#but I’m very reluctant to say anything negative about people’s loved ones

[likeaustralianotcrosby]

One time when I was like 11 my friend was telling me about a bunch of mean things her mom did/said to her and I said something along the lines of “your mom sounds mean” and then she got upset because I called her mom mean and I still think about that like 2-3 times a week.

[simplystefanie-rae]

It’s really interesting to me that for the most part in KOTPOTA, I think with the exception of the really oddly placed scene of Mae asking Noa if he likes Soona, I can almost rationalize Noa and Mae’s entire relationship and arc into enemies to reluctant allies to friends (eventually, though I’ll concede to a possibility of them ending as enemies again), and that’s it. Friends with a very close bond, mind you, and with experiences only the two of them can understand. Platonic with a capital p as much as I have become severely allergic to that word for various reasons. They’re both continuously challenged in their views about the other, sometimes positively, sometimes negatively, and in the end we’re left with the big fat question of the trilogy; can apes and humans live together in peace? It’s less about Noa and Mae as individuals and more what they represent to each other, and it could very well be left at that. I can see that, as much as I love the possibility of LOVE between the two being at least a partial answer to that question. They can keep it platonic all they want and I can’t point to any one scene in the movie and be like ‘wait!! this has romantic undertones/overtones and can’t be anything else!’

They even end it with Noa taking Soona to the observatory, somewhere very important to him. As unsatisfying and out of no where that relationship came from, I took it as the movie telling us point blank to NOT ship the ape with the human girl no matter how much chemistry is oozing out of the performances. Fine, sure, I’ll just ship it for fun and accept that they’re not trying for a romantic angle.

Except.

EXCEPT.

What is with that deleted scene? A tight, tense hug from behind? And, again, I’m a rational girl over here. I know that Noa wrapping his arms around Mae was so that the other two apes couldn’t smell her and detect them. He placed his hand over her head to cover the wound. When he released her and looked at his hand too, he could have looked at her blood and thought a number of things there. He could have been grossed out, he could have marveled at the idea that humans bleed the same as apes, he could even maybe feel guilt. Him protecting her like that doesn’t even have to necessarily be about him being protective of her specifically; they were both in danger, he was protecting them both.

The giant elephant in the room is that they didn’t have to block the scene out like that at, or even create it at all. The reasons why Noa wrapped her in his arms don’t matter, his thoughts on the situation afterwards don’t even matter as much as the director creating a scenario where Mae has to be held by him at all, and that’s driving me a little crazy over here. It’s like the scene was only created for us to go ‘aww’ at.

That’s not even touching on the still of them embracing or whatever funky little thing they got going on there. It’s only disheartening that they’re deleted scenes, like any romantic undertones they decided to walk back. To which I say, LAME! It might be controversial but it sure would get a lot of people talking about it! To me as well it just raises the stakes that much higher if we’re even more invested in their relationship, and people love romance, so I hope they just decide to not be cowards and milk what they got.

[dadcred]

okay so. ive got a lot of thoughts about usopp and his “negativity” with regards to his fight against perona during thriller bark and his subsequent timeskip character development.

keep in mind that this is based on the english dub of the anime, and there very well could be totally different implications in jpn/english subs, though tbh i’d be kinda sad if this were the case because i think there’s a lot of depth to explore (which is exactly what i’m attempting to do here.)

so the entire idea behind usopp’s immunity to perona’s negative ghosts is that he’s an inherently “negative” person, so he can’t be made “more negative” so to speak. and throughout this whole bit, they keep interchanging “negativity” with “pessimism.” ex: when zoro, franky, and sanji are running away from that fight, zoro says something like “i never thought usopp’s pessimism would come in handy.”

and i found that really interesting because i wasn’t aware until then that usopp was meant to be so extremely pessimistic apparently. yes, he’s a coward who is reluctant to face his fears (he’s not unique in this, see: the coward trio). yes, he gets anxious about the worst outcomes (tho he’s not the one actually identifying or voicing the worst case scenarios in many cases). yes, he harbors doubts about his own capabilities (arguably the only thing here unique to him). but none of this is “pessimism.” that is to say, “pessimism” is erroneously used as a synonym for “negativity” when in fact “negativity” is an incredibly broad concept under which “pessimism” is a subset. and based on negative ghosts’ actual effects on characters, we know that they do way more than just suddenly make a person a glass-half-empty kinda guy.

my thesis here is that the term that better describes the kind of negativity that the ghosts impose on people is “depression,” in which case, the only way usopp can be immune is if he’s already depressed. and substituting that with “pessimism” instead allows us as the audience to be more okay with the fact that the narrative never goes back and interrogates what is a serious claim of a character’s mental health. i’m not bothered by this—it’s a shounen anime after all—but i DO love exploring this line of thought because of the insight it provides on usopp’s character.

first, let’s go back to what perona’s negative ghosts actually do. their effect has been described as “draining your will to live” and “making your heart empty”. when characters get hit by a negative ghost, they’ll lose all their drive and say things like “i’m no better than a dog,” “i just want to be a clam” and stuff like that (i’m paraphrasing). and neither those descriptions nor effects remotely resemble “pessimism.” having little to no will to live or just do much of anything, feeling empty and hopeless, having self esteem issues, wanting to erase the complexities of your humanity to exist as a base organism: those are all textbook symptoms of depression.

meaning, in order for usopp to be completelt immune to the negative ghosts, he doesn’t just have to be a pessimist. he’d have to have little to no willpower or motivation. he’d have to think so lowly of himself that it’s impossible to hate himself further. and water 7 showed us a glimpse of that: we know he has ambition—he wants to become a brave warrior of the sea—but we also know after water 7 that, compared to the other straw hats, he views his ambition as a nice-to-have pipe dream and not one that he has what it takes to achieve.

but thriller bark is implying this runs much much deeper than just self doubt that sprang up over the course of his travels with the straw hats. he’d have to be so empty inside that there’s no hope left for the ghosts to feed on.

and while that might seem overexaggerated for the purposes of this ability because, again, it’s a shounen anime and these implications start feeling uncomfortable the more you consider them, there is one line that affirms that the above really might all be true about usopp: when everyone realizes usopp is immune to the ghosts, zoro, in disbelief, asks, “is his heart really that empty?”

personally, i don’t think there’s any sugarcoating that. (and tbh between this and zoro later ruminating on how usopp’s depression came in handy in a fight, i’m glad at least one character acknowledged that that’s a little fucked up and worrying actually.)

so yeah, usopp’s depressed! and on god, i didn’t think it was possible to love him anymore than i do, but this bit of thriller bark made me love him infinitely more because goddamn that’s so relatable. we constantly have these narratives of “wow we never knew xyz was depressed they never let on” and i personally thunk that’s bullshit because unless someone is exhibiting a completely nonfunctional lifestyle, we assume that they can’t really be that depressed. as a high functioning person w anxiety/depression/adhd/ptsd, i was denied diagnosis and treatment for years bc i wasnt glued to my bed, getting bad grades, isolated, and/or on the verge of offing myself. this isn’t the main point i’m trying to make as much as it is a tangent, but seeing a character like usopp, who i at the very least consider the heart of the straw hats, also be depressed guy just tryna stay afloat everyday despite all the nothingness and self hate inside made my heart really full.

