#OVER HOW THIS ONE CAN WRITE SO MUCH HOLY HECK

[lunaetis]

my friend while we're writing on discord : should i get nitro ? i hate discord characters limit ! me looking at her last reply that she had to cut into god knows how many parts :

me : yeah .. i don't think even nitro can handle you.

[artist-issues]

I Saw Wish

And it was the worst animated Disney movie I’ve ever seen. I have to watch it again before I can get into the nitty gritty details. But I don’t need details to sum it up, because my dad actually said it perfectly as we left the theater:

“It was like someone who didn’t really understand Disney movies tried to make a Disney movie.”

Both the form (the technical arts of filmmaking) and the content (the morals, values, and themes of the movie) were totally horrible.

I don’t know who’s fault it was. Jeremy Spears was in the storyboard room and Mark Henn and Eric Goldberg did some 2D animation. But they must have gotten outvoted, or they must not care anymore.

Because holy cow. Here’s some stuff that’s just off the top of my head.

SPOILERS. Not that it matters, because nothing interesting happens in this movie.

The writing? Terrible. Ninety percent of it feels like the characters are filling time with quirky one-liners that are trying too hard to be appealing, then failing, then taking you out of the movie. The jokes aren’t funny. The characters just respond to each other in conversation to check a one-liner box. The other twenty percent is whole conversations repeating tell-don’t-show exposition that has already been covered, usually twice, in previous scenes. Like if in Tangled, every scene had included some variation of Rapunzel saying to friends and enemies alike, “I have to see the floating lights so I’m sneaking to the castle with this thief who wants a mysterious tiara I hid from him. Don’t tell my mother, she’s a bit overprotective!” Over. And over. And over.

The character motivations are way too broad. Asha? Her dream is just “that everybody around me gets to be happy.” That’s it, in a nutshell. No deeper exploration of that. Nobody asks, “why do you care so much?” Nobody tries to convince her she should look out for herself, and then she proves she was right all along. The King? We are told (not shown) that he doesn’t want anyone else’s dreams to be “destroyed.” But he in no believable way expresses that that motivation is still what’s driving him during the movie—what’s driving him is just a plain old lust for power, no nuance.

By the way, the whole premise of the movie? Undercooked. Half-baked concepts strung together with no definitive meaning. Therefore, it’s not believable. Example: The characters act like the wishes are beautiful—well, actually, no, this movie doesn’t know how to show, so there’s not a lot of meaningful acting—the characters just tell us that wishes are “the most beautiful part of someone,” and that’s why it’s worth going through this adventure to give their wishes back to them. But there’s no proof of that in the movie. In fact, it directly kicks it’s own legs out from under that idea, because it has every character who gives up their wish forget that part of themselves. Asha’s grandfather has forgotten his wish, but that doesn’t make him any less “beautiful.” She, and everyone, still treats him like he’s this wonderful old man who deserves the world, who everyone loves…but why is he so appealing? If he “gave up the most beautiful part of him?” The only character who is changed by their lack-of-wish is the Sleepy-analogue character…who is just sleepy, which is described as “boring.” But nobody else who’s given up their wish in the whole kingdom acts like that. It’s just him. Also, the King acts like it’s so important to protect the wishes from destruction. But what does destroying a wish look like? That actually happens to Asha’s mom. Her wish-bubble is broken, literally, and she just says she feels grief. But like. Why? She never remembered it in the first place; it had been missing from her life for years. Also, what the heck is a wish?! It seems to range from broad concepts like “inspire people” to “fly.” Just “fly,” like a bird. The desire to levitate off the ground is the most important, beautiful essence of one background character. Like, what?! But no character ever has the why behind their wish to make us care.

I could go on and on about that point. Like, think about Disney movies that wrote the book on how to make movies about characters with wishes. If Ariel were in Wish, her bubble would look like “dancing and learning and exploring on the Surface with someone who understands her.” But we believe that that is her real, genuine wish, and that it matters to her, because we are shown why being understood is so important to her. Because it’s missing from her life. There’s a scene where she explores a boat alone, and even her best friend doesn’t get excited about it with her. Her dad won’t listen to her point of view. Her siblings don’t ask her about her life even when they think she’s in love. She wants what she wants because of pieces of her life that we are shown.

We are never shown why Asha’s grandfather is obsessed with inspiring people, so we have no reason to believe it, or care whether he gets it or not. We can’t feel disappointed when his wish is said to “never come true,” like we did when Quasimodo was abused by the people he wished to join. We can’t feel elated when he finally “gets” his wish, like we did when Simba smiles on Pride Rock remembering the same way he used to as a cub and claims the crown with a roar. We don’t have anything to hang on to, nothing to relate to, nothing to grasp and feel with the characters. So we don’t feel, because they didn’t put the work in to help us feel. They just say, “the mom’s feeling grief. Feel grief.” And expect us to do the work ourselves. I have to stop harping on this point and move on.

But The main point of the movie is very broad because of that lazy premise, and it’s barely reinforced by any kind of appealing storytelling. If I had to guess, the point would be “Keep wishing for more even when it’s hard.” But the story they told to communicate that meaning was so unimpactful. Asha doesn’t have a dream of her own that’s such hard work to accomplish! (Neither does her grandfather; his wish is “to inspire people.” And at the end, we’re supposed to see him strumming a guitar and believe it’s inspiring? We were never shown how he worked hard to learn how to play the instrument. Or that he carved it with his own hands, or anything like that. So there’s no meaningful demonstration of working hard for it or achieving your wish even if it’s far out of reach.) And nobody except the king is trying to take wishes away from anyone, and he just does it literally, after they voluntarily give them to him, so there’s not even any impactful demonstration of “don’t let anyone tell you your wishes are dumb or unachievable, or stop you from reaching them.” Even when he takes them away, it’s just because they…could, someday, be used to threaten his kingdom in a vague, really unlikely way. There are so many things you could do with “keep wishing for more even when it’s hard.” For instance; you could say the main character has always been afraid to dream (wish for more), because maybe when she was a kid something wonderful almost happened but ended in tragedy, so she keeps her head down and doesn’t want much because if you don’t dream you’ll never be disappointed. She takes no risks, and has to learn that sometimes trying and failing is worth more than slogging through life all self-protective. I mean, the pieces were right there. She has this line about her dad, and how she wished he would get better but then he died. She has lines about how nobody should have to live with grief?? Then that’s never addressed again! It’s just a throwaway emotion-moment with no buildup or follow-through to tie it to and support that main theme.

The compositions of too many shots were so terrible. Characters got cut off in weird places. One shot has Asha dead center, with her grandfather on the left side of the table and her mother on the right, having a family dinner with a super exposition-heavy conversation that is meant to be emotionally charged. But despite everything else being perfectly centered, half of her mother’s body is chopped off. The movie’s shot like someone’s mom who doesn’t understand technology tried to take a video with her phone.

The charm of the art “style” wears off basically immediately. I know what they were going for. I see the sketch lines and watercolor textures. This is maybe the first time Disney ever failed to accomplish a visual “look” that turned out good. Everything looks dull. Muted. De-saturated. Slightly out of focus, but not in a cool Spider-Verse way. The sets or backgrounds are lazy; at no point does the scenery look complete; big, empty, boring spaces that do not create any kind of “stage” for impactful moments. The rendering looks unfinished. When Asha’s hair moves during her belting of the “I Make This Wish” song, it’s bad. It’s unnatural. It flops in a way that doesn’t make sense for the weight of her hair. The most impactful visual moments come from the villain, and they’re moments when he looks way too unhinged for the kind of line he’s saying.

There is no interesting character development. Asha goes from believing everyone is basically good and their wishes deserve the chance to come true , to….that, again. That would be fine, she could be a static character, if she proved contrast-characters wrong, in a believable way. But she never does. Because no other characters argue with her except the King. And it goes no deeper than “everyone’s wishes are basically good and they deserve the chance to make them true” vs. “nuh-uh, because I get to decide what makes them deserving.” The King doesn’t have any kind of interesting development, either. They don’t expand on his tragic backstory—it consists of one drawing of him near a broken boat, and a few images of the corner burned off of his family taoestry. They never say “King Magnifico wished for _____ and it was taken away!” They literally never tell you what his wish or dreams were, or what motivated him to create the whole kingdom that the movie’s premise sits on. So there’s no convincing sense of progression, how he got this way, why he’ll keep going “so far.”

The pacing is weird. It undercuts every moment that could have any kind of emotion behind it. One minute Valentino is suavely bouncing around, then he’s given a two-second beat to blubber with badly-animated tears that he’ll miss Star—then he instantly gets to have another funny one-liner so we forget he might’ve been sad a second ago. We’re clearly supposed to believe that the King and his wife are devoted to each other, and his turning evil was such a big betrayal, but there’s no time and no impactful evidence for us to believe either of those things. And even if we did, the moment he’s defeated and trapped in a mirror, and begs to be let free, the Queen kind of shrugs it off, makes a forgettable one-liner, and tells them to throw him in the dungeon. And he doesn’t look remorseful. And we don’t even get to assume he’s embarrassed or emotionally devastated that he’s come to this—because the last thing he says is “nooo, the dungeon is so smellyyy!” Like this is a half-baked LEGO short that can’t get emotionally deeper than what an actual 3 year-old’s parents might be okay with.

And that’s the worst offense: The movie is not genuine. It works hard for nothing, and it has no vulnerability. It just uses old Disney standbys to pretend to be vulnerable. Have the music swell and the characters gasp and the songs drip emotion when characters are meant to be saying or doing something emotional.

But truthfully, think of all the Disney movies you’ve ever seen with the hardest emotional moments. The sheer joy of Genie when he realizes he’s free. The anguish when Elsa thinks Anna’s been frozen forever, or when Anna thinks she’s dead. The trauma when Simba loses Mufasa. The longing and dreaming of Ariel when she reaches up out of her grotto. The sense of foreboding when Mother Gothel says “fine, now I’m the bad guy” or the heartbreak in Rapunzel’s eyes when she thinks Flynn has abandoned her, or the shame on Aladdin’s face when Jafar reveals he’s a street-rat, or the horror of cruelty when the stepsisters rip up Cinderella’s dress, or Kala’s tears when Tarzan leaves her in the treehouse, or Sarabi’s tears when Simba comes back, or Mulan’s father tossing aside the sword and token of the Emperor to embrace Mulan, or heck, even just Lilo pushing Stitch in the woods and telling him “get out of here.” This movie has no moments like that. It has moments you can tell that the filmmakers wanted to hit like that—but they don’t.

Because no work is put into building them up. You know how much Simba loves Mufasa, because you’ve been watching their chemistry more than any other character all the way up till he dies. You know how much Mulan wants to please her family because she spends all of Act I desperately attempting to do that. You know Quasimodo believes the world below is beautiful and wants them to accept him because he has interesting things like—talking to gargoyles, convincing us that he’s lonely; building a scale model of the townspeople, convincing us that he sees them in a beautiful way and wishes he were beautiful in more ways than one like them, too.

Right down to the facial expressions, none of them are as anguished, happy, sad, excited, silly, in any convincing way like all of Disney’s other movies. Asha’s “low moment” when she’s afraid her “wish” hurt everyone else (still vague on what that wish ever was) lasts two seconds, she’s not crying, she’s barely sitting with slumped shoulders, and her family barely spend two seconds comforting her. They basically just say, “aw, no, it’s not y fault, it’s the king’s.” And she’s like, “yeah okay” and that’s that. It’s like the animators we’re afraid to animate really intimate emotions on the characters’ faces. The voice actors, too.

And the whole movie is peppered with Easter eggs to past Disney movies. But all that does, if you really know Disney beyond the visuals, is make you think of how hollow this movie is in comparison. How much you wish you were watching Cinderella or The Little Mermaid or something with depth and vulnerability instead of Wish.

[little-emerald-snake]

Any chance we can pretty please get a spice level 1000 smut with ominis and mc?

You write so well and atm all im seeing on tumblr is seb.

Im an omi girl and im starving lol

If your current circumstances permit, could you delve into your deepest darkest smut mind and give us a golden heap of descriptive and intricate filth? Haha xxx

We all love you.

I squeal whenever you post. Xxxxx

Hope youre doing well

Did you just come from the Undercroft!? - Ominis Gaunt X F!MC

🔥 NSFW 🔞 MDNI

Ohhh boy this one is wayyyy better than my last Doninis request so I apologize. But holy heck…this came from the dark fucked up recesses of my brain so enjoy that 🤣 Thanks for reading love, I’m doing much better after cutting back how much I’ve been writing, I feel rejuvenated and have much better inspiration (ignore the fact I’m posting twice a week again 🙄) 🫶🏻

Warnings: reliving the trauma of Ominis yelling at you for coming out of the Undercroft, Dominis, degradation, name calling (seriously I did not hold back), spitting, spit swallowing, clit/pussy spanking, rough fingering, squirting, spanking thighs and ass, unprotected rough sex, marking, threats of impregnation, threats of defamation, gaslighting, so much use of the word slut, overstimulation, crying during sex, degradation, oral m receiving, cum swallowing, no aftercare (hang in there loves, it’s a tough one)

2.4k words

She carefully stepped out from the undercroft, glancing around to see the coast was clear before stepping out. Much to her surprise the familiar blonde Slytherin stood there almost as if he was headed there himself. “Hello Sebastian. Wait.”

Her heart began to race in her chest and she momentarily debated making a run for it or staying absolutely silent and pretending she wasn’t there at all. “You there. I can hear you.”

Well there went that plan. The blind Slytherin wasn’t to be trifled with. That much she knew. No sense in hiding if he already knew that she was in fact there and it wasn’t in fact his best friend. “Oh, hello Ominis, isn’t it? I believe we have a few classes together, right?”

The blonde's brows rose and he looked momentarily puzzled before standing a bit straighter. “I recognize that voice. Heard you talking to Garreth Weasley in Potions class. You’re the new fifth-year.”

She was about to cheerily agree but a scowl met his features and her stomach sunk. He looked absolutely furious. “Did you just come from the Undercroft? How did you get in there?”

She swallowed nervously, deciding in that moment that she wouldn’t rat out Sebastian after he’d taken the fall for her in the library. “Oh? That room’s called ‘the Undercroft?’ Ah. Well, I was exploring and suddenly found myself in a strange passageway-“

He frowned deeply, interrupting her with a cutting tone. “Don’t lie to me. No one ‘stumbles’ upon that room. Sebastian told you, didn’t he?”

He suddenly shifted closer to her, nearly pinning her against the clock decorated door to the Undercroft and she swallowed again. “I can’t risk you telling anyone about this place, you know. Sebastian’s going to get an earful about this. He gets into enough trouble as it is and doesn’t need your help in doing so. Come with me.”

He stepped away from her, bringing his wand up to guide him before grabbing her arm and yanking her away from the opening. He carefully opened the passageway to the Undercroft and shoved her inside, stepping in after her and gripping her arm again.

She stumbled as he easily guided her to the couch and tossed her down roughly. She debated getting up and making a run for it but he stood right in front of her, blocking her exit unless she jumped over the back of the sofa. “I’m going to punish you for lying on behalf of Sebastian. I bet he only showed you this place so he wouldn’t be interrupted while taking your sweet pussy. He should know better. This is my hideout. He shouldn’t be bringing his mischievous romps down here anyway.”

She stuttered over her words, anxious as Ominis’ body language changed and his words lost their proper tone and changed to a different, more demanding tone. “I-I…we weren’t doing anything like that. H-he simply was showing me a place to work on my magic since I’m behind. I-I swore I wouldn’t tell anyone about it and I meant that. I-I’d never-“

He tsked her, placing a finger under her chin and tipping her head up to look at him. “You’re loyal to Sebastian. Not me. Therefore I can’t trust you. As for Sebastian, he’s showing you the Dark Arts isn't he? You’re learning the curses with him aren’t you? You will not sully my Undercroft with Dark Magic or your vile sexual acts.”

She pressed herself against the back of the couch, heartbeat thundering behind her ribs all the way down between her legs. She couldn’t explain why his anger was working her up but it was.

He chuckled, wand blinking in his hand. “My my, your heart sure is beating away. Partially because you're scared but there’s something more isn’t there? What? Sebastian teaching you the Dark Arts is riling you up is it? Are you greedy for power? You do realize I’m a Gaunt, right? Sallow is a pureblood wizard but I’m a direct pureblooded descendant of Salazar himself. My blood runs thicker with tragedy than any other wizarding family known to the wizarding world.”

Her mouth went dry. That wasn’t what she was about at all. It had nothing to do with power or learning the Dark Arts which she actually feared. But the way he was speaking to her, boasting himself up and almost trying to compete with Sebastian for her attention had her going. This was a very different side to Ominis.

He snickered, tucking his wand away and lowering himself to kneel on the couch with his hands on the tips of the cushions behind her and his knee between her legs. Her body went rigid when hot breath ghosted across her neck and a hand caressed her stomach, slowly adding pressure and moving downwards. “That’s right. I know you’re a pureblood. I could easily fill you with a Gaunt heir and you would very quickly become an important witch. Your name would be in everyone’s mouth.”

His hand now lifted the hem of her skirt and she nearly choked when a devious smirk decorated Ominis’ features. Shame burned through her. “No bloomers on. You filthy slut. Now I’m sure of it. You were down here trying to fuck Sebastian weren’t you. He’s ever the playboy you know. He’ll stick his cock in anything. You aren’t special.”

Her heart raced, squirming as his fingers traced up her inner thigh to find her soaking wet pussy. He groaned, yanking her skirt up and moving her knees apart a bit to spit directly onto her sex. The action caught her off guard but he flattened his palm, rubbing her pussy with his flattened fingers by starting slow and getting rougher.

She held back whimpers and moans but this only made him angrier. She gasped as his free hand moved off the cushions and squeezed her cheeks. The action forced her lips to open and that was when he spit inside her mouth, fingers still roughly rubbing against her sensitive sex.

She hesitated, freezing with his spit in her mouth now and unsure what to do. He chuckled darkly, seeming to sense her dilemma. “Swallow it. Filthy slut. You better consider this an honor.”

She swallowed. It felt wrong but that didn’t stop her body from responding with hot electric tingles spreading down her body. He chuckled, finding her clit with the ball of his palm and rubbing aggressively. The sensation it caused danced on the line of torture and pleasure. The pressure was too much but that didn’t stop her hips from canting upwards.

This was all too much. She was careening toward an orgasm, hips bucking and moving to try and wring pleasure from the overstimulating torture. In a moment of relief he pulled his hand away, spitting down on her pussy again, releasing her jaw and caging her in with his arm. She thought the torturous pleasure would be done but that’s when his palm reunited with her sex in a loud slap.

The sound got her more than anything but the intense heat that burned from the sensation of the spank caused her to whine. He only grinned spanking a few more times in quick succession.

She reached down to grip his wrist and pull him away but he only chuckled, overpowering her with strength and shoving two fingers inside. She lost her battle, still holding his wrist but no longer pushing him away as he began a brutal pace, finger fucking her rather agressively. “This is how you learn, useless slut.”

It was intense but she couldn’t deny it had her hips lifting in pleasure again. Especially when those long slender fingers curled, hammering directly against her g spot and dragging her closer to the edge her body was teetering on. “Ah! Oh Ominis! I-I’m gonna-!”

He kept up the brutal pace, laughing at her pitiful behavior below him as he kneeled over her and drove her to the brink. She gave a sharp cry, body arching upwards as a pressure she’d never felt before took over. “You’re not supposed to like this, greedy little slut.”

When the pressure faded and the high of her orgasm faded she floated back to reality, ears still lightly ringing. She could hear Ominis’ condescending tone trying to break through.

After a moment she finally registered when he was saying. “How dare you make a mess of the furniture in my Undercroft. Look at this fucking mess. Are you listening to me!? Your pleasure should be irrelevant to me.”

She opened her eyes, glancing down between her legs where Ominis had pulled his now dripping fingers away to motion at the damp cushions below her. Luckily for him, he’d managed to dive away before getting splashed with her mess as his clothes were dry. His hand and the furniture below her had no such luck.

She had hot tears welling in her eyes. She’d never squirted before and now from something so rough. How could this have happened? She didn’t have long to process before Ominis’ hand landed on her parted thigh with a slap that echoed through the stone walls of the room.

She gasped, the heat that blossomed to the top of her skin, making it red and sensitive, surprising her. He spanked her again just a bit higher and she snapped her legs shut, causing him to laugh. “What? Can’t take a punishment properly? You shouldn’t have lied to me then, you stupid girl.”

She whimpered and he took her hand, helping her up. She sighed a breath of relief. It was short lived though as he flipped her over and positioned her on her hands and knees in front of him, yanking her skirt up to leave her bare before him.

His palm came down hard on the round cheek of her ass, causing her to gasp and lurch forward in surprise. “That’s for making a such a fucking mess.”

She peered over her shoulder, swallowing harshly as she heard the zipper of his trousers and felt the blunt tip of him against her entrance. She didn’t have time to deny him as he shoved into her, slamming his hips forward and burying himself inside her wet warmth.

She gasped, biting into her lip at the slight sting of such a quick intrusion. He filled her so completely full she’d never felt anything like it. She gasped when he moved, dragging himself back out and grunting as he stuffed himself right back in.

He held her hips in a firm grasp, fucking into her agressively. With every slam of his hips it became just a bit clearer that this fucking was meant as a punishment. Yes it felt incredible but his pace was brutal, rough and quick and meant to get a point across.

Just as she was beginning to fall into pleasure and tighten around him he was pulling out of her and flipping her onto her back. He wasted little time slamming back into her and resuming the animalistic pace of fucking her.

He leant down over her, baring his teeth against her neck and scraping against her delicate skin. He fucked her faster, biting and suckling bruises into her soft skin.

The pleasure was driving her closer and closer to the edge but she knew people would surely question her about the hickeys he was leaving. She attempted to shove him off, causing a snarl to rise from his throat and he released her abused flesh and growled against her ear. “If you tell anyone it was me who marked you, I’ll deny it. I’ll tell everyone you’re a filthy little liar and that you are nowhere near my league. I’ll publically humiliate you. Is that what you want?”

She pitifully shook her head and tears bubbled up to the surface. She was moaning and crying, pain, pleasure and emotional whiplash being the cause. But her body shook and she experienced a soul shredding orgasm. Fat hot tears rolled down her cheeks as she rippled around him, whimpering and crying out as she came.

He growled in frustration, pulling out of her and falling back against the couch, pulling her with and seating her in his lap. “How dare you cum on my cock without my permission. You’re going to fucking earn it this time, you hear that slut? Ride me to get your pleasure since you’re such a greedy cock slut.”

She was so lost in the pleasure and the chaos that she did, placed her hands on his shoulders and rolled her hips on his, riding him and whimpering. “That’s right. Take my cock. Forget all about dallying with Sebastian. Enabling him like a naughty little bitch behind my back. Stupid girl, playing with the Dark Arts.”

She cried, overwhelmed from how good it felt to fuck him and how hot it was to be degraded by him but his words did cut deep. She hadn’t slept with Sebastian at all but the idea that Ominis wanted to fuck Sebastian out of her system lit a fire inside of her. He laughed heartily at her tears. “Are you overwhelmed silly slut? Can’t take being told what a useless and dumb little hole you are? Thats alright. I’m done with your pussy. Get on the floor where sluts belong. This filthy pussy isn’t good enough to be bred by a Gaunt. Your mouth will have to do.”

He practically shoved her off, more or less tossing her to the floor before sliding forward on the seat and gripping a fistful of her hair and using her mouth. She watched through watery eyes as he fucked her mouth, pumping her mouth full of thick, hot, salty cum.

She immediately wanted to spit it out but he pinched her nose and pulled his cock out, forcing her head back and brushing down the front of her throat till she swallowed his essence. He laughed meanly, tapping her cheek. “That’s right. You’re a good slut. Even if you are an absolute shit liar.”

He stood up, straightening himself out and putting himself back together before pulling his wand from his robe pocket and sauntering towards the door. “No more encouraging Sebastian to get into trouble? You hear me? If he comes up with some ‘brilliant plan’ you bring it to me immediately. Now, go clean up and go to bed…although, I must admit you are prettier when you’re overstimulated. And remember what I said. You tell anyone anything about this and I’ll have this entire school pitted against you. I’m not afraid to exploit my father being friends with Headmaster Black if I need to.”

Without another word he left her, tears streaming, throat raw, and pussy aching from the roughness.

[clonedchaos]

JWCT S3 Rambles

JURASSIC NATION IM TWEAKING

Okay folks, you know the drill from last time I did this. Rambles and notes I made while watching each episode. Spoilers below the cut!

Episode 1

I don’t have much to say here, I just enjoyed it (and forgot to write stuff down as I watched)

Episode 2

I wonder if Gia’s mother went to Kenji first bc she saw how disheveled he is (given his self destructive behavior last season)

Sammy’s passive aggression toward Yaz is umm… worrying me.

PYRORAPTOR FEATHER HECK YEAH

Smoothie my beloved OMGGGG I LOVE HIM SO MUCH!!!

Episode 3

Someone with chess experience plz psychoanalyze that chess scene to see if it foreshadows anything (I may be going insane)

Yutyrannus mention. PLZ! It’s in Jurassic world alive, I love them!!!! PLEASE PUT THEM IN THE FRANCHISE OFFICIALLY 

“Isn’t he magnificent?” “… Yeah??” DARIUS STOP PLAYING—

Soyona doing her dirty work in heels. What a diva.

I like how the explanation of the Amber Clave Market from dominion is explained via the catacombs. Like shipping them all directly to it would’ve been huge red flags. Makes me wonder what kinda dinosaurs are lurking around down there…

The parallel of Red being separated from her family and Brooklynn from hers… oof

KENJI WHY DID YOU NOT JUST TAKE THE POT WITH YOU?!

