. Pregnancy. Tooth-rotting fluff. The usual teasing/banter. A/N: I found some stuff that I had written but didn't make the final cut when writing the main story. This takes place in the middle of Chapter 8 of "Another Way" but it can be read on its own. I miss writing for these two. I'll get to the epilogue eventually, I swear, so don't yell at me @pedropascalsx

Masterlist

Eyes fluttering open, you wake to find Din gone. Intent on finding him, you swing your legs over the edge of the bed. The second you sit up, your head starts to spin. Your stomach turns over, and it feels as though the contents of your last meal are now fighting their way back up through your throat. Taking steady breaths, you pray it will subside soon.

Mouth filling with saliva, and the taste of bile rising from the back of your throat, you know it's past the point of no return.

You stumble out of bed, barely able to keep your balance as you make your way to the bathroom. Your stomach convulses and you heave, emptying the contents of your stomach into the toilet. The retching is violent, and you feel like you're going to cough up your insides. Finally, the spasms subside, and you slump against the cool porcelain of the bowl, panting heavily.

You hear a rustling behind you, and you turn your head to see Din standing in the doorway, concern etched on his face.

"Are you okay?" he asks, crossing the room to kneel beside you.

You shake your head, unable to speak, and he rubs soothing circles on your back as you try to catch your breath. After a moment, you manage to sit up, and he hands you a damp washcloth to wipe your mouth.

"I'm sorry," you mutter, feeling embarrassed and weak.

Din shakes his head. "If anyone should be sorry it's me. I did this to you."

“Pretty sure we played an equal part in it.” You offer him a weak smile, which he returns. “I just hope this doesn’t last much longer.”

“Me too. Not sure I can stand to see you sick for another year or so.”

“Another year or so?” you repeat, your eyebrows screwed in confusion as you look at him. “What do you mean? We only have seven more months before the baby comes - if that.”

“What?” Din immediately question, his voice filled with shock and confusion.

“What do you mean ‘what?’ Pregnancy only lasts 40 weeks.”

“What?” he repeats.

You can’t help but laugh. “Haven’t you been around pregnant women, Din?”

“Yes, but I’ve never had a reason to care about the length of their, uh…”

“Gestation?” you question.

“Yeah. I just assumed it’s a long time, like banthas.”

“Wait a minute. You’re telling me you know the gestational period of a bantha, but not a human being?” you question, laughing. “Maker, Din. You never cease to surprise me. I mean, fuck, do I like a seven-foot-tall hairy beast that will someday drop a hundred-pound newborn?”

Din chuckles, his expression softening as he wraps an arm around your shoulders. "No, you're much more beautiful than a bantha," he says, pressing a kiss to your temple.

You lean into him, grateful for his love and support. “Good answer.”

“You think the little tadpole will let you get up?”

“Little tadpole?” you question.

“Better than bantha. Or ‘parasite’ as you so lovingly refer to our child.”

 With a smirk, you reply, “Ah, is it because Gungans are born as tadpoles?”

Din sighs. “I set myself up for that, didn’t I?”

“You did.” You stand up, using the sink for support. “I just hope that doesn’t mean I have to give birth in a bog.”

Din chuckles, standing alongside you. “I'll make sure to find the most comfortable place for you to give birth, even if it means taking down an entire empire to do it."

You roll your eyes but can't help the fond smile that tugs at your lips. "You know, for a guy who claims he's not romantic, you sure do know how to make a girl feel special."

He stands up, towering over you, and leans in to press a gentle kiss to your forehead. "You are special, and I'll do anything to make sure you and our tadpole are safe and happy."

You wrap your arms around his neck and pull him into a deeper kiss, feeling a warmth spread through your body. In this moment, you forget the nausea and the discomfort, and all you can think about is how lucky you are to have this man by your side.

As he pulls away, he brushes a strand of hair behind your ear and gives you a mischievous grin. “And who knows, maybe giving birth in a bog will be a new experience for us. We can add it to our list of adventures.”

You laugh and shake your head. "I think I'll pass on that one, thank you very much."

Din pulls you in for another kiss, his hands sliding down to rest on your waist. You feel a familiar heat building between your legs, and you can tell he's feeling it too. “Maybe we should continue this in the bedroom," he suggests, his voice low and husky.

You nod, a flush spreading across your cheeks. “Lead the way, Mando.”

As he takes your hand and leads you back to bed, you can't help but feel grateful for this man, for this life you've created together, for the little tadpole growing inside of you. You know there will be more challenges ahead, more moments of discomfort and fear, but as long as you have Din by your side, you know you can do anything.

[divinehedons]

BABE, babe, i need more of Din in Fallen Gods, PLEASE

thank you so much for reaching out! this bounty hunter lives on my mind rent free, so here's what's been on my mind:

cw: pregnancy, implied non/dubcon, implied predator/prey dynamics, i just really needed to get this out of my head, okay

no thoughts, just overbearing din djarin and pregnant reader post the events of fallen gods.

upon finding out about your pregnancy, the mandalorian would absolutely spoil you. adi'ka, come have some fruit. so much of it, day after day after day, following your every move, monitoring even the air that entered your lungs. all for our cyari'ka. our little one is too precious for anything dangerous.

you'd run, of course, you're perfectly capable. you leave him a message that you just want to be left alone. only that makes it worse. he hears your voice, and it sends him on a rampage across the galaxy, the bounty hunter on your scent like the shadow you can't quite shrug off. you know how the mandalorian works. you know how capable he is. and you know he's chasing after you. it's almost so easy for him. everything is too easy when he thinks of the life growing in the warm cradle of your flesh- little heart beating and calling for him across the galaxy. he had found you once when all signs pointed to your death. finding you again was child's play.

it still takes time. when he does find you again, your womb has filled out with your unborn child. you left without the bump evident against your skin, and now, your steps are stilted. by the maker, you waddle now. he sees the way you sit, the way your breath comes out in shaky intervals as sweat bead your forehead.

it's all the more easier, then. all the more easier to lay you on the nearest surface, chuckling at the way you groan at the relief it brings your back. cya're, how could you bear all that when you obviously needed my help? he tries to imagine how you must have borne the brunt of such a pregnancy. the morning sicknesses, your changing body, the desires and cravings you could not have afforded on the run. dank farrik, you probably couldn't even reach around to touch yourself in those long, lonely nights.

he smiles as you whine, kneeling down before you- his divine little creature, the very fount of existence from which he pictures future warriors are born. sweet darling, an angel on such a cursed galaxy, still strong to do battle with the days.

you haven't even given birth to this child, and he already imagines fucking another in your willing womb.

it's alright, adi'ka. i'll take care of you, now.

he fucks his tongue between your folds, tastes your sweet nectar, and swore he saw the maker. so begins a night that you would feel for days after. you would come twice by his mouth, once with his fingers fucking you as he delighted himself in the taste of your tight, untouched, puckered little asshole. even so, you'd cum three more times on his cock, until everything hurts and you're begging him to stop.

he'll hold you in the darkness, whispering sweet nothings into your ear as your child kicks against his hand, letting him know you foster a warrior in your belly.

it's alright, cya're, i'll keep the both of you safe from everything. no danger shall touch you as long as I stand.

you try not to wonder. and yet the thought is there. what if he's the one you should be protected from?

[weirdsociology]

Distractions (The Mandalorian, E)

Title: Distractions (6.6k)

Series: Part one of Creed, a non-linear series about Din Djarin and his favorite... distraction. 