which then brings me to post timeskip, where his development in this realm is addressed outright in that battle in fishman island arc against the little hole digging gremlin. that guy consistently taunts usopp with everything usopp once harbored major insecurities about, and usopp not only remains unfazed, but explicitly refutes those taunts by saying that stuff no longer bothers him. the idea being that he gained a lot of self confidence over those two years. and as all my mentally ill lads know, that’s not fuckin easy when your brain’s been working against you for so long. self confidence is the result of developing and practicing a lot of healthy coping mechanisms to manage and live with your depression.

now i hesitate to credit oda and the shounen genre in general with having meant all this to be as deep as i’m interpreting it. but intentional or not, i’m overwhelmed with emotions whenever i consider usopp’s character because who gives a shit about his physical strength and abilities and whether or not they’re on par with everyone else’s when his real buff is hard earned mental fortitude and self confidence??

all of that is to say, i have a lot of love for usopp and i guess most people arent into shounen for the complexities of character writing, but personally i think your taste is questionable at best if this bit about usopp’s character doesn’t intrigue and impress you in any way. that’s all.

[booklovingturtle]

Season 2 Thoughts (SPOILERS)

I’ll be breaking this down based on characters/ships so I wanna know if y’all have similar opinions or not!!! I want to hear different perspectives since I feel like we’re headed in a million different directions.

*Disclaimer these are my opinions on the show as an adaptation. Please disagree with me that's fine I want to hear other people's takes!

Part A: The Darkling, Alina, Mal, Malina

Darkling: Ben Barnes did fabulous of course. I have almost nothing negative to say about his character or his ending. My biggest critique was that they rushed to get him dead to the point where we wasted the potential of a bigger, power struggle within Ravka between the grisha/humans. Similar to the first season I wish that there was less of a romantic undertone to his motivation in regards to Alina. He’s a more compelling villain if he’s truly just power-hungry and driven mad by his own desire. I wish that his moment of peace wasn’t the case with her, but instead had something to do with his actual motivation for saving and protecting Grisha

Alina: Jessie is a phenomenal actress. Every single emotion felt so genuine. Similar to the books, I was kind of annoyed with Alina’s inability to make actual decisions. In the books, I felt like she only ever acted when she quite literally was backed into a corner, and it was pretty much the same way in season 1 & most of 2. I’m super upset that we never got white hair Alina honestly that was such a bad decision, not story wise, but fandom wise. I’m not sure how I feel about this new direction that we’re taking it. One of the plot points in the books was whether or not Alina would answer the call to darkness. This entire season I was annoyed with how selfish she was being with Mal. so many people died, because she didn’t wanna kill him which I understand but then she continues to be selfish by using the dark magic thing to bring him back and so in my opinion, my girl was always listening to that dark call, but maybe that was their intention! All I know is that if Alina does become antagonistic (even if it’s just for a limited time), Jessie will play her just as a effortlessly as she did in the past. LOVE JESSIE. Alina’s character arc was still something that was kind of being pushed onto her versus something that she was actively choosing. I’m most interested to hear other peoples opinions about her character specifically.

Mal: I actually really like the changes they made to Mal. I truly don’t remember the book version of him at all. Not his lore or connection to Alina or his tracking secret power  or anything. I like that he’s taking on the Sturmhond name. That was a very natural next step for his character arc.

Malina: I still like them better in the show than the books. Unfortunately for the most part Mal/Alina have no motivation in this season outside of each other. Which honestly wouldn’t be that big of a deal if they weren’t trying to push the idea that Alina was also a benevolent, reluctant chosen one. Even though I ship them, I’m actually really glad that they will be separated moving forward. I hope that we get to explore them as individuals. The characters should get to find motivations outside of each other that are genuine, and not for the sake of plot convenience.

[dearweirdme]

https://www.tumblr.com/dearweirdme/730545264313647104/soo-taennies-think-that-taes-instagram-post-with I was just happy to see pictures of him smiling, because he looked so done in all of the official event photos from that trip. Also that outfit is 🔥🔥🔥 It's hilarious though if they want to try to make something of this, because the only thing linking her to it is that caviar picture in the ig photo dump and we all know they screwed up because there's no way she was there. They handed us something so easily debunkable. Their favorite paparazzi stalked Tae to the restaurant that night and even he confirmed it was just Tae and his friends. Hope Taennopes get well soon.

Hi anon!

Yes, agree!

Happy and sad moments can go together though. You can have a sad moment when you are generally happy, and you can have a happy moment when you are generally going through a sad period. I think the time surrounding Paris/Cannes was weird for Tae.

I feel like the posting of this pic was a moment.

It’s almost as if there was a before and after feeling. The before containing many great Taekook moments, like the insta live, them at Dream, many mentions back and forth, many real life outings of the two. We were basically thinking they had much more freedom than before.

But after that pic.. we got Paris, we get Jk mentioning Tae less, we got a period where Tae didn’t mention Jk much as well. To me that pic in Tae’s insta feels like a statement, a thing he could do.. when he knew things were gonna change.

I get all these anons in my inbox talking about how Jk is snubbing Tae, how Jk clearly cares less about Tae than about Jimin (see other anon, I’m not afraid to go there, just don’t feel like posting your hateful ask), how Tae is using Jk, how Jk is only posting Tae again now that it’s promo time. I don’t understand how people are so quick to underestimate Tae and Jk’s friendship. Even if you don’t think they’re in a romantic relationship, there’s no denying that they are best friends. They have shown us that for a long time now. You can’t say everything he does for Jimin is real, but what he does for Tae now is fanservice. You can’t say Jk doesn’t care for Tae. Why would Jk publicly snub one of his bandmembers/best friends? That’s just not true.

I agree that there’s a difference (though not as strong as some would like to believe). Tae is more open to mentioning Jk. And Jk seems a bit more reluctant than he was before. Aside from their personalities being different (Jk not mentioning anyone much) I think Jk is very much a live in the moment guy. He sees something and he has a reaction. To me the Jimin interactions/lives we got from Jk was just that. He got a clue about Jimin in his comments or from weverse, he got a surge of fondness for his good friend, and that resulted in some great footage. I think the strongness of those moments (because yes, they were great) was amplified because Jk and Jimin didn’t meet much back then. Those kind of amplified moments of fondness don’t happen with Jk when it comes to Tae, because they spend more time together. There has not been a lap of time when Tae and Jk didn’t see each other regularly. There’s a steady level of fondness between those two, and Jk doesn’t go around and proof his love and affection just because fandom wants to see that. If anything, I think Jk reacts negatively when people try to pry information from him.

Jk goes live for himself and for army. He wants to share what he feels like, and those things can vary from time to time. Feeling comfortable with certain topics isn’t a given, it can change from time to time. But to me it is clear from what we see that Tae and Jk are just fine.

Well, this was a bit of a rant 😂.

[littlestloves]

I don’t believe in coincidences.

Is it really possible that I was meant to be with you?

So far, I’ve told you all of this bizarre shit. You would have every reason to turn your back on me, and walk away.

Why are you here still here?

Do I inspire you? Scare you? Both?