Episode 4

SAMMY CALLING YAZ “BABE” HOLY——-

Soyona has anger issues too… This woman both scares me and makes my crush on her grow even more. 

THE REFERENCES TO DOMINION. Well duh it’s obvious and expected, but I kick my legs and scream every time.

Baby sleeping in the apples…

“I’m over one way relationships.” SAMMY NO NO NOOOOO DO NOT DO THIS TO ME RN 

Pyro sounding like an elk is so freaking cool!!!! AHHHH *kicking my legs and screaming* I was so giddy when she came out of the darkness. 

DAMN BROOKLYNN SMOKED THAT ARM WRESTLE OKAY QUEEN!!!!

Poor Pyro getting 3 V 1, not my Shaylaaaa. And the way they curled back into the vehicle STAHP 😭😭😭😭

Nonna being the parental figure Kenji needed at the end of the episode is everything to me!

Episode 5

Gia and Nonna scolding them in Italian 😭

Brooklynn jumpscare 

Okay but seriously I hate the path Brooklynn is going down… I fear the Lythrosaurus thing is just the tip of the iceberg.

SAMMY AND YAZ’S FIGHT 😭😭 I legitimately am tearing up. These two mean the world to me, I’m not exaggerating. I don’t think this is the end of Yasammy, especially given how much both the crew and fandom love them. Some space apart can be good; relationships are never perfect. I hope they get through this and come back even stronger. We’re all rooting for them!

The Atrociraptors snuggling with the Handler… I can’t. Soyona PLEASE let them be happy!!! She cares so much for them and I relate a lot to that. “Terrifying creatures that could eat me but I still care for them.”

Episode 6:

Okay Brooklynn training the atrociraptors was kinda funny. The way they all peek their heads up the moment she’s filming 🤣

Yep. Knew it was the tip of the iceberg with Brooklynn. Like omg she was really about to kill Davi huh…?

Brooklynn why are you TRYING to piss Ghost off, she just wanted affection 😭. Hope that doesn’t come back to bite her… literally.

Is it bad I’m rooting for the handler to get her family (the atrociraptors) back?? PLZ REVEAL HER STORY SOON!!!!

Darius’s anger toward the way they’re treating the dinosaurs is so so so valid imo. 

Episode 7

THE CAT EAR HAT FOR SMOOTHIE

KENJI RAP HELP—-

The Handler being like a fnaf jumpscare how the heck is she everywhere at once

Yes Kenji, the locusts are absolutely disgusting and I hate them too ☺️

Episode 8

Pyro diving under the snow is so cool tho!!! Clever girl…

HELL YEAH BROOKLYNN AND HANDLER TEAM UP

SOYONA IN HER DOMINION FIT, SHES SO FINEEEEE 😳. The amount of happy hand flaps I did during the parallel scene. 

The car that drove by… Kayla and Claire ref??? 

Episode 9 + 10

So THATS how Soyona escaped?? 

MORE CERATOSAURUS YESSSS!!!! I grew very attached to them given the fact they were one of the starter Dino’s back in Jurassic World Evolution. So happy we see more of them and not just “gets killed by Scorpius Rex in the same season”

Blind Allo coming in clutch once more! We love to see it!!!!!

THE PUNCH TO THE STOMACH, GET HER HANDLER!!! (The toxic yuri is fighting again)

POCKET SAND

OKAY OKAY CAN I JUST TALK ABOUT THAT FACE OFF FOR A MINUTE!!!!!!! I could’ve sworn the handler was gonna get killed after Red attacked her. But the way she handled her and shut down the aggression with a few hits and diversion of the bites— She raised these animals, she grew used to calculating their movements and how to dissuade them. And her siblings coming in to back her up. Poor Red getting scolded by the Handler and her pack with little words. The Handler just leaning over to close Red’s jaws shut when she hissed at her. Ah, absolute chef’s kiss. My FAVORITE scene in this season, no doubt. 

OKAY the Carnotaurus makes sense given how “duh Biosyn would have other trained dinosaurs.”

GHOST! THE HANDLER! NOOOO! Okay I’m not kidding, I legitimately started crying… a second time. I literally cannot  deal with animal-human friendships. The way the Handler looked when Ghost was dying hit far too close to home for me. I’m gonna miss them both…

Okay, overall, phenomenal season. May ramble about it more in depth in a different post, but for now… I need to cope and do homework 🥺

[emo-crowgirl]

do you have any tips for writing the glitch techs characters? i want to get back into fanfic writing but idk how to write them

I have a few things. Not entirely sure how much it would help because Im also kind of new to writing and have no idea what counts as advice and what’s just obvious here, but here’s some things I do:

General speech stuff:

The biggest thing I do to write any character is rewatch episodes of the show to try to get their speaking style and voice locked down in my brain. I rewatch a few episodes of Glitch Techs whenever I come back from a long pause in writing or if I’m trying to get a specific character’s personality down. A general rule for me is if I can’t read a bit of dialogue and hear it in the character’s voice, I rewrite it until I can.

(Also: I cheat a little. The reason my main fic right now (HTSBD) is primarily a Chatfic is because I’m bad at writing tone and struggle with writing movement. It’s a lot easier to write how a character would write something or speak in a vacuum than write how a character would physically say something or how they’d move.)

Anyways, watching episodes and really paying attention to the character’s speaking style helps a lot for me, and also helped me see a couple of verbal tics and quirks that I never really noticed before. Like I know how “Oh Nerds” or just “Nerds” is used as a kind of in-universe swear, and I know Mitch’s usage of “Noobs” and “Blueberries” to describe Five and Miko, but I never picked up on stuff like how often Five says “Holy Smokes” or how Miko tends to refer to people as “Dudes” for example until a rewatch.

Speaking of in-universe swears: I personally swear like a “written by vivziepop” meme, which gets in the way of writing dialogue because I’d keep putting swears in places where they don’t belong. To counter this, i literally made one of those “will they say fuck” meme charts and arranged all of the characters on it by how likely they are to swear at something and how likely they are to use more mild substitutes like “damn”, “heck” or the in-universe “Nerds”, and somehow this helped me write better. So what I’m saying is those meme charts can be surprisingly useful when trying to nail down specific character stuff and keeping it consistent if you take them seriously and don’t just use them for memes.

Below the cut is a very, very long post on each of the specific characters. I have no idea if it’s usable as writing advice or if it’s just me overanalyzing and incoherent rambling.

Specific characters:

Ok so this very quickly turned into me overanalyzing and rambling about my interpretations of the characters in extreme detail. I have no idea if any of this is even remotely helpful but I seriously enjoyed writing it.

Five:

I got this from another writing tip post made by someone else on this site, but Five is petty. He’s held on to a single ruined birthday for years and as pointed out by that post I mentioned he STILL hasn’t told Miko that they have actually met before because she kept beating him in various games. Five can and will hold grudges for a very long time.

At the same time though, he’s not usually the type to hold that grudge over someone’s head or bring it up around them all that often. Depending on the context he either keeps that sort of thing to himself and essentially bottles it all up or is willing to forgive, but very unwilling to forget.

The only major exception to this is Mitch. Five gives him plenty of leeway and is usually quick to forgive a good chunk of Mitch’s assholery, or at least doesn’t usually hold much of a grudge after the fact. I’ve always kinda personally seen this as a bit of hero worship. Mitch and especially Mitch’s old streams and videos mean A LOT to Five, he credits them for basically teaching him all of his gaming knowledge and they may have even been what got him as into gaming as he is now, and he holds onto that positive stuff just like how he holds onto grudges and pettier things.

That being said, Five does have a boiling point, for both holding onto grudges and how many times he’s willing to give Mitch the benefit of the doubt, and as seen in B.U.D.S, when Five does eventually hit that point he goes straight for the kill, shutting down Mitch and leaving him without any kind of response, which is saying something because it’s Mitch “Always has the last word” Williams. He seems willing to push things to the side and forgive later in the day, but again, Mitch is an outlier and gets a lot more leeway than anyone else.

In terms of his family (more specifically just his Dad), it’s complicated. Five loves his dad, but his arrest is a very sore subject and Five will do basically anything to avoid the topic, from just dodging the topic in conversations whenever possible to literally avoiding a family friend’s entire store for years. Five just doesn’t like dwelling on things that.

And that’s outside of Hinobi. Within Hinobi, it’s complicated but in a different way. Because the store that Five works at is 100% the exact same store that his Dad worked at. There’s no way it isn’t. And then you need to remember that in-universe, his dad made some of the earliest video games that were ESSENTIAL to the development of modern games, without even acknowledging that there’s a very high chance his Dad worked on or even invented the in-universe equivalent to PONG. Making Emilio Nieves most likely the literal inventor of video games as we know it. There are definitely people currently in the Bailley store that knew him. That worked with him. Phil probably knew him at least in passing and at most personally. There’s weight here, along with some MASSIVE shoes to fill, and Five knows it, but absolutely refuses to acknowledge it. He just wants to ignore it and pretend it isn’t there.

Kinda connecting to that, Five overthinks things a lot. He stresses over the smaller things, and is more than capable of sending himself into a spiral if he’s not careful, and if something is bothering him, it’s going to keep bothering him for a long time. So maybe that’s part why he tries to avoid anything to do with his dad. Because he knows that if he actually starts putting too much thought into it it’ll be hard for him to ever stop thinking about it.

Come to think of it, we see that he’s been friends with Casino since long before his Dad’s arrest, and yet Casino mentions that it’s been a very long time since the two of them have seen each other. Maybe Five trying his best to avoid anything to do with his dad and probably kinda just.. withdrawing from everything to avoid the topic has something to do with that.

In terms of his skills as a Glitch Tech and a Gamer, Five has a very good mind and planning ability, but lacks the raw, innate skill that some others have.

Like he can outthink his opponents, plan things out extremely well, figure out puzzles and strategies extremely quickly and he’s very quick to learn the ins and outs of a game, but he doesn’t have the insane reflexes, reaction times or that general raw, natural ability that someone like Mitch or Miko has. Give him a chance to think things through for even a moment and he can easily figure out what he NEEDS to do, but he could lack the raw, unlearnable ability to actually DO it. Luckily as a Glitch Tech, that’s typically where buffs come in to bridge that gap, and he’s typically more than willing to practice and retry games until he gets the hang of something, helped by the fact that Five is a very quick learner.

Like take my view on why he couldn’t beat Castlestein. He kept every weapon on him just in case it would be useful in the future and looted literally everything, and he definitely knew exactly what he NEEDED to do, but he just couldn’t do it. If he made it to Nogrog the upside down castle puzzle and Nogrog’s final battle would have been figured out in seconds, but he didn’t make it. The enemies were too fast, the timing windows for everything too small and Five simply lacked the reflexes and raw power to get through it until eventually he was worn down to the point of giving up.

Five isn’t weaker than Miko or necessarily worse than her at games, his skills are just in a different place and it’s hard to compare the two of them. Miko has the raw power and reflexes, but he’s better at planning and strategizing. In any competitive game between them could probably read Miko like a book, easily outmaneuver or flank her or just outsmart her completely, but he needs a even a small moment to think or do a tiny bit a of setup in order to do that effectively, and Miko excels in rushing down opponents before they’re able to react. If Miko can successfully rush Five and both start and end the fight quickly (in either a game or real life), she wins easily, but if it starts being dragged out a even a little bit longer and Five is able to actually think of a plan, it’s a lot more evenly matched, getting more favoured towards Five the more time passes and the more he’s able to think.

Also (just for pure, headcanoned fun) as for Five’s place on my “swear chart”: I have him marked down as one of the least likely characters to swear, but one of the most likely to use a substitute like Nerds, Damn or Heck.

Miko:

I have a lot to say about Miko because she’s one of my favourite characters.

Four letters: A.D.H.D. If you want to write Miko and aren’t diagnosed with ADHD, I suggest doing research on ADHD. The hyperactivity, the impulsiveness, the struggles with focusing on things, the hyperfixating on her interests, her “Boredom Dance” possibly being an example of stimming while being understimulated, she’s so ADHD coded it’s insane. Whether she’s aware of this or not is up to you.

Miko hyperfixates on things. That claim about beating all the games she owns says less about her skill than it does about her sheer determination to complete any game that interests her. If Miko starts something and she’s even slightly interested in it, she NEEDS to complete it. Once she’s gotten going on something it’s very hard to stop her.

However, this can go in reverse. If something does manage to stop Miko, like hitting some metaphorical wall that she just can’t get past, or anything else that finally gets her to give up, or if she’s not interested in whatever she’s supposed to do in the first place, it’s hard to get her going again, especially just on her own without any outside force or person to give her a push.

Also, Miko can’t stand being stuck in one place for too long. She needs to MOVE, She needs to DO SOMETHING, she needs stimulation. A Miko with nothing to do or a Miko forced to do things she finds boring (for two examples: Reading and Tutorials) is an unhappy Miko.

Kinda fitting with both of those above points, Miko is very competitive. She literally tracks down the kid who beat her Rock-Em-Sockers score to challenge him personally. She’s also this competitive against herself, which is another reason why she refuses to leave a game unbeaten. If she doesn’t beat the game, the game has won. (Just look at her brief crisis upon learning that she didn’t beat Castlestien).

Miko may be impulsive, she may not think everything through before doing it, and she may be easily distracted, but she’s not dumb. Far from it. She’s very smart, especially in areas that interest her (she literally sneaks around Joystick Jr’s and fixes the arcade machines in there and she probably had to have taught herself how to do that on her own), but she’s held back by, again, that impulsivity and inability to focus on stuff isn’t an active interest of hers. Again, ADHD.

Also worth noting, as seen in Ralphie Bear is Back, Miko probably has Automatonophobia. That’s the the fear of “human-like figures”. It’s usually the fear of something like mannequins, ventriloquist dummies, or wax figures but it’s also a kind of umbrella-term-phobia that covers a bunch of stuff all at once like the fear of robots, statues, dolls, animatronics and other things that kind of lean towards the uncanny valley. From what we’ve seen Miko’s fear might just extend to animatronics, but then again we’ve never seen her in the same room as a mannequin or a wax figure so who knows.

While we’re on the subject of Miko’s mind, her reset immunity. Have fun with it. It’s implied somewhat in BUDS with the actions of her clone that her immunity extends to things like Mind Reading too and there’s probably a good chance that her mind can’t be controlled or easily altered either, so feel free to go wild on what else Miko could be immune to.

Another note: Miko cannot drive for the life of her. I wouldn’t be surprised if Five at least has a beginner’s license. His grandparents either don’t have a car and just use the food truck, which hasn’t driven in years according to Five, or have like one car used mostly to pick up groceries and supplies for said food truck. Either way Five probably either has a beginner’s license with no logical way of getting a full one of his grandparents don’t have a car, or just has a driver’s license outright if they do. I refuse to believe Miko has been to any form of driving practice, and there is a good reason Five is almost always the person driving the van. The few times we’ve seen her get behind the wheel it’s been some kind of disaster and god help you if she uses the van’s portal gun because she’s either going to miss the destination by a little, miss the destination by a lot, or arrive on location perfectly, only to open the exit portal 10 feet above the ground.

On a less pleasant note: Miko is lonely. It’s kind of implied the timeline of events with her family’s arrival went Rock ‘Em Sockers -> The Ralphie Bear Incident, with Miko originally being lonely when her family first moved to Bailey, then getting herself noticed by getting really good at the arcade games at Joystick Jr’s, especially Rock ‘Em Sockers, only for everything to come crashing down because of that birthday party, and prior to meeting Five Miko really doesn’t have any friends. Sure it’s mentioned by the creators that she knows a couple of people online but in real life she’s was pretty much on her own until meeting Five, and Miko is aware of this.

She’s also a bit of a black sheep in her own family. Her family is large and as the second oldest child, Miko falls right into that middle-child area where her parents tend to be more focused on her older sister and younger siblings. Not to mention that Miko’s interest in gaming is pretty much limited to her within her family. Sure her siblings are willing to play with her occasionally, but the rest of her family just doesn’t GET her interest in video games the same way she does. Her parents and siblings still love her, and she loves them, but there’s a disconnect between her and the rest of her family, and Miko is, again, aware of this.

Also also, it’s kinda implied that Miko isn’t very well socialized, with things like her lack of friends but also things like her not knowing about Mitch being a former streamer and having a channel or her older sister telling her about social aspects of high school despite Miko being 16 and therefore a high schooler. That last point originally made me headcanon that Miko was or still is homeschooled, and although it’s just a headcanon, I like to stick with it. I think it fits with everything else about her.

Miko is terrified of being othered. Of being viewed as the weird kid and losing the friends that she’s pretty much just gained recently. Her greatest tangible fear may be animatronics but her greatest intangible fear is going back to being friendless, and that sort of thing shows.

I’ve made a whole post on it before but I’ll paraphrase it again, but in The Glitch Modder, Mitch’s comments about Miko being weird, everyone else being unnerved by her reset immunity and ESPECIALLY Miko finding out that Five, her current best friend, also sees her immunity as weird sets her off for the whole day because of that. She’s terrified of being viewed as not normal and pushing people away from her, so it’s a massive pain point for her. That sort of thing is also why she panics more than anyone else does when Mitch accuses her of being a glitch in Find The Glitch.

Also kinda connecting to that, Miko will often try to put the wellbeing and feelings of her closer friends before her own, mostly because she doesn’t want to do anything that has even the slightest chance of pushing someone away from her. Like letting Five call her Meeks. She hates the nickname, but doesn’t want to disagree with it for fear of pushing Five away.

Miko doesn’t exactly care about her own wellbeing in combat either. Her main strategy in most things is to charge straight in and start doing damage with very little defensive options, not caring about her own injuries, damage to her equipment or collateral damage, and she’s more than willing to take the hit for Five, Ally, or anyone else she’s working with (although Mitch kinda depends on context), she’s also definitely the type to ignore her own injuries or insist that she’s fine when she’s really not.

Whether you’re writing Miko with the intention of her being a human (canon), a glitch (not canon but there’s a lot of potential) or wanting to leave it ambiguous (The funny option), one thing you have to acknowledge is that Miko’s reflexes and reactions times are canonically insane. Literally called out as inhuman by Mitch. Miko has the reflexes of someone using a TAS in real life and a physical reaction time so good she may as well be seeing the future (as long as she’s focused on the right thing).

This can be seen in her choice of games. The games Miko is shown to be best at are the in-universe equivalent to games like Guitar Hero and DDR, games that primarily require fast reflexes and good reaction times. Even the unnamed game she and Five are playing at the beginning of Castlestien appears to be a fast paced racing or maybe obstacle dodging game of some kind, and what do you know, Miko’s beaten it multiple times.

This borderline superhuman raw skill comes at the cost of puzzles, tutorials and really any moment where Miko is required to sit and think becoming her greatest weakness. Again Miko’s not dumb, but a mix of being unable to focus on the right things, being easily bored and that constant need for stimulation and to actually DO something makes puzzles difficult at best and unbearable at worst for her. Can Miko solve a puzzle on her own? Yes. But she’s just not made for it, doesn’t like doing it and WILL attempt to brute force it if possible. So Miko tends to be unable or more often unwilling to do these sorts of things.

I still think my headcanon about Castlestien’s fake wall is the best example of what I’m trying to say: My headcanon is that the Blade Demon of Truth CAN be beaten, but he’s a puzzle boss that can’t be beaten through normal combat. Miko’s fake wall is a speedrunning glitch that Miko stumbled across by accident because she would rather brute force a seemingly impossible fight until literally finding a way to clip through a wall and skip the fight entirely than try to figure out whatever puzzle needs to be solved to beat the fight legitimately. Could Miko have figured out the intended solution on her own? Eventually sure. But Miko’s sheer determination and unwillingness to do something she hates was simply too strong.

I’ve already compared Five and Miko’s skills, but Miko and Mitch is a whole different story. I want to get into their relationship and how they interact once I start talking about Mitch next, but i think it’s important to get this out of the way now.

Miko has better “raw skill” than Mitch, or at the very least is equally matched or close to equally matched. Her reflexes are better, her reaction times are better, she’s faster than him, Mitch literally calls Miko’s skills inhuman by his own standards, but they’re still evenly matched in a 1 on 1 competition between both of them, possibly slanted in Mitch’s favour. Both of them THINK they’re better than the other, but in reality any straight competition between them will probably end in either a draw or inconclusive.

This is because sure, Miko has more raw skill, but Mitch, just like Five, is very good at strategizing and planning. He can read people, he knows how to get into people’s heads, he knows how to prepare and plan his next moves. And Miko’s patented strategy of rushing down the opponent before they can react doesn’t work very well against him because Mitch still has the raw skill and ability to hold his own against Miko.

Miko relies on rushing her opponent down and trying to take them out before they can think of a strategy or begin preparing for anything, and even if someone does manage to outsmart her, she’s so fast that a lot of the time even if someone can predict what she’s going to next, they might not be able to physically react fast enough to stop her, at least not without some kind of pre-existing strategy or setup or something to give them an advantage. The longer an opponent lasts against Miko, the longer they’re able to think and strategize ways to get past her, and the more her “rush opponent and don’t let them think or set anything up” strategy starts to fall apart. Mitch, even running with the most Miko-Favoured estimate of their skill differences, is still more than good enough to go against Miko without a proper plan and can either drag out an encounter long enough to strategize and figure out ways to tip the balance in his favour, or just win against her outright. This kind of balances the two to the point where it’s kind of a coin toss as to who wins in a fight (in-game or otherwise) between them.

In my own headcanons, no one in-universe really knows who would win in a completely fair 1v1. Miko and Mitch both think THEY would win, obviously, but ask anyone else and they wouldn’t be able to give you a concrete answer.

Mitch:

One of the first things I feel should be said about Mitch is that his ego may be massive, but it isn’t misplaced. It’s not a case where the huge ego is a cover for even larger insecurities or the trope where someone constantly talks big only to be unable to back up what they say. Mitch really is (more or less) as strong as he claims, and that status as the highest ranked Glitch Tech in Bailey is something he earned legitimately fighting the toughest glitches he could find on his radar. The glitches he steals from other techs barely make a dent in the total amount of xp he brings in and if Mitch says he can take out a glitch, he usually isn’t lying.

That being said, this ego does mean that if Mitch does get in over his head, either fighting a glitch or doing something in a game, it will be a cold day in hell when he admits it and backs down, at least without someone else stepping in for him. He’d never directly admit that he’s been beaten, and it can take something short of a miracle to get him to admit that he’s wrong, but he can find ways to indirectly say it, keeping his ego intact when possible.

Using my own work as an example because it’s the best one I can think of right now, in HTSBD, Mitch never directly calls for backup, even when he knows that he can’t do something himself. Instead, he always waits for someone ELSE around him to bring up the idea of calling for backup and then supports their idea. Instead of him basically saying “i need backup, I can’t win this”, it’s someone else’s idea. Mitch isn’t calling for backup because he’s in trouble, someone else is calling for backup because THEY’RE in over their head, and Mitch just so happened to support THEIR Idea.

Also, I kind of view Mitch like a fusion of Five and Miko, with a dash of assholery mixed in for taste. He has Five’s mind and planning ability an Miko’s raw talent, but he also has Five’s pettiness and Miko’s competitiveness and stubbornness. If someone wrongs Mitch, he’ll remember, he’ll hold a grudge and he’ll ruminate on it for a long time.

When it comes to fighting glitches (and probably other situations as well), Mitch is strange yet perfect balance of “Pure Speedrunning Effectiveness” and “The Flashiest Show Off You’ve Ever Seen”

What I mean by this is that I’d argue Mitch fits the description of the “Combat Pragmatist” trope. He does whatever he needs to do to win quickly and effectively, screw the rules or typical etiquette, and he does things with brutal efficiency. He doesn’t care about the rules or morals of it (For an example, in Age Of Hinobi: “You’re Mitch Williams!” “And you’re not.” *Kicks kid off a cliff*) and he doesn’t care if something is overkill or bending the rules or not intended to be used a certain way (like overclocking his gauntlet), he just wants to win.

But at the same time, Mitch is an egotistical show off. He wants to win as effectively as possible, but he also wants to show off how much he’s winning. So what you get is stuff like his initial fight against the Copycat Glitch in BUDS, with Mitch stylishly dodging and trash talking as much as possible (even with no one else to see it), mixed with Mitch overclocking his gauntlet and hitting the glitch with a point blank gauntlet beam that’s about as large as the glitch itself, regardless of how much overkill that is or the risks with overclocking (which as mentioned by Mitch, Hinobi really doesn’t like its employees doing in the first place).

Also, Mitch is a massive workaholic. As said by him in Age Of Hinobi, this job is everything to him. In many ways it’s all he really has going for him, and a part of him is terrified of the prospect of losing that. Besides just being extremely competitive, that’s part of why he’s so determined to keep himself at the top of the leaderboard whenever possible. I’m his mind, that score is everything to him, and although there’s very little that can actually challenge that score to be honest (Ignoring the second highest score held by Bergy and his level 1 glitch farming, which Mitch refuses to see as a threat), a part of him is extremely defensive of it whenever something even remotely threatens to come close.