Description: An artifact from the Mandalorian's past leads to trying something new - and remembering the past.

Pairing: Din Djarin x Female Reader

Content warnings: Explicit sexual content, sex toys, fingering, mutual masturbation, dirty talk, oral sex, penetrative sex, implied violence, spit, a touch of size kink, light manhandling, very mild D/s in all directions because we love a switch in this house, no betas we die like men, canon what canon

Tropes: hurt/comfort, idiots with feelings, angst but it all works out in the end, the helmet stays on

Author's note: I blacked out, I don't know what happened, and frankly I'm embarrassed that the first fanfic I've written in 20 years is kind of fluffy and not significantly more insane. This little offering is canon timeline-agnostic; I just wanted to give our armored dumbass a happy ending. Please don't think this reflects my personality, I am spiritually covered in the blood of my enemies at all times. Also there is one small bit of truth from my personal life in here and I'll give you a hint: it wasn't flashbangs, it was bayonets. This one is for @tarabyte3 who got me excited about what fanfiction can do again.

***

Sometimes, it's hard to sleep in hyperspace. A ship this old doesn't have the automated circadian rhythm programs that dim the lights according to species preference, and all the daylight bulbs are second-hand, their blueness dimmed by repeated use. Darkness is in plentiful supply, but that's only half the equation of an artificial night. You do your best, careful to check the time reads on the navigational display, and adhere to a schedule as much as you can. It helps give structure to long periods of transit, and you know that ten years from now, your body and mind will thank you for being careful to guard their rest.

The Mandalorian, by contrast, doesn't have a diurnal cycle as far as you've been able to tell. His sleep patterns are pure anarchy, having nothing to do with mood or physical need. Sometimes he'll spend a week getting no more rest than a few brief, truncated minutes on the ground after trekking in harsh terrain. Sometimes you'll go looking for him after a quiet stretch in flight and he'll be in the bed he calls his rack, completely dormant for the next fourteen standard hours. You don't know how he does it. He lives like someone who fully expects to die before their body has enough years to register protest - which on the one hand makes you anxious, and on the other you find it hard to blame him for.

Still, despite all your attendance to regularity, there are nights - times - when you can't sleep. Especially when you are headed past the Outer Rim, and the length of travel means nothing to do except read and watch holovideos you've already seen and eat stale food and exercise in cramped, artificial repetition. Nothing new to look at, nothing new to do.

Which is how you end up awake at this hour, dressed in nothing but your bandeau and shorts with goosebumps pebbling your legs as you lean over one of the big crates in the cargo bay. You're digging through the thermoplastic case that holds the Mandalorian's personal possessions, looking for one of the old holonovels you're sure he has stowed, when you find it. A smooth, round black cylinder with a cap on each end. At first, you suspect it's yet another esoteric firearm - but then why isn't it in the weapons locker above?

Curious, you gingerly remove the cap from one end. Life on the ship has taught you to be cautious about any unfamiliar object. You don't know if it's normal Mandalorian living style to have to shove aside a mountain of electronic flashbangs when looking for clean blankets, but it's certainly normal for this one.

What's inside isn't like any weapon you've ever seen. The cylinder is filled with something soft and yielding, silicone or plastisilk you think, and it gives disconcertingly when you brush a thumb over it. There's a small bore in the middle about the diameter of your finger, but the polymer feels like it would stretch. It's textured near where the cap would fit, small ridges inside and a gentle flowering of protuberances around the borehole. Almost like -

You stand up, unsure whether to blush or laugh, and snap the cap back on. You've certainly found something new this time; something that might help break the monotony of space travel if you approach the topic - and Mando - correctly. If you're right there should be something else nearby, something that would make this a little more... usable.

There is. A discreet bottle, neatly wrapped in plain paper.

You take cylinder and bottle and step out in the corridor from the bay, checking the location of your fellow crew. Mando is not in his rack or the lockers, which means he's in the cockpit. The Child is in his usual nest. It's late, and the kid should be asleep for a long while yet. You jam the - the toy, you suppose - and the bottle into one hand and climb your way up the ladder, half appalled at your boldness and half delighted at the thought of making your Mandalorian squirm for once. You're secretly hoping to catch him out, tease him with the evidence of his private sexual habits, a friendly nip around the edges of his Creed. 

"Look what I found," you say as you approach the pilot's chair. His head is turned away from you, bent over something in the navcomp, his long legs in front of him as stretched out as they can be in the small space. He hums an acknowledgement and takes a moment to finish entering something before he looks over his shoulder. You offer the cylinder to him flat across your palms, like a knight offering a loyal blade, which you hope is both funny and at least a little charming.

It doesn't work. He's still looking at you. You wave it in front of him instead, resisting the urge to waggle your eyebrows. The helmet drops to consider the cylinder, then you. "I'd forgotten I had that. Where did you find it?"

You stop, hands still outstretched. "Forgot-- your crate in the cargo bay, but... is this what I think it is?"

Mando can't raise his own eyebrows at you, but his chin twitches upward in the way you've learned to interpret is the same thing. "Do you think it's a cock sleeve? Because it is."

"Is that what you call it?"

"I've always been less concerned about what to call it than how to use it," he says. He's fully turned to face you now. The conversation is not going as you imagined. You flush and he gives you an appraising look, taking in your half-undressed state.

"Isn't that... Against your Creed?" How does he do this. How does he always turn the tables. How is it you're the one quailing under the calm scrutiny of his helmet. You'd meant this as a good-natured ribbing, not a come-on, but suddenly you're picturing what you were decidedly not thinking about earlier - Mando, years ago, alone in his rack or fresh from a hunt, with his beskar still on and his arming jacket rucked up, screwing the toy down onto himself with his fist. The thought makes heat pool between your legs. It also makes you a little melancholy. Suddenly you want to fuck him and hold him in equal measure.

"You weren't always here, you know," he says calmly, honest and unembarrassed as he is shockingly honest and unembarrassed about everything to do with sex. He reaches for you, captures your wrists, pulls you further into the cockpit and down into his lap. You thrill as always at his casual possessiveness, his desire to be close. At the breadth of his shoulders under your hands. "The Creed isn't against pleasure, only distraction. Sometimes it's more distracting to make your body suffer than to give it what it wants."

"Like me?" you ask. It's a joke that once would have stung, an echo of your first night together - you are nothing to me but a distraction from my work - but it's an old wound, long since rubbed over by the smooth edges of time and shared affection.

An amused huff through the modulator. "Like you," he agrees, and though the helmet dampers every inflection you now know, where once you only imagined, the statement is fond.

***

You'd been traveling together for months, a reluctant passenger paired with an unhappy custodian. It had been weeks since the first time the tension between you rose to the breaking point, pulling his hands to you like a gravity well. You were now fucking the Mandalorian regularly, enthusiastically, and, at least to you, inadequately. Regardless of how well you took him, how perfectly he fit when he slicked and stretched his way into you, your heart hammered the same rhythm: no room, no room. His attitude toward you had made that abundantly clear. There was no room for you in his life, on his ship, in his Creed. You were his... distraction. That's all.

You mostly ignored it. When you were working or hunting, you barely thought about it. You pushed the thought down and stored it away to keep from slicing yourself on its sharp edges. But there were moments when it pressed forward again, tumbling out of the drawer of your heart in disarray. The Mandalorian was behind you or over you or under you and you were crying out the name you knew him by even as your blood rushed in your ears demanding more. Not more sex, not more of the heavy punch of his hips against you or the feeling of his hands in your hair, but more of him. You wanted him. You wanted everything.