I wish I could know what you’re thinking.

Despite all of the things I told you, all very good reasons to walk away from me, you stayed.

Despite the moments I showed some reluctance, or some hesitation, or put a wall up, you still tried.

What do you see when you look at me, exactly?

Am I what you wanted? Do I fascinate you?

Do you long for me when I’m not around?

I remember the moment I saw you the first time.

I remember the way you hesitated and tried to be nonchalant when you mentioned wanting my number.

Or when I told you it isn’t easy to get my attention, but once someone catches it, that’s it. I remember the hesitation in your voice when you asked me how he got my attention in the first place. I didn’t think you’d ever want me, so I just told you everything. You asked me so many things about what I look for in someone. Of course I also told you exactly what I disliked about the previous guys, too. That they weren’t sweet, thoughtful, or considerate of me. That I couldn’t take the last guy seriously, because he rushed through the pace of it.

You don’t hesitate to let me touch you, though. Nor do you ever have a negative reaction to anything I say, even if you aren’t happy with where my head’s at in a situation.

I think you like that I’m not easily won over, and you can tell I’m interested in you now. Especially when I made so many statements that I wasn’t wanting anything romantic with anyone for a while. Especially when I told Jenna I thought you were amazing, but.. not for me. I’ll admit, I wasn’t being honest with her. I didn’t trust the situation.

I think you like the way people open themselves up to me. Especially in ways that only I can do. I think you like my old school values around womanhood, and the values I have around sex are appealing to you. The way you feel like accessing me is a privilege, and something to be earned. I think that part is exciting to you, because you love competing for things.

The way my eyes light up when I look at you, or how shy I get when I’m looking too long and have to look away. The times you catch me smile to myself, because I noticed something I like about you.

Maybe the most intense moment was when we maintained eye contact the first day we both knew there was interest. We were walking in opposite directions on the same path. I smiled when I saw you looking at me, and then I looked away and blushed, smiling a little deeper to myself.

I think on some level, I just make you feel understood. But I also think you’re scared you won’t be enough for me. Trust, the feeling is mutual.

I think you enjoy never knowing what to expect with me. Whether it’s going to be the fun, outgoing, never stops talking, me. Or the hasn’t eaten, needs coffee, and hasn’t slept me. Maybe it’s nice knowing how much I need you. Knowing that you’re making the life of a woman and child better, or even a little easier.

Maybe you saw that I was just in a bad headspace, but I’m better than that. Maybe you want to show me that you can be exactly what I need. And, that it’s okay to need someone. That was never okay for me before. I’ve had to fight harder than most to get where I’m at now. You know that.

It felt a little embarrassing when you asked me how many real relationships I’d had. Then a little awkward when I explained the details. “13?!” I wasn’t proud of it. I just told you the truth, “It’s what I was taught was normal. I’ve had to really go out of my way to figure out what normal actually is. But, yeah. The first lasted 2 years. The second a few months. Then the last one was for over 6. I don’t really know when it’s time to give up when I love someone.”

I’m not sure how you see all of the information I’ve given you. I know that it’s a lot. But, you’re still here.

[kdramedies]

Can you tell me what's wrong with suyeon please??

I have one word doc I use for Extraordinary Attorney Woo that I update every week with my thoughts about the episodes. When I post any of these thoughts on tumblr I delete them from my word doc so that I don’t accidentally post the same thing twice. I’ve posted about a wide range of things in regard to EAW, but there’s always one character I’m scared of posting about. Most of what’s left in my word doc is about Su-yeon and why she rubs me the wrong way, but I’m very reluctant to post anything because of how much I know fans love her.

To be clear, I don’t think Choi Su-yeon is a bad character and I did like that she seemed to be getting over some of her prejudices after spending more time with Young-woo. But I hate the way she talks to Young-woo. She talks to her like she’s either, an idiot for not knowing something, or like a child she’s entertaining but not fully taking seriously. Choi Su-yeon knows how smart Young-woo is, I know she doesn’t think Young-woo is an idiot, but she still uses that voice you use when you talk to someone you believe is not as smart as you are. It’s condescending as hell, and every time she talks to Young-woo I want to reach through the screen and put my hand over her mouth. Kwon Min-woo by comparison, rarely, if ever, uses a condescending tone with Young-woo. Maybe it’s because he’s never really helped Young-woo with anything. He’s never been in a role where he feels ahead of her or like he can navigate the world better than her, but Jun-ho is. Jun-ho is often put in situations where he has to explain things to, or help Young-woo, but he also doesn’t come across as though he’s belittling her. The tone that Su-yeon uses is so obviously condescending when compared to that of any of the other main characters on the show, even characters who do think they’re better than Young-woo. I don’t know if this was a choice by the director, the actor who plays Su-yeon, or just something that happened naturally, but it makes her character seem insincere and patronizing.

But I think the biggest gripe I have with her is that, while she examined her prejudices at the beginning of the show and seemed to want to improve, after realizing in ep.7 that Jun-ho was obviously interesting in Young-woo, not her, and she understood that the reason she didn’t see his affection for Young-woo at first was because of her own prejudices, her desire to grow stopped. She had one revelation and thought, “That’s it, I’m cured of ableism!” After that case, A Tale About Sodeok-dong, Su-yeon let her hair down (literally) and her arc was aimed toward a nobler pursuit, dating. She still touched Young-woo, even when she was clearly uncomfortable, she still talked to her in that condescending tone, and then she decided to start making eyes at the one man in their office who has actively tried to harm Young-woo’s career.

People have been making posts for weeks saying, “Girl, you can do better!” but it says a lot about her character that she doesn’t want to do better. There’s a reason so many people have said since ep.1 that they thought Su-yeon and Min-woo were going to end up together, and it’s not just because enemies-to-lovers is in vouge. They had chemistry from the start, and yes, Min-woo went down his dark little path for a while, but they have more similarities than differences. Although they come from different upbringings, they both have a similar sense of values and way of looking at the world. They both fully believe that Young-woo has a leg up on them because of her autism. In today’s episode, Su-yeon vehemently agreed with Min-woo that Young-woo can do as she pleases and not face any negative repercussions. This is despite the fact that Young-woo has already been branded hard to work with and that she was just kicked off a case for sharing a possible argument. She tells Min-woo to “be a fool” and just stand up for Young-woo for once, even though he has never given any indication that he wants to, but even if he did, she is saying that from a very different place than him. Su-yeon’s family is well-off and her father is a judge, if she supports Young-woo and is branded as “hard to work with” she’ll be fine. Min-woo on the other hand might not be.

Min-woo has to prioritize money in order to support his family which is why he behaves in such a deplorable way, but he has the same level of passion for his work as Su-yeon and if the roles were reversed, I could easily see Su-yeon trying to undercut Young-woo, and Min-woo becoming her new best pal, trying to hook her up with his roommate. The only difference between Su-yeon and Min-woo is money. One comes from a well-to-do family who’s never had to worry about a thing, one has to make plans ten steps in advance for fear that his family will suffer if he doesn’t. “Spring Sunshine” Su-yeon, gets to skip along the garden path while “Tactician” Min-woo has to plot every step of the way. None of this excuses Min-woo’s behaviour, nor does it mean that Su-yeon isn’t hard-working or good at her job, but the fact that these two characters are so easily interchangeable, and are obviously drawn to each other, says something that I think a lot of non-autistics don’t want to hear.