Also, Mitch may be a bully, but he draws the line at physical stuff. Mitch gets into people’s heads, he manipulates and makes fun of people, and he steals glitches, but he refuses to physically hurt anyone. Closest thing we have to that is Mitch constant upping the power of his resets against Miko until threatening to “wipe her clean” (which.. fair. I’d be the same if all of a sudden I encountered something that resets didn’t work against when that shouldn’t even be possible), a low-power, seemingly harmless gauntlet shot to knock Miko over, and Mitch trying to shoot Miko with his van’s portal gun to get her off his van. There’s also Mitch and Miko’s brief game of chicken in Smashozaurs where Mitch very clearly panics when he realizes that Miko isn’t backing down and he’s about to hit her with the van (Notice how all of these include Miko). Mitch just avoids physically hurting people. A deleted scene even points out that the massive gun Mitch pulled on Casino should have just harmed the possessor and would have (probably) left Casino unharmed.

Every character kinda has their own way of dealing with Mitch.

I’ve already gone over how Five tends to give Mitch a pass or the benefit of the doubt when possible, and otherwise he mostly just deals with it.

Zahra also mostly puts up with him, but won’t hesitate to respond with her own comments, sarcasm or just snark back at him. It doesn’t typically do much because it’s Mitch Williams, but it’s something.

We see that Bergy just kind of takes orders from anyone who outranks him without questioning.

I say that Haneesh just tries to ignore him, but the two of them don’t interact much on screen so feel free to come up with your own dynamic there.

Nix

And then Miko pushes back against everything Mitch has ever and will ever say and/or do.

Miko and Mitch do NOT mix. Peak “Siblings that hate each other” vibes. It’s like oil and water unless they have someone else (typically Five) acting as a mediator.

The dynamics are peak. They both have a large amount of siblings, they’re both extremely competitive, I view their skills as basically equal at least to the point where you can’t really predict who’s going to win, Mitch is an asshole who is very annoyed having to deal with “the new techs” and Miko is one of said new techs. They’ve been rivals at best and enemies at worst since the moment they met.

On that note, god help us all if Miko and Mitch learn about each other’s skills in DDR-like games. Because we’ve seen Miko’s skill for ourselves in Setting The Score and an unused animatic for season 3 shows that Mitch ALSO has some insane DDR-like (technically an in-universe Just Dance equivalent but close enough) skills. If those two ever end up going against each other in DDR or Just Dance it’s going to go on until they both collapse from exhaustion or a glitch crawls out of the screen, at which point they’d probably start fighting over who can capture it first.

Also worth noting that for most characters, they’re able to point at at least one redeeming quality about Mitch. Like sure he’s a jerk but you have admit that he’s a really effective tech or good at games, or that he was a good streamer prior to joining Hinobi, or even that he’s a decent leader when he’s not trying to screw everyone else over. Miko’s competitive nature and her already being against Mitch as a concept means that she either refuses to acknowledge Mitch’s skill or just views it as competition, she refuses to listen to a word he says if he’s the leader and she had no idea about Mitch’s past until very recently, with her first impression of the guy being the Hinobi Smash Competition, followed by Mitch wiping her new friend’s brain. She views him as stuck up asshole who keeps stealing her kills and messing with her, and it usually takes a third person (usually Five) being present in some way to stop the two of them from at the very least arguing.

Also contributing a lot to that dynamic, they bounce off each other uniquely too. Usually, if Mitch messes with someone, like I mentioned before everyone has their own way of dealing with him, and a lot of that ends up being trying to ignore him or just just going along with him, sometimes calling him out on his bullshit if it’s a particular problem or if Mitch genuinely crosses a line. Miko though. If Mitch messes with Miko, basically every single time without fail, she will have some kind of response. Like sure Zahra might snark back at him occasionally, Mitch probably doesn’t WANT Five to snap at him again and everyone has a breaking point eventually, but Miko actively tries to go against him in every way imaginable to her. She’ll disobey orders, mock him right back, use her own gauntlet equipment against him, figure out exactly what he’s trying to do just so she can get in his way, even get others to do the same sometimes. To Mitch, Miko seemingly runs on pure spite against him, and vice versa to be honest.

However, this status of Miko and Mitch being enemies can vary greatly, and everything I just said about Miko and Mitch’s dynamic only really applies on days where they’re outright enemies. It actually depends almost entirely on how much of a dick Mitch has been recently. Because the more of a jerk Mitch is, especially to Five and Miko, the harder Miko pushes and fights back, and if Mitch isn’t currently being a jerk or does something actually nice for a change, his dynamic with Miko cools down a whole lot, going from enemies to something more like friendly rivals or even outright friends of a sort. They’re still incredibly competitive and won’t hesitate to mess with or snark at each other in a much more minor, more casual way, but they’re not actively arguing or fighting and will get along mostly fine, albeit while still annoying each other. Miko has basically unintentionally become a karma meter of sorts for Mitch. The more of a self-centered jerk he is, the harder Miko swings back at him.

Also I kind of headcanon that Miko scares Mitch just a little bit. Not in a “They’ll overtake my rank as a Tech” way, although that is a small fear of his when it comes to Miko and Five working as a team, but like in a physical way. Because from Mitch’s perspective, Miko has superhuman reflexes, never seems to tire herself out and has a habit of just ignoring setbacks and injuries and refusing to say down, along with a complete refusal to obey any form of orders and a single minded, almost machine-like determination when it comes to certain tasks, who almost seems to have made it her mission to ruin his day specifically. Not to mention that she also has a never before seen complete immunity to resets, aka one of the few tools techs have access to that are meant for use on humans, and it’s implied that that’s just scratching the surface of what she’s immune to. And did I mention that she has red eyes and purple hair like some kind of anime character? I’m not necessarily saying that Mitch still believes Miko is a glitch or has always believed that, regardless of if you’re writing with the intention of that being true or not, but I am saying that in Find The Glitch, he DEFINITELY at least convinced himself for a brief moment.

Moving to Five, Mitch definitely prefers him over Miko, but he still views him as one of the noobs or one of blueberries in his own words. Five doesn’t actively go against Mitch at every opportunity like Miko (although he is often an accomplice to her), but Five’s literal presence has some weight to it that Mitch doesn’t want to acknowledge, but kind of has to.

Five is a massive fan of Mitch’s old content. He credits Mitch’s old stuff for teaching him everything he knows, and there’s a good chance that Mitch’s gaming content or tournament appearances were what got Five into gaming in the first place, or at least played a big part of it, and I already mentioned in Five’s section that Mitch tends to get a pass in Five’s book even when he tends to hold grudges with everything else. The man’s STILL holding onto Miko constantly winning against him and and refusing to mention that they have actually met before and Miko and Five are practically inseparable, and yet he continues to give Mitch passes and second chances.

Point is, Five looks up to him. A lot. And Mitch wasn’t always a complete asshole. Sure I’m willing to put money on those traits still being there to some degree when Mitch was streaming pre-Hinobi, but as mentioned in canon, he’s changed a lot since becoming a Glitch Tech. BUDS made a point of that.

Also, with a headcanon I have blatantly stolen from Rose Tinted, the old streaming and tutorials Mitch leaks out occasionally. He’ll give someone tips on a game or say something extremely helpful one moment, sometimes not even realizing he’s doing it, and then go right back to being a prick. The old Mitch is still there, just buried deep down.

Despite what Mitch says and how he can act, he does care about his teammates, all of them. Sure he’s a dick but if he sees any of the rest of the techs in danger, even Five and Miko for as annoyed as he can get with them, he’s very quick to go “Oh wait those are MY idiots” before dropping whatever he’s doing to go save them. He doesn’t like to show it often, but he’s a good person deep down, and he does care.

And on that note, in my mind there’s no way he can’t see how much his old stuff means to Five. How much HE means to Five. Even if he refuses to admit it out loud, he knows that Five looks up to him, and there’s no way in hell he doesn’t at least feel slightly bad about being a dick to him. Messing with everyone else, that’s one thing, but Five was and still is a fan of his, Five thinks and expects him to be better than this, there’s a connection that no one else really has with Mitch, and constantly messing with him, constantly disappointing him with every prank and every haze and every stolen kill has a lot more weight to it than Mitch is used to and honestly comfortable with.

And this feeling builds up for the entire series in my interpretation of everything. Five yelling that he “doesn’t even know who Mitch is anymore” in Age Of Hinobi maybe stings a little, but to Mitch at the end of the day, he doesn’t know Five. To him, Five is just like that one kid in the tournament who stopped in awe only for Mitch to kick them off a cliff. Maybe it has some more impact because it’s real life but still. Five finally snapping at Mitch in BUDS though. That one hurt. That was the culmination of probably countless instances of Mitch being a jerk, messing with Five, and Five forgiving but not quite forgetting until finally boiling over, and by now Mitch knows Five much more. He’s not just that Hinobi Smash Kid anymore to Mitch, he’s a coworker, a fellow tech, someone who he’s (been forced to) work with several times now, and like mentioned before Mitch does care about the people he’s close to. He knows Five as a person, he knows that Five looks up to him, and disappointing him yet again only for Five to finally call him on his bullshit HURTS. I think that’s a good part of why Mitch doesn’t have a response.

At the point where the show was canceled, Mitch is just starting to go through some major character development. Mainly being less of an asshole, and in my own opinion Five and Miko are the main things driving that change. Five is, whether he’s aware of it or not, essentially guiding Mitch towards niceness. He’s shown himself to have WAY more patience with Mitch than he honestly deserves, he’s one of the only people who doesn’t immediately write Mitch off as an asshole in most scenarios and like I said before, he has that connection to Mitch that makes disappointing him repeatedly really sting after a while. Actively or not, Five is essentially holding out a hand and nudging Mitch towards being a better person, a more social and less asshole-ish person, more like his original, pre-Hinobi self that still sometimes shows itself only for the current, egotistical asshole Mitch to bury it again. And whether she’s aware of it or not, Miko is forcibly shoving Mitch away from being an asshole by effectively being karmic punishment for Mitch’s assholery and making it much harder for him to slip into his old habits, lest he’s forced back into conflict with Miko. Five somewhat unintentionally directs him to being a better person and Miko somewhat unintentionally directs him away from getting worse.

However, that’s just my interpretation. With how the show got cancelled basically any part of Mitch’s character development/redemption arc is up to interpretation. What causes him to change, how much he changes and if he’s even aware that he’s changing at all is entirely up to you to do whatever you want with it.

Moving onto something lighter, despite no longer being a streamer himself, Mitch does keep up with what’s going on in the streaming world. He definitely watches the Furious Four (although that’s kind of a given) and I think there’s a very solid chance that the anime character he was watching on his gauntlet in Tutorial Mode was an in-universe Vtuber.

Also, Mitch likes cats. We know this because not only does he own one (or at least owned one, as we’ve only seen her in a video from several years ago just before he got hired as a tech and don’t know his cat’s exact age), a grumpy old asshole of a cat named Miss Boosh (which actually raises the question of what came first, the Cat or his Catchphrase), who Mitch loves, and also because of how he mentions that Mobile Cat Collecting game in The Real Glitch Techs and his attempts to 100% it. He even seems to have spent money on it based on his “it was free to play… at first” line.

As for what games he likes, canonically it’s anything with a competitive scene. Basically any game that lets him go against other players and show off his skills, especially shooters and fighting games. He also canonically is a fan of and really good at the in-universe equivalent of Just Dance, as mentioned before, and I’m willing to bet he’d probably be a fan of DDR or Rock’Em Sockers even if we’ve never seen him play them on screen.

And as for games he canonically doesn’t like: Retro games. The simplistic and dated graphics, the janky controls, the insane difficulties and the fact that most of them are singleplayer or very simple co-op, he just doesn’t vibe with them.

This actually has a kinda funny headcanon attached to it for me because ive theorized and headcanoned that Glitch Techs takes place in the very late 90s or the very early 2000s, more specifically the year 1998. It just has a bunch of more advanced technology than our 1998 because of Hinobi’s existence as a tech company and the invention of Plixels.

The thing is, Chomp Kitty canonically came out in 1993. Five years before Glitch Techs takes place according to my theories, and Mitch considers Chomp Kitty a retro game. This means that at least in my own fics, Mitch’s definition of a retro game is kind of strange and heavily vibe based. Yes, chomp kitty came out five years ago, but to Mitch, it has the same pixelated and old style of a retro game, has the same janky controls and difficulty of a retro game, is singleplayer apart from a basic scoreboard, and was originally made for arcade machines. Ergo, it is a retro game to him, even if it isn’t technically retro in an age sense.

This kind of has its own comedy with Five because not only is Chomp Kitty mentioned to be one of Five’s favourite games, but Five has a pretty deep connection to retro games as a whole on account of being the son of the guy who fucking invented them. It’s a dumb little headcanon I have, but Mitch writing off Chomp Kitty as a retro game is probably one of the only things that can cause a genuine argument between the two of them that and it’s probably the only grudge that Five would ever actually hold against Mitch for a long period of time.

Zahra:

From this point onwards, my rambling gets a lot less detailed and shorter because I struggle to write the characters more. It doesn’t help that Zahra, Haneesh and Bergy all have a lot less screen time than Five, Miko and Mitch. So a lot of details are more surface level stuff, headcanons and just listing off canonical information from the show and the Show Bible that the creators released.

This is probably kind of a given, but research muslim stuff. Cultural things, religious practices, important terms, all of that. Ask people with knowledge and do research on how to write Muslim characters well. I made a short list in my fic notes of things to remember (mainly things regarding Hijabs because I originally kept forgetting details about them and honestly how to spell the word at times) kind of late into writing chapters and even if it hasn’t come directly into play while writing yet, I still think it’s helpful to have on hand.

Zahra is pretty chill. Cool, typically calm under pressure, pretty cut and dry and sarcastic at times. She’s pretty no-nonsense and has a tendency to just be blunt and say what everyone else is thinking or what’s on her mind. The show bible also mentions that’s she’s a quick study of people and tends to hold people to high standards too.

However, there’s a hard limit to that cool and calm persona in my mind.

This is kind of a headcanon, but in my view Zahra acts very calm under pressure, just look at her sniping or scouting things out on missions, but once something does get her to crack and she actually starts getting stressed over something, she tends to swing hard and fast in the other direction. I mostly tend to focus on stuff like her snapping at Mitch in The Real Glitch Techs (“Why don’t you try to hack something FROM THE BACK OF A MOVING VAN”) and her crushing on Five in BUDS. Despite how she appears and presents herself, Zahra actually feels emotions very strongly, but it takes some outside force or unforeseen event giving her a good push and breaking past that emotional armour of hers to see that side of her, and even then it doesn’t tend to last long.

Her own weapon loadout accidentally serves as a kind of metaphor for it. Her main weapon of choice is a sniper rifle. Something that requires calm, focus and the ability to remain steady under pressure. But once something gets close the first thing Zahra reaches for is a massive greatsword and a minigun, two weapons made to blindly obliterate anything in front of her without much calm or control at all, with Zahra attempting to delete whatever threat came close to her with as much firepower as possible before she goes right back to sniping.

Also this is pretty much pure headcanon, but I like to think that Zahra is very good under physical pressure, but completely folds under more personal social pressure. Sniping, taking out glitches and providing support and healing while under fire? Zahra’s Cool, Calm and Collected. More stressful social interactions or god forbid a dealing with a crush? Zahra’s trying her best to keep up appearances while internally screaming.

Surprisingly enough, Zahra really doesn’t have much canonical information about her, not helped by a focus episode on her being a part of the cancelled season 3 that will never see the light of day. We don’t know anything about her family, her living situation, anything. Even in the released parts of the show Bible, Zahra is the only person that not only doesn’t have a listed game preference, but also doesn’t have the reason Hinobi picked them mentioned anywhere in or out of canon. Even Nix with his exactly 4 appearances in the entire series has his game preferences and reason for hiring listed, but Zahra is pretty much a blank slate here.

So in general, if you can get her personality and/or speaking style right (my main recommendation is to rewatch episodes with her in it until you can picture her voice pretty clearly), you can do pretty much whatever you want with her. She’s not quite a blank slate, she has a pretty defined personality, but her lore and any potential deeper depths of her personality could be whatever you want it to be as long as it sounds close enough to be canon.

As for her abilities as a tech, I have a few headcanons on that.

Mainly, i think Zahra is amazing at long range, but sucks at close range. My rationale for this is her weapons. Zahra is a solid 20/10 when it comes to sniping. Her aim is literally insane enough to shoot several moving projectiles out of the air in extremely quick succession. But like mentioned before, her close range weapons are a greatsword and minigun. Two weapons that are made to deal as much damage as possible, quickly as possible, with very little actual aiming required. The sword is large enough that basically anything near her WILL be hit by it, and the minigun is a minigun. In other words, i think she’s compensating for a lack of skill or at the very least a lack of aim up close.

At range Zahra devastates anything unlucky enough to come into view of her scope, but if something gets close Zahra tries to reduce it to a fine pixelated mist as quickly as possible with either a one shot from that sword or by laying down fire with a minigun because she knows she won’t last long in a prolonged fight up close. Kinda helping with my headcanon here is that one of the support options she keeps on hand is a smoke bomb and glitch-bait hologram, which would let her get away from close combat and get back to a range she’s more comfortable with. Even her minigun helps with this because it lets her lay down cover fire and then back up to a better range.

Speaking of her support options. She’s the go-to support and essentially field medic of the team. Everyone else has some buffs (especially Mitch), but Zahra has WAY more, and her buffs tend to be stronger and last longer compared to what everyone else has. Speed Boosts, Strength boosts, those hologram-escape-options I mentioned before, she has them all.

When it comes to medical stuff, i headcanon that along with those support options, Zahra is the only member of the techs with full access to healing equipment, either because she’s spent time maxing out that part of the tech tree or because she’s the only one who’s fully certified and licensed to be able to use the advanced stuff, the same way Nix mentions needing a “Plixelcraft License” and/or special training to be allowed to use the advanced plixelcraft stuff.

Sure everyone else probably has some basic healing supplies, the older techs are probably taught first aid for obvious reasons and glitch items can be used as a temporary fix (human body isn’t exactly made of plixels, so the benefits from a plixel based healing item from a game won’t last too long, just like powerups), and Zahra definitely isn’t bringing anyone back from the brink of death or fixing life threatening injuries, but she’s still the one that’ll keep you in the fight and fix any mild to moderate injuries sustained during a fight, or at least speed up your recovery so you can get back on patrol tomorrow instead of two weeks from now. For any truly serious life threatening stuff she isn’t fixing you there and now, but would be able to keep you stable and minimize any further injury until you can be brought to HQ’s medical wing with actual doctors or a hospital. She’s a teenage field medic, not a real medical doctor.

Haneesh:

I struggle to write Haneesh more than anyone else. I don’t know why. He’s just really hard to write for some reason and I have no idea why that is. My main tip that I’ve been using for myself is just rewatching to get his voice down. After that as far as I know I’m writing him completely OOC by the seat of my pants because Haneesh confuses me.

Actual lore-wise, Haneesh is a former esports gamer. He’s apparently been some kind of prodigy since he was 6 according to the show Bible, before eventually getting some extreme burnout due to the pressure of it all that led him to quit professional esports altogether, with Hinobi seeking him out and recruiting him as a tech not long after. The show bible also mentions that he’s kind of laid back and given that, his past in esports and whatever noodle incident happened the last time he was in charge of a squad of techs, I’m willing to bet he doesn’t like being under pressure too much.

He also has a heavy interest in the more technical aspects of being a tech, think hacking, plixelcraft and how glitches actually work going off of his knowledge in Alpha Leader.

As for how i write him, i mostly lean into that interest in the technical stuff. I don’t write him explicitly as “the smart one”, I do whatever I can to try to avoid generalizing characters like that, but I do view Haneesh as one of the more knowledgeable people in the group. If you ask him a question about glitches, hacking or anything in that general range of topics , he’ll either have the information you’re looking for or know where you could get it. Like sure Mitch and Nix in my fics have plenty of experience and have picked up quite a few things over their time as techs, but they’re more street smart in my view while Haneesh is more book smart.

Mitch and Nix go “aim for this specific spot on a glitch, it’s their weak point” because they’ve figured out over the last few years of glitch fighting that hitting a glitch in that specific spot does more damage like 90% of the time. They may not know for certain WHY it works, just that it does and they probably aren’t going to question it.

Haneesh goes “aim for this specific spot on a glitch, it’s their weak point” because he’s done his research and knows that that specific spot is more exposed or has less Plixel density or is closer to the root form or whatever the actual reason is. He knows that it SHOULD work and knows WHY it should work, but might not have ever actually tested it before himself.

For example, He knows that Multiplayer Glitches are able to respawn and how they do it, but he might not have actually seen it happen before in person and might be missing some information that you could only really know if you’ve personally dealt with a multiplayer glitch yourself.

His knowledge also isn’t infinite. He has more than a couple limits where he just has to go “yeah I have no idea”. A lot of things are just too complex, especially when talking about glitches. Hinobi literally has its own team of scientists and specialists analyzing and researching these things and they’re STILL kind of unknowable and strange. Same goes for hacking, plixelcraft, Hinobi stuff and anything else he’s spent time learning. He may be good at hacking and programming, but there’s plenty of things that are just out of the scope of his understanding and knowledge. He may be more book smart than the other techs, but he’s still a 16 year old patrol tech, not a Hinobi scientist.

Gear and physical activity-wise, I mostly try to contrast him with Zahra. From what I’ve seen and kind of headcanoned, each pair of techs either compliment each other and add to each other’s strengths, or contrast each other to cover each other’s weaknesses. Like how Five is good at planning things out but struggles raw-skill-wise and therefore might struggle to actually go through with what he’s planned out, while Miko is completely insane with raw skill and physical ability but cannot plan or think ahead for the life of her. Together, they make up for each other’s weaknesses.

So I’ve headcanoned that Haneesh is primarily focused on Melee Combat, contrasting Zahra’s focus on sniping and attacking at range, and Debuffs, both to contrast Zahra’s buffs and support options and because of Haneesh’s interest in coding.

So in combat. Haneesh and Zahra work very well together. Haneesh fights at close range, drawing aggro away from Zahra and debuffing anything near him, while Zahra picks off threats from afar and absolutely SHREDS anything that Haneesh debuffs. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if Zahra was capable of supplying buffs from long range using her sniper as well.

Also, we see in Alpha Leader and it’s mentioned in the show bible that Haneesh has an interest in Plixelcraft, making platforms and simple structures out of plixels. This also works well with Zahra because it means that Haneesh can make platforms and cover for Zahra to snipe from, giving her better angles and keeping her further out of reach from glitches. Hell, we even see them do something like that in Alpha Leader.

But again, all of this could be out of character because I have no idea what I’m doing with this guy. I am pretty confident with the headcanons for his loadout though.

Bergy:

I also kind of struggle with writing Bergy.

The way I see him, Bergy’s kind of the last thing you’d expect a glitch tech to be. But he also fills a very unique role in the glitch “ecosystem” in Bailley

Because all things considered, Bergy ain’t exactly peak glitch tech material to put it lightly. He’s a nervous wreck, he has a tendency to panic when dealing with any mildly aggressive glitch and his aim with a gauntlet sucks, especially when he’s panicking, which again, tends to happen when he sees any glitch above like level 3. Mitch doesn’t even really bother giving him orders because honestly, what’s he going to do against any truly dangerous glitch?

Speaking of orders, we see that Bergy just kind of takes orders from anyone above him without questioning it. Mitch could tell him to jump and he’d ask how high, not because he likes Mitch, but because he just likes taking orders I guess.

Also curiously, the show bible mentions why Bergy was chosen and I have some conspiracies about it. I’ve already made some post about it somewhere, but Bergy was chosen by Hinobi for being overly positive on Hinobi message boards and just generally being a pretty good, social person. He’s a big outlier among the rest of the techs because they all have reasons for being hired that make a bit more sense for techs. Mitch is a gaming prodigy and has been a regular tournament winner since he was a kid, Haneesh is a former semi-pro or possibly even professional esports player, Miko and Five took out an entire arcade of glitches with no training, plus Miko’s reset immunity, even Nix with basically no information about him was brought in for “completion of achievements” and going by the standards of everyone else those had to be some impressive achievements.

But Bergy was hired in for reasons that don’t necessarily line up with what Hinobi usually looks for in a tech. So it makes me kind of theorize if he was even meant to be a glitch tech in the first place. Maybe he was originally hired to work at the store’s front desk or even as non-monster-hunting, genuine tech support. Those jobs match up way more with his reason for hiring. Only for Bergy to become a glitch tech a bit later. Maybe he found it way better than whatever he was originally hired to do. I’m sure Phil wouldn’t mind the extra tech on patrol.

Anyways, about that unique role he fills, Bergy is essentially a scavenger in the glitch food chain of Bailley. A garbage man almost. He goes out and hunts all of the low level glitches that the other techs avoid in favour of the stronger stuff that gives more XP and is more fun and flashy to fight. And because everyone else avoids doing it and because low level glitches are so easy to take out (Miko proved you don’t even need a tech gauntlet some of the time), Bergy can capture a TON of them over the course of a shift and rakes in a metric TON of XP. I headcanon that he’s actually the second highest on the leaderboard behind Mitch because of this. It isn’t flashy, but Bergy is essential just because of how he hunts all the stuff that no one else wants to. Without Bergy on patrol the town would be overrun by a massive amount of level 1-2 glitches. The job sucks, but someone has to do it, so it may as well be the one guy in Bailey that enjoys going after the weaker glitches and doesn’t WANT to go after anything stronger.

Also just working off that and the kind of logical step that a lot of low level glitches would be harmless companion pets or items and weapons that can’t do anything unless a human is actively using them, i headcanon that Bergy is just sitting on a massive stockpile of weapons and items from various video games that he’s quite literally just found lying around somewhere. You need a healing potion? He has it. You need a sword? Bergy will hand you the master sword, a halo energy sword and the blades of chaos. You need some specific item to beat a glitch? Give Bergy some time to sift through his gauntlet’s inventory and he might just have a replacement.