You wanted to know what it kriffing meant when he called you his distraction.

And sometimes, after you had been fucked within an inch of your life and left lying on your bunk or still pressed against the weapons locker, it hurt a breathtaking amount.

You were pretty sure the Mandalorian was not unaware of how he affected you. Beyond that first epithet which became routine, he was not intentionally cruel. Away from the heat that flared between you and his resentment at his own inability to ignore it, he was considerate and distant and respectful. Unfailingly polite. You loathed every moment of it with a growing bitterness that threatened to replace food and sleep. It reminded you of the time you'd run into a recruiter after she’d turned you down for a job. Sorry kid, you had your chance to convince me and you blew it. Except Mando, being Mando, had never given you a chance at all.

It was worse when you fucked. For weeks, you had resolved over and over to put an end to his careful handling of you. Better an angry rebuttal or cold silence than... whatever this pitiful halfway connection was. Next time he approached you with that weight in his step or crowded you into a corner, too close, you would force his hand. You knew that was the time to do it, when you had his full attention and the bargaining chip of your body. You'd seize his wandering gaze and stare into the helmet: "Why do you call me a distraction?"

You had told yourself this a dozen times. But his practiced fingers were already slipping inside you and all you could do was whine as his modulated voice, sounding not quite human, breathed a word that meant nothing to you in your ear: Mesh'la, mesh'la, mesh'la.

***

You had entreated him to show you how he used it, before you joined his crew. Before, as he drily puts it while running a gloved hand up your thigh and teasing along the waistband of your shorts, he had a far superior array of options. Now you're mostly naked in the dim light, seated between his spread legs, his helmet tipped against the headrest as he leans back. You're watching the arched column of his throat, watching his gloved fingers wrapped around the cylinder and most of all, watching his thick cock disappear into the plush expanse of the toy. He's hard but not fully erect, probably because you refused to touch him until you got to see him touch himself. Not that you needed to threaten - you both know that Din, and it's Din now, in the privacy of the cockpit with both of you partially undressed and warmth radiating from him, will deny you nothing where his body is concerned. Except, of course, his face.

His cock is stirring to full attention, and you suspect it has more to do with your rapt gaze on him than his own ministrations. It's a novelty for you to watch him for once. The way you two fuck, he normally has the better view, pulling back to see your cunt swallow his length and hear you moan in gratitude. He likes to watch you touch yourself while you're speared on him, chasing your own orgasm as you clench. He likes to see your thighs tremble when you ride him, and your face when he makes you come too much. "One more, mesh'la, one more for me, let me see you," he'll croon, as one hand worships your sore clit and the other bats away your arm as you try to bury your face in the crook of your elbow. Din likes to watch anything that shows him how good he makes you feel.

Your Mandalorian might be on to something, you decide. Watching certainly has its appeal. You can hear the soft slide of the toy, see the tension in his forearms and his stomach even through his tunic, his breath through the helmet fast but even. He looks gorgeous like this, a warrior half-undone for your enjoyment. You slide the palms of your hands up his thighs and run them lightly along the bare skin peeking through where he's partially shucked himself of armor and clothing. His breathing alters a little, hitching as your skin makes contact with his.

"How does it feel?" you ask, watching the steady rise and fall of the cylinder. You idly trace a finger up his groin and along the sensitive skin just under his sack. He hisses, and you twitch in response to the noise you know so well, your cunt giving a little spasm as if to remind you of its needs.

After a moment, Din answers your question. "Tight, but not warm. Better than nothing but... Like a ration bar when I have a meal right in front of me," he adds pointedly, and one booted foot slides between your folded knees, leather rubbing along the seam of your sex to make his point clear. "I like that you like looking at me, but we could have bought a mirror instead. I could be fucking you in front of it right now."

Your cheeks warm as you think about it: Din, arching over your back, holding your chin, making you watch your own face as he nudges the head of his cock into you. You don't know how you'd feel staring at yourself like that, but your cunt twitches again, letting you know that more important parts of you fully approve of the concept. The helmet has dropped back down. He's observing your reaction. You file the idea away for later. "I like seeing you like this, though. Did you really never use it after you met me?"

A chuckle. "Oh, I used it. Before... when you were first here. I used it so much I think I did permanent damage."

A little shiver of heat winds up from the base of your spine. This is new information. But he's not done. "Which is why I should be allowed to show you how much I appreciate you, not this plastic junk." He makes a show of slowing down, grinding up into the toy and letting out an exaggerated groan. You know he's still watching you closely, waiting for his cue.

You give him a wicked grin. "Sometimes... it's more distracting to make your body suffer than give it what it wants." Din groans for real in response, but you have other things on your mind. "Back before... when you... were you thinking of me?"

He makes an uninterpretable noise. "Oh no, mesh'la, I wasn't thinking of you. Only of your hips. And your hair. And your tits. And your ass. And your cunt, and if I could get you wet for me, and what that pretty mouth would look like around me, and how you'd sound when I put my cock down your throat."

"... Fuck," you say breathlessly. What started as a flutter has become an aching, empty pulse. "Fuck, Din," and you lean forward, bringing your face almost close enough to nuzzle where he's still sheathed in the toy, breathing in his scent. It has the unintended effect of driving the tip of his boot further into you, a solid mass pushing on the thrumming bundle of nerves between your legs.

When you first started doing this, he said very little to you. You could read nothing in his body except desire and frustration, both of which he extinguished in the furnace of your sex. Later, after Mos Eisley, when anger was no longer the single note of your shared existence, he talked to you constantly. The man of few words outside the ship became the man of many words when he was buried inside you. He told you what he was going to do to you, what he wanted to do to you, how good you felt and what you did to him. He talked like he was trying to construct a gilded cage of words you wouldn't fly away from. You had been dumbfounded by the change, shy and unsure, unable to find a way to reassure him you had already stooped to his lure. Part of you was afraid that if he knew the truth - that you'd have him any way he wanted, silent or talkative or babbling in Tuskan sign - he would stop. He hadn't, but the stream had slowed. More deliberate, less frantic. Somehow even more indecent.

He's being indecent right now, timing the strokes of the toy with his words. "I wanted you every morning and twice at night." Down. "I couldn't think - could barely shoot straight." Back up. "I wanted to bend you over the crates and fuck you until you felt the same." A slow slide back down. "Fill you up with me until you cried, until you knew you were mine, until that sweet cunt wouldn't want anyone else." Up, until just the tip of him is still out of sight. He's losing his even tone, the modulator turning gasps into static. "And then I did fuck you, and it got so much worse. You let me pull you open and put my cock in the hottest, wettest place in the galaxy and-- are you really going to come on my boot instead of letting me fuck you?"

You come to with a little start, pulled aware by the abrupt shift in subject. There's dampness under you, and you realize you've been rocking back and forth on his boot, rubbing the folds of your cunt against the worn leather, and moaning into his lap while he talks. It feels so good to be here, sitting at his feet as he strokes himself for you, hearing the jagged details of your shared past transformed by pleasure. The scruff of the boot against you, the bite of a seam into your tenderest flesh, the smell - steel and old smoke and hot sand - so uniquely Mandalorian it has you panting for him.

"Din," you breathe. "Stop -- stop. I want to feel you."

That's all it takes. The toy is gone in an instant, he's off the pilot's chair and dragging you upright and his half-bare hips are against yours, crowding you into the console. His cock is painfully hard against you, already smeared with precum and the lubricant that makes someone of his size using a toy like that even possible. You realize with dizzy delight that this is going to be one of those times where he fucks you without preamble, pushing his way in, making you feel every inch of his invasion. The pleasurable burn of your cunt adjusting to his girth will be revenge for making him use the toy - a revenge he knows you will enjoy.