[cosmicjoke]

Sorry for spamming this stupid post of mine.  I had to make a few edits to it, and I suppose, since it’s so long and overblown like all my posts, it’s best to make it a separate meta from my other about Nicki and Lestat.  Anyway, if you saw this before, sorry for the re-post.  If not, sorry for the obsessive compulsive posting in general about these books lately, lol.  I guess if there’s one good thing I can take away from the AMC show (other than enjoying it on its own merit), it’s that it got me interested in reading the books again.  I’m almost done with “The Vampire Lestat”, and once I am, I’ll be moving on to “The Tale of the Body Thief”!  I’m excited about it, as I’ve never read past “Queen of the Damned”.  And even though I know some people have said they don’t particularly like it, I’m looking forward to it anyway, and delving into more analysis if I find anything interesting to say.  My tastes seem to deviate a lot of the time anyway, and I end up really liking things most other people don’t, so we’ll see.  Anyway, enough rambling.

“I never revealed to him half of my powers, and with reason, because he shrank in guilt and self-loathing from using even half of his own.”

Another thing I wanted to talk about as I’ve gone along in my re-read of “The Vampire Lestat”, is related to what Lestat says here about Louis and being afraid to show him his vampiric powers, and how that relates back to his experience with Nicki.  

In addition to Lestat fearing, because of Louis’ obvious disgust with himself and what he is, that if he shows Louis his own abilities, Louis will feel similar disgust for him, a large part of Lestat’s reluctance to teach Louis more about his new found powers and what Louis can do with them is, I think, because of what happened with Nicki, and what Nicki blamed Lestat for, and accused him of.

Because Lestat, rather than allowing Nicki to sink into the mire of his own negative feelings regarding his abilities as a violinist, tried to lift him up out of it, tried to encourage him and make him believe in himself and his chances at success if he only kept at it.  He tried to make Nicki believe in the value of what he was doing, in the capacity his music had for creating good.  And Nicki ended up blaming this encouragement, this refusal on Lestat’s part to let him fail, to let him wallow in his own misery and self-destructiveness, and succumb to his negative self-image, for his going mad.  Nicki made Lestat believe that it was his fault, by trying to help him up out of the darkness, for his eventually falling to it.

And I can’t help but think that Lestat must have, once again, feared that history was repeating itself with Louis.  That he must have remembered what happened with Nicki.  How the last person he loved, whom he also tried to help through encouragement and support of his abilities and talent, ended up going insane and killing himself.  And so, seeing Louis’ “guilt and self-loathing” over his vampiric abilities and nature, Lestat had to have been reluctant to step in and encourage Louis to embrace them, or to teach Louis how to use them properly, terrified that doing so would lead Louis down the same path Nicki ended up on.  We see here again the damage wrought on Lestat by Nicki’s mad accusations and blame, the way they continued to have ramifications for Lestat decades, even centuries later.  And that’s truly tragic.

This also ties into another point I wanted to make about Louis, and how Louis’ self-denial in many ways ended up unintentionally hurting Lestat.  Lestat’s lack of forthcoming knowledge to both Louis and Claudia, and how that contributed to things eventually going bad between them, gets talked about a lot in this fandom, and rightfully so.  But I think, for every instant of unintentional abuse Lestat engages in with Louis and Claudia, Louis engaged in just as much with Lestat, in a different way.  Claudia’s abuse of Lestat and Louis was, by contrast I think, very much intentional, but that’s a different topic.

Another quote from Lestat sums it up well, when he said about Louis:

“His blindness to the motives or the suffering of others was as much a part of his charm as his soft unkempt black hair or the eternally troubled expression in his green eyes.”

Louis ends up blaming Lestat, and feeling resentment towards Lestat, for not teaching him about his abilities as a vampire, and indeed we see later, when he meets Armand, that he discovers for the first time his ability to scale sheer walls, for example.  Louis convinces himself that his lack of knowledge in this area is Lestat’s fault, but I think in reality, it has more to do with Louis’ own lack of self-belief, born out of his sense of guilt for choosing to become what he is.  

Lestat, after all, had no one to guide him.  Magnus left him on the very night he made him.  And yet, by the very next night, Lestat was already testing the limits of and discovering his abilities, experimenting by engaging in physical feats which would be impossible for a mortal being.  He discovered he could climb sheer walls on the second night of his immortality, something which took Louis 75 years to figure out.

Louis convinces himself that his ignorance regarding his abilities is Lestat’s fault, but if he’d really wanted to, Louis could have begun testing and discovering his abilities all on his own from the start.  He let his own sense of guilt and self-disgust keep him from it though, a kind of self-imposed punishment for what he was and what he chose to be, and in turn, though I don’t at all think Louis meant to, he ended up hurting Lestat by holding him accountable for it and using that as fuel for his own, growing resentment, feeding the turmoil and increasingly constant fighting between them.  

And I think this manifests again in Louis convincing himself that Lestat was somehow keeping both him and Claudia hostage, that he couldn’t leave Lestat because he didn’t know the extent of Lestat’s powers and that made escaping impossible.  But, again, just like Louis, if he’d really wanted to, could have discovered the extent of his vampiric abilities on his own, he could have similarly taken Claudia and left Lestat any time he really wanted, and I think he also knew, deep down, that Lestat wouldn’t have stopped either of them, that he never really would have been able to hurt either of them.

Rather, I think, Louis’ inability to leave Lestat was born out of a secret desire to stay with him.  

Lestat talks about Louis omitting from his interview with Daniel all the good things between them in the 65 years they had together.  How they used to walk and talk together, how they used to hunt the riverfront taverns arm in arm, how they would act out Shakespeare together for Claudia, or how Louis came to him at times in anxiety, begging Lestat not to leave him.  

Louis convinces himself that it was Lestat keeping him tied to him and New Orleans, but in reality, I think it was Louis himself.  And just like with denying himself his vampiric powers out of guilt, it was Louis’ sense of guilt in loving Lestat, I think, that made him believe what he did about being a hostage.  It was only after he and Claudia seemingly kill Lestat and flee to Europe that an even greater sense of guilt begins to eat Louis alive, and he’s forced to have to begin acknowledging his actual feelings for Lestat.  But only begin, as he’s still clearly in denial about them when he gives his interview to Daniel.

Claudia was the one who wanted to genuinely get away.  She wanted to be free of BOTH Lestat and Louis, having developed a genuine hatred for them both over her being turned at such a young age,  and doubtless she would have just upped and left on her own if she could have.  But she needed one of them to take care of her, and I think she knew Louis, deep down, didn’t really want to leave.  But she could sense the weakness in Louis born from his guilt.  She knew she could easily manipulate that guilt over loving Lestat, play on it and reinforce this coping mechanism, this idea in Louis that they were being held against their will by Lestat, and in turn convince him to stand by and do nothing while she murdered him.  For Claudia, going back to what I said about her abuse being, in contrast to Lestat’s and Louis’, very much intentional, when she tells Louis she’ll enjoy killing Lestat, I think she absolutely means it.  It’s icing on the cake to her, that for her plan to work, to really convince Louis to take her and leave, Lestat needs to be gone, because otherwise, Louis simply won’t go.  Again, not because he can’t, but because he really doesn’t want to.