Equipment wise, i headcanon that Bergy brings in a ton of XP, so he’s actually a very high level with a massive amount of the tech tree unlocked, although he only uses a small amount of it, mostly since he only fights very weak glitches. I kind of headcanon that he uses a lot of scouting equipment. Locating and Tracking Glitches, some stealth stuff to sneak up on them, maybe some stuff to trap glitches in place or slow them down, that sort of thing. He TECHNICALLY has a lot of really powerful stuff, but he doesn’t need to use it because he only hunts the low level stuff, and doesn’t WANT to use it most of the time because he’s just not made for combat.

In a team setting, I say that Bergy probably provides support through the two things he specializes in. The first thing is Scouting. He can track glitches from long distances, ping their locations and keep everyone else informed.

As for the second thing, Bergy may be bad at combat. His physical ability is lacking and his aim sucks, but Bergy is also sitting on a massive stockpile of various weapons and items, and he knows a couple of people that have much better aim than he does. If Bergy has access to some kind of Mitch-Level Glitch Oneshot Beam, he probably doesn’t have the aim or physical ability to effectively use it. But he’d happily hand it to someone that can. And that’s ignoring the potential of the powerups he has on him. Invincibility, extremely powerful healing, straight up extra lives that won’t bring someone back from the dead (glitches have limits), but will block or negate some massive hits to create the same effect, stuff that Hinobi’s gauntlets might struggle with or just might not be powerful enough to recreate. Sure it’s either one use only or has a massive cooldown time since they’re glitch items, but who cares, Bergy’s just gonna find more the next time he goes on patrol. Sure he’s limited by whatever random items he has on him, but he’s also ONLY limited by whatever items he has on him.

On another note, despite Bergy’s tendency to panic and bad aim, in B.U.D.S we see that Bergy is actually pretty good with a bow and is cool and calm while fighting the horrific monstrosity of the episode, and there’s a few possibilities with that.

Bergy is capable of being very competent, but not as himself. He used his DND persona as some kind of alterego and it boosted his confidence a whole lot. (Kinda unlikely considering that he got nervous and wanted to leave before being replaced by a glitch)

Bergy is just really good with a bow for some unknown reason.

If Bergy is in a situation that’s just stressful enough, his panic somehow loops back around to being calm and collected. Like put this man in a life or death scenario and he just pulls some genuinely insane competence out of his ass with “Zahra sniping” levels of calm and focus, beats the glitch and then goes back to his regular self afterwards. Or at least he appears calm to outside observers. Inside Bergy is 100% panicking so much he barely knows what’s going on.

I think option 3 is the best one, but I’m not sleeping on Bergy having some genuine skill with a bow. I’m willing to give that to him as a signature weapon like Zahra’s sniper or Miko and that sledgehammer.

Also: Bergy’s name is canonically Cecil Bergoch.

Nix:

Nix is a blank slate, and you can do whatever you want with him.

I’m serious.

This man has like four appearances total.

He is as close as you can get to a canonical OC in this fandom.

Also his name is canonically Adam Michael Nix.

As for how I personally write him, this is going to be one big ramble about Nix in my own fic and pure headcanons about him because again, he’s basically a blank slate. All you have to do is watch any of the like 5 scenes he appears in and congrats, you’ve seen his entire canon character.

Nix is kind of an enigma in my eyes. He’s kind of on the outskirts of the friend group and his main connection into the group is Bergy and Mitch. In canon, it’s only really Bergy that’s arguably close to him and him and Mitch don’t interact much, but that’s my view.

No one really knows much about him. No one knows any details about his personal life, no one but Bergy really ends up working with him for long enough to get to know him and the only people who know that his name is actually Adam and Nix is actually his last name are Bergy and Mitch.

(A detail from my fic: Bergy just casually goes “oh yeah i already knew that” on the topic of Nix’s name. Meanwhile Mitch mutes the group chat just before Nix’s name is revealed and doesn’t react when it’s brought up. Mainly because he muted the chat. Then a few chapters later he talks to Nix in private and isn’t surprised by his name, and also calls him by his name later despite again, having muted the chat and missing Nix’s name reveal. He already knew.)

The fact that Nix works two jobs, one job at Hinobi and one job at Joystick JR’s, doesn’t help with that degree of separation between him and the others. It also explains why he barely appears in the show. He works multiple jobs and physically can’t be around as much.

For minor personality stuff: I gave this man a fixation on video game secrets, achievements and collectibles. Mainly because it’s mentioned in the show bible that he was hired due to “competition of achievements” and I’m willing to bet he got some insanely hard ones to get hired by Hinobi. This man knows a lot of video game secrets, and enjoys achievement hunting.

Also in canon: Nix is mentioned to be very studious and favourite games are tactical and strategy games.

In my mind Nix, despite not working as much as the other techs, is still surprisingly knowledgeable and street smart when it comes to fighting glitches. Like I said before, he’d probably go “aim for this spot, it’s a weak point” because he somehow picked up that shooting a glitch there does more damage like 80% of the time. He may not know exactly WHY it works, but he knows that it does. But at the same time, he will get right to researching things if he has a question. Like if he started questioning WHY that weak spot only works 80% of the time, he would start looking things up until he knows EVERYTHING. It just takes a push to get him going.

With Nix and Bergy, the only canon connection he has, I’m confident that they’re friends. They’re seen on missions together, the show bible mentions that they’re frequently paired up because “their loadouts and skills compliment each other” and Castle Crashers is one of the few times when we Nix interact with ANYONE.

As for their dynamic, it is my full belief that whenever Nix and Bergy are offscreen and not a part of the current episode, they’re halfway across town going on a completely separate adventure that could easily be its own episode, plot and character arcs included. Like at any point during The Glitch Modder you could suddenly switch the perspective to Nix and Bergy and it would be like changing channels to another show that’s already in progress.

(A gag I really wanted to do in HTSBD for a while was someone getting stuck with Bergy and Nix on patrol at the beginning of a chapter and then by the end of the chapter they show up after being absent with Bergy and Nix the whole time having gone through some completely unseen adventure and character arc.)

Also, in canon Nix is 17, the same age as Bergy, and probably joined around the same time as them. My version of Nix is 18, the same age as Mitch, and joined Hinobi around the same time as everybody’s favourite asshole. This is because I headcanoned everyone’s ages way before I got my hands on the show bible so everyone’s ages are just ever so slightly different. My version of Nix is 18, my version of Zahra is 16 but right on the cusp of turning 17 when in canon she’s 17, my version of Five is 16 when in canon he’s 15 (but probably very close to turning 16), tiny changes that are almost entirely because I wrote the characters with certain ages in mind before actually learning how old they are. My version of Bergy is still 17 though. That sounds incredibly wrong to me for some reason but that’s his canon age.

As for Nix’s loadout, all we have for canon details is that according to the show bible Nix and Bergy’s skillsets complement each other and Nix getting into Plixelcraft in Im Mitch Williams. So it could be whatever you want.

I mostly headcanon his loadout as a kind of “trapper” loadout. Restricting movement, preventing glitches from escaping, plixelcraft walls and barriers, that sort of thing going with Bergy’s “scouting” loadout. Bergy can find and track glitches, and Nix can keep them in a certain area or lock them down once Bergy finds them.

I also like focusing on plixelcraft with Nix. Mainly because of what he mentions about needing certification to be able to use it. My own headcanon for it is that basically all techs have access to plixelcraft. Haneesh makes plixelcraft barriers and platforms for Zahra, Miko’s hammer is plixelcraft, Zahra’s minigun is plixelcraft, the axe Five briefly uses in Ralphie Bear is Back is plixelcraft, basically any of those untextured, one-solid-colour objects the gauntlet makes is plixelcraft, but that’s just the basic stuff. A bunch of preset options the gauntlet makes automatically. Haneesh can make a platform or wall, but he can only use a couple of preset shapes that he unlocked from the tech tree. The stuff that needs training and certification is the advanced stuff, where you can make whatever you want, with whatever code or purpose you want. That’s why it needs training and special certification.

Haneesh can make plixelcraft walls and barriers, but ONLY those walls and barriers with preset options, and the only real offensive value Haneesh could really get from his plixelcraft would be something like making a big block of plixel mid-air and hoping it falls on a glitch. Meanwhile Nix is limited only by his own creativity, programming ability and the obvious limitation that he has to make new stuff beforehand. Can’t exactly create and program an entirely new plixelcraft object while being attacked by an Elden Ring Boss.

Also kinda connecting to that whole “Nix has two jobs and can’t work as a tech as much” thing, i headcanon that despite working as a tech for as long as Mitch, Nix isn’t a very high level and doesn’t have too many things unlocked. He’s not a bad tech, he’s pretty knowledgeable about tech stuff, no slouch in combat and he’s definitely the muscle/bodyguard whenever him and Bergy are paired up to go after anything higher than Bergy’s usual weight class, but that second job combined with a few other factors means he’s a lower level than he probably should be for this time as a tech and his options for gear are somewhat limited compared to a tech like Zahra or Haneesh.

That’s another reason I say he uses a lot of plixelcraft. It lets him get around the limitation of his low level and use whatever he wants. Nix isn’t a high enough level to get a minigun? He’ll use plixelcraft to make his own custom one. Maybe even make it float around and attack things automatically if he can figure out how to code that.

I also think this pairs with Bergy for another reason: Bergy has a massive stockpile of glitch items on him and can provide support by just handing another tech whatever they might need, as long as he actually has it on him. Meanwhile Nix’s plixelcraft means that he can MAKE any item or weapon that someone might need at the moment, as long as he’s worked on it beforehand and has the file for it on his gauntlet. Basically these two together are a walking Swiss Army Knife. If you need a specific tool, Either Bergy has an item for it or Nix can make it.

And again, Bergy and Nix’s skillsets and loadouts mesh well together. Bergy has an extremely high level and access to a ton of extremely powerful tools and weapons from grinding a metric fuckton of low level glitches every day, but lacks the skill and ability to properly use most of them. Meanwhile Nix is fully capable, but has a lower level than he honestly should due to him not being able to work as much (and when he does work, he usually doesn’t get to fight glitches that are very strong) and because of that doesn’t have access to as many tools. So they fit together perfectly.

Overall, Nix is really malleable, and you could honestly do whatever the hell you want with him. He can be bent incredibly out of shape before starting to sound OOC, so have fun!

[kithtaehyung]

hiiiii I’ve been I love with your writing since I’ve discovered you! I got into minted first before reading 3tan and basically binged the whole thing in two days ahahahaha

Anyways, I was wondering if you have any advice for aspiring writers?? I just can’t seem to get over the fear to post smt and keep nitpicking my works, so any advice would be appreciated!!💜💜

wait that’s so sweet!! i’m happy you’re enjoying the stories🥺 more to come for both 3tan and minted! omg you read all of 3tan in two days?? holy heck that’s the product of 3+ years hope you fully immersed yourself🤣🙏

as far as advice, i have answered asks about this before under the *advice or *tips tags, but i can add some here, too:

start posting small: i started writing just tiny spice scenes, some even like 2-3 sentences haha. and i did post them! they’re floating around somewhere if you look hard enough. the point is warm yourself up and get used to posting, getting used to using the Create Post menu. atp, who cares who sees it. the point is to get used to the feeling of sharing things and letting them be

practice with prompts: find a prompt list post and pick which ones you wanna try. it can be based off one-liners, tropes, reverse tropes, or just single words. go wherever your brain takes you and don’t think too hard at first.

editing is your best friend: your first draft? is gonna be a mess lmfao. but that’s normal, and the whole point is get all the ideas in your head on the page. when you’re done, you can then go in and clean up shop and make things flow with the editing process.

learn on the go and write down things you wanna try or random things you think of: if you aren’t sure how to write smut, read it haha. or watch it if you’re into that. you’re gonna find things that are like “oh that’s fun” or “hmm wait this could be cool to try” and then try your own spin on it.

write to your spice level: there’s many ways to write spice, and you don’t even need to go into super graphic detail. i’ve seen plenty of stories that are just as hot without going into too much detail when it comes to the smut scenes. whatever your comfort level, you’re gonna attract a similar audience, so you don’t have to force more than what you’re comfy writing.

you’re not gonna please everyone: and that’s okay! you write for yourself, and then you write for your audience. and everyone’s audience is different from the next. tbh that’s super freeing to know because you don’t stress about trying to appeal to every single person on the planet haha

share your creative process: be yourself, post writing updates, post fun lore, post whatever gets you excited so that people can see that as much as your stories. offer teasers, a tag list, etc. the more involved you are, the more people will come across those posts and turn into being invested with you. then on the drop days, you’ll already have an awaiting group of readers!

that’s what i have for now. but i love talking about this and sharing what i’ve learned, so ask away if you wanna know anything else!

[moooncats]

✿ Pick A Card ✿

✿ What Does Your Inner Child Think Of You? ✿

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✿ Pile 1 : Imagination , Chakra Clearing. ✿

Wow! This Pile so far is one of my favorites right off the back. Like seriously I RARELY ever pull out this elusive card and right off the bat.... blam! Haha what incredible energy we have here. So I'm hearing that your inner child is so stinking happy of the person that you've become. They love how you revel in the wondrous, mysterious, most beauteous power of your imagination, and let it whisk you away on a right-brained roomp through all things nonsensical, Suess plays Wonka style. To them, you're an off road adventurer, playing in the upside- down, glow-in-the-dark woods of posibility. There is no "no" here. Only "whoa!". And "flow". And "Holy moly, here we go!". (Hmmm maybe there was something in your brownies? c; ). Your inner child feels heard from you and is attentively hanging out with you feeling affirmed by every journey you set out to. I'm hearing "Your the best friend I could ever ask for." Omg pile 1 this is so effing sweet like seriously, they think you're such a cool, magical person. They wouldn't have it any other way! (:

✿ Advice From Your Inner Child ✿

Chakra Cleansing: Archangel Metatron: "Call upon me to clear and open your chakra's, using sacred geometric shapes. Your inner child want's to make sure that you are taking care of yourself and not over extending your energy ♡. Please make sure to cleanse your aura every once in a while. You can take a bath with essential oils, sage/paulo santo's your body and area, or do a salt water cleanse in a lake or beach. The water can be very cleansing and healing. As a native from Hawaii the beach would be my go to cleanse preference. (✿◠‿◠) 🌊

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✿ Pile 2 : Open Heartedness , Prioritize ✿

Wow pile 2 lemme give you a hug okay? 🫂 Seriously, you have been through some stuff. I'm picking up on heavy energy here. Your inner child is amazed at how unjaded you are. They have seen you go through some people who were absolute bummers. Did that experience make you salty in any way? Heck no. They see you as a strong warriror who always chooses to not let unhappy chapters make you into a monster. They appreciate that so much. If you let negative experiences turn you sour, then the jerks and bully's win. So you move on with an open and hopeful heart, if only because you hate losing to jerks. Pile 2 you are winners. 🏆💗 You kill people with kindness and don't let their bad energies mix in with your pure and thoughtful heart. Your inner child is so sweet, they tell me that they give you hugs and love that you are the person they have become. I'm hearing "We are misunderstood and not everyone will get us, but our hearts are always pure".

✿ Advice From Your Inner Child ✿

Prioritize: Archangel Metatron : "Focus on your highest priorities. I will help you get orginized and motivated". Pile 2, your inner child is amazed at how many ideas that you get from time to time. However, they want you to manifest your thoughts from the 4D and materialize them into the 3D. Proper planning and prioritzing will help you with that. Take out a sheet of paper, and start writing your goals, plans, anything that has to do with your future. They want to make sure that you at least have them written, so you can start "scripting" your dream life. If you don't know what scripting is, it's a form of manifestation that helps you with your ideal dream life. Try it out, it's free and does wonders. Your inner child wants to help you realize your power. I'm hearing your quite popular in the dream realm, you may have astral traveled before or have been looking into it. This is your sign to continue on that path. Congratulations pile 2! This is so far the longest pile that I've done so far. So many messages! ʕ￫ᴥ￩ʔ ♡

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✿ Pile 3 : Honouring Ideas , Clear Intentions ✿

Interesting indeed. This pile I'm hearing unlike pile 2, you are the type to go for your goals. Your Inner child is quite impressed with you! They love how many silly, serious, & whack a doodle ideas you come up with! Lmao, I'm hearing a specific scenario for every event in your life. What an amazing brain you have. This is my pile who always has their head stuck in a book, ears listening to a podcast, and an head full of wonder and ideas. When an idea comes to you, you honor it by doing your best to bringing it into being. You are a master manifestor. Ideas to you, are like children, and you proudly nuture them, knowing they'll grow and develop, and eventually make their way out into the world without ever really acknowledging how much time/money/love you shelled out for them. This is my piles who may be entrepreneurs. Seriously keep that ish up, you are definitely trend setters! Your inner child loves how smart and buisness minded you are. They are definitely proud of the person that you are and have become. (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) ♡

✿ Advice From Your Inner Child ✿

Crystal Clear Intentions: Archangel Michael : "Be clear about what you desire, and focus on in with unwavering faith". Pile 3, I'm hearing that any idea you have will be brought into fruition. How lucky! The gods are definitely in your favor when in comes to Manifesting. Please do not stop dreaming, all your dreams will surely come true with the right intentions. ���☁️✨️

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[loftec]

Shameless DVD Commentary: None the wiser

I was tagged by a lovely anon over at @shamelessdvdcommentary to do this, thank you! Here we gooo

Which fanfic is your DVD commentary about?

The people (11 out of 20) have spoken! None the wiser

Give us some stats - (when you wrote it, word count, how long it took to finish, is it a one-shot/multi-chapter, etc)

First published: 2015-09-23 (coming up on 9 years what is time??)

Last updated: 2021-12-11 (holy heck that's... shit! I'm sorry!)

Words: 218,480 and counting

Chapters: 53/68

What was the initial inspiration for your story?

A little bit of everything, mostly I'd been reading a lot of Shameless fic at the time and really wanted to write something that was both a really quite basic diner/coffee shop AU, but The Most version of it. The slowest burn, the most diner AU. I had no ambition for people to like it but I wanted it to be Known. If anyone ever asked for a diner fic, they'd HAVE to say, well, NTW is The Most diner fic we've got. If someone asked for slow burn, people would sigh and say, WELL, this one over here is the worst, but it is very slow. And also I was inspired by Before Sunrise / Before Sunset, and working in the music industry.

If the story is written from a character’s POV, why did you choose this character?

I chose Mickey specifically because of the Concept, that Ian decides when the chapters start and end (with some exceptions) by going to the diner, but we're limited to Mickey's POV. Generally I think Mickey is easier for me to write, too, he's got a really strong voice and I like looking at the world (and Ian) through his eyes.

What was your favourite scene to write?

The whole banter/walk scene in chapter 44 when they leave the venue:

“Sure you and your lips can do whatever you set your heart to,” he says, “I believe in you.” Ian is silent, and when Mickey risks a glance in the direction of him and his non-trumpeting goddamned marvelous lips, Ian is looking at him like he’s some kind of unsolved mystery. ”What?” Mickey asks, frowning at him when Ian smiles. “Just a thought,” he says. ”You’ve been flirting with me since we first met, haven’t you?”

I had that whole back and forth leading up to the first kiss in my head for years before I got to finally got around to write it and I still love it.

How did you come up with the title?

It's from a song, one of the core songs I associate with this fic. My playlist now has 149 tracks on it, but the ones I consider "core songs" are None the wiser, Day After Tomorrow, Let's Dance, How I Made My Millions, Not Dark Yet, and Mosquitoes. I'm not sure I can explain why, but None The Wiser came on randomly when I was doing dishes and thinking about this fic I was writing, and the vibes just lined up in my head. Also I think it fits this version of Mickey I'm writing, who knows so much and has so much experience, but refuses to understand what's happening when Ian walks into his life.

Are there any little moments or references you hope readers will notice?

Oh, wow. Yeah. I always reference silly little things and I just have to hope people understand them, or tolerate them at least. I think one of my favourite bit of foreshadowing is in chapter 39 when people keep staring at Ian because they obviously recognise him, but Mickey thinks staring at Ian is a completely reasonable thing to do and is mostly just annoyed over how blatant they're being.

Was there anything you struggled to write? If so, how did you overcome this?

I am struggling right now lol, I had meticulous notes for what I wanted to happen for every single chapter up until 45, and now half of them say "they text all day" and I'm like THANKS!!! VERY HELPFUL!! Also life and writers block etc etc.

Favourite line in the story?

This is such a hard choice, so I'll just go with this one from chapter 42:

“So,” Ian says, sitting back to sweep his arms out in a wide motion, presenting his solution. “I think we should go out for breakfast sometime.”

Because to me it pinpoints the moment when Ian breaks the format, in a way? They have met outside the diner before, but only on accident, and here Ian realises that it might be a problem that they only ever hang out at Mickey's job. But metatextually, he also highlights the narrative crux they're stuck in. I don't know, is that a boring favourite line? I have many, and I grabbed the first one I saw so I wouldn't get stuck rereading the whole fic lol. Do you have a favourite line?

Did the storyline change in any way as you wrote the story?

So much, it's hard to believe because there isn't too much of a plot, but so much. My planned ending is so far from what it was when I started out, which is maybe one blessing that comes from how long it's taking me to write it, I have time to rethink things. I can't really talk about it now without spoiling the actual ending, but you better believe I will expose myself once we get to it.

If you are writing a particular trope or genre, was it your first time writing this?

I'd written fic for a different fandom ten years earlier, but nothing in this style I don't think, and this was my first time writing since I was 20 and stopped writing jrock rpf. I suppose I'm still writing about music, though!

What are you most proud about in the story? (plot, characterisation, dialogue, twist/cliffhanger, etc)

One of the things I've always wanted to do with writing for Ian and Mickey is to let them have conversations, have things in common, and be friends. Because I think they were in canon, we just never got to see it (in the first 5 seasons, careful what you wish for). Guess I'm saying I'm proud of the bants!

Are there any deleted scenes that didn’t make it to the final story?

I don't think so! I mean, maybe the last 15 chapters? I kid! They will make it!

Are there any ‘behind the scenes’ info you’d like to share - e.g. what’s going on in a characters head in a certain scene or how you came to write a certain line?

There is one line Ian says where, when I wrote it, I was like; this is the first time Ian thinks "I love you" but says something else. Cannot remember what or where right now, and I don't want to try and find it, it's late! Submit your guesses here, I might find it over the weekend if I have some time to look. Also, it's like one of those silly I love yous, one of the early ones, full of potential and feeling but perhaps lacking a bit in substance, but he thought it and I saw him thinking it!

Reading back the story now, is there anything you’d change or add?

Eh *coughs* I might already have, and I apologise. The worst part about writing something this slowly and posting the chapters as I go is that the fic isn't finished and so I feel like it's fine for me to sometimes go back and edit already published chapters. It's not right but I... will still do it. Sorry! A most embarrassing example is when, not too long ago, we discussed the layout of the diner here and I went back to the first chapter to see how I had described it, and it had changed in so many ways over the years? Small round tables?? The tables haven't been round since 2016!! So that's a very clear case of something having become canon for all the hundred little times I've thought of the tables as square while writing vs that one time in chapter one I carelessly said they were round.

Would you ever write a sequel to this story?

Yes! So many! Or maybe not a sequel, that suggests another part of equal size. But little bits of stories, yes!

If you’ve chosen your most popular story, are you surprised by the popularity?

Yes! Like I said, my only aim was to annoy my way to fandom infamy. Turns out it's so much more fun to actually connect with people and write something with someone else in mind, besides myself. I feel so lucky that so many people have connected with NTW over the years <3

Were you nervous or excited to post this story?

Mostly just excited, I think! I still am, whenever I get to post something : )

Did you have a beta or a friend who helped you as you wrote?

No, I probably should have but I have a very hard time showing things to people when they're not finished.

Ask your followers to pick a snippet (no more than 500 words) and share your thoughts about it.

Add snippets in the replies and I'll share thoughts, if you want!

Thanks for reading! <3 <3 <3

[thebelugawhalefriend]

Meeple x reader who's also nonbinary...? 🙏

Note: OOOH I HAD THE BEST IDEA WHEN THINKING OF WHAT TO WRITE!! Anon, I ADORE Meeple with all my heart, this makes me so happy to write! (Side note, holy heck I may need to write more follow ups because my fics have been platonic lately XD)

Play By Their Rules - Meeple x Enby!Reader

CW: Misgendering, Gender dysphoria, Mostly platonic

“No, no, NO!” The 8-ball shouts, the mass of game parts shuddering on their body as they slam the table, “I’m not going to allow CHEATERS at my table!” You blink in response, raising an eyebrow, “I’m not cheating, I just don’t feel comfortable playing this kind of character.”

It’s ridiculous how vindictive Meeple is with their DND campaign. This was your session zero, presenting a gender neutral Dragonborn. While this would usually be a non issue, Meeple’s having a hard time understanding why your character has a mix of feminine traits and masculine traits. According to a fanguide they studied alongside every edition AND additional content, Dragonborns should be a certain way for their campaign.

Meeple shakes their head in frustration, “If you don’t want to play a normal Dragonborn, then pick a race that doesn’t NEED dimorphism!” You grumble, “Why do they NEED dimorphism anyways for gender? It’s just a damn character.” They sigh in response, shaking their head, “It’s my campaign, I get to decide who’s allowed and who’s not. If you can’t play right-“

“Fine. I’ll leave.” You sit up from the table, Meeple’s face dropping from arrogance to genuine regret. Reaching out to stop you with their hand. “Wait.” They roll their eyes, “If it’s THAT important to you… fine. Just as long as you don’t use it as an excuse to make up ridiculous stats.” “Ridiculous?” You chuckle, “The dice really only controls that. What, are the spells gendered too?” They respond with fervor, “No! No they’re not. Just… make sure you play it right. And don’t forget that your character doesn’t have a gender.” You playfully laugh in response, “How am I going to forget my own character?”