More leather, this time at your mouth. The feel of his glove as he curls his fingertips under your chin. "Spit," he commands, and you do.

"Good girl. Now turn around."

***

It was after the first time he'd had you in the cockpit that you'd found the courage to ask. It had already been one of the worst days of your life, what more was there to lose? You were so numb there was no cliff you wouldn't jump off, no risk you wouldn't take. If you asked and the answer was indifference, well, it was just one more pain to add to the litany: your cracked lips, your shredded feet, your bruised ribs, your bloodied hands. And soon, maybe, your broken heart.

Mando had left, as he always did, after you were done, leaving you on the steel floor mostly naked and entirely without the desire to stand on your own. You told yourself that you would simply sleep there, if you had to, rather than getting back up on your cut soles. After all, you'd slept in worse places recently. Though you'd meant it to be fierce the thought sounded pathetic even to you.

The sound of boots climbing up the ladder interrupted your self-pity. Mando had not only come back, he had come back with a box: the medkit he kept in a crate in the cargo bay. He knelt beside you on the floor and started to lift you to him, one hand on your back and one hand under your knees. It was close and familiar in the worst possible way, like the fuck wasn't, and you made a hoarse inhuman noise and tried to kick him. You slammed a broken toe into a beskar vambrace instead and then you screamed for real.

He was patient with you and you hated it with every aftershock of white-hot rage in your body. You struggled even once he managed to get you up in his arms. After a bad moment where you thought you might actually try to bite him, he stopped attempting to haul you down the ladder and dropped both of you into the pilot's chair abruptly instead, pulling his hands away like you'd burned him. "Hey, it's me, just me, the one who's on your side," he'd said, attempting a touch of humor, and strangely it was the buzz of the modulator, so unlike the voices you'd been hearing for the past few days, that had incrementally slowed your galloping heart.

The medkit was in reach and at first he was gentle but even that was too much. You pulled away without leaving the chair, putting distance between you and that damned helmet. All you wanted was to rest, except you were afraid of what you might have time to think about if you did. There was a tense minute as he resumed his work with gauze and tape and bacta spray, but even in your exhausted state you somehow felt him make the decision to stop trying to be tender. He took your cue and bandaged you with impersonal efficiency, like you were a soldier in his regiment or a fellow Mandalorian. It made his touch tolerable, and you were so tired you almost resented him for it.

By the time he was done, you were nearly asleep. You heard the click of the medkit closing and, calmer now, a little more returned to yourself, braced for him to lift you down the ladder. But he surprised you by making no move to get up, resting his hands on his legs, around you but not on you. You could tell he was waiting for something but not what. Maybe it was something from you, but you were all out of give. It was his turn.

Another moment of silence, then momentary confusion as you both spoke at once:

"I have to tell you so--"

"Mandalorian, why are you--"

He stopped. You pressed on. "Why are you always calling me a distraction?" Your tone was flat. You sounded like you could be asking about the price of power cells.

The helmet twisted. This was clearly not the direction he expected your post-coital, post-triage conversation to take. "Because you're distracting."

You thought anger might be the only thing keeping you upright. "Not good enough. What the fuck are we even doing here? Why did you come after me? You told me we were done, that you didn't owe me anything. You could have left me there and pocketed the bounty for yourself. They would have let me go once they convinced themselves I didn't have the information.” A lie, but he doesn’t need to know that. “That doesn't sound like I'm just a distraction."

"I said you're distracting, and you are. That's different." You were sure he was being pedantic but your tired brain couldn't keep up with Mando at his most evasive. "You're not just a distraction. I don't make a habit of coming back for-- distractions."

Coming back for was a polite euphemism for the amount of killing Mando had done in the past few hours. None of it mattered to you if he was doing it because of his damned Creed. Maybe none of it mattered at all. Maybe you had kept your mouth shut for nothing. Your chest hurt and you had no idea if it was because of your ribs or because of your heart. You kept going.

"It makes no difference if I'm a distracting fuck or something worth coming back for or a kriffing bantha, Mando. I'm still..." Exhaustion made you blunt. "I'm still against your Creed."

He made a noise that could have been agreement, or negation. "The Creed is not against pleasure. Or companionship. Only... distractions." He sounded like he was reading out of a textbook. You'd heard it all before. You had wrung everything out of him you could about his Creed, because you wanted to find somewhere to fit. That was all he'd ever said.

He surprised you again. "Distraction is a-- it's not easy to describe. It's not as simple as wasting time or effort. Distractions are... things that pull you from your orbit without returning value, like a comet disrupting a planet's path around a sun. Too many and you begin to drift away from the tribe, the Creed, the things that make you a Mandalorian. You lose yourself chasing what streaks past you, already gone."

That little speech was probably the most words you'd ever heard Mando say at once, and there was too much there for you to process in your wasted state. You latched on instead to the thing that seemed most personally insulting, given how you'd been spending your time the past few days. "Maker, Mando, do you think that's all I am, a comet? That you'll turn around one day and I'll be gone? Do you think I did-- what I did– what we did– for fun? Do you think that's all you are to me?"

There, you had said it. Or at least implied it. Your cortisol response gave one last death rattle and suddenly you found you could sit up a little straighter, could feel your pulse in your throat. Your feet ached.

There was a long silence. 

Then the Mandalorian sighed, and in that sigh was more defeat than you'd ever heard after a hunt gone wrong. The sound seized you and squeezed your breath as it stuttered in your chest. When he spoke, it was low, tired, and edged with brutal honesty. "No mesh'la. I don't think you're a comet. Not after... today."

And that, somehow, was what did you in: his surrender. The first acknowledgement of what you had endured for him and what you'd done together and what it meant between you. You dropped your face into the filthy duraweave of Mando's shoulder, not caring if you caught the edge of beskar beside it. Something boiled up in you and you weren't sure what it was, only that you snapped your mouth closed hard over a noise like being struck and fisted your hands in his tunic. All the fear you'd put aside came slamming in, the torrential wave presaged by an empty beach. You drove yourself as close as possible to your Mandalorian and shook as though a blaster bolt had found its home in your brain after all.

When you knew where you were again, you found you had shifted - or he had shifted you. You were curled between his legs, your arms still around his neck, your face against where his cheek would be in the cruel parody of a kiss. You froze for a moment, anticipating the helmet to feel hostile against your lips, but it was only Mando, the smooth silver of him that you'd come to know and expect. With sudden resolve you drew back an inch or two, away from the spot where your  mouth left a sliver of fog. Your heart beat in your ears, marching steadily onward toward its inexorable conclusion. You had always known what you needed to do for both your sakes', and now you even thought you knew the bargain that could make it bearable.

"Mando," you whispered. "If that's the way it is, I wouldn't... I would never ask you to go against your Creed. I couldn't."

The warrior under you was so still you feared he might not respond at all. Then he blew out another long breath and put his hands around your waist, impossibly solid against you. It was the second time that night he'd reached for you with gentleness and, leaning against him, you could nearly imagine what it would be like to feel safe again. It would have been so easy to sink into shared delusion. But you owed him something more.

"I couldn't," you said again. "You couldn't. We could never-- it would never be right between us. I don't want that." You were certain you were crying by then, silent tears racing down your cheeks. "But please... I'm not ready yet. I'll leave tomorrow. Please, please... just give me tonight."