Louis’ self-denial here, once again, and to much more devastating consequences, ends up hurting Lestat, nearly getting him killed, and plunging him into a state of degradation, desperation and isolation that would last for more than 120 years.

Going back to what Lestat says about Louis being blind to the motivations and the suffering of others, I don’t think Louis was at all aware how his own sense of guilt, and the self-denial born out of it, impacted Lestat.  

[sassy-seungmo]

Close as strangers-kim seungmin

seungmin x reader

sadness and fluff

Everything began to pile up and when nothing had been spoken about, insecurities could easily pile up and cause second guessing for everyone involved.

Seungmin had been away for a long time, the distance feeling like it was only becoming further and further away as the time zones forced you apart more and more. With the contact dwindling when you both hardly had spare minutes to talk to one another.

How could you say anything though? How could you say anything negative when he was living in the fluorescent lights and when it was one of the rare times that you called him, it was so obvious that he was having the time of his life performing for the people that he adored so much.

Who would you be to bring up the fact that at this point when you spoke you felt as if you were as close as you had been the very first time you had spoken when he confidentialy slid into the seat across from you in the cafe where you had been awaiting company that never showed up. Instead you got someone much better.

How could you know that behind his smiling front that he was well aware he had to stick on for the sake of everyone else, he was more then ready to get home, missing you more then even he ever imagined that he would.

Scared that him being away was going to be the reason that he lost one of the best things that had ever happened in his life. You couldn’t know that whilst you worried about holding him back, he worried about holding you back.

Finally when your tears couldn’t seem to stop no matter how many times you listened to his voice over a video, or through falling asleep and ignoring your emotions, you relented and realised that you’d have to call him, despite your distraught state.

“Hello,” you heard the groggy noise from the other side of the phone and grimaced realising you hadn’t checked the time that it was for him.

“I’m sorry,” you tried to reply evenly but for someone who knew you so well, Seungmin could so easily hear the shake in your voice. Though he had suspected that something was wrong simply from the pattern of your breathing. “I just had to call you.”

“You know you can always call me.” He responded, wide awake as he dreaded what you would say next. Scared that his insecurities of leaving you behind would be a reality and you’d be unable to deal with it anymore.

“I miss you so much Minnie, and I feel so guilty for holding you back when I call you.” You admitted through a few sobs that made your chest feel as though it was burning. “I had to hear you, it just feels like I haven’t seen your face or heard your voice in ages.”

“I’m sorry.” Seungmin apologised, whilst you had been distancing yourself he had been reluctant to call you, scared to death about not being present enough for you. “I love you, having you at home makes me so excited to come back. So excited to work my ass off here to make you proud.”

“But don’t you feel like you’re being held back? Like you can’t live the rockstar life that you’re supposed to be living?” You questioned, voice quiet as you pondered.

“I don’t want to live a life like that when I have you waiting for me. It’s only two more weeks.” He said and whilst you had been apart for so long, the end being so near made the time feel as if it were dragging on forever and ever.

“I’m sorry for waking you up.” You said eventually after you allowed the comfort of his breath to calm you down. You didn’t understand how just hearing him being almost silent on the other side of the phone was able to loosen the knot in your stomach so easily.

“Please wake me up, whenever you need.” Seungmin said as he slid back down underneath the covers. “Can we facetime until I fall asleep?”

“Of course,” you said and you both allowed one another to fill up the phone screen.

“So beautiful.” You shook your head at his words and returned a similar compliment. Easily watching him fall asleep as if it were the easiest movie you had ever seen, you knew in that moment that neither of you were wasting time waiting for him to come home, and just how worth it he truly was.

master list

[girl4music]

KAITY: “Calliope seems so self-assured. Especially in the beginning. She seems so certain of who she is. So certain of her purpose and what she’s here to do. And when we see that switch with Juliette, one of the questions that I think came up for us was how much of this is self-assuredness and certainty of who she is internally and how much of that is in acceptance in the position of the family? Not that they’re imposing it upon her in this kind of negative way but ‘this is the family that I’ve been moulded around and this is who I’m supposed to be’ and I feel like you’ve kinda touched on that. I don’t know if you have more to say about that but that’s where my brain was going. It’s just like,… how self-assured is Cal because that’s who she wants to be and is or how much is that her just accepting the role that’s been set for her?

IMANI: “Oh, I think it’s a mixture of… both. And I feel that way because I feel like it’s no different than growing up in a household where everybody in your house speaks Spanish. So in return - you end up speaking Spanish. And a part of that is because of the training. That’s what your ear is trained to hear and your mouth is trained to say. But then the other half of that is that you grow to love your culture. You grow to love all the other things about the culture. So I feel like it’s definitely a blend of both. One - the training because it’s in her mother, it’s in her father, it’s in her two brothers. And she’s the youngest in the family. So I feel like - I don’t wanna say kids - but like younger people are very impressionable, you know what I mean? They absorb all of these things. So I feel like it’s been in her. It’s been in her bloodline for years. She was six and she wanted a katana. Of course I think she grew an interest into it. I think it’s apart of like Cal’s characteristics to be tenacious and to want to master the things that she gets a grip on or anything that intrigues her. I feel like you see that in her relationship with Juliette as well. At first she’s reluctant but then when she allows herself to be open to it, she’s like ‘Okay, well what’s your favourite memory?’ And like ‘Now I wanna make this work’ or ‘Let me take you home to my parents. I know that they’ll protect you’. When she wants something to work, she’s going to go to the ends of the Earth to make it work.”

In other words, the true her wants to be and is a warrior. Her determination and diligence and discipline is in the need to protect and defend humanity and the innocent. That is the part of her that she’s certain of and that’s what she’s supposed to be. Whether she’s in the right place for it is a whole other question entirely. Because that’s the part that’s she’s been indoctrinated into and has been practically forced to accept as what is herself and her purpose. Her identity. Being a monster hunter specifically. I think her challenge will be distinguishing between them and separating fighting from hunting. Or in distinguishing between being a warrior and being a killer. Because she touches on this distinction when she asks Tess if she ever feels like the way she feels when it comes to the act of hunting and killing monsters and Tess said that what they do is right because what they hunt and kill does not feel or love. I think she’s going to figure out for herself the hard way in Season 2 just how inaccurate that mindset is and it’s going to fuck with her head and her feelings big time when she hunts Legacy vampires in particular. Not just because they’ll remind her of Juliette. But because deep down her gut is telling her she’s wrong for what she’s doing and she’ll have to reconcile between what she believes is her heart and what is actually her heart. What part is the lie and what part is the truth? What part is her choice and what part is her obligation? Her shows-long character representation and development arc is identity vs spirit. That’s going to be a very interesting and compelling arc to watch.

[douxie-casperan]

Rise of the Titans and the assassination Hisirdoux Casperan’s character development

I’ve been ranting so much since Wednesday morning that I finally condensed by thoughts of WHY this one subject keeps setting me off namely the utterly diabolical way they handled Douxie and Archie’s relationship in Rise of the Titans and how it wasn’t just enough to hit him with the nerf bat.