The campaign was packed with quite a few members. Chester, the Tiefling bard that honestly didn’t do much for the party. Mandy, who LOVED to annoy the party with her Genasi warlock. Edgar, who went with a Dark Elf rogue. Colette, who convinced Meeple that a Tabaxi wizard would “totally work”. And finally, you. The Dragonborn. Your class? That was up to you. This was only the first session, a chance to fully figure out what this setting could be.

“We start in a crowded, lively tavern,” Meeple starts, reading from an oversized notebook, “Where the-“

“Can I beat up the bartender?” Chester quips, to Meeple’s disdain, “No! I haven’t even finished my introduction!” “Ugh, this is boringgg! When can I start blowing people up?” Mandy whines. “I-“ Meeple tries to talk, only to be interrupted by Colette, “Everyone’s characters are so pretty…” “My rogue is NOT pretty. He’s a dark, mysterious elf rogue who doesn’t open up to anyone.”

“Players!” Meeple shouts, glaring towards the table, “Would you all be quiet?!”

The table falls mostly silent, with Chester peeking over to your character sheet. Eyeing it with interest. “Hey Y/N, your character looks interesting… I’m gonna swoon him!”

“THEIR CHARACTER IS NOT A MAN! THEIR CHARACTER IS NONBINARY, YOU IDIOT!”

The sudden roar of Meeple’s voice finally stunned everyone into silence, with Meeple panting heavily afterwards. Edgar is the first to get up and leave, with the others soon following. But you? You stay right behind. Looking up to Meeple and putting a hand on theirs.

“Meeple?” You whisper, with Meeple pulling away. Holding their head and rubbing their temple. “I just ask for one campaign, and no one is listening! This is why I told you to stick to what I had. If you had just listened, Chester wouldn’t have-“ You interrupt, “He didn’t know, Meeple.” “He would have if you just picked what you wanted your character to be!” “I did… I wanted them to be like me.”

They pause for a moment, slowly looking to you. Their eyes glancing to you then down to your character. As if processing… thinking… “You’re… Not a guy? Or a girl?” You shake your head, “I’m not. I don’t… fit into any boxes. It’s not that I hate being either, but it’s not… me. I don’t like how I look already, but this character? They get to be whatever I want them to look like. This? This is who I’d be if… I could actually pick who I want to be.”

In that moment, Meeple took a long look into your irises, with your own gazing into theirs. A spark of realization in their gaze, and in yours? They only find understanding. Meeple's hand slowly slopes off their face as their breathing slows into a calmer pace. "And you're not just joking, are you?" They ask, only for you to shake your head. "Not at all." With this, they reach out their hand to yours, only to pull away with a huff.

"Well," Meeple lets out a rough sigh, "Then let's try this again. Just... without anyone else here to ruin the game." You pause and ask, "Just us?" They nod, "I think we can make it work with just us two."

[celestelunisea16]

Guys... Girls... Non-binary pearls...

CARINA'S AFTER DINNER INTERACTIONS ARE DONE...

FINALLY-

FULL AS HECK THING UNDER THE CUT BECAUSE HOLY F*CK ITS LONG AND IT MADE MY TUMBLR LAG TO COPY AND PASTE FROM MY NOTEPAD-

So depending on Sam's decisions, he can either end up with her as an acquaintance, a friend/companion or with a high relationship, a crush, which doesn't do much, but it does have a 10% chance she'll protect him from a fatal hit in battles as an auto ability.

After dinner and gaming, small moments can happen at random.

This will be the after dinner ones and after Sam cares for Rat Baby. Next will be the gaming ones.

(Dinner Time)

• *After making dinner*

- *Carina stares at the meal in front of her, she looks almost fascinated, yet calm.*

- "So... This is the food you make? Interesting..."

- *She takes a small bite of her food. For a moment, it's silent, until she takes a gulp. You can hear the sound of her food being shred into pieces. In a way, it's kind of disturbing...*

- *When she finishes her food, she takes a small napkin and wipes her beak, pressing it almost as if it would shatter like glass at the wrong touch*

- "... Oh, my apologies. I... Unfortunately tend to have noisy eating habits. I hope I didn't bother anyone."

- *Several of the others are staring at her with a look of disgust and curiosity.*

• "So what was that all about?"

- "Uhm... Well, you see, I have more teeth inside of my mouth than supposed to."

(If Joel is in the apartment)

- Joel: "Hey, I also have... hhh... more teeth! Cool!"

- "and due to my teeth, when I gulp down my food, my teeth basically shred down my food more to make it easier to consume my food. For example with rats, I..."

- *She goes into a full on explanation of how her throat works. (Friends) In a way, you don't know if you are disgusted, interested, or suprised about the details. (High Relationship) You don't know if its endearing or if its repulsive. You'll get used to it.*

*After dinner 2*

- "Uhm... Sam? Is it ok if we watch that rerun over the blue jays again?"

- "Sorry if it's such a silly question, I-I just..."

• "Sure, we can watch it again."

- "Huh!? Really? Yes! Thank you so much!"

- "I don't know why, but I've been trying to write down more notes over birds. It's probably going to be useless for the future, but..."

- "Well, I'll at least have something that reminds me of the better days!"

- *Despite the obvious fact that the world is mostly going to be different, her optimism really makes you wonder if the future will be good or bad.*

- *You kinda hope that with your new friends, you'll all be able to survive whatever this world is now.*

• "Sorry, I think I'm feeling a bit tired tonight, maybe tomorrow, ok?"

- "Ah-! Uhm... Ok, understood-! I would be tired too if I had a long day exploring the halls too, so I understand! Apologies for my question-!"

- *Carina finishes up her plate and immediately waddles over to the couch, embarrassed about her question.*

- *Silly bird.*

• *Making dinner with eggs*

- *Carina stares at the plate, a bit of disgust, sadness, and reluctance in her eyes*

- "Uhm... Is it ok if I skip dinner tonight? O-Or just have something else?"

• "Are you ok?"

- "Uhm, yes, perfectly fine it's just..."

- *You look at the plate, then realize. It's the eggs.*

- *You feel like a dumbass for a moment.*

• "I'll make you something else."

- "Thank you, I do apologize for the trouble..." (Relationship +2)

• "Can't you just hold your beak?"

- "Sam, listen, I-I really can't eat this. I don't feel comfortable at all with this. I'm sorry."

- *She gets up and immediately runs to the bathroom. Seems like you're not going in there for a bit. She skips dinner for the night.* (Locks Sam into the friendship part of her dialogues only)

• "Sorry, I should've took in that consideration."

- "It's... It's fine. Besides, maybe it is all you have at the time. I-I... I'll manage."

- *She ends up eating the eggs, but it's kinda sad to watch... *

- *You'll go find some rats with her later to make up for this situation...* (Relationship +1)

*Joel is in the apartment*

(Joel 1)

- Carina: "So, little one, how's your teeth doing today? Any pain or hurt today?"

- Joel: "I don't... hhh... think so! The only issue I have is.... hhh... that there's a lot of them."

- Carina: "Oh... Well, what's wrong with having a lot of teeth?"

- Joel: "It's just kinda... hhh... weird. I don't know how... hhh... to feel about them."

- Carina: "Oh... Well, if it makes you feel better, look at me!"

- *Carina opens her beak widely, revealing the several rows of teeth in the back of her throat. They're sharp, pointy, and can rip things to shreds*

- Joel: "Woah! That's so... hhh... cool!!!"

- Carina: "You think so?"

- Joel: "Yeah!!!"

- *Carina seems to chuckle at how excited he seems.*

- Carina: "Maybe, when you get more stronger, you can be able to bite into things just like me! Only without having to deal with the noisy crushing that comes with it, heheh..."

(Joel 2)

- Joel: "Ms. Carina, I have a question?"

- Carina: "Hmm? Yes, what is it, little fletching?"

- Joel: "What's it like... hhh... having four wings? Does it let you fly really high?"

- *Carina only goes into thought, making a thoughtful face before speaking.*

- Carina: "Well, let's see... Unfortunately, no, I cannot fly really high with these things, even though there are four of them."

- Joel: "Aww... hhh... That sucks!"

- Carina: "Yes, it does, but I can fly really fast! Like this!"

- *Carina stands up from her chair, then fluffs her wings, before she rushes straight to the wall, then to the roof, then towards the door to your room, then to the kitchen, then back to the table, sliding down it, (if Leigh is present) narrowly avoiding Leigh and hitting the wall of the room, making a small crack in the wall*

- Carina: "Ow-!"

- Joel: "Are you... hhh... ok?"

- Carina: "Yep, never better-!"

- *You can't help but laugh at the situation a little. She's got a hurting beak, but she just brushes it off like always. She might be bird brained, but she's tough.*

(Carina takes 20 damage after this situation)

*If Dan is in the apartment*

*Dan 1*

- *Carina is eating her plate, her teeth shredding her food and making a heavy amount of noise as they do.*

- *Dan is just sloppily eating his food, smacking while he chomps down his food*

- *Carina only stares questioningly at Dan, a confused look while Dan stares back*

- Dan: "Hey, can you quiet it down over there while you're eating? It's noisy as hell and I'm trying to enjoy my food."

- Carina: "I do apologize, but I can't control how my throat is, thank you... If it makes you feel better, you can put in some headphones or earbuds or... whatever can cover ears?"

- Dan: "Why can't you control how it is? Is that just how your mutations are?"

- Carina: "Unfortunately so... I do question, why do you chew loudly and messily?"

- *You choke on your food for a second, others just staring at Dan, while some hold back chuckles and laughs.*

- Dan: "... Oh, you are so getting canceled on my livestream next time."

- Carina: "What!? What did I do? Was I offensive?! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to be, I-I was just wondering! Like did you look outside and get some sorta mutation or-"

- Dan: "No, I didn't look outside! It's just my way of eating, thank you."

- Carina: "A-Ah... I-I see-! Again, I do apologize, I didn't mean to seem like I was being mean, I was just curious."

*Dan 2*

- Carina: "So Dan, is it? Uhm... I wonder, would you like to play some of those video games that Sam has later? I was watching a video of someone playing Madwheels with their friends and I thought it'd seem like fun."

- *Dan looks at her with a curious look*

- Dan: "You really wanna play Madwheels against me? I'm literally one of the best Madwheels players in the entire room."

- Carina: "Ah... Well, it shouldn't be to difficult to play it, should it? I mean, I can just get Sam to teach me how to play with the controller and then I can try my luck?"

- Dan: "Well then, you're on, birdie! After he teaches you how to play, you're gonna get smoked after dinner!"

- Carina: "Oh! Well, uhm... I'll make you eat those words, uh..."

- *Carina looks at you for an insult name.*

• "Baldy."

• "Numbskull."

• "Smiley Creeper."

• "What are you looking at me for?"

- Carina: "HOW DO I JOKINGLY INSULT-?!"

- Dan: "Wow, can't even come up with an insult on your own. Good job."

- Carina: "Hey-! Yes I can, you insufferable, good for nothing pile of meat and bones-!"

- *The entire table goes silent as several people's mouths drop open.*

- Carina: "... Oh my goodness, I am so sorry-"

- *Dan only laughs*

- Dan: "Good one, bird brain!"

- *Suprisingly, that entire situation went well.*

*If Sophie is in the apartment*

*Sophie 1*

- *Carina and Sophie are sitting at the table, a roll of string and some beads sitting on the table as Carina unravels the string, before bringing the string up to her beak and snapping it shut, effectively cutting the string off the roll.*

- Carina: "And here you go, small one! A string for your necklace!"

- Sophie: "Thanks!"

- *Sophie takes the string before putting several beads onto it, while Carina makes another string and snaps it from the roll and starts making a necklace as well.*

- Carina: "So let's see... How do I wanna make this? I could just put some beads and..."

- *She's distracted by Sophie aiming a bead at your head with her slingshot.*

- Carina: "Sophie, no-!"

- *Thankfully, Carina blocks her aim from you*

- Sophie: "Aww, come on Miss Carina! I'm just playing around!"

- Carina: "I know, but aiming beads at people's heads are dangerous! You could poke an eye out of their sockets, little one-!"

- Sophie: "Aww man... You act almost exactly like my mom!"

- *Carina seems to sigh and hits her head on the table.*

- *After that situation, Carina makes a bracelet, but Sophie makes a decoration for her slingshot and a necklace.*

*Sophie 2*

- Carina: "Ok, so, when you hide, causing ranged damage from the said hiding place is what is important! So what I want you to do is hide somewhere while I stand right here."

- Sophie: "Ok!"

- *Sophie goes to hide behind the kitchen counter before peeking out from behind it*

- Carina: "Alright, and now from wherever you are hidden, aim at my eyes! That's a natural weakness of your foes, so aim and fire!"

- *Sophie seems to take a moment to aim, before pulling back a marble in her slingshot, then aiming at Carina's eyes*

- *But before the marble can even hit, Carina blocks the marble with her wing, catching it and throwing it back and throwing it to the side.*

- Sophie; "Huh!? How did you see me!?"

- Carina: "Well, little one, I saw you load the marble after popping out from your hiding place. It's as simple as that!"

- *Sophie seems to huff as Carina just seems to chirp in amusement*

- Carina: "You always need to remember, when in hiding, don't just rest! Stay down, load first, and always do your best!"

(If Leigh is in the apartment)

*Leigh 1*

- Leigh: "So, you're a bird now, aren't you, Carina?"

- Carina: "Uhm... Y-Yes, yes I am-"

- Leigh: "Isn't that funny? The person of the building who has the reputation of watching birds becoming the watched..."

- *Carina stays silent*

- Carina: "Uh... I-I think I'm done with dinner for tonight."

- Leigh: "Oh, don't be so scared, little birdie! I am only messing around with you! Why are you so scared?"

- Carina: "Yep, I'm done with dinner, bye-!"

*Leigh 2*

- Leigh: "Carina, I've heard from Sam that you are very, very strong!"

- Carina: "Uhm... Well, I do not think I am-"

- Leigh: "Oh, do not sell yourself short now! If that guy has it that you are strong, then there MUST be something strong about you... Heheh."

- *Carina seems to feel nervous, scared, concerned, and for some reason, a little proud?*

- Carina: "I-I do question, why are you acting like this? Is... Is it because you wish to spar?"

- Leigh: "I ACCEPT YOUR CHALLENGE!"

- Carina: "WAIT, HUH-?!"

(If Hellen is in the apartment)

*Hellen 1*

- Carina: Hey, Hellen?

- Hellen: "... what?"

- Carina: "I have a question. The other day I had bought a plant, you see. It was a really pretty plant and everything, I've done my best to take care of it..."

- Hellen: "... And what's the issue with it?"

- Carina: "W-Well... It's a New England Aster. I've not been able to keep it up straight since I bought it last year. I don't know the issue, I water it lightly daily and keep it in house light for about 3 hours since I cannot trust the sunlight..."

- Hellen: "Have you changed its fertilizer?"

- Carina: "No..."

- Hellen: "... Then that may be your problem. Paired with the 3 hours of light, that may be it's full reason why it's dying."

- Carina: "Oh..."

- Hellen: "Yeah. You need to give it more light and change its fertilizer every spring."

- Carina: "Yes ma'am... Thank you for the advice!"

*Hellen 2*

- *Hellen is sitting on the couch, watching the TV as Carina tries to perch on the couch. Carina seems to be struggling to perch on the couch...*

- *Hellen looks over to Carina, just watching as Carina struggles to perch.*

- Hellen: "... Are you ok?"

- Carina: "A-Ah, yes, uhm... Just... Not having a good time perching here."

- Hellen: "..."

- *Hellen raises her arm*

- Hellen: "You can perch on my arm if it'll help."

- *Carina seems startled for a moment*

- Carina: "Oh... Really? Uh... O-Ok!"

- *Carina flaps her wings before perching on Hellen's arms, her claws digging slightly into her arm. Hellen doesn't even flinch at any of it, just continuing to stare at the tv.*

- *Carina seems way more comfortable than before, only feeling a bit shy about perching on her arm*

- Carina: "... Thank you, Hellen."

- *Hellen only hums and continues watching TV.*

(If Xaria and Monty are in the apartment)

*Xaria 1*

- *Carina is whistling a little tune as she washes her dish at the sink, before she's immediately interrupted by Xaria stepping on her talons*

- Carina: "OW-!"

- *Carina accidentally drops her plate in the sink, shattering it into pieces as she tries to pull her talons out from under Xaria's boot.*

- Xaria: "Oops. Shouldn't have been in the way, birdbrain."

- Carina: "What the actual heck is wrong with you!? You saw I was STANDING RIGHT HERE!"

- Xaria: "Well, it's not my fault your talons are that fucking long. You can't yell at me for those fucking things being in the damn way!"

- *Carina seems to glare at Xaria with a look that looks like if she was able to, it would kill her in an instant.*

- Carina: "Now you listen here, your rudeness. Just because you're an asshole to Sam, DOESN'T MEAN I'll bow down to your whimsy and rudeness because of how incompetent and ragey you are!"

- Xaria: "Well, you should for someone who looks like she could be easily killed by a toothpick!"

- *Carina seems almost completely as if something snapped in her eyes as Xaria just glares down at her*

- Carina: "Why you-!"

- *You think you should stop them before they start tearing each other limb from limb...*

• "Hey, Carina, can you calm down? It's not worth it."

- Carina: "... Ah, yes, sorry, Sam. I apologize-"

- Xaria: "Thank God. Thanks for getting your dog to back down."

- Carina: "DOG-?!"

• "Xaria, stop it."

- Xaria: "Like I'd listen to you."

- Carina: "You'd better listen to him or I'll make sure you do!!!"

• "Both of you, calm down."

- Xaria: "Not gonna happen."

- Carina: "If it ain't gonna happen for you, then I'll do the same!"

- Xaria: "Like you even scare me, Feathers!"

- *Carina seems to make hostile churring sounds as Xaria stares back with a hostile look*

*If Hellen is present*

• "You two better stop or I'll see if Hellen can stop you."

- *Carina seems to jump back as Xaria just scoffs*

- Xaria: "Whatever! I'm going to my room!"

- *Xaria just tosses her plate into the sink before walking back to your room.*

- *Carina only looks pissed, but tries to calm herself down from anger.*

- Carina: "... Big old meanie."

*Xaria 2*

- *Carina only sits on the couch this time as Xaria walks to the kitchen from her room.*

- *Xaria just walks to the sink and puts her plate in the sink before walking back to her room*

- *For some reason, you think you see a smirk on Carina's face as Xaria passes by the couch, before she flaps her wings and goes to perch on the TV.*

- Carina: "Oops! Shouldn't have been in the way~!"

- Xaria: "What the hell!? Why would you do that!?"

- Carina: "No reason, just wanted to perch on the TV for a second!"

- *Carina snickers for a moment before Xaria just scoffs and rolls her eyes.*

- Xaria: "Whatever."

- *As Xaria turns to head back to her room, you can see a paper on her back that reads, "Birds scare me. BOOHOO! :'("*

- Carina: "Heh."

*Monty 1*

- *Carina sits at the table, watching as Monty lights a fire.*

- Carina: Fire is beautiful sometimes... Unfortunately, it's really, really dangerous. Why do you like fire so much, if it's ok to ask?"

- Monty: "Cause it's cool."

- Carina: "Just because of that...?"

- Monty: "Yeah."

- Carina: "... Not because of any beauty in it?"

- Monty: "Yeahhhh."

- *Carina just stares with confusion and concern*

- Carina: "... Oh."

*Monty 2*

- *Monty is flicking the lighter he has on and off out of boredom*

- *Carina, however, is just curious*

- Carina: "Do you think feathers catch on fire? Just absolutely curious..."

- Monty: "Huh?"

- Carina: "I said, do you think feathers can catch on fire?"

- Monty: "Anything can catch on fire if you light it right, dude."

- Carina: "Huh... Interesting..."

- *Carina plucks a feather from her hair*

- Carina: "Light this on fire."

- Monty: "Betttt."

- *Monty flicks his lighter on, before bringing the feather towards the flame, as soon as he brings it to the fire, it ignites, a blue tint catching into the flame from the feather as it burns.*

- Carina: "Ooh-!"

- Monty: "Huh... How'd it turn blue-?"

(If Papineau is in the apartment)

- *Carina is cleaning the table after dinner, seeming to have decided to use her wings as a feather duster*

- Papineau: "I see you are a warrior of cleanliness as well."

- Carina: "Hmm? Ah-! W-Well, if you mean by being clean and not liking too big of messes, then yes-! Yes, I am! Messes are not something I take lightly, but I try to help keep this place as tidy as possible for Sam and everyone else who stays here!"

- Papineau: "You are an honorable warrior, young bird. You bring honor upon us."

- Carina: "Oh! Uhm... Thank you! I'm glad you think so!"

*Papineau 2*

- Papineau: "Carina. How is your duty of cleaning doing? How strong have you gotten since the last we spoke?"

- *Carina stands up, puffing out her chest as she holds her arm to her head in salute.*

- Carina: "Sir! I've kept this house tidy and clean as much as I could, sir! I've cleaned the bathroom quickly and cleaned up some of the messes in Sam's main apartment room as much as possible while he was out, sir!"

- *Papineau wipes a non-existent tear from his eyes before patting her head.*

- Papineau: "Good job soldier. Despite our unfortunate fate, you stand still as a beacon of hope against this war against dirtiness and chaos."

- *Carina seems proud before she puffs out her chest again and chirps in response.*

- Carina: "Anything to help our side live on for as long as we can, sir!"

(If Morton is in the apartment)

*Morton 1*

- *Morton sits and sorts his trash on the table as he puts it into piles, sorting between colors and shapes.*

- *Carina stares in confusion as she just silently watches him do so.*

- Morton: "Eh... This is green, so it will go here... and this is blue, so it goes into the blue pile...!"

- *Carina just continues watching, an unreadable look in her eyes as she just silently watches. Soon she sees a blue object in the green pile, before moving her wing to grab it.*

- Carina: "This needs to go into the blue pile. It was in the green pile."

- Morton: "Oh! Eheh, thank you, Carina! I was wondering where that went."

- *Morton gently grabs the junk from her wing, before delicately placing it into the right pile.*

- *Carina just continues watching him place junk into different piles, just watching with a curious look now.*

*Morton 2*

- *Morton digs around his bag.*

- Carina: "Hmm? Hey, Morton? What are you digging for?"

- Morton: "Eh? Oh, just something I found outside traveling!"

- *Morton pulls out a bag of bird seed, causing Carina's eyes to widen before she coos, hungrily eyeing the bird seed with excitement.*

- Morton: "I went exploring the other day and I found this. I assumed you'd like it since I found it in the hallway while I was exploring."

- *He hands the bag of bird seed to Carina as she grabs the bag and stares at it with a happy, yet pouty look.*

- Carina: "..."

- Carina: "If you have any enemies that you do not like, let me know. I do not have anything I can do, but I will defend you with my life."

- Morton: "Eh...?"

(If Ernest is in the apartment)

*Ernest 1*

- Carina: "So, Ernest! What's your story?"

- Ernest: "Oh, well, I just left me home ta get some food."

- Carina: "Oh- Uhm... Well...!"

- *Carina seems to try to think for a moment before she speaks again*

- Carina: "Well, what can you do then? I'm curious!"

- Ernest: "Well, ol' Ernest can kick a few beasties I'd needed! I can sing a few songs 'n I got a few tricks up me sleeves!"

- *Carina nods and listens to his explanation, nodding and adding small comments as he goes on.*

*Ernest 2*

- *Ernest plays his guitar, playing a cheerful song as Carina listens.*

- *Carina seems to smile before whistling along with the tune that plays.*

- *As the tune goes on, it seems to sound like a cheerful melody, despite the circumstances of the world you're in.* (+3 Morale, +5 Calm)

(If Roaches is in the apartment)

*Roaches 1*

- Carina: "..."

- Roaches: "hELLO BiRd huMAN! WHat Is YOu sTariNG At?"

- Carina: "Uhm... Nothing. I'm just curious."

- Roaches: "ABoUT WhaT?"

- Carina: "About how you get more roaches... Like do they just wonder in or...?"

- Roaches: "WHaT DO yOU meAN?"

- Carina: "How do more of you recover Roaches that you lose from your body?"

- Roaches: "Oh, It'S SiMPlE!"

- *It goes silent for a moment, Carina waiting for Roaches to explain.*

- Carina: "... Are you going to explain?"

- Roaches: "nO."

- Carina: "Oh, ok-"

*Roaches 2*

- Carina: "Hey, Roaches, can you pass the salt?"

- Roaches: "oKaY!"

- *Roaches passes the salt*

- Carina: "Thank you!"

- *Carina puts some salt on the potatoes, but accidentally feels something crunch in her beak*

- Carina: "!!!"

- *She realizes she accidentally ate a roach.*

- Carina: "... I am so sorry, I wasn't looking, I am horribly sorry-"

- Roaches: "IT iS OKaY, bIRd hUmaN! IT WaS an ACCiDenT! SoMEtiMEs RoACheS cRAwL onTo thE wrOnG plATe oR fALl inTO wROnG pLAcE."

- *Carina slinks back in her chair*

- Carina: "Ah... Ok. Well, I still apologize, I should've paid attention. It won't happen again-!"

(If Rat Baby is in the apartment)

(Naming it Clover for ease and cause that's what I named my first one. Change the name however you please.)