The hands on your waist spasmed, gripping you so hard that for one deranged instant you thought he might throw you down on the steel and fuck you all over again. He did the opposite and hauled you painfully upright, stood you in the tight space between his knees and the console. You winced when your abused feet took your weight. His own posture and the set of his shoulders told you absolutely nothing. He was still holding you like a lifeline.

"No," he said. After everything you'd done it was absurd that one word could make you want to crumple to the floor again, but you stayed upright, nails digging into the console for support. "I won't give you just tonight. I know you. You walked into that warehouse for me. You were so afraid for me you couldn't be afraid for yourself. You bled-- you killed-- because you hoped it would buy me time. I know you. Now you're offering– this. I refuse. You're not a Mandalorian, but your courage puts ours to shame. Who would I be if I returned your loyalty so little of my own?"

"Mando, what are you saying?" You were so numb with exhaustion that you weren't sure you had it in you to hope. You tried to keep your gaze steady, but you knew your eyes were wet.

"Stay with me," he said quietly. You did crumple then, your knees turned to water, and only his grip still on you kept you standing. "Stay with me, and let me prove my honor to you."

"Yes," you breathed, and that was all he needed. He hauled you to him, pulling you down, until your chest was pressed to him as he ran his gloves frantically over your neck, your shoulder blades, your hips. You rested your forehead against his, against the blood-warm beskar, and waited. You wanted nothing more than the feeling of his hands on you but you were so tired. "Will... will the tribe understand?"

A pause. He slowed, but did not stop, tracing soothing heat across your body. The blank faceplate tipped up to gaze out at the desert night. "Some will. Some won't. It doesn't matter. How I feel about you can't be against the Creed any more than my helmet. You can't turn a thing against itself." His head was still turned away, looking past the canopy to the starless sky outside. "You aren't a distraction from my Creed, mesh'la, and you never have been. You're part of it. You make me a better... a better Mandalorian."

His hesitation did not go unnoticed. You heard what he didn't say: a better man.

***

The problem with having sex in the cockpit is that when you want - no, need - to lay down afterward there isn't quite room for both of you between the chairs. Also, the floor is that textured, anti-slip steel they use for gantries, which pokes uncomfortably into bare flesh. You end up squashed together, half on top of your Mandalorian, letting his still partially-armored back take the worst of your combined weight as you roll on to your side and throw one leg over him, pillowing your head on his pauldron. It's not ideal, but after the three orgasms he pulled out of you with as much dedication as he'd ever chased down a bounty, you don't really have a choice. Going down the ladder in your current state might actually be the thing that kills you.

Din is still breathing hard from his own climax, sought only after he'd made you so sensitive that he'd had to put a callused palm over your mouth to keep you from shrieking and waking the Child. He'd started, as you thought he would, by pulling off your flimsy shorts and shoving the thick head of his cock into you with no preparation other than telling you to bend over the console and stay quiet. You'd cooperated, knowing that the position put his mouth conveniently close to your ear, and were rewarded with that smooth modulated voice telling you he was going to make sure you never made him use a toy again, never want his cock in anything but you. He told you he was going fuck you so thoroughly you'd beg for him to let you come on his cock. He'd started rough, his pace matching the coarseness of his words, and you'd bitten down your whimpers at the stretch. 

But Din knew you far too well to let you off so lightly. Fast had turned to slow and deep, caging your hips with one forearm while skillful fingers lightly circled your clit, never giving you quite enough pressure to get you where you ached to go. Then you had begged, and he'd almost given in: pulled out of you abruptly, replacing his cock with three fingers after ripping off his gloves. You'd come so hard Din had groaned at the feeling of you clenching around him, your legs trembling uncontrollably, but even that wasn't what you were hoping for and he knew it. He'd coaxed you to a second orgasm by turning you around and crudely shoving his knee between your legs, making you ride the textured cuisse on his thigh. He'd insisted you work for it, rubbing yourself against him and leaving streaks of arousal on the beskar, and that was less satisfying still. Only after you'd gotten yourself off did he ask you what you wanted, and by then you were so needy, so desperately raw and sex-drunk, that all you could do was whine, "You-- please, Din-- you." The sound of his name seemed to shred whatever last bit of composure he had left, and he'd pressed into you harder than ever as your hand dropped to provide the friction you'd needed. You'd come apart with him buried deep, your cunt gripping him like a vise, and he'd followed not long after, your name on his lips as his cock twitched and softened in you.

The nice thing about steel floors, you decide, is that they're easy to clean. You can feel Din dripping out of you and you're pretty sure you're going to leave a wet spot. You’re also pretty sure that the cylinder rolled under one of the consoles and is still jammed there, but that's a problem for later. You pull yourself even closer to him, enjoying his warmth in the shared quiet, watching the strange false light of hyperspace dance outside the canopy.

You don't notice that Din’s turned his helmet to you until he speaks. “Another 26 hours and then we’re off this boat.” He sounds relaxed, pleased both with your current configuration of tangled limbs and the prospect of no longer being confined to the ship. “Felucia is a jungle world. Plenty of frogs for the womp rat to chase.”

You grin. “Or eat. How long are we staying? Are we dropping in somewhere civilized or staying off the radar? And who are we even after? You didn’t show me the puck yet.”

“Off the radar, and this one’s a solo job.” You start to protest, but he stops you. “Really. The contact says he’s holed up in a cave in the middle of nowhere. We’ll set down in the nearest open spot, then it’s half a day overland to the hideout. No point in you coming, nothing for you and the kid to do but get wet and feed the gnats.”

After space travel, a hike doesn’t sound unpleasant, but you know he’s right. There’s no reason to go to the extra trouble of packing supplies for two more when it’s a straightforward retrieval. At least you and the Child will get to explore your landing site. You can do your work outside in the open air, and if all goes well, Din will only be gone a day or two.

“Hey,” you say softly. “You’ll come back, right?” It’s only half a serious question. You trust your Mandalorian. You’ve trusted his competence and drive and ability since the moment you met him, and have learned to trust that his desire to return to you is real. Still, you always ask. It’s a private ritual between you, something soft built over top of hard truths. 

You think of the times he’s left you. To work a job or on a hunt or sometimes just for the cold, hard recesses of his mind where you cannot touch him. Once, although you try not to remember it, for a black and shaking depression that terrified you both. Most of all, you think of that night, on Mos Eisley. The crunch of sand under his boots as he turned away. The glimpse of beskar through the door. The feeling of his hands on your battered ribs. His voice, very tired, I don't make a habit of coming back for distractions.

"Of course I’ll come back, mesh'la." You’ll never not thrill to Din’s electronic baritone calling you beautiful. "How could I do anything else? You're part of my Creed."

***

series masterlist

[antianakin]

@theneutralmime

I've gone over a lot of my thoughts on the sequels in my responses to the last two asks you've sent me about them, so I'm going to skip ahead to my thoughts on Luke at this point since I think my feelings on the Sequels in general are pretty clear. I'm glad you enjoyed them, but I've seen the entire trilogy through twice now and I WAS trying to be more generous the second time around to see if my opinion would change and it uh. Didn't. I still don't like them and I still find them a massive mess of squandered potential.