Please note I’m at the point where I literally cannot tell the difference between Aaron headcanons, Teny headcanons and my own they are all mixed together in the blender that does funky things. I also apologise for typo/weird wording it’s half 1 in the morning and I’d rather sleep than edit.

~

If asked to sum up Hisirdoux Casperan there are certainly several things that come to mind:

Sees the value in people as a whole and will find do anything if there is a chance of help someone out

Prefers tactics that disable/banish rather than kill an enemy yet willing and able to pull the trigger if circumstances become forced

While not academically inclined he is very capable of thinking on his feet and outside the box calling back to his time on the streets where a split-second decision making is the difference between being caught and not

Terrible at planning he’ll be in there figuring it out as he goes along which is what makes the previous point so vital to literally how he goes through life

A natural charmer that would let him talk his way out of trouble 9/10 providing a perfect cover for his distrustful nature and reluctance to be touched by random people

Very down to earth, humble and never one to brag unless outright sassing someone

Will bang out some hot tunes at the drop of a hat, his love of music has never wavered once since he caught the bug despite instrument hopping ironically becoming a jack of all trades much like his magic style

The earliest memories he can recall are him as a young boy lost in the woods where he was for an unknown amount of time before his soon to be familiar finds him amongst the roots covered in dirt and drying tears, there is nothing before that. Unbeknownst to him is the colour of his magic matches the blue of a lost mother’s eyes and the song that haunts his nightmares as much as fire could well be hers though there is no way to be sure. From that moment on Archibald, shortened to Archie, would become his entire world and their friendship only becoming closer during the years they prowled Camelot together trying to keep themselves in one piece until the fateful day Douxie tricks the wrong person leading him straight into the path of the famous wizard Merlin Ambrosius.

It's no real secret that Merlin is a very closed off person who keeps his emotions as well guarded as his secrets, prefers the style of negative reinforcement over positive encouragement and is a very strict perfectionist in his. At this point in his life he can be very easily described as a disaster that is genuinely doing his best with every little mistake held of his head and his future self when brought back to that time period is belittled by Lancelot (Errand boy) and Arthur (Boy) too meaning it’s hardly a wonder his confidence was very fragile revelling in the times where he could do things without being told off for it. With Morgana largely ignoring him too (Though personally I like to think as he got older she’d occasionally take an interest until the blistering arguments with their master started to talk over daily life) a certain disguised dragon would have remained a lifeline and give that physical affection he craved much like being told he’d done well never seemed able to earn.

With Killahead he’d lose that home and family he made leaving just the two of them behind struggling to figure out their place in the world that had abandoned them.

There wouldn’t have been the words for it back then but the way he had been treated prior was outright abusive instilling very bad habits into Douxie yet by irony he was always willing to give people the benefit of the doubt and help those in trouble without thinking earning a reputation as the Shepard of Fire. He refused to become like him seeking to be better, perhaps not as a wizard (Even though he was learning new charms and spells along the way) but certainly as a person. Despite everything he suffers through or witnesses in the intervening years, the loss of friends and kindling of far newer ones he never loses his good heart 

That said is it any wonder that after rightfully sassing Merlin for resurfacing, ignoring his existence despite being in the same town and only visiting him to run a finding errand that all the confidence he’d managed to build completely from scratch after Camelot wavered causing him to fall back solely into trying impressing his old Master who was acting like his humble apprentice must have coasted the past few centuries who himself fell back into old habits of belittling? It’s only when Merlin started to truly listen and acknowledge that this was not the same Moppet he once knew after Excalibur was fixed that their relationship finally started to become more like equals. After the defeat of Janus the changeling that broke into the castle he touched Douxie’s shoulder with a genuine smile and for a second he simply didn’t know what to do because the old man never did this before his brain kicked into gear and realised he’d finally earned that one thing he’d been so desperate for his entire life: That in Merlin’s eyes he could be more than a failure who only caused problems for the closest thing to a father figure he’d ever had, never solved them.

A staff will be earned, history would be set back on trap by banishing Morgana tag teaming with Archie because they know one another inside and out, as promised he’d get the kids back to the present but soon after things would go badly wrong. They’d lose Jim and because of his very nature he’d make a gamble to try and get him back because that life is worth trying for just for in a moment of surprising selflessness Merlin would be sacrificed to save him. The only constant in his life apart from Archie would apologise, openly express pride and how the greatest thing he’d ever done was saving this orphan, call him son for the first and final time before turning into ash in his arms. There would be no time to grieve for things will barrel into the crescendo of Douxie sacrificing his own life to buy everyone time to escape because if they did that everything he’d ever done would be worth it with one last whispered goodbye.

(Zoe sees him fall, so does Archie – His heart would break if he was conscious just like theirs does when his body crumples into the ground)

On the very fringes of the Light Realm he is gifted one more conversation with Merlin in a truly heart-breaking sequence (THANKS TENY) where they can just talk without any fear of consequence or politics and just be completely honest. Douxie is allowed to stand equal to Merlin, to have the hug he’d needed since he was a child and be allowed to simply let go of every pretense and cry his heart out because this can never happen again. He’s allowed to say goodbye to both his master and Morgana who had both shaped so very much of his life but like the painting he’d always remained firmly in the long shadows of until that moment.

When Hisirdoux Casperan finally leaves Wizards if we just accidently deliberately put the shawarma back in along with checking in with Zoe before departure, it is with having learned to live during his wandering years but this is the point of true freedom because he can finally escape into his own light with Archie by his side to keep Nari out of the hands of those that would see the world harmed. It won’t be easy but it feels possible somehow even with the knowledge everything is simply running on borrowed time.

Then Rise of the Titans happens.

At first everything is genuinely fine! No more running, they engineer a solution shut the Order’s magic down to make them a lot less dangerous and potentially at least incapacitate them until they can come up with a longer-term solution but all the best laid plans and all that. Douxie’s quick thinking stops the train from crushing any of the people below and it’s a very him style move to switch places with Nari to stall for time because for some reason the plot disabled Claire from portaling her or any of the threatened people/heroes to safety. He openly sasses the Order despite knowing the consequences will be bad for him because once again he’s managed to trick them, buy time that at the other end isn’t even slightly utilised until he’s forced back into his own body in excruciating pain. Archie immediately mobs him with comfort just as he has done every single time the wizard is distressed or collapsed with exhaustion without thinking because that is what their bond is like, incredibly close and far more than the Soul Bond mark that connects them together. They’re very alike in that regard, you have to earn the right to touch while equally knowing exactly what form the other needs the most in that precise moment in a way very few others could.

Bar the moment of figuring out that an illusion is in place to hide where the Order is opening the Genesis Seals and the brief insistence on reconnecting with Nari somehow Douxie manages to forget everything that makes him who he is after this point choosing to stand in the background being very no thoughts head empty or can only use the most basic spells of his youthful days not the seasoned master wizard he should be. Nomura is treated like an innocent slip rather than an outright death he did absolutely nothing to prevent (Not to mention the stupid daytime thing) nor seems to care particularly about afterwards yet with Nari’s he’s allowed to openly grieve in a gorgeously animated visual showing how he’d failed to keep her safe despite everything. He did nothing to help here either mind despite allowing himself to be tortured in the same piece of media to keep her safe, just watched another loss happen right in front of his eyes in his conga long line of them.