*Rat Baby 1*

- *Carina bends down in front of the small creature, staring at it with worry in her eyes, afraid of accidentally attacking the small thing.*

- Carina: "... Hello, little Clover? How are you doing today?"

- *The Rat Baby stares at Carina, reaching out at her with its little grubby hands. Carina only seems to flinch back a little, reaching out for a moment, before retracting her wings out of fear that she'll hurt it.*

- Carina: "... I... I'm so sorry, little Clover. I swear, I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just... I'm not really confident in myself with not attacking you yet."

- *Clover seems to squeak in understanding, before just curling into a ball afterwards."

*Rat Baby 2*

- *Carina brings over a binder of some paper and some pencils to Clover.*

- Carina: "Hello again, small one! I've brought you something!"

- *Carina sets the supplies down onto the ground, before taking one of the pencils and taking out a sheet of paper.*

- Carina: "Would you like to draw with me today? I'm planning on sketching some more designs of birds from the TV today, but I was wondering if you'd like to draw with me?"

- *Clover squeaks with a happy squeak that sounds like a squeak mixed with a baby's laugh, causing Carina to smile a little at the reaction.*

- Carina: "I take that as a yes! Wonderful!"

- *Carina sits down and starts sketching an image of a Cardinal, trying to remember the details to be precise and perfect.*

- Carina: "Hmm... There's something missing here, I just know there is... What do you think, Clover?"

- *Clover just scribbles all over the the paper and then looks up, before making a squeaky laugh*

- Carina: "Ah! That's it! The little mask like pattern on its face! That's it! Thank you for that, little one!"

- *You wonder how she communicated with it... It can't even speak well yet.*

*Rat Baby 3*

- *Carina walks up to Clover again, this time she bends down and stares at it before reaching her wing out again.*

- Carina: "... Let's try this a-again."

- *She reaches her wing out before looking away, continuing to reach out. She seems scared until Clover latches onto her wing, hugging it tightly.*

- *She then immediately looks towards it latching onto her wing, before she then goes absolutely still.*

- *Then she slowly brings the rat child towards her, before hugging it gently as if it was a baby chick that could be hurt at the slightest tap of its head.*

- Carina: "... H-Hello, little one... It is wonderful to see you again today..."

- *She seems to stiffle out a sob, but it sounds almost a happy sob.*

- *You don't know whether to stay silent or console her, so you stay silent. You feel proud that she got over her fear.*

(I TRIED SO HARD TO MIMIC THE GAME'S STYLE OF WRITING-

GOODNESS, SHOOT, I'M GONNA CRY... I DON'T EVEN REMEMBER HOW LONG IT TOOK FOR ME TO COME UP WITH THESE OVER TIME, BUT SHOOT, I'M DONE WITH THE DINNER ONES- HOO BOY, I'M DEAD. Hopefully the video game interactions won't be so long!...

... they are aren't they?

... shoot.

Anyways, now I go vibe. Cause I'm brain explodeded. I hope i dont have any mistakes in this cause i did not reread over all of this. T^T"`)

[chilling-seavey]

I just finished reading Blue Moon Hotel, and my god was that devastating. I’ve asked before about Confessional and you said it was chill to talk and ask about your writing, so I figured I would pop in😀

Maybe I’m delusional, but I feel like he actually had feelings for her, like I said maybe I’m a bit delulu but he obviously doesn’t love his gf (like maybe he loves her but is falling out of love? I mean he did respond immediately with an I love her, but did he convince himself?) if he’s carrying out an affair for months, that’s also just my take with cheating in general 🙈 I’m not sure what the reader does or anything, but I wonder if his gf is famous in some capacity where the reader isn’t in that world with fame. Like maybe she’s a high ranking person at a company but not like famous/influencer type, so he viewed the gf as a more realistic choice for that aspect and for his career. Like I wonder since a few of the guys knew, they maybe commented on his attachment and he realized he was in too deep. I know this all completely hinges on my thought that he had feelings for her and if he didn’t this is all irrelevant 🙈

The reader crying in bed alone at the end was beyond heartbreaking, like my god. The pregnancy twist!! My god, it made it just that more devastating. I also like how the reader didn’t try to convince him via being pregnant and didn’t want a love that was forced because of circumstances.

Hear me out, the first part is potentially based on my inner hope, and I mean he wanted her to feel like he was hers for the night, I mean…👀 and he knew she had feelings for him and kept it going👀 I’m just saying. I digress, in my mind I can see his relationship maybe a year later failing, because he deep down still likes the reader and despite trying to keep tabs, he can’t find anything on social media anywhere and she kinda went off the grid. Then maybe a few months after him and the gf break up he tries to find the reader again, but she doesn’t tell him about their child until she knows he genuinely likes her, not for having his child.

I know it’s an open ending, but I was curious about how you kinda pictured them down the line together or apart and whether or not I’m super delulu with this🙈 Also, amazing writing as ever!! 😀😀

ANON!!!!!!! I adore you, what the heck!? Thank you so much for this!! Opening tumblr to see such a thoughtful and lengthy ask literally made my month, holy shit. I love love love hearing people's thoughts on my writing and how they interpret it and see it going past the point of the writing ending. I am sending you a million love hearts through the screen omgomg.

Honestly, to answer your question about how I, myself, pictured it, is basically word for word how you pictured it, I'm not going to lie!

Your take on George is 100% my vision of him too! Reader not being 'famous' is definitely what helps them to be able to get away with this sneaking around over the months. Perhaps that's what George likes — that feeling of 'being normal' — but his career has bred him with a one track mind so he associates the gf with being what he needs. I think he's definitely got deeper feelings for the reader than even he's willing to process! The thoughtfulness behind taking off his bracelet, asking her to call him by his name for this night...maybe things he didn't think much of but hold such a deeper meaning. AND "and he knew she had feelings for him and kept it going👀" MHM. YEPPPP—

"I also like how the reader didn’t try to convince him via being pregnant and didn’t want a love that was forced because of circumstances." is EXACTLY it!!! When I wrote it I didn't put in depth words behind that choice of reader not telling him but you summarized it perfectly here. That's exactly it. Exactly exactly exactly I can't say exactly enough!!

For the future, I always thought they'd somehow reconnect after some time where he could actually figure out for himself what he wants! I love how you said "but she doesn’t tell him about their child until she knows he genuinely likes her, not for having his child". I didn't think that detailed about the future of these characters since I knew I wouldn't be writing a part two but I love your thought behind this! Omg and can you imagine his face when the existence of the child is finally revealed to him?? 😳🤭

Anyway, yeah, you and me are like this 🤞 anon!! We share a brain or something, for reallll.

I would love for you to stick around and chat more! You're always more than welcome here [especially when you give me a generous excuse to ramble about my own writing haha] 🤍🤍

[nekrosmos]

*burst into your room through your window* hi- *coughs glass shards out* I am here to say MANY things, positive things about your fic you wrote, but honestly it's more like my live reaction and my fav parts of the fic, it's gonna be long!!!! I HOPE YOU DON'T MIND READING ME YAP!!!

First of all, ∞/10, this is your first fic??? IT'S SO GOOD!! you got the atmosphere the vulnerability the softness the banter AND the good ol smut down, I love it, it was like I was joining them in the fishing trip because of how nice the visual was

ok from here on out it's all about my fav parts of the fic HEHE

the two had aged together is!!!!!!so!!!!!!!!freaking!!!!!!sWEET!!!!!they've been through it all together for the longest time!!!!!!

something about this just makes me change the way Im looking at Price, like..."he just love her" is such a deceivingly simple line but it holds so much weight. He may have "love" him but it was never a full attachment, rather just...embracing the love he was offered. He loved her because he could, not because of...everything el1se that matters. At least that's how I see it and GOD it hurts so good

ah hem AKSJDHAKS how did Nik not choke on air for that- anyways

Im getting my pitchfork for that CO (even tho the bastard is not around anymore) and the way Nik also got him?! *wails*

"there had been a lifetime of missed opportunities between the two" IS SUCH A GOOOOODDD LINEEEE GRRGGR YOUR BRAIN!!

🥺something about them giggling and being themselves just GRIPS MY HEART!!!!

it's the fact that the "friend" turned to "love" that got me feral I was SOOOO KASJHDKADJ hAPPY for em

chef au....

Nik the mAN YOU ARE!!! THE REST I COULD LIVE WITH!!!!GRRR!!! SUCH GOOD LINE!!! HIS NIK!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was walking when I read this part and basically fist the air in victory KASJHDKAJH also I love the train of thought here for Price...it's such a him thing to overthink

there is nothing wrong with that - URGH RIP MY HEART OUT AGAIN!!!!!!!!!

again, another great line, frame this and smack it to my forehead because yes, that is Nik

I really really like in between the spicy scenes there are goofy scenes because...my god it just make everything lighter and more...how to say? real. In the moment and all, yk, it's so nice reading them laughing and stuff. But also this line "their romantic relationship wasn't born today, but weeks ago" again, chef kiss

very long ramble and Im surprised im allowed to type this much into an ask (ah heck it could get cut for all I know but) just know this fic was a lifesaver during my lunch break, had an extremely hard day and this helped a bunch.

Im looking forward to see your future fics if you do write them!!

Okay I'm officially smiling like an idiot and I think I'm gonna have to reread your ask many, many times because HOLY SHIT you just made me so unbelievably happy ​😭​😭​❤️​❤️​❤️​

It was my first fic with them !! I've been writing for a long time, switched to english a few years ago and have been writing casually ever since ,,,, But this was the longest fic I've ever posted and it was a nice challenge honestly !!

Also the way you pointed out some of your favorite scenes jdvlskjd,vpùidjvbpvj I'm losing my mind, I'm so happy ​😭​ I literally couldn't ask for better feedback !!!

I actually really like your interpretation of that line about his ex wife !! I left it pretty open so people can hc whatever they want :3c In my personal hc, he really did love her immensely, but he kept hurting her unintentionally by never being around, never giving her what she needed because of his work, etc. ​Just one of those "it wasn't meant to be" relationships. (Also, other random hc, but Nik was here at Price's wedding, he got along really well with his ex wife, but everything about it broke his fucking heart over and over again. Oops 💔)

And I'm so glad you pointed out the banters during the smut scene !! It's my favorite thing to do honestly !! To me, sex scenes don't have to be so serious all the time, I like when characters communicate while it's happening, I like when they're laughing together <3 And these two have so much shared history that it just makes sense to me !!

God, again, thank you so much for this, you really did just make my day Gomz !!!! You're absolutely lovely !!

[memberment]

good morning everyone!

I have ruined my sleep schedule. Someone save me LMAO

(10:00) as I reach the end of what I've written for morning glory, I grow tired. I need to take a nap. Will I finally finish this Fourth of July chapter today?? Perhaps.

But no one and I mean NO ONE is allowed to let me forget I need to incorporate the mostly bit at some point. Like there are so many canon refs in here it's SCARY. I NEED THE MOSTLY BIT IT IS MY FAVORITE CARTMAN BIT. NO ONE LET ME FORGET!

(6:11) this is my third good morning of the day, second on record good morning, first on record crying over my writing.

LIKE WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN THEY'RE GONNA DIE I'M GONNA THROW UP

(I'm literally not okay I need to stop writing tragic creek)

(7:04) Guys I'm almost done with my morning glory reread and when I tell y'all I just nearly died from shock bc Craig casually mentioned he 'Doesn't believe in coincidences.' Like, it's such a benign statement but after WRITING his storyline in Genesis and randomly seeing something like that in the wild that I totally forgot about almost just took me out.

(10:20) Guys after I reread this Genesis chapter and code it I AM OFFICIALLY WORKING ON MORNING GLORY AGAIN LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOO (This Fourth of July chapter will get finished tn I SWEAR TO HECK!!!!)

(And then I get to read my fav once its like 5am bc I can only read my fav fic at like 5/6 when the sun is just coming up and my room is perfectly cold and I'm almost ready to go to bed but not quite the vibe is JUST RIGHT here's to praying to the gods we don't believe in I get blessed with an early chapter(bc I have literally been trying to space them out and save them and sometimes I do get lucky and get to read two at once and it's literally the best istg))

(11:17) I forgot to reread said chapter and quit at some point but tell me how Morning went from 84.6 (?? ish) to 86.1k?? LIKE HELL YA LETS GOOOOO WE'RE MAKING PROGRESS!!!!

(11:29) It's not, like, haha funny, but I find it so painfully hilarious that I keep going back and forth between writing like fun wholesome dirty mountain kids figuring out life creek and then like them literally DYING for each other with the most gut wrenching dialogue surrounding it all. My brain needs to be studied, I fear.

(3:28) I just spent like the last 30 minutes being a fucking lunatic BACK TO MORNING GLORY!!! We're at 87.1k ... Which like, honestly, for me on hiatus??? I'm kinda impressed. Kinda proud of myself. (Not to mention the other shit I wrote that is not Morning Glory today, because I did write some of the most gut wrenching shit for Revelations just because I felt like writing angst LMAO)

(5:14) I know I've said this before. And I'll probably say it a million times. Jack stands on business and it's so FUCKING FUNNY. Like 'killing him won't solve anything'

'yeah but it'll feel good!'

LIKE OKAY DAMN LMFAOOOO

(6:27) and tonight I shut down with 89.7k

Which like, holy shit, yippie. 4th of July is done, they're doing powerpoint night, and I am just that much closer to being done with summer.

[bloodsalted]

DIXON!!! lemme tell you WHUAAAT! *inhales.* you write dean like phenomenally well and also how you make him uniquely yours! yes, he's a canon character, but something with the way you portray him and the way you write him, it's like literally hearing dean echo within your noggin when i read your posts. either ours and the ones from others. it's just so chef's kiss, that i cannot put it into precise words. i'll keep this short and sweet and not like ramble and give you like an essay LMAO. I JUST WANNA LET YOU KNOW, keep up the exceptional work you're doing on dean and sam and jack. you're doing so fuckin swell. for months, because i am a hella shy person and i had ppl tell me the spn isn't entirely all that welcoming, i've been debating whether or not to follow. i remember biting the bullet and just hit follow. and like hope for the best, y'know? i enjoy writing. and i wanna expand my boundaries a lil bit into fandoms that i'm a bit unfamiliar ( yet a lil familiar ) with. so like, CUE MY SHOCK when you legit followed back?! like ;_; like hella pure talent literally. the MANNERISMS ARE DOWN TO A BLOODY T. so yes, admiring from afar to actually writing and interacting with you is like i'm SHOOKETH OKAY!

KEEP UP ON ALL THE GREAT WORK THAT YOU DO!!! :D don't let ppl say otherwise uvu. n e ways, stay fabulous kiss face. //

// well holy shit! the heck?!?! you can't roll up and punch me in the face with emotions! okay, okay. i kid. i live for this kinda jam cause i am one sappy lil dumbass! you make me wanna cry! seriously. a character like dean was so intimidating to take on. i've done other 'big' canons before but dean meant so much to me for so long that venturing out of sam and into dean when i decided, with sarah/qapsiel's lurking me back in being the culprit, to go into the supernatural fandom on tumblr after over a freaking decade of touching anything supernatural related in writing---it was scary as SHIT! so i get why you were anxious. esp. if you were told spn rpc was standoffish. honestly? like every rp fandom on tumblr, you just gotta find the right people. every fandom has people who take themselves too seriously and use it for validation for some weird reason and are gatekeep-ish. just like every fandom's got its chill people who will welcome ya. some are worse than others. but i've had great experiences with spn and just boop the ones that i don't have that with into lala land. :D hearing that you hear his voice? and can picture his mannerisms? and you enjoy what i'm doing with him? (add in sam and jack and i just.. what?!?!) man that just hits me square in the chest and makes me teary eyed. BIG EMOTIONS! i'm just honestly so grateful you hit the follow button. you are such a talented, creative and sweet person. i love everything we write. i love our conversations and fangirling with you. honestly? you're a keeper and being so freaking kind and thoughtful as to send this?? god damn. brb i'm gonna rip up the receipt i came with. no takebacks. no exchanges!

[prolix-yuy]

Hello honey 💕 As promised, here I am submitting my request for the 500 follower celebration!

The list of prompts is amazing. I truly had a hard time choosing one, but after Chapter 2 of Both Side of the Door I need to know what happened between Mando and X'ian or I'll will never be at peace again. So I'll go for Heartbreak of betrayal with the two of them, hoping that you'll give us an insight into their relationship.

Ren's crew sees Mando as a sort of traitor, but I really can't see him act like that (as leaving Quinn behind) out of the blue. So who betrayed who? Who betrayed first? How? Why? And most importantly, what the hell happened on Alzoc III? S1E5 left us with so many questions. I need answers 🤯

Ma Chérie! My wonderful @amban-rifle! I have to start this off with an apology. I have held onto this ask for SO GOSH DARN LONG. This is from my 500 Followers Celebration OVER A YEAR AGO. I'm so sorry have kept you waiting but holy heck, what an ask! The drama! The complications! The holes in canon we all struggle with! Plus addressing one of the most confusing and complicated off-screen "relationships" many of us x Reader writers ignore. I wanted to do it justice, and it took a bunch of research, gorging myself on other Star Wars content, and staring off into space while that Spongebob meme of my brain being on fire danced in my noggin. But! It is here, finally. And for being so patient, it's an absolute monster.

Interlude: Burn in My Bloodstream

Pairing: Din Djarin x F!Reader, Din Djarin x Xi'an

Summary: The Mandalorian has shared many secrets, but his greatest one is buried in shame and blood.

Word Count: 11.8k

Warnings: Explicit, 18+ MINORS DNI, canonical-type violence, allusions to sex work, rough sex throughout, oral sex (m receiving), gagging, voyeurism, fingering (f receiving), PiV sex (don't be a fool, wrap your tool), anal sex, creampie, choking, degradation, threesomes, semi-public sex, cuckolding, blood and descriptive gore, character death, genocide (what a tag that was to write), suicidal thoughts, a fuckton of angst, The Helmet Stays On and it's a Big Deal, a very toxic relationship dynamic.

Notes: This one was an exercise in researching and complicated storytelling, but now that it's done I am over the moon with how it came out. I know that the Din x Xi'an pairing is not many people's cup of tea, but if you want my take on how it came about and what I think happened to give us The Prisoner, here's it all as best as I can surmise. I'm staying as canon compliant as possible because it's fun to connect a bunch of dots, but obviously this is all speculation with some liberal fudging of timelines.

Takes place after Both Sides of the Door, with much of the story set pre-S1 and spoilers for S1 Ep6 The Prisoner. Our Reader character makes an appearance at the beginning and end, so she'll still have a place in this interlude. The title is taken from Ed Sheeran's "Bloodstream" and if you want to know where my mood was for most of this, that song is a good place to start.

Cross-posted on AO3

I Think of You Series Masterlist

After you retire for the night, Din contemplates telling you about the other woman who left marks on his life. Omera was easy; wrong place, wrong time, and no right time on the horizon. And if he was truthful with himself, maybe no right time ever. He could have loved her, loved the way she cared for him and allowed a softer life for himself. There are times when he lies in bed and wonders what a world like that might look like for him. 

It’s…difficult. 

Even thinking of a little plot of land, a space all his own tied to the earth of a planet, makes him yearn for the skies and space that surround you three on the Crest. He could never truly root in soil, so used to being a seed on the wind. There would always be bounties to chase, duties to fulfill, missions to complete.

Right?

And if he digs even deeper, he might find the clearest truth hidden among the memories.

His heart belonged to you longer than even he knew. 

There were times when he let others touch it. Omera’s hands held it gently, too kindly for him to accept. And to keep it, she would need him to lift the helmet, the one thing he could not give her. Being a Mandalorian is all he knows. So he took his heart with him, and he’s sure she’s better off without it.

But there was another who reached into his chest with claws and teeth and left him bloody from her affections. One he tries not to dwell on as long as he can. A time in his life that brought more shame than any other, misted in blood and sex and credits. 

He wants to share more of his world with you. You deserve to understand exactly why he is the man he is today.

But he does not think he can tell you about Xi’an.

“Got something special for you, Mando,” Karga says when he settles across the table. “You’ve been requested by name.”

Din cocks his head, one hand drumming restlessly. 

“That’s new,” he says. He likes playing mysterious for Karga, embodying all that a Mandalorian is supposed to be, even when some days he feels like a small child wearing his buir’s armor. At least it hides the worst of his apprehension, impassive helmet masking how his eyes constantly dart around the room, legs tense and ready to spring. 

“Ranzar Malk. Leads a small team of mercenaries.” 

Din tips his head back, folding his arms over his durasteel cuirass.

“Didn’t think you liked sharing the spoils,” he drawls, watching Karga carefully. The man laughs, sipping back some spotchka and winking at a woman sitting at his bar. 

“I don’t. I like my work without middle men. But they bring in very, very good credits. A percentage is more for both of us than the handful of riff-raff I could offer you.” Karga leans forward, elbow coming down and speaking lower. “They want the reputation a Mando can give their team. Help them get some bigger and better jobs. You lend them your striking silhouette, and you’ll be in enough credits to buy a whole suit of beskar. And my cut will be…barely noticeable.” The sly smile Karga schools off his face lets Din know it’s a lot more than unnoticeable, but the job intrigues him. 

“What kind of work is it?” he asks. Flashes of memories play at the corner of his mind - Mandalorians coming down from on high to save him, droids shredded in their wake.

“Malk and I have a strict ‘no questions asked’ policy. You do the work, you get paid.”

Din rolls his shoulders, fingers itching to grab onto something solid and deadly. 

“How long do they need my…reputation?”

Karga leans back and sweeps his hands wide.

“As long as you want. Open contract.”

Din considers the offer. Mercenary work has never been too lowly for a beroya, but he’d never done any. Mostly small-time criminals and shakedowns in return for credits. But if the money is as good as Karga makes it sound, it could help the covert ten times over. 

“Deal.”

“You must be the Mando.”

The voice is snarly, raked over a steel timbre. Din turns to see a barrel-chested, long haired man with a thick salt and pepper beard to match. His face is folded into a smile but the light of it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Extending a short-fingered hand, he pumps Din’s gloved one vigorously. 

“Karga said you were in need of reputation,” Din says, cooly delivering the lines he practiced on the flight to this no-name hangar in Outer Rim rubble.

“And what are you in need of, Mando?” Malk says, eyeing him with blatant curiosity. Din had planned for this question during his supply run. The covert wasn’t to be named, the last of a culture eradicated. So why was he still traveling, wearing the helmet if he’s not of an unseen world?

“Target practice,” is the dry answer he gives, leveling the helmet at the shorter man. Malk raises an eyebrow before a conspiratorial smile splits his lips. 

“I like you, Mando. Man of few words. You’ll get along with the other chatterboxes I run with.” 

Malk leads him to a hangar pad, small ships in various levels of disrepair scattered across the peeling floor. A sharp whistle brings three people into view, two purple Twi’leks and a human man. 

“My crew,” Malk says proudly, gesturing for them to come closer. The female Twi’lek saunters over with a swing in her hip, the heavy forehead-first stride of her companion close behind. The human throws a grease-spotted towel onto a box of tools and comes to an exasperated stop in front of Malk. 

“Can’t believe you shelled out credits for a tin man. I could have put a bucket on and we’d be just as well off,” the man says. His face is Malk claps him on the shoulder.

“Varlo,” Malk says, nodding to Din. He gives a polite tip of his head back. Varlo rolls his cold blue eyes and turns on his heel. His jaw is sharp and squared, matching his lithe frame as he climbs back into an open access hatch. The male Twi’lek approaches Din, soft footwork with his hands in his pockets.

“Qin,” he offers before Malk’s introduction, nodding his head at the amban rifle slung across Din’s chest. “Is it true weapons are part of your religion? Or is that all bedtime stories?” His smirk is condescending, not even veiled. A simmer of annoyance bubbles in Din’s veins but he tamps it out.

“Among other things,” he says instead, earning a sardonic smile and a handshake from Qin. 

“All weapons?” the female Twi’lek says at Din’s elbow, running her fingers up the length of the rifle’s barrel. Din twists away, visor meeting the sparkling challenge in the Twi’s eyes. 

“My sister, Xi’an,” Qin interjects as she circles Din with roaming eyes. She hisses at him, raising Din’s eyebrows under the helmet, before sharply switching to high-pitched giggles, like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever done. 

“Ohhhh, Mando, we’re going to have fun,” she says, finally coming to rest at her brother’s side. 

Din should have walked away in this moment, saved himself a lot of pain and heartache and blood. They were volatile, waiting for a spark to burn everything around them, and Din was only more kindling. 

The jobs were easy to start. Wealthy benefactors needing a little extra muscle to get their way. A handful of runaways returned home. One exceptionally smooth jailbreak. Din’s presence gave them a leg up on jobs, but his skills were where he became integral. Combat all done with the efficiency and proficiency of a Mandalorian, but flying was where he excelled. The Razor Crest, in her infancy when he first shook Malk’s hand, was a deadly bird under Din’s touch. Scrambling signatures aside, with Din piloting it was a ghost on the astral winds. 

It also became a strange cramped home to the five of them while they traveled. After complaints of too many credits spent on lodging, Malk casually inferred that the Crest could be a better home base. “We’re in it more than out most days,” was his dry reasoning, and with four people staring him down Din agreed, pangs of discomfort pushed to the back of his mind. It made sense, after all. The Crest was a cargo ship. Might as well fill it with cargo.

So between jobs and screaming dogfights in the sky, the mercenaries found themselves within the durasteel walls. Hammocks strung along the hold allowed for sleep, belongings mixing and melding to become communal. There was comfort in that for Din. Individuality beaten out of him in training, he preferred not knowing who liked what ration bar or whose ‘fresher items littered the floor. 