Luke's quotes about the Jedi in the sequels (which are really ONLY in TLJ, he never has anything bad to say about them in TROS) are pretty clearly intended to be seen as symptoms of Luke being traumatized and letting that pain and loss and fear consume him to the point that he's placing the blame on an easy target rather than actually acknowledging what happened and how he feels about it and the part he played in it. Luke in TLJ is hiding from his fears, hiding from his own reality, refusing to step up and do what needs to be done and face his own mistakes. So he turns to "the Jedi were weak and need to die" as a way of basically excusing the choices he's currently making. He's not RIGHT, the things he tells Rey aren't TRUE, and that's the whole point behind his arc in TLJ. His last words are to say that he won't be the last Jedi, and he's clearly not upset by that, he says it like it's a TRIUMPH, which indicates that he no longer believes the Jedi need to all die out. Even earlier, he's upset about losing the Jedi texts, indicating that even though he was arguing for the Jedi to die and about to burn them himself, he didn't ACTUALLY believe any of those things he said or want the things he said he wanted, he was just desperately trying to convince himself that he did because it was easier than doing the emotional work of facing what he'd done wrong.

I will say that I think this was a ridiculous and foolish arc for Luke to even HAVE, I think it's unfortunate that most of Luke's screentime in this trilogy is dedicated to him bashing the Jedi and blaming them for their own genocide, and I don't think that the storyline is handled very well in general. But the point of the story IS that Luke is wrong and the Jedi SHOULDN'T die out, so, you know, credit where credit is due here.

Getting into your question about the Jedi, though. I THINK you're asking me what the Jedi actually DO. Which, fair question, it's not something they discuss very much in the films or show (and the show is focused on them during war which makes it harder to figure out what they'd normally be doing during peacetime). I imagine there's a LOT of things the Jedi probably did before the war, it wasn't one job that they all did. But the general idea I got is that the Jedi work as a branch of the Republic Senate that can be called upon to provide aid like treaty mediation and conflict resolution for planets and systems that ask for it. I'll list off as many examples as I can think of where we see Jedi doing work that isn't related to the war in high canon.

In TPM, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are sent to try to NEGOTIATE with the Trade Federation about the blockade of Naboo, but they end up having to quickly adjust when the Trade Federation tries to kill them and sends in armed forced to INVADE Naboo.

Once that happens, their primary goal switches to getting Naboo's leader to Coruscant so she can make her case and plead for aid directly to the Senate because it just became a LOT bigger than two Jedi could actually do anything about.

In AOTC, it's mentioned that Obi-Wan and Anakin just got back from some kind of border dispute.

In TCW, Obi-Wan mentions that he spent a year on the run with Satine during the Mandalorian civil war, presumably called in by Satine's father to just... protect her until the war was over and Satine could take up peaceful leadership or something.

In TCW season 7, Trace and Rafa sort-of imply that the Jedi used to do a lot more work ON CORUSCANT to help poorer people on the lower levels.

Also in TCW, we hear that the Jedi once managed to basically overthrow the Zyggerian slave empire, something the Zyggerians still hold against them.

In TOTJ (if we choose to take that as canon), we see Dooku and Qui-Gon sent to help resolve a dispute where a senator's son has been kidnapped by his people (Dooku ends up siding with the kidnappers when he realizes why they did what they did and how corrupt the senator has become).

In AOTC again, we see Obi-Wan and Anakin act as bodyguards for Padme when an assassin comes after her.

We also routinely see the Jedi doing their own investigations that seem completely independent of the Senate, like Obi-Wan going off to find Kamino and Jango. When he makes his reports, he is clearly reporting directly to the Council, not the Senate or the Chancellor. During TCW, we see Plo Koon, Obi-Wan, and Anakin get involved in an investigation into the clones' creation and Sifo-Dyas's involvement in it and reported death, something that clearly isn't being run by the Chancellor or the Senate.

So what do the Jedi do? They keep the peace, whether that means acting as a temporary bodyguard for a planetary leader, taking down slave empires, or negotiating treaties and conflicts of varying kinds. Presumably, before Palpatine took power, the Jedi had enough time and independence that they were able to do a lot more work of their own that didn't necessarily directly involve the Senate, too, which could be anything from investigating corruption in the galaxy to providing aid and services to the poorer populations on planets in the Republic.

I don't think it's made clear whether the Jedi actively SEARCH for Force sensitive children or if they're just so established as a group that they're often MADE AWARE of Force sensitive children by parents calling for help somehow. That list they have of children is of presumably people whose parents have said maybe or not yet (rather than parents who have firmly said no) because I believe Mace refers to the holocron as the future of the Order. These are children who could potentially become Jedi or who are PLANNING to become Jedi but whose parents wanted to wait a year or something. This doesn't indicate to me that the Jedi actively sought them out, but that these were probably children whose parents sought out the Jedi themselves when it became clear their child was Force sensitive. We see something like this happen in TOTJ when Ahsoka disappears off with a massive wild cat and comes back RIDING said wild cat and the entire village is made abruptly aware that she's Force sensitive and meant to be a Jedi. If the Jedi come and confirm those suspicions, but the parents are uncertain or just explicitly ask for more time, the Jedi seem inclined to give it to them (up to a point, presumably, they obviously usually don't accept kids over a certain age so they can't wait forever).

The reason the Jedi have that rule about training children early is because the Jedi lifestyle requires certain sacrifices that can be difficult to adjust to if you weren't raised in it. For a lot of people, their friends and family are always going to be their first priority because they care about them more than any random stranger. And this is totally fine, this is natural and normal. The Jedi cannot do that, though. They can't prioritize the people they care about above their duty to the galaxy at large. This is the promise they make by choosing to be Jedi and it is generally incompatible with the promises you make to people like spouses and children (this is for a myriad of reasons like the amount of time a Jedi would have to spend doing work vs being with their family and the ways this would ultimately impact their relationships with people who are relying on them). The Jedi have to be willing to sacrifice the people they love for the greater good if it becomes necessary. And while the children who are raised among the Jedi can still ultimately decide this lifestyle isn't for them and walk away from it (and can do this at any age, even after they've made their oaths and become an adult), it's a lot EASIER to life this way if you ARE raised in it from a young age and don't already have a bunch of connections with other people to overcome.

This is why Anakin struggles so much. He was raised with his mother until he was nine and so he has this connection with her where the two of them were always going to be more important to each other than anybody else. That's just how that relationship worked and that's fine. But when he became a Jedi, Anakin had to stop thinking of his mother as more important than anybody else, and he CAN'T. He ultimately abandons his duty as a Jedi, his duty to protect Padme, in order to go protect Shmi because Shmi is more important to him than anyone else. Had Padme gotten assassinated as a result of him abandoning that duty, it could've had some repercussions for a lot of people, but Anakin DOES NOT CARE because Shmi is more important. And of course, we see him then make the exact same mistake with Padme herself after Shmi is dead. He prioritizes Padme above everyone else because he legitimately just CANNOT live any other way, he CANNOT not prioritize Padme more than everyone else, ESPECIALLY when she is his wife, and he ultimately is willing to sacrifice the Jedi, the clones, and the Republic to save her.

We even see him blatantly TELL Padme this in TCW where he says that ideals are important, but they'll never be more important to him than how he FEELS about Padme. He clearly tells Padme that he EXPECTS her to prioritize him as her husband more than once, something Padme usually TRIES to push back on but ultimately usually capitulates to. Even Padme ends up getting jealous and upset once when Anakin can't stay the night with her upon returning from the war because he has to go make a report to the Council. Padme and Anakin have clear expectations of each other as husband and wife that seem to be in contradiction to what their respective careers require of them that cause them distress in their relationship more than once.