Then there’s Archie, oh god then there was Archie.

The dragon who even here he’d been shown to have an incredibly close bond with him decides you know what sod that tell him goodbye I’m going to make a joke about having a kingdom now dad and me are trapped in here forever. Douxie on his part looked sad for all of three seconds saying that he hoped he’s happy like it's a pet that wandered out into the world one day and never came back instead of a lifelong companion that has been there for as long as he can remember. He was now completely alone in the world since Zoe was also written out entirely and because every bit of his background had been forgotten about it somehow meant nothing. This wasn’t “I know you miss him, I know you need to grieve but you are running out of time” moment like things had been with Charlie, this was “cool shapeshifting dragon cat is now stuck in a plot hole that’s a shame” with zero pay off or any of the genuine reaction that should have been there or hell even trying to Ohana him back that very second because it never should have happened in the first place. Then even this wasn’t enough somehow, they managed to de-power Douxie even further into uselessness bar the (Admittedly nifty!) sticky feet stunt, the one who fought Skrael and Bellroc to a stalemate was shunted aside with barely a thought and his head would somehow get even emptier.

The one person who knew the danger of time magic the most stood by and said nothing.

The one person who would suffer the most by a reset because the lynchpin to his issues would be asleep if you got it wrong and should have drilled it into Jim’s head the best time to aim for stood by and said nothing.

The one person who had just suffered the loss of his familiar, best friend and only family along with the almost sister like Nari stood by and said nothing.

Then to add further insult to injury the caption when Douxie and Archie is shown says Some go their entire lives living an existence of quiet desperation because every drop of his character growth, his ability to finally start addressing his trauma instilled back in the 12th century, the staff he longed for was instead openly mocked by going “Aww he got his cat friend back how nice!” Everything he’d rightfully earned and had now would be unable to progress until certain criteria are met because it hinges entirely on the Trollhunter going to Merlin’s tomb and there’s only so much your support network of two (One if she’s written out) can do, the root of the majority of his issues all stem from one man.

And this folks is why I’ve been going on multiple rants about Douxie in particular, everyone was hit with the out of character bat to some degree in this film but when they came for him they didn’t just stop after they took his legs out because they wanted him to suffer from something he’s never had any control over to begin with all over again. Abuse survivors deserve better, these characters deserve better and we as viewers deserve far far better writing than we were forced to endure.

[ravennm84]

Serafina II

Part 1     Part 3

The 2nd installment of the “Marinette’s Haunted Doll” series. I was seriously shocked by how much response I got from part one, so I hope this lives up to your expectations. Blood, gore, and death are coming, along with some mental freak-outs. You have been warned. 

Part II

Despite wanting to stay with Marinette to comfort the girl after the tearful apologies by Mylene and Ivan, Serafina couldn’t return until her work was finished. There was still much to do and people to punish. 

She arrived early with Mylene, which allowed her to observe the others that entered the classroom. Kim had returned to school that day in a wheelchair. The cast on his leg went up to his waist and the one on his arm went up to his bicep. His face and exposed skin were covered in bruises and his right eye looked like it had blood in it. 

“How are you feeling, dude?” Nino asked him as he entered alongside Adrien.

“Really sore,” the boy admitted. “Doctors had to reset my leg at the knee and said that my arm was a three piece offset fracture, so they had to use screws to put it back in place. Other than that; had a concussion, a lot of bruises, and a couple cuts; but no internal bleeding or ruptured organs. They said after a few months and some physical therapy, I should be as good as new.”

Nino gave him a solemn nod. “Glad to hear you’re going to be okay, dude.”

Kim’s expression dropped a bit. “I heard about Alya, I’m really sorry, man.”

The boy lowered his head while Adrien patted his back. “I really… I can’t believe she’s gone because of some freak accident. It makes no sense!” Nino jumped to his feet and started pacing as more students filed in. “I mean, she wasn’t supposed to die like that! Getting caught up in an akuma battle, childhood disease, there would be a reason for that! But that was just pointless!”

Mme. Bustier did attempt to calm him down, but her kind words fell on deaf ears before he grabbed his bag and left the room. No one could blame him, and only Adrien followed to make sure he would be alright, and to make sure he wasn’t akumatized.

Lila came in not long after with a curious bag in her hands. Serafina watched the liar as she looked around the room. She had a feeling that the liar would try something after her last attempt to frame Marinette had failed. When the girl tried speaking to Mylene, the doll was proud to see the girl refuse to acknowledge her as she continued to speak with Rose and Juleka. When it was clear that she was being ignored, she tried speaking to Ivan, only for him to give her a harsh glare that had her shuffling backwards. With Max and Alix still at the hospital and Adrien not in the room, that left her with Sabrina. The redhead had been sitting alone at the front of the room since Chloe had transferred schools after the Miracle Queen incident.

“Hi Sabrina, how are you doing?”

The girl smiled up at the italian, glad to still have a friend. “I’m doing okay, at least a lot better than a lot of our class. I heard Max lost sight in his one eye from the chemicals and Alix might have to have cosmetic surgery to get her face back to normal. At least Kim might be back to normal in a few months after going through physical therapy. But Alya…”

Lila faked her tears at the mention of her lost follower. She was really more annoyed than sad, Alya was easily manipulated, went along with everything she said, and Lila had been able to use her blog to build up her popularity. And the girl had been a decent attack dog, just point her at someone and off she went. Now that she was dead, maybe she could turn Sabrina into her new lead follower, she was already partially trained and it wasn’t like the blonde bitch was around anymore.

“I know, it’s so terrible. She was my first friend when I moved here, it’ll be so hard without her,” she faked a few more tears. And just like that, Sabrina took her hand in comfort and said a bunch of soothing words while she continued to fake cry. 

After a moment, Lila placed the bag she’d been holding on the desk and pushed it away from her, making sure the action caught Sabrina’s attention. “What’s that?”

Lila fake sobbed even harder, hiding her face in her hands. “Ma-Marinette, she-she said it was m-my fault that Alya’s dead. She practically threw that bag at me and said to use it,” she said before breaking down in more fake sobs.

Carefully opening the bag, she gasped when she saw it was full of razor blades and a couple of kitchen knives. Sure, she knew that Marinette didn’t get along with Lila, but to actually give this to her and tell her to ‘use it’? How could she be so cruel?

Serafina scowled as the red head hugged the liar and promised her that she would take care of it. Her anger erupted as Sabrina stood from her desk with the bag in hand, and began walking towards Mme. Bustier’s desk. The girl didn't take two steps before tripping over nothing and falling onto her side. Luckily, she did not land on the bag. Unluckily, she gripped it too tight and the impact forced the knives and razors through the bag and deep into her hands.