In that crush of company, however, he did learn about his family in arms. Not enough to urge him to reveal more of his own past. All of them lived in the present, their histories an inky shadow they let drag behind and paid no mind. He learned instead of their present, trial and error and observation his best tools.

Malk’s connections were far-reaching and unsavory, most bounties questionable in nature but not enough to turn down. He would choose jobs no one wanted, ones that were especially difficult or carried the highest price. A name for himself was the greatest goal, clawing for prestige in how fast, how deadly, how accurate the team could be. Din sometimes caught a feral glint in his eye when they returned, deed done. The crazier the escapade, the more he gloated in cantinas or to his associates. Rarely lifting a finger himself, he worked logistics and timing, connections and credits. And when the job was done, it was only his name that ever hung in the air as they walked away richer.

Varlo was quiet, calculating and cruel. Din thought the standoffishness was a front until he watched the man more closely and realized it was born of a distinct lack of empathy. He could not be bribed, or swayed, or bewitched. While Malk made connections and laid the groundwork, Varlo was the front man on foot. He could talk his way in, execute the seven councilmen sitting at a table full of secrets, and wipe the blood from a particularly valuable one before taking it as insurance. His carefully crafted armor of failsafes and blackmail let him sleep easy every night, no matter the strain Din might feel at the events of the day.

Qin was the strength of the operation. Not bulky like a Devaronian, but leagues stronger and more agile than his body could betray. With enough blaster cover he could incapacitate, maim, and kill anything in his path with his two hands. That surety in his body extended to his place in the world. His smile was always knowing, always scheming something behind the fangs. Time spent across from him could pass pleasantly - Qin could spin you a tale from thin air, wrestle someone into gasping submission, or share silence all in turn - but once he left there was the distinct feeling that he gained more than you meant to give. 

And then there was Xi’an. Qin and her relationship was manic on a good day, volcanic on a bad one. They snapped at each other constantly, enough that Din stopped trying to understand if they were mad at each other or simply passing the time. Where Qin was strength, Xi’an was stealth. Her steps made no sound, the silvery whistle of her knives the precursor to bodies on the floor. The delight she took in her own prowess turned Din’s stomach more than once. Brutal hisses and snarls giving way to raucous laughter and almost childish giggles raised the hair on the back of his neck. She was competent and brash, and Maker help anyone who said no to her. 

Behind all of them was Din, standing silent and glorious. His helmet parted crowds, murmurs and rumors following the swish of his cape. They wondered why he was running with this bloodthirsty lot, a member of one of the greatest warrior cultures. He let them guess. With his contributions his covert would grow, and one day the children - maybe even his children - would be able to stand in the sun on a world that they called home. 

Until then, he hunts.

Din manages to maneuver the delicate balance of this crew living on his ship for over a month before tensions rise. A week without work has made everyone snappish and riled. Malk is hidden away in the cockpit making calls so Din has to remain with them, arms folded as Xi’an needles at Qin. His lip curls into a snarl, and Din braces for a brawl.

“Treating me like your baby sister isn’t going to make the men think you’re tough,” she hisses, sauntering by Qin and circling Varlo. “They don’t care about blood when it comes to close quarters, long hours, pent-up frustration.” She walks her fingers up Varlo’s chest, stroking her pointer along his leather jacket. “Care to blow off some steam?”

Varlo skirts around her touch, dropping down on a crate and leaning back.

“Hard pass, I don’t dip into crazy,” he spits out, Xi’an’s mocking smile chased by a wink of his own. For someone who barely experiences emotion beyond curiosity and satisfaction, he’s good at faking it. With a turn on her heel, she approaches Din instead.

“Ever felt the touch of a woman, Mando? Let someone polish your beskar?” she trills. Din keeps his posture loose, tilts his helmet and sighs. 

“Quit dicking around, I’ve got something,” Malk says as he drops down the ladder. “Decommissioning factory has had some thefts. We’re doing short-term security until we catch the guilty party.”

Xi’an backs off, slumping down across from her brother as Din moves to set the Crest’s course. Out of the thick air of the cargo hold he can finally breathe. 

He’d wanted to rebuff her, brag about the women he’s brought to the heights of pleasure with just his fingers, but it’s a dangerous path to wander in the barrel of rocket fuel the Crest has become. Shifting his hips in the pilot seat, he thinks back to the last time he fucked his frustrations into another person.

A Togruta, maybe? Or was it that sassy brothel worker? 

(a girl on a desert planet that stopped time)

A shiver climbs his spine but he bats it down. In any event it’s been too long since he’s indulged in a soft body. He’ll take care of that after this job, ease some of the stress buried between his shoulder blades. It might make all of this strange arrangement more palatable.

Droids. It had to be droids.

Not the fact that the factory was decommissioning battle droids but that some were going missing, not turning up in the junk pile to be scrapped. The workers didn’t give two shits about it, but because the battle droids were so powerful and dangerous they had to have their chips pulled out and documented for the New Republic. Too many missing chips led to this group striding in like conquering forces. 

The first night is uneventful, Din passing patrols with Varlo and Xi’an. Varlo looks at him like another droid, the cold boredom on his face inexplicably boiling Din’s blood. Xi’an’s constant prowling only makes it worse, still determined to crack his stoic demeanor. He’s tired the next day, body running on too little sleep and too much adrenaline. Malk offers him caf that he refuses. He doesn’t like lifting the helmet in front of them.

The second night the issue comes into sharp focus. Not theft, but escape. A droid spray painted in yellow stripes enters the facility to reactivate its brethren. For what purpose they don’t know, and Din doesn’t care. Putting the droid in his sight, muscles tight around the amban rifle, Din squeezes a lifetime of pain behind the trigger. 

A cloud of dust. No more droid.

He thought that would satisfy the roar in his chest, but back in the Crest he’s more of a caged animal than before. Malk tells them to enjoy a day on-world, and Varlo and Qin follow him out to the industrial maze of the city. Din knows he needs something tonight, a fight or a fuck or both, so he gathers enough credits to cover his proclivities and makes to leave the ship.

“Where are you biding your time, Mando?” Xi’an’s voice purrs in the low light of the cargo hold. She’s draped over a storage crate, inspecting her nails and flashing a devious look at him when his visor turns. “Going to finally lose your virginity?”

He doesn’t know what compels him to say it. Maybe the constant pressure on all sides, or the neverending sniping at his expense. He knows it’s a mistake the moment he opens his mouth.

“Been a long time since I called myself that.”

Xi’an’s eyes flash up to the visor. It spikes in his stomach.

“I find that hard to believe, Mando, with all the…” She waves her hands around her head, pulling a serious face that she can barely keep on. He should stalk off, leave her to pouting and him to pounding into something softer and sweeter than whatever this was.

But it’s been too long, and he’s itching for confrontation in a way he’s never desired before.

“I’m good with my hands,” he says, one coming up to rest on his belt buckle, tilting his head to the side. Xi’an lifts off the crate, circling him with the serpentine swish of her gait.

“Oh I can believe that. Seen you with those weapons, your ‘religion.’ Man who keeps them that well cared for must be attentive in…other ways.” She slinks around to stand in front of him, dragging her eyes over the broad expanse of durasteel on his chest, flaking paint and silvered scratches. She walks her fingers down his chest, stopping at his trim waist. “But that doesn’t mean you know how to use this.” Her hand flashes out to grope at his crotch but he snatches her wrist, jerking her hands up as she squeals. For a moment he thinks it’s in pain, but the glint in her eyes and the flash of tongue between her fangs reveals it’s excitement. Releasing her, he moves to exit the cargo hold and find something, anything, to calm the rushing of his blood.

“Oh Mando, come on, wait,” Xi’an pleads, skipping back in front of him and adopting an apologetic expression. “We’ve all been cooped up here too long, rubbing each other the wrong way.” This time her hands glances down his side, nails lightly scraping along his hips before she drifts them feather-light over his cock. The electricity of her touch burns in his groin, filling him quickly. “Let me make it up to you, Mando. Rub you the right way this time.”

“This is…not a good idea,” he grits through his teeth, common sense screaming at him to leave, but the many-toothed monster that lurks in the back of his mind drools at the feeling of her fingers getting bolder, now stroking her palm over his stiffening cock. The helmet tips back a fraction as Din’s eyes flutter, excuses melting back into the delicious heat of her touch.

“The best ideas are the bad ones,” she teases, sidling closer to him. Her breath is hot on the edge of his cowl, soft little sighs zinging down his spine as she swipes her thumb over the clothed head of his cock. He tries to suppress the groan but it comes out a whine instead, spurring her on more. “You could use some release. Let me suck your cock, Mando. I’ll trade you for a kiss.” 

This is a monumentally bad idea and his survival instinct kicks in just before the monster waiting in the darkness claws his way to the forefront. 

“The helmet…stays on,” he grunts, backing up a half step. She rolls her eyes but triumph lives there now. 

“Fine, fine, your precious Creed. Then how about I give you a hand, and next time I’m in need of one you return the favor?” 

He struggles to take in a full breath, her fingers now wrapped around him and adding just enough pressure to spark in his pelvis and surge into his chest. He nods, fists clenching, as Xi’an’s smile breaks across her face.

“Oh Mando, how long have you been wanting this?” she purrs, sliding down his body to rest on her knees. Alarm bells sound in his mind. It’s too out in the open, too vulnerable. If Varlo or Malk or Qin, Maker forbid, came back he’d be caught and probably gutted. But the lap of her tongue along his waist as she opens the plaquet of his pants dissolves the worries into heady arousal as the monster he’s suppressed so long rears to life.

“Kriff,” he curses, tilting the helmet down to watch her pull his flushed cock out of his pants, thighs flexing when she coos over it. 

“So you’ve got the goods to back up all that swagger,” she sing-songs, looking up at him through her lashes as blood pumps loud in his ears. The arousal he’s feeling is unlike his usual encounters. In those he’s simmering even when his frustration is at an all time high, his pleasure delayed in favor of watching them writhe and gasp with the force of the orgasms he pulls out of them. It gets him harder than anything else. But now, looking down at someone who makes his blood boil at any given moment, his libido is at a roar screaming at him to fuck and bruise and take. The force of it makes his heart pound, unfamiliar and exciting.

“If you’re only going to look at it, I’ll go somewhere else,” he growls, keeping his voice as level as possible. It does the trick, her smile sly before she licks a long path from base to tip. The shudder is involuntary, a hot wet mouth not something he usually seeks out. He prefers a dripping pussy to bury his frustrations in but the power this position yields makes all the lewd cantina talk he’s scoffed at come into focus. 

“Patience, Mando,” Xi’an lightly scolds, but the thin wire of restraint he was still holding onto snaps. One large hand palms the back of her head, fingers digging into the edge of her head wrap for leverage. Her eyebrows lift in surprise just before Din presses his hips forward, breaching her lips with the head of his cock. He groans at the slick heat and the brush of her teeth over the ridge as he thrusts shallowly against her tongue. He thinks he sees a wrinkle of anger in her brow before her eyes flash with vengeance. She wraps her lips around him, sucking his head. 

“I’ve had enough of waiting,” he grits out, pulling back a fraction before sliding in deeper, pressing her further down his shaft. Her hands come up to his hips, fingernails digging in as a warning. The sharp points of pain focus his arousal, the mix with pleasure intoxicating. “You wanted it so karking badly, you….take it,” he growls, his thrusts deepening again as she takes him even further. Hissing around his intrusion, teeth come down enough to scrape along his cock just shy of unpleasant.

“Oh no you don’t,” he punches out, his other hand pinching her jaw to force her mouth wide. The lack of resistance drives him down her throat, a loud gag heaving her chest. The sound shocks his system, pulling back quickly as drool drips down her chin with her gasps. Uncertainty falls heavy over his libido now.

“Are you…?” he starts to ask, but Xi’an yanks him back to her face, pumping his cock quickly with the thick saliva she’s left on it.

“What’s the matter, Mando? Afraid of a little mess?” she taunts before swallowing him down again, the rough gags of her throat beginning in earnest. He can feel her spit dripping down his length, sliding over his balls as she rolls them roughly in her hand. It’s nothing he’s ever felt fucking a woman before, frustration and anger burning him inside out. He palms her head again, thrusting with her own bobbing rhythm as she hums around his cock. His hips pump, thighs clenching, stomach quivering at the onslaught of sensations driving him closer and closer to his high. Hazarding another look at her, she laughs around his cock before pulling off.

“If I’d have known it would be this easy to make you fall apart…” she begins to say, but Din shoves his cock roughly back into her mouth.

“Shut up,” he pants, fucking into her face in earnest. His orgasm is on the brink, body convulsing around her prone form as the monster ruts and chases his end selfishly. His teeth are clenched so hard he tastes blood, puffing air through his nose and snarling behind the visor. Vision red around the edges, his control is long gone as he fights her sharp nails and encroaching teeth and wild eyes. The tiniest voice begs him to stop, to look at what he’s doing, but when he sees her kneading at her mound over her pants, bucking her own hips in time with his punishing thrusts, everything lets go. He cums with a bellow, holding her there as his spend empties into her mouth. He gasps, sweat rolling down his neck and spine, the helmet almost suffocating with the heat trapped inside. 

When he pulls out Xi’an gasps and the gravity of the moment makes him stumble back. Tucking himself away he watches her cough on her knees, white streaks of his cum dribbling down her face to drip onto the durasteel floor. Once she catches her breath she looks up at him, and in her flashing eyes and feral smile he realizes something dark and devastating.

He wants to do it again.

Striding past to slam open the cargo bay doors, her roughened voice calls after him.

“That’s one on the books for me, Mando. I’ll come calling soon enough.”

His hands don’t stop shaking for hours.

Xi’an is right. It doesn’t take long for her to come to him.

A simple job gone bad, the target fleeing into hyperspace too quickly to follow. Xi’an had been seducing him in a flashy racetrack before he fled. Din had followed as her backup, watching her writhe on the target’s lap and whisper in his ear. Every now and then her eyes would flash to Din, holding the expressionless gaze of the visor as she guided another man’s hand to knead her breast. 

He told himself it wasn’t supposed to affect him. He didn’t care what she did, or who touched her. The scene from that night played in his head wrapped in nausea and regret. No partner he’d ever laid with drew out that much uncertainty and self-loathing, and he wasn’t keen to return to it.

But her curves still called to him, now straddling the mark’s waist. Familiar stirrings pulled up hard against disgust as he pushed the ravenous monster back down. It had gotten louder, fiercer after taking his pleasure so brutally. It screamed to take her again.

All of her work led to nothing. The target caught Varlo stalking up to apprehend him and make a quick exit. Even with four highly skilled mercs after him his resources won out. A faster ship, quicker access to his speeder. He was just within their grasp when he blasted off and into the atmosphere.

Xi’an shrieked her frustration into the air as the team re-entered the Crest. Malk confirmed there was no point following. They’d try again when he showed up at whatever gambling circuit he fancied next. She couldn’t stop prowling the ship, head down, glaring through her lashes. Varlo got a few sharp swipes for giving away their plan, but he threw up his hands and moved into the engine bay to let her cool off. Qin reclined in his hammock, watching bemused as she tried to self-soothe with no luck.

“Mando!” she finally hisses, jerking her head sharply as she strides past him and out of the Crest. His shoulders stiffen instantly, her brother’s hot stare branding his back. Hazarding a look back, Qin’s raised eyebrow and smirk make his face burn. But he still follows.

Xi’an is around the front of the Crest, leaning against the landing gear and seething. Din comes close, waiting for her to acknowledge his presence. Her eyes rake over the helmet, snarl less playful and more agitated. 

“I’m cashing in your debt, Mando,” she says, whipping her belt out of the loops so quickly it cracks. Din’s hands tighten on his, stance faltering.

“Not sure that’s a good idea,” he murmurs, bracing for the impact of his words. They land hard on her skin, quick steps bringing them chest to chest.

“I don’t give a flying kark what you think. I gave you my throat to cum in, it’s your turn. Give me your cock.” 

Din balks, trying to disentangle from the swirling vortex of rage, but her hands are small and quick to grab at the fabric around his neck.

“Or you can give me something else, Mandalorian. Show me your face if you won’t fuck me,” she snarls, grabbing for the edge of his helmet. He yanks her arm away, but the other tries just the same. He snags it in his fist, whipping his head back when she tries to knock the helmet off. Both wrists captured he pushes her back, pinning her against the landing gear. Her hips jerk against his own, legs kicking at his shins. Some blows land, leaving dark reminders for days to come. Her bared teeth and hissing finally push him to pin both of her hands with one of his, the other coming to firmly wrap around her throat. 

That finally stops her, eyes fluttering as he puts just enough pressure on her windpipe to quiet her. Hips rolling against his hardening cock, he leans in to crowd her against the durasteel mechanics.

“Is this what you want?” he husks, removing his hand from her throat to shove into her pants. The fit is tight, his thick forearm and vambrace stretching the waistband, but his skilled fingers cup her hot cunt. Even with the gloves on he can find her clit, roughly circling as she gasps and rocks against him. “Needed this attitude fucked out of you?”

“Mmm-hmmm,” she moans, hooking a leg behind his thigh to pull him closer. He yanks his hand out of her pants and pushes slick-soaked leather between her lips.

“Take them off, or I won’t,” he growls, waiting for her teeth to tug his gloves off his fingers. She stares at the tawny skin, all the silvery lines cross-crossing his knuckles and fingers. He tries not to dwell on this, on how she’s already pushed him past what he knows he shouldn’t do. Jamming his hand back into her pants he buries two fingers in her wet cunt, setting a fast and firm pace that has her crying out against his overwhelming hold. The monster snarls inside him, salivating at the prospect of rucking her pants down and…

“Mando, need your cock, need you to fuck me,” she whines, just short of begging. It knots his stomach that she knows how much she’s making him lose control. The rhythmic slap of his palm on her intimate flesh has him full and hard, grip tightening as he feels her walls spasm around his flexing fingers.

“Cum like this first and I’ll see if you deserve my cock,” he rasps, buying himself enough time to calm his raging libido a fraction. He shouldn’t fuck her, shouldn’t let this go on any longer than it already has, but his body is thrumming, snapping and snarling into her as she beckons him to let go, to find something blinding in her soaked cunt. 

Her orgasm clamps down on his fingers suddenly, the raw shriek making him clap his hand over her mouth. The loss of his hands pinning her wrists gives ample opportunity to rush open his pants and find his weeping cock. A few well-placed strokes has his rational mind dissolving into the single-minded concept of fucking.

He bends her over the landing gear, tearing her pants down over her ass to expose her glistening pussy. Normally that sight makes his mouth water. Instead he tugs on his cock a couple times to prepare. 

“Hurry up, Mando,” Xi’an whines, arching her back higher to present her hole to him. He pushes her chest down hard, a whoosh of air escaping before he sheaths his cock in her tight pussy. The momentary ecstasy of his slick entrance washes over him, planting both hands on either side of her head. His first thrust punches a moan from her lips, followed by a litany of curses and whines as he snaps his hips fast and hard. The loud smack of skin pulls out a thin moan of his own.

“Karking Maker, Mando, you feel so good,” Xi’an croons, a momentary lapse in vitriol. It makes Din chuckle as he grunts at her wet clutch.

“This all you needed? A cock to make you bearable?” he teases, angling his hips to drill into a spot inside he knows will make her scream. She gathers air before he shoves his sticky fingers into her mouth, pinching her jaw open as he penetrates her here too. Everything is dripping and liquid and hard and soft at the same time. His own orgasm is fast approaching, a roar in his ears that he chases with fervor.

“Gonna cum again,” Xi’an gasps around his fingers, slamming back against Din’s thrusts as she chases her own end. Two people so far inside but so far apart.

Din dutifully reaches between her legs and pinches her clit, sending her toppling over into a shuddering orgasm that clenches his cock so hard he has to pull out and cum all over her other tight hole. Lightheaded and heavy-limbed, Din tries to regain a semblance of control over the situation. 

This is just returning the favor.

This won’t happen again.

He doesn’t want this to happen again.

Shuffling back, he uses his bare hand to scrape his cum off her ass and flick it on the ground. Xi’an pulls her pants back up as Din tucks himself away and turns to stride back into the Crest. 

Stepping outside looking to be without a care in the world is Qin, licking Jogan fruit juice off his fingers as he discards the peel on the ground. Din’s whole body locks up, fight or flight response screaming at him to get away. 

“Get a good eyeful brother?” Xi’an singsongs behind Din, walking past him to re-enter the ship. Qin mock-glares at her as she passes and saunters away. When his eyes land back on Din he waits for a fist or a blade to connect with his flesh. Instead Qin just shakes his head with an amused expression and follows his sister.

Dread lands heavy in Din’s belly. His grip is slipping and he’s not sure whether he’ll hang on or fall into something even harder to climb out of.

That was the last time, he says to himself as he leaves a freshly fucked Xi’an in the ‘fresher. 

This time it’s over, he says as he splatters his cum on her tits. 

Never again, he promises after he spills his load into her tight asshole, cursing to the Maker about how good she feels choking his dick. 

He tries over and over to stop it, to tell her no, but every time she whines and needles and baits until he can’t help but bury his frustrations in her body. 

It’s been months since he joined Malk’s crew, and the spoils of their missions were fat in his pocket. He knows he should sneak off to the covert, give them the credits needed to keep them safe. Or to Karga, pay him his cut of whoring out his Mandalorian. It itches in the back of his brain, the duties he’s supposed to be performing.

Instead, he ignores Karga’s messages on his holo. He spends the credits on upgrades to the Crest and Corellian whiskey and brothels. The last is in a desperate hope to rid him of his addiction to the purple Twi’lek plaguing his bed. 

She stalks his days and haunts his nights, rarely away from each other. It makes it easy to let her straddle his waist in the tiny cubby of a bed and ride him until he’s dripping out of her. Sometimes she follows him when they’re on-world to the places where he spends his credits. The first time he caught her he made her watch as he fucked a plain but skilled prostitute. The following times, she joined him in his debauchery. 

He tells himself it’s the last time every time, but the fire always returns. The itch under his skin. The monster that roars under Xi’an’s sharp nails and sharper tongue batters the inside of its cage and howls until Din can leave more marks on her skin. It’s feral and bloodthirsty. Definitely unhealthy.

He still can’t stop.

The bounty they lost finally turns up in a swanky hotel on Coruscant. Xi’an goes to complete the job, her cover not blown enough to approach the target again. Words and drinks pass between them before his hands are groping her beneath the table. They slink away together, Din’s helmet following their heat signatures. The man’s crotch is white fire, but Xi’an’s registers no hotter than her body temp.

Couldn’t even get her wet. He’d have her blazing by now.

Din waits for the signal to apprehend the target outside the closed hotel room. Long minutes tick by, Din’s imagination spinning wildly as he imagines the man’s fingers in her pussy, licking her clit like he can never do, spitting in her mouth like he sometimes imagines with a frightening tightness in his groin. 

A trill sounds. Time for action.

Din bursts in, blaster pointed ahead of him to take in the lewd scene. Xi’an is naked on the bed, the target thrusting into her from behind. Her face is bored until she sees Din enter, lax posture trading for silky and sexy.

“What the kark-!” the target shouts, hands shooting up in surrender. 

“Took you long enough, Mando, I had to put up with this paltry cock for much too long,” she sighs, arching her back and presenting her heavy tits between her arms. 

“I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold,” he rasps, modulator hiding the strain in his voice. Xi’an tuts, shaking her head.

“This is my mission, Mando, and I get to decide that.” She cocks her head at him, backing up against the target.

“Does it make you jealous, knowing he’s inside me right now?” she purrs, circling her hips to elicit a choked gasp. Din’s hand tightens on the blaster, forcing his posture to be neutral.

“You did what you had to,” he grits out. Xi’an shrieks out a laugh.

“I didn’t have to fuck him. I wanted to, because I wanted to see what you’d do when another man tries to cum inside me.” 

Din’s arm begins to shake, and the monster snarls inside him. Mine, it roars. My fucked up little thing to break.   

“What are you going to do, Mando?” she taunts, rolling her hips on the terrified man’s cock. 

“What you want.”

Xi’an’s eyes flash in triumph. 

“I want to bring him in cold.”

Din shoots a blaster bolt between the man’s eyes, toppling him over and onto the bedroom floor. Xi’an wastes no time crawling to the end of the bed and turning around, round ass in the air. 

“Fuck him out of me, Mando.”

They pull orgasm after orgasm out of each other with a dead man on the floor. His blood stains one corner of the bedding, crimson as regret. When Din has her splayed out below him, tits bouncing at the force of his thrusts into her abused pussy, she croaks out a request.

“Take it off.”

He stills inside her, fire in his veins replaced by ice cold clarity.

“No.”

Xi’an snarls at him.

“Show me the face of the man that’s fucking me, Mandalorian.”

His hand comes up around her throat, a warning squeeze rougher than the ones he normally doles out. She quiets, but he has to flip her over to drill out his last orgasm. The disdain on her face is too much.

Seventeen missed holos from Karga. Shadows that follow him when he strides through town. And yet Din can’t pull his head above water. The light get fainter every time. During one mission he freezes in front of a snarling attack massiff and for a blissful moment wonders if its bite would kill him if he bared his throat. Varlo fells it instead, giving Din a confused look as they return to the Crest.

“You been sleeping, Mando? You seem off.”

Din bristles, stride widening.

“Don’t pretend that matters to you.”

Varlo shrugs, veering off to speak to Ranzar. The anger masks the anguish until later that night, when Din begs for the thoughlessness of sleep.

“Need some company, Mando?” Xi’an asks, like she does most nights. 

It’s better than guilt, at least.