Anakin struggles with this and my personal interpretation of Anakin is that he'd ALWAYS have struggled with this because he wants to be able to prioritize the people he loves, even before it gets to the point where he's willing to murder millions of people to do it. His desires are just incompatible with the way the Jedi choose to live, but if he'd been adopted by the Jedi before he was old enough to really make that kind of connection, he'd have had an easier time managing that because he just wouldn't necessarily have ever HAD those kinds of desires. He would've grown up learning about love and family in a very different way that would allow him to prioritize his duty to the galaxy because he WANTS to prioritize his duty to the galaxy and no one person would be more important than that. But in canon, Anakin WANTS to be able to prioritize the people he cares about, more than anything else this is what he wants. And he wants those same people to also prioritize HIM in return (it's one of the reasons his relationship with Obi-Wan is both one of his healthiest ones, because Obi-Wan refuses to do this and expects the same of Anakin, but also one of the ones most easily discarded and replaced because Anakin knows that Obi-Wan will never give him what he wants).

So yes, it's GOOD that the Jedi insist on training their children early because it helps them be better Jedi with fewer struggles, even as they always keep the door open for their members to make a different choice as they grow and change if this life isn't one they want to live still. It's why they let Ahsoka walk away after the Wrong Jedi arc even though they also brought her into the Order when she was young. Being raised a Jedi gave Ahsoka a really great foundation, but things changed as she got older and she ended up deciding she had to leave the Order, even if temporarily, to figure out some things for herself and manage her mental health. The Order was happy to support her no matter what she chose, whether she chose to leave or stay, and would've supported her if she'd chosen to return, too.

The Jedi take children whose parents give them up so they can have a better life, they take children who might not HAVE parents anymore, they take children whose parents don't WANT them, and they give them a wonderful supportive life that gives them incredible amounts of education and resources so they can live their life in service to the galaxy and the Force, using their abilities to help others. They provide the children they take in with everything they could need or want to be able to live a happy, healthy life, whether that life ends up being as a Jedi in service to the Republic and the Force or not.

There's also what's been called like a "call to destiny" that the Jedi have, where becoming a Jedi is, in some ways, a destiny for them to fulfill. But much like Anakin's prophecy, it is choice they have to make, not something entirely predestined and chosen for them. The path is THERE, and it calls to them, but they can absolutely ignore that call or misunderstand it or have circumstances keep them from it. But it means that nearly everyone who becomes a Jedi makes that choice because they hear and feel that call to this destiny and have chosen to ANSWER IT. Helping people, serving the galaxy, this is what they were meant to do, and they know it and find joy and satisfaction in that knowledge.

So when the war starts, they obviously know something has gone wrong, they've known it was going wrong for YEARS, at the very least since Maul popped up as the first confirmed Sith in 1000 years, but they are 10,000 people (and whether this number referred to only those Jedi that were in the field and the actual total was much higher or whether this was in fact the ENTIRE TOTAL of Jedi is unconfirmed, but either way they're a small group so the point remains) in a galaxy of TRILLIONS. People have done the math on what this would mean adjusted to the population of the Earth and it's like expecting a church group of 70 people to somehow solve the whole planet's problems. There's only so much they can do. So while they're very cognizant of the growing issues in the Republic even before the war starts, they can only put out so many tire fires at once. Once the war DOES start, they're immediately required to try to put out this one raging wildfire and all the other regular tire fires have to go by the wayside until the wildfire is dealt with. So what are they doing? They're putting out the damn wildfire as quickly as they can with as little loss of life as they can and just hoping the rest of the galaxy can keep itself together long enough for them to DO THAT.

I don't even necessarily agree that they should've been "more involved in politics" because, quite honestly, they seem more aware of how bad things are getting politically than ANYONE ELSE IN THIS STORY (aside from the dude making the situation worse to begin with). It's the JEDI who are actively arguing with the Chancellor about not sending them to war and saying they're not supposed to be an army, it's the JEDI tracking down Kamino and Geonosis and figuring out some of what's actually happening there, it's the JEDI who continue to investigate that even while the war is going on and actually figure out that the clones are a Sith trap, it's the JEDI who ultimately figure out Palpatine is too corrupt to stay in office and then actually DO something about it before anybody does. They might not be active politicians, sure, I'll grant you that, but they're very very clearly aware of what's happening politically and are responding to it more than anyone else we ever see. I'm not sure what more they could've done besides, like, BE politicians which clearly just isn't the role they want to play in the galaxy anyway and wouldn't be good for the kind of work they want to do.

A lot of people like to say things like that, that the Jedi should've been more political and whatnot, but what would that actually have accomplished? What could they have done if they were "more political" than they were already doing? At BEST, the Jedi might be able to get a representative into the Senate and provide one more person capable of speaking out against the Chancellor and the corruption in the Republic, but Padme at a delegation of 2000 Senators with her that were apparently willing to at least recognize Palpatine's corruption and that STILL wasn't enough to stem the tide. One more politician wasn't going to make that big of a difference. So could they have been more political? Yeah, sure, they could've more literally been politicians I guess, but how does that help them more than what they were ACTUALLY doing? Would this somehow have prevented Palpatine from enacting Order 66 or starting the war at all? Or would it have led to the same conclusion no matter what they did because the Jedi's genocide wasn't about the choices the JEDI were making at all?

[jessequinnfirstofhername]

controversial star wars opinion - I think anisoka gets too much of a bad rap. like honestly im surprised at how disliked (or outright despised) the ship is in the fandom. like yes I do see how there's a notable power imbalance since they are teacher/student, but I don't get the whole "age difference" point because they have basically the same age difference as padme and anakin. also, its not like anyone can't explore the idea of a romantic relationship between them when they're older. ahsoka didn't stop aging at 17. sorry that this is long, I just see a lot of untapped potential in their dynamic and im salty that theres such a stigma surrounding a fairly tame ship

Oh Anon, it's like you read my mind.

I'm extra salty that Anisoka has such a stigma attached to it, to the point where the it's practically radioactive when compared to ships like Obikin or even Anidala.

If we're going to start treating ships as radioactive because they have an unhealthy power imbalance, the SW fandom better invest in some heavy-duty hazmat suits.

Padme and Anakin have the same age gap, and Padme met Anakin when he was nine. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan raised Anakin from that same age, meeting him for the first time when he was in his twenties.

(I'm very aware that there are Obikin antis, but Anisoka seems to be treated as even more toxic)

I'm not saying that Obikin and Anidala deserve hate, they don't, I'm just saying it's strange that Anisoka is so disproportionately targeted.

Also, as you said, Ahsoka didn't stop aging at seventeen. In Ahsoka (the series) she's in her forties.

But, I'll be fair and briefly try to see it from the other side's point of view.

Unlike Anidala and Obikin, most of Anakin and Ahsoka's canon interactions happen when he's a grown man and she's an underage girl, and yes, the teacher/student aspect is understandably squicky to a lot of people.

Also, unfortunately, there is a lot of utterly revolting stuff out there depicting Anakin and Ahsoka that's set during The Clone Wars. I don't consider this garbage to be fan art, or representative of Anisoka fans. It's genuinely horrific and vile, and I think it really poisoned the well as far as perception of Anisoka goes.

(...and trust me, when I say something is horrific, I'm not exaggerating)

Anyway, time to ramble about my own Anisoka feelings!

I loved seeing Anakin growing fonder and fonder of Ahsoka in a completely platonic way over the course of The Clone Wars. It was a highlight of the series for me.

...but, my first introduction to Ahsoka Tano was through Rosario Dawson playing her in live-action, starting with The Mandalorian.