The girl screamed and cried as blood rushed out of the wounds and down into her sleeves. She begged Lila to help her, but the italian backed away from the girl in shock. Mme. Bustier gripped her head between her hands and began saying “not again, not again” before running out of the room. The only ones that helped her were Juleka, Rose and Ivan; the smaller girl sprinting off to alert the nurse and the principal, while Juleka and Ivan got Sabrina to her feet. Ivan kept the girl upright and moving out the door while Juleka held the girl’s hands above the level of her heart to keep her from bleeding too much.

Those left in the classroom were in shock as they stared at either the door or at the blood staining the floor. No one said anything for a long time, not even Lila. She hadn’t thought anyone would get hurt. She just thought she would get Marinette suspended and everyone would be on her side again. Adrien returned before the others, completely shocked when he saw the blood and Kim explained to him what had happened. The blonde sent a scathing look at Lila but said nothing.

It was a while later before Rose, Ivan, and Juleka returned to class, along with M. Rupere. He informed them that their classes were cancelled for today. “After everything that has occurred this week, I’ve decided that all of you will be meeting with the counselor today. He will decide if more sessions are necessary and for who, but his door and mine are open if you need to talk. M. Deveraux will come to speak with you one at a time. Kim Le Chien, he had requested to speak with you first. Mlle. Rossi,” he looked sternly at the girl, “would you please follow me, we need to talk about the incident with Sabrina Raincomprix.”

Serafina smiled as the liar trudged out of the room after the man. She was satisfied with Sabrina’s punishment and doubted if Mme. Bustier would last another day before having a total mental breakdown. She also knew that Lila would be in even more trouble after M. Rupere looked into the girl a bit more. But just to make sure, Serafina touched her on the way out. To most people, that would do nothing; but to someone like Lila, it would cause her to become more and more unhinged until she did something drastic. Very soon, Lila would be out of the picture and those deserving of punishment will have paid their debts.

~oOo~

It was more difficult sneaking home with Adrien than she had expected, especially with the tiny god of Chaos and Destruction in his bag. Plagg was his name, and he was very defensive of his kitten and had threatened to cataclysm her. Serafina told him that she would not purposefully harm his ‘kitten’, but there was something she had to take care of at the Agreste Mansion. The doll had long suspected that Gabriel Agreste is Hawkmoth and she was going to find out tonight if it was true. Plagg was reluctant to agree since it would hurt Adrien; but if it was true, they had to put an end to it.

After arriving at the mansion, Plagg easily convinced the boy to sneak out and check on Nino. After he left, Serafina sensed something on Adrien’s desk. Being an enchanted/haunted object, she could sense other objects like herself… such as Miraculous jewels. And right there on the desk was a pin shaped like a peacock, one of the jewels that had been missing and used by Mayura. If there had been any doubts before about who had been terrorizing Marinette, they were gone. 

Tucking the pin into her small outfit, she began to search the building, starting with Gabriel’s office. She had expected the man to be present, but he was missing. And given that Hawkmoth was a very active user, she had no doubt that he kept his jewel on him at all times. So, she waited.

It was about an hour later that Gabriel Agrest entered the room, and not from the door Serafina had expected. The man had a secret entry in the floor in front of a portrait of a woman. He was muttering on knowing better than to use Bubbler again, but that the negative emotions had been too strong to ignore. She also saw the purple kwami hovering over his shoulder, but the creature stopped when it sensed her. Gabriel strode out of the room, barely noticing that Nooroo had stayed behind and flew over to the doll hiding behind the desk.

“What are you doing here? If the Master finds you, he will destroy you.” The kwami said with worry.

The doll conveyed that she knew that his master was Hawkmoth, just as her human was Ladybug. She was here to protect her and return the butterfly and peacock miraculous to their rightful place. Also knowing that Gabriel had become too corrupted for his miraculous.

“I’ve tried to tell him that the wish would be dangerous,” Nooroo told her with downcast eyes. “He wants to make a wish to revive his wife, but he doesn’t realize that the cost would be to put Adrien, someone he loves equally as much as Emilie, into the same state of death. She isn’t even truly alive anymore, her body only lives because of the machine she is in.”

An idea spawned in Serafina’s thoughts and she barely kept herself from smiling. She asked Nooroo to help her activate the secret passage so she could get to his wife, but the little kwami shook his head. “Even if I could get you down there, the motion sensors would trip and he would attack you.”

Smiling this time, Serafina promised the little god that Gabriel would not attack her. That she would make sure that Adrien would be safe and the two kwami’s would go to their rightful place. All he had to do was help her open the door. Although reluctant and slightly scared, the little god opened the door, hoping that the nightmare would finally end. 

Down in the lair, the doll saw the mechanical coffin placed in the center of the room and went to it. The motion sensors caught her quickly, but she had been planning on moving fast anyway. Opening the coffin, she settled herself into the woman’s arms. Nooroo had been right, Serafina could sense that the woman’s soul had departed from her body a while ago and it was only the machine that was keeping her body alive. With no other soul to contend with, this would make what she was about to do next all the easier.

Nathalie had called to alert him the moment the alarms went off in the lair while she and Simone were out on an errand. He was moving faster than he could remember with Nooroo following close behind. Gabriel transformed on the way down, prepared to attack whoever had stumbled in, but his breath caught in his throat halfway down when he got a good view of the room. 

The coffin was empty.

Rushing forward, he began frantically searching the room for his wife, calling her name. He turned to rush back upstairs and froze. Standing behind him, looking dazed, was his wife. Her eyes were unfocused and her arms were hugging her middle, but it was her. Dropping his transformation, Gabriel cautiously approached her and she flinched back from him. It took a few minutes and a lot of gentle coaxing before he was able to wrap an arm around her shoulders and lead her to the elevator. When they got to his office, he watched her carefully as she began walking around the room. He wanted her to sit down and rest, but he was still in shock that she was awake and standing in front of him.

Eventually, her green eyes met his. “Where’s Adrien?”

“I… I don’t know, he should be up in his room.”

Emilie’s head tilted slightly, her eyes searching his. “What have you done? Did you make the wish?”

“No, my love. I was going to when I got the jewels, but Ladybug and Chat Noir evaded me.”

Tears grew in her eyes as she continued to stare at him. “You tried to make the wish? Knowing that it would have cost our son’s life?” 

Gabriel froze. He hadn’t known that wishing Emilie to come back would cost Adrien’s… but Nooroo had tried to tell him. He remembered the kwami trying to tell him about the cost and he had forced him to not speak. “I’m sorry, Emilie. I didn’t-”

“You knew,” she interrupted, her voice lacking any emotion as she continued to stare at him. “You knew from the beginning that what you were doing was wrong, evil. You chose to ignore what it would cost.”

“Emilie, my love, please don’t say such things,” Gabriel begged as he rushed forward to wrap his arms around her. “All I have wanted since the day I lost you, was to hold you in my arms again and hear your voice. I was lost without you and was willing to go to the ends of the earth to bring you back. Is that so wrong?”

He had just barely met her eyes when he felt the twin pains in his arms. Jumping back, he looked down to see both wrists had been cut deeply with a pair of his fabric cutting scissors. Blood was draining from the wounds at an alarming rate. His hands were shaking and he was already feeling light headed as he grabbed a handful for fabric from his work table in an attempt to slow the blood. He wanted to call out for help, but they were alone. 

His eyes grew hazed