It’s not long after Xi’an’s hunt that Qin climbs up into the cockpit while Din is piloting. They just entered hyperspace, the streaks of light soothing Din. The quiet sinks into his bones, contrasted against the dread of re-entering the cargo hold. The air is thick with boredom and potential energy waiting for a spark.

He’s turning to leave, find somewhere to escape for a few more moments of peace, when Qin clears his throat. He stands in the doorway, leaning against it with folded arms. Din stills, a standoff between the two men. He was wondering when he might have to endure this conversation.

“Whatever is going on between you and my sister,” Qin starts, right to the meat of the matter. Din respects that he doesn’t pull punches. “You need to figure it out soon. You may be having the time of your life fighting…and fucking.” He sneers at this, making Din’s face scorch under the helmet. “But the longer she thinks something is going to come out of it, the worse it will be when you tell her no.” Qin shifts to stand chest to chest with Din. They’re close in height but in this moment Din feels small and sacrificial.

“She doesn’t like being told no. I’m sure you’ve seen that.”

He has. The helmet is the symbol of his refusal, and Xi’an seethes at it. More than once he’s had to pin her hands down, too bold in her touches. Some days she playfully grabs at the lip, pulling him down to her level, but doesn’t let go quick enough for Din’s liking. Other times she lays her hands on either side and it feels tender. Her eyes soften, and Din wonders if there’s a hurt girl under all the posturing that wants proof that he cares for her. 

He’d told her once, as they laid in a post-coital tangle. The Creed, the helmet, why it meant so much to him. He didn’t speak of the covert, or of any other Mandalorians. They both have their own secrets.

“It’s a symbol of my fidelity,” he said. Xi’an lifted up on one elbow and studied the sharp lines and curves of the helmet, fingers tracing the impressive profile. 

“How beautiful it must be, to have someone so devoted,” she murmured. “What a gift.”

It’s one he can never give her, and she can never forget it.

“If you aren’t planning on giving her what she wants,” Qin husks, leaning in with a steely gaze. “Don’t drag it out. Make it professional.”

He leaves as quickly as he arrived, the weight of his words now on Mando’s shoulders. Qin has never been kind, but his ultimatum is a balm to Din’s anguish. He needs to end it. If he believes her to have any gentleness underneath her posturing it would be cruel to continue. There is no room in his devotions for her. 

The monster inside his chest finally soothes, curls into a ball and sleeps.

She doesn’t take it well.

“You want this to stop?” she laughs, lounging against a tree. Din had deigned to tell her away from the others, wanting privacy and space for her anger to hit a flash point.

“We’re professionals. This is too messy,” Din says, keeping his voice as even and calm as he can. Her face changes from incredulity to anger.

“This isn’t over just because you get a crisis of conscience.” She pushes off the tree and stalks towards him, suspicion coloring her demeanor. “Did my brother say something to you?”

That’s a trap he’s not going to walk into.

“I can’t give you what you want,” Din says, holding his ground as she comes chest to chest, much like her sibling. How alike they are in their ruthlessness. 

“Of course you can. You’ve got a perfectly good cock and talented fingers and some Maker-blessed stamina. Plus you’re filthy,” she purrs, raising goosebumps on Din’s neck. “What else does a girl need?”

Din tilts his head, watching her closely as he sees the shroud of the lie settle.

“The helmet,” he sighs, exasperated. His words hit the target. Xi’an’s features twist, shocked out of her feigned nonchalance.

“You’re ending this over a stupid little symbol?” she spits out, circling him like a prowling loth-cat. Din tenses, tempted to follow her path but knowing she’ll take advantage of it. He prepares for a blade. 

“I won’t remove it for you. And I’m done fighting you trying to do it yourself.” 

There’s a moment where he sees the hurt girl he’s trying to spare. It’s quickly raked back with fury. She hisses, digging her fingers into his cowl and yanking him backwards. He stumbles to his knees, his cape now wrapped around her forearms as she cuts off his air .

“All your morals and high ground as you’re spilling as much blood as we are, Mando. Defiling my body as you pray to your Creed. You’ll be crawling back to my cunt in no time, and I’ll slit your throat before I let you make a fool out of me.” Just as his vision begins to darken she releases her hold, letting painful lungfuls of air back into his chest. One boot kicks him square in the back, and he topples forward into the dirt.

“You’ll regret this, Mandalorian.”

She storms off to the Crest, leaving him gasping and coughing. He wishes, not for the first time, that he never shook Malk’s hand, never let them onto the Crest, never let Karga talk him into this. 

He wishes for time to stop, to take back everything the last months had carved out of his soul. For a bed, and a soothing touch.

(where is she now? Could she ever look at him the same way, after all he’s done?)

“New assignment,” Malk calls down, a groan of relief lifting the mood in the hold. “Big yield, and even bigger hush money.”

Qin grins, jostling his sister as Malk descends to them. She nods, listless since their argument. Din prefers that to the rage. It still pulls at a confusing feeling in his chest, something akin to regret.

“Where we off to? I’ve been itching to get out of this karking morgue,” Varlo gripes, taking the holopad from Malk. 

“Cleanup effort on Alzoc III. There’s some mines infested with a local species the mining company needs cleared out. Not sentient, but territorial. Mando, need you in the air. Varlo, running logistics. Qin, Xi’an, you’re with me doing ground work.” 

Din rolls his shoulders and cracks his knuckles. A big haul should set everyone up for a good while. Improve spirits, and maybe give him the boost to break away from this group that only becomes more hostile by the day. His silence will cost him, but with enough credits he may be able to buy himself back into the covert, and the Guild’s good favor. 

Alzoc III it is.

The planet is icy and hostile, vast snow-swept tundras and sharp peaks slicing up into the permanently gray skies. The harsh weather eats up heat from the outside in, the Crest’s life support systems working overtime to keep the interior above freezing. Din had to pull out a heavier flight suit, the other crew members donning furs and goggles in preparation for the mission. Xi’an had taken to glaring at Mando any time he was in the room, so he’d stayed in the cockpit for most of the trip. Malk had scoffed at him, standing behind the pilot’s chair as Din maneuvered them out of hyperspace.

“Women problems, Mando?” 

Din did not deign to give him an answer, but Malk persisted.

“Not a good idea to mix business and pleasure. A man of your experience should be more careful,” he says, clapping a hand on Din’s paudron. He tenses, but Malk releases him quickly after and heads into the tense hold with a snicker under his breath.

Din can’t wait to have the Crest to himself. Months of close quarters were making him itchy with tension, a constant frenetic thrum under his skin that he can’t even fuck out now. Varlo’s company would be silent at least. Plus a simple point-and-shoot mission has its appeal. The rest of the dossier states that the mines are overrun to the point that they can’t send in crews to extract the planet’s precious commodities. 

Varlo plots a multi-stage assault; Malk, Xi’an and Qin would place bombs at mine entrances and pick off anything that could tip off the plan. Once at their sniper posts, Din would aerial attack the mines from above, detonating the bombs and dropping his own payloads to collapse strategic parts of the tunnels. The mining company provided blueprints, and designated the choke points that would create the least amount of cleanup effort for them after the fact. 

In retrospect, when Din’s nightmares push into this shadowy period of his life, it was so well thought out it should have made him pause. They didn’t need highly skilled mercenaries, they needed bodies to carry out this plan. What the company really bought was silence, and anonymity.

Din circles the Crest just out of range of the mines, waiting for the go signal from Malk. Varlo lounges in the jump seat, occasionally speaking through his communicator. Din doesn’t much enjoy conversing with Varlo, so of course this is the time he decides to be chatty.

“So, was she purple like…all over?” Varlo says, raising the hackles on Din’s back. 

“You can ask her yourself. I’m sure she’d love to tell you,” Din replies calmly, banking a little harder to the left than he means to. Varlo chuckles low in his throat, his gaze burning into Din’s back.

“I mean I could, but it’s more professional curiosity. I’m surprised she hasn’t gutted you in your sleep yet.”

“Mando, time to shine!” Malk’s voice rings from the Crest’s holocomm.

“Roger,” Din murmurs, the muscle memory of his training kicking in as the Crest dives into the valley. Everything that’s plagued him for months - the loss of control, the cloying atmosphere, Xi’an’s magnetic push and pull - all fades into the background when he’s flying. His shoulders loosen, grip on the controls firm but relaxed. The lift and dip of the Crest is a familiar dance, lapping waves on a beach he’s never visited but somehow always knows. 

Then the first explosion appears through the transparisteel, and he dives into action.

The entire assault lasts maybe a quarter hour. Each explosion triggered by Malk is timed with another bomb Varlo releases out the cargo doors. The more powerful weapons hit their mark, miles of tunnels collapsing with shifting snow to fill in the depressions. Sometimes a small group of moving creatures - barely perceptible - burst from an entry, and the on-ground team quickly eradicates them. Din isn’t even sure he feels the cold creeping into the ship, too wrapped up in the warmth of a skill he’s honed for decades being used to its utmost ability. 

“That’s it, Mando, we’ll bring her down to pick up the rest at the hanger pad.” Varlo indicates a vast stretch of buildings, no doubt some shipping operation, with a generous landing zone. Din wonders how much trade must happen on this desolate planet, and how pitiful their price must be compared to the credits the company rakes in. 

Once landed, Varlo leaves to speak with their contact and provide a final report. Malk gets the payment, but he’ll be a little while traipsing across the frozen grounds. Din takes the lack of anyone on his ship as a brief moment of respite, checking for any potential damage and wandering through the cluttered living space. His annoyance at the mess is less than usual, the silence after a job well done vastly improving his mood. 

Deeper in the ship checking on engine function, Din hears a clatter. His shoulders slump again. He’d hoped for a little more peace and quiet before they returned. Trudging out to the cargo bay, he’s met with an even stranger sight.

Varlo left the cargo door open, the windbreak from the surrounding buildings keeping the elements at a minimum. Instead of the crew ascending the ramp, two furred creatures freeze just inside the warmth of the Crest. The larger one puts its body between Din and the smaller one, four black pearl eyes locked on him. His hand itches to grab his blaster, absolutely certain these are the creatures infesting the mines. They’re supposed to be hostile, ferocious and powerfully strong. He might be able to take one, but two could be a problem. He steels himself for a charge, but the larger one holds up one long-clawed hand, three fingers spread in the universal symbol for wait.

Din stops, confusion and a cold pit of dread opening in his stomach. The larger creature looks back at the smaller one, stroking its face as they make high pitched chirps and buzzes at each other through strange tubular mouths. Their fur is matted white and gray, easy to blend in on the tundra, as they tower taller than most bipedal creatures Din has encountered. The brief conference concluded, the larger creature rummages in its fur.

Din snaps his hand to his blaster, unholstering it in a flash to point at the creatures. The smaller one squeals - Din swears it’s in terror - and the larger one whips its head up to look at Din. It stills, one hand now held out overflowing with baubles. Din’s blaster falters as the creature takes a tentative step forward, offering lustrous milky pearls. His throat closes up, but his training keeps his weapon on them. At his lack of movement the creature looks back at the smaller one, urging it forward. It holds their faces together, foreheads touching as plaintive whines cut through the air. The pearls transfer, and the larger of the two urges the smaller forward. 

Din can’t breathe, chest banded with horror. The littler creature holds out the offering, clicking and chirping as the larger one waits back. It’s all too clear to a man who lost his family in a war he did not understand what this transaction is, and what the consequences of his actions means. He drops the blaster, stepping towards the creatures. They shrink back in fear, but the little one still holds out shaking hands, pearls dropping to clink on the durasteel floor.

“I…” he says, heart hammering in his throat. The larger one - the mother, he thinks - raises its head with something like hope. 

“What the kark?!” Varlo shouts, ascending the ramp. Din tries to speak, to explain that everything has gone so wrong in a handful of moments, but Varlo’s blaster is already out.

Three bolts, loosed with deadly efficiency, and the smaller creature falls, pearls scattering on the floor and rolling away. The shriek of the larger creature will haunt Din for years, as clear as the day he heard it when he finds another pearl lost in the ship.

“No!” Din screams, but Varlo is already turning to the charging creature. Three powerful swipes knock him down, blood spurting into snow, before he fells the creature with another series of blaster bolts. Then it’s just Din, gasping amongst the gore. Sobs wrench his throat, hot tears running down his cheeks as he shakes on his feet.

“Fuck, Mando…need…kit,” Varlo gasps. The creature cut him deep, flashes of white bone peeking through the layers of flesh. Blood dribbles from his lips, teeth stained red as he struggles to breathe. His voice is faraway and tinny, but Din’s body answers. He walks numbly to Varlo’s side, kneeling beside the man’s mutilated body. 

“They were sentient,” he says, and the horror blends into anger, one hotter and more encompassing than any he’s ever felt. 

“Get me a Maker-damned bacta shot!” Varlo burbles, a rough cough spraying blood on Din’s chestplate. He’s not sure when he decided to slit Varlo’s throat, but one moment he’s alive, the next he’s laid out with unseeing eyes, the messy slash of a vibroblade mimicking the brutal claw marks. 

He doesn’t remember moving the creatures’ bodies, laying them down on the icy ground outside the Crest.

He doesn’t remember what he tells the others when they return. Xi’an and Qin stalk by, barely affected. Malk chews the inside of his cheek, staring at Varlo’s corpse for a few moments before entering the Crest.

“Split is four ways now. First come first serve to his things. We take off in 5.”

Din doesn’t recall where his body was during takeoff, or once they got into hyperspace. The events play like a holovid missing an actor, feelings and sensations eerily absent. He thinks he piloted them off world, attributed to muscle memory. He remembers a conversation, but not with who, or why it began.

“The species was sentient. They tried to barter to get on the ship.” 

“Mando….”

“One attempted to sacrifice itself for the other. An animal can’t do that.”

“We got paid not to ask questions.”

“That wasn’t a mission. That was genocide.”

“You’ve done worse, Mando. We all have.”

Except that wasn’t true. In the song of Din Djarin, this would always be his greatest sin. 

One tip to the New Republic was all it took. A set of coordinates and a date and time. Malk wanted to gamble and whore after Alzoc III, and Qin and Xi’an had no qualms. Din only sat silently, the days since the genocide bleeding into one another. Xi’an had tried to tease him about it - seems like you lucked out against those claws - but his cold turn of the head and quick exit quieted her tongue. 

He waited for them to leave, credits in hand, before reporting their whereabouts to the New Republic garrison. He conveniently left himself and the Crest out, detailing his crewmates’ crimes and exactly where they would be. Then he laid low, waiting for enough time to pass so as to not arouse suspicion. 

He would not see Qin or Malk for many more years, though he’d hear of their escape from some Guild contacts. Not much could hold either of them for long. Xi’an didn’t leave him so quietly. 

“Karking traitor!” she screams, leaping on his back outside of the Crest. A blade sinks into his shoulder, ripping a cry from his lips. She pulls it out and drives it back in his bicep, his hands scrabbling to throw her off. She gets him two more times before he crushes her against the Crest’s hull, knocking her grip loose. His left arm is screaming, blood pouring down his fingers. 

“After all we did for you, you turned us in?!” Her knife hits home again, swinging to stab into his calf and the meat of his thigh in quick succession. Din disarms her, skittering the knife away, before landing a blow in the center of her chest that, with a little more force, could have stopped her cruel heart. She lies gasping on the ground, eyes wide and wild as they look at him towering over her. For a moment that uncomfortable feeling pulls at him again, something like regret and remorse and a mourning of what could have been. It weakens him enough to kneel down, body screaming.

“I’m sorry…” he tries to say, the next words lost in his turmoil. Sorry for starting whatever fucked-up thing they had between them? Sorry for not being able to give her what she wanted? Sorry for how it was destined to end?

Another blade sinks into his side, ripping down as she screeches. 

“You are nothing but a traitor, Mandalorian. Betrayer of your allies, of your Creed. I hope your Maker-damned helmet ends up in the gutter with your corpse.”

He yanks the blade free, head dizzy at the realization that much of his blood is on the ground instead of inside him. He puts one hand around Xi’an’s neck and squeezes down. She’s out in seconds, dragged to the hangar entrance for the New Republic guards to find. Safe or not, he takes off with the Crest and manages to close up enough of his wounds with the cauterizer to stop the bleeding, burnt flesh singing his nostrils. He blindly dials in coordinates for Nevarro, barely staying conscious through the jump. Once autopilot kicks in he dips into darkness.

The Guild takes him back. Begrudgingly. He pays his dues and offers them the pearls the creature spilled across the hold. Their value surprises him, almost annoyed he didn’t save some for himself, but the thought of his own pockets lined with treasures given by the dead chills his blood. He leaves them all with Karga, and waits for the distrust to fade from his face. 

The covert welcomes him back with disapproval. His wounds spare him for a few weeks, sequestered from the rest of his people. It makes him ache, the obvious disappointment of his alor and the wariness of his fellow Mandalorians. The rumors swirl about where and why he was gone so long, why their beroya would betray them. He takes his penance, every blow and setback and humiliation. It is no worse than how he punishes himself.

When he returns to the Crest, tucked in the back of a trusted hangar, the mess strewn about the hold claws at his throat. He removes every memory of those months, setting belongings and refuse outside the cargo doors for scavengers to pick through. Even his own personal items make it into the pile, the memories attached to them too painful. 

He cleans the ship top to bottom. No more hammocks strung from every corner. No more constant noise. No more ever-mounting tension. Just durasteel and silence. 

It takes a full day to bring the Crest back to pre-Malk condition. The darkness surrounds Din, and after weighing the pros and cons of returning in the night he closes the cargo door. Shuttling open the small cubby sleeping space, he crawls in and settles on his side. The door slides shut with the lights dimming soon after.

Din lies there as his body slowly quiets, his armor digging into his sore shoulder, tender ribs and neck. Piece by piece he removes it, laying the shining examples of his honor beside him. The helmet is last, and it’s the first time in months he’s been able to breathe without it inside his own ship. The pillow is measly under his head, but he sinks down with a sigh. Arms tucked into his chest, knees pulled up to his stomach, surrounded by the walls of his ship and nothing else, he lets himself mourn the deeds he’d done. It will be far from the last time, but this is the rawest, the most painful as he let the shame grip him. Once exhaustion wins the hums and whirrs of the Crest lull him to sleep.

Din doesn’t tell you about Xi’an. It’s a lie of omission - you never prod him on his past, and he rarely asks about yours. There’s no reason to dredge up pain. If you want to offer something you do, and if you truly ask him he’ll offer pieces of his own. But you’re not swapping stories around the fire. So he sees no reason to tell you.

Until one day, he does.

It was the perfect sandstorm of triggers. A child snarling at her brother, then squealing out a laugh that cuts through his head. The singing of blades through the air as some men toss them at a target. A purple Twi’lek between you and Din, reaching out a hand to clap your shoulder. Din’s hurried steps bring him to your side in record time, helmet tilted down in challenge but the Twi just looks at him curiously and takes a step back. Your own brow knits, a bag of supplies in hand. 

He tries to center himself back on the Crest, busying his racing thoughts with jump calculations and messages to contacts about the Jedi. It works until you climb up to the cockpit, leaning against the console as he turns his attention to you.

“Bean found something in the ship, I thought it might be important,” you say, holding out your upturned palm.

A pearl.

He thought he’d found them all, but the child’s nosiness unearthed one last bloody memory. He freezes, hands tight on the console. 

“Been holding onto some treasure?” you tease, but your face is uneasy as you sense the tension in the air. “I’ll put it somewhere safe, maybe we can barter it…”

“No,” Din rebukes sharply, snapping the visor to you. Your eyes widen, chest curling in on yourself. 

“Okay,” you say quietly, hand closing around the painful object. Din slumps, leaning forward and hanging his head.

“I’m sorry, it’s…nothing good will come of that. It was bought with blood,” he says quietly.

“So are most things on the Crest,” you say, wrapping your arms around your middle. Din heaves in a breath.

“Not the same kind.”

And so he tells you the story of Ranzar Malk and his employment, of the acidic crew and the six cloying months he spent with them. Of Xi’an and her allure, and the pain it caused. Of Alzoc III. Of the pearls. 

You listen in silence, watching as Din relates his darkest story. The shame burns his skin, eats at his stomach, sours his tongue. How can he possibly redeem himself in your eyes after this? Would you ever look at him the same again?

Once he finishes, and the quiet of the ship pervades, you move to stand between his parted knees. Two hands settle on his shoulders, and without reservation he wraps his arms around and lays his head just below your breasts. The rhythmic inhale-exhale of your breathing cools his pain.

“Have you seen any of them since?” you ask. Din huffs out a sigh.

“Malk hired me for a job a few months back. Didn’t tell me the mission, just relied on a debt being repaid and the Crest still flying.” Din shifts against you, considering leaning away, but your firm hands keep him held to your chest.

“Was it bad?”

“We were rescuing Qin from a prison ship. Xi’an was there, set me up to be killed by the new team. I left them there.” After the draining retelling, he can’t bring himself to extrapolate on the tense reunion.

Tell me why I shouldn’t cut you down where you stand.

I did what I had to.

Oh, but you liked it.

You were hired to do a job, so do it. 

Isn’t that your code?

Aren’t you a man of honor?

“Thank you for telling me,” you finally say, stroking your thumbs along the line of his shoulders. “That was…difficult. To tell, I’m sure. It was hard to hear.” Din fists your shirt, squeezing his eyes closed at what will surely come.

“You made decisions and you’ve suffered the consequences of them.” You cup the back of his neck through his cowl. “And if you think I haven’t made a terrible decision about who to trust, I have stories I can share. Later,” you say, lightness in your voice. It makes Din lean back to look at your face. If you could see his, you would know his mouth is dropped open, eyes wide and wet, as you stroke the sharp lines of his helmet. You’re the only one he trusts to touch.

“Did you think I would hate you for this?” you ask, and Din’s nod is barely perceptible but you feel it. “You’ll surprise me, and terrify me many more times Mando, but you’ll never drive me away. The galaxy is only shades of gray.”

He lets you hold him for a time, hands soothing on his worn body. Your acceptance doesn’t heal him. By now he’s not sure anything will. But it balms the wound enough to breathe easier. 

It’s the beginning of letting himself know you, and be known by you. When you say that your best friend taught you how to skip rocks, he asks how you met her. When you look on in wonder as he dresses a piece of game, he explains how his buir taught him survival hunting. And when the child wraps his tiny claw around Din’s thumb and he strokes it gently, you ask him if he has a son somewhere. 

“No,” Din answers, the child warm in his arm and your body close enough to coax into his, if he would dare let himself want it. “But the Creed states the importance of caring for foundlings, and raising warriors.”

You hum and smile, turning back to your task, and for a moment much longer than fleeting, Din lets himself wonder if this is what a clan is supposed to feel like, and when it grew from two to three. 

END

Interlude 2 of the I Think of You series

[babeyun]

you have GOT to be the best writer and falling alone has GOT to be the best fic to be ever written because wow wow wow holy shit it was so good

recently i was real avoidant of long fics, heck i was reluctant to read anything above 2-3k but i saw strained marriage au with heeseung and i didn't give a damn about how long it was. it took me three days to complete reading it, admitted. but those three days are probably going to be the best three days ive lived in a long long time

everything that heeseung says to reader felt so soul rippling. your writing is so so amazing you should seriously consider getting paid for it somehow. at least a little. because THIS???? FOR FREE??!? GIRL YOU'RE GETTING ROBBED LIKE THAT

i thinki really really needed a long long super long story with all elements like fluff angst smut hurt comfort evrything and you blended it all so so well im so proud of you i cannot even begin how happy i am i got to read this fic and i didn't skip it just cuz it was long

i can totally imagine the amount of patience you must have had to have to complete it and i thank all existing and non existing gods that you could get it out of the drafts

this fic really healed a lot of broken parts in me and i kid you not i really actually did become teary eyed when heeseung was slow dancing with her and comforting her he didn't like soya. even thinking about his personality in the story makes me well up and it's just so soothing

it truly truly healed a lot of me and im really thankful to you because i hope everyone gets someone like him someday. you raised my fucking standards man

have a good day i hope life treats you well

im not even one for sending asks ever but you changed me

thank you for everything

PROUD OF ME 🥺 ME?!

first and foremost, thank you so much for taking the time to read it. i know it's really long and i appreciate you taking THREE DAYS!! to read it !!

secondly, i'm glad that i could convey all of heeseung's emotions so...deeply. thankfully i've had a wonderful handful of people come forth and fill my askbox with compliments of his character and growth, and this is genuinely just such a huge compliment. it makes me so emotional and i'm so grateful that everyone is receiving it the way it was intended - because everything he says is the way i wished it would have been said to me!

as for getting paid for it...lol i wish i was consistent enough! i get really overwhelmed with ideas and i end up stepping away from writing altogether for a few days, then i get busy with school and the cycle starts all over...so maybe someday! when i get my shit together lolol 💘 but what a high honor it is to be told i could make money off my silly little ideas ! thank you !!

i too thank all the existing and nonexisting gods, it was truly one of the biggest projects i wanted to get launched in 2024 when it came to my creative outlets. i had posted a bunch of other content for my other groups and i was like "FOCUS!!" so shoutout to all the positive vibes for that one.

i'm glad that this fic has given you some relief and clarity, and i'm glad that you feel healed by it. i'm SO fucking glad that i raised your standards, because you should never settle for ANYONE that doesn't worship the ground you walk upon. the love you yearn for exists because you are full of it, the love i yearn for exists because i am full of it.

i think writing this fic also healed me. i won't ever get the answers i think i want, because i know in my heart - i don't need them.

i hope you have an even better day. thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me and let me know the impact i've had, it is truly so heartwarming to know that i've reached your heart.

i'm proud of you, and thank you for everything. 🫂❤️‍🩹