Part of me will always see Ahsoka Tano as a grown woman, played by an actress who has incredible chemistry with Hayden Christensen.

So can you blame me for shipping them?!

That's not even going into all the potential of their relationship.

I've got four Anisoka WIPs in my drafts right now, and they all approach the relationship from different angles. I found crafting each dynamic completely fascinating.

But I also find their platonic dynamic fascinating too. Across the Stars uses Anakin and Ahsoka's relationship to trigger a turning point in the plot, and another WIP of mine is a cute and platonic Clone Wars-era prompt that I'm loving as much as the Anisoka WIPs.

Now I need to apologize for rambling on too long!

...anyway, everyone please read my fics ;)

-Jesse xx

(...also is it just me, or can anyone else hear a hornet's nest buzzing?)

[dindjarindiaries]

Stories I've Written Based On Songs

Music goes hand-in-hand with my writing, as I'm always listening to it when I'm writing, and it has influenced and inspired my writing on many occasions. For anyone else who has a similar relationship between music and storytelling, here are all the stories I've written so far that have either been titled after or directly inspired by songs, along with the songs (and lyrics) that influenced them.

main masterlist • personal recommendations

DIN DJARIN

breakable heaven* completed • fem!reader Your last summer spent on your home planet brings you a whirlwind romance with a Mandalorian-to-be, making your future uncertain as you fight between feelings and your fate.

♫ Cruel Summer - Taylor Swift ♫

It's cool, that's what I tell 'em No rules in breakable heaven

the “heat” of the moment • reader The heat goes out on the Razor Crest and you’re the only one with an electric blanket to keep yourself warm.

♫ The Heat of the Moment - Asia ♫

It was the heat of the moment Telling me what my heart meant The heat of the moment showed in your eyes

everything i wanted • reader You’re trapped inside a Din x Omera love triangle, struggling to get to your lover who’s entranced with your new host.

♫ everything i wanted - Billie Eilish ♫

I had a dream I got everything I wanted

don’t blame me• reader In the weeks following your marriage, you and Din are desperate to make up for all the physical affection you’ve missed out on—leading you to do whatever you can wherever you can.

♫ Don't Blame Me - Taylor Swift ♫

Don't blame me, love made me crazy If it doesn't, you ain't doin' it right Lord, save me, my drug is my baby I'll be usin' for the rest of my life

said and done • reader With Din being injured from a past fight, you’re the one in charge of the hunts for now—and Din realizes he likes having you in control.

♫ God is a woman - Ariana Grande ♫

You, you love it how I move you You love it how I touch you My one, when all is said and done You'll believe God is a woman

next to you • reader It’s been long enough since Din’s promised return for you to assume that he didn’t make it, and now you yearn for the life that could’ve been.

♫ Lay Me Down - Sam Smith ♫

Yes, I do, I believe That one day I will be where I was Right there, right next to you

touch it softly • reader When you invite Din to play with your hair, you both get a little more than lost in the moment.

♫ my hair - Ariana Grande ♫

Said I'ma give you some instructions That you can't be scared to try I want you to touch it softly Like the way you do my mind

ni ceta par gar (i kneel for you)* • reader When Mando needs emotional release, you seek to fulfill your pining by offering something neither one of you can resist—something that could change everything.

♫ bad idea - Ariana Grande ♫

I got a bad idea (uh-huh) Yeah, I'ma call you over here to numb the pain (Ari-Chan) I got a bad idea (uh-huh) Forget about it, yeah, forget about him, yeah Forget about me

in my head • reader The thought of Din plagues your mind—and it won’t be long until it’s forced onto your lips.

♫ Streets - Doja Cat ♫

I can't sleep no more In my head, we belong And I can't be without you Why can't I find no one like you?

stay • omera Din wrestles with his feelings for Omera and tries to tell her how she feels—but has to let her in first.

♫ The Archer - Taylor Swift ♫

I've been the archer I've been the prey Who could ever leave me, darling? But who could stay?

favorite crime • reader When your ex-partner-in-crime and past lover enters your life again, you find yourself looking back on fond memories with a tremendous desire to chase them again.

♫ favorite crime - Olivia Rodrigo ♫

All the things I did Just so I could call you mine The things you did Well, I hope I was your favorite crime

bring me home • reader You reunite with your Mandalorian lover after a long separation and realize much has changed since you last him.

♫ Sweet Creature - Harry Styles ♫

Sweet creature, sweet creature Wherever I go, you bring me home

safety net • deaf!reader When you and Din are reunited after a hunt that goes longer than expected, your mutual feelings for each other finally bubble to the surface—regardless of the fears you’ve both buried deep within.

♫ safety net - Ariana Grande ♫

Tripping, falling with no safety net Boy, it must be something that you said Is it real this time or is it in my head? Got me tripping, falling with no safety net

selfish • reader Din, who’s helplessly in love with you, is forced to watch you and your partner until he’s forced to come to terms with his feelings.

♫ Woman - Harry Styles ♫

I'm selfish, I know But I don't ever want to see you with him I'm selfish, I know I told you, but I know you never listen

as it was • din djarin’s parents The living waters beneath Mandalore bring Din back to a place—and a people—he never thought he’d see again.

♫ As It Was - Harry Styles ♫

In this world, it's just us You know it's not the same as it was

people watching• grogu Observation was a skill Din Djarin had mastered for his own safety, but now it sets the scene for his very own destruction.

♫ People Watching - Conan Gray ♫

But I wanna feel all that love and emotion Be that attached to the person I'm holding Someday, I'll be falling without caution But for now, I'm only people watching

astronomy • reader Crossing paths with a seriously injured Din forces the two of you to come to terms with your relationship.

♫ Astronomy - Conan Gray ♫

As much as it seems like you own my heart It's astronomy, we're two worlds apart

fine line • reader Din tries his best to comfort you in the aftermath of your torturous capture.

♫ Fine Line - Harry Styles ♫

We'll be a fine line We'll be alright

takes one to know one • reader Bounty hunters aren’t supposed to fall in love and you were okay with that. So was the Mandalorian.

♫ cowboy like me - Taylor Swift ♫

Now you hang from my lips Like the Gardens of Babylon With your boots beneath my bed Forever is the sweetest con I've had some tricks up my sleeve Takes one to know one You're a cowboy like me

doomsday • reader You and Din are interrogated by Moff Gideon, who has quickly realized you’re the best weapon he has to use against the Mandalorian.

♫ doomsday - Lizzy McAlpine ♫

Doomsday is close at hand I'll book the marching band To play as you speak

right where you left me • reader Din reunites with you many years after your whirlwind romance for a mission you begrudgingly accept to help him with.

♫ right where you left me - Taylor Swift ♫

They expected me to find somewhere Some perspective, but I sat and stared Right where you left me

you hear me when i cry • reader You try to take a new lover after Din doesn’t make it on Nevarro—but he haunts your dreams every night.

♫ ghostin - Ariana Grande ♫

I know you hear me when I cry I try to hold it in at night While you're sleepin' next to me But it's your arms that I need this time (This time)

HUNTER

borrowed time • reader You can’t stop staring at Hunter during a mission, and little do you know just how distracting it is for both him and you.

♫ False God - Taylor Swift ♫

We might just get away with it The altar is my hips Even if it's a false god We'd still worship this love

rush • reader You and Hunter have to make a risky escape when the end of a mission goes sideways, though even an exit gone wrong has a bright side.

♫ Rush - Troye Sivan ♫

I feel the rush Addicted to your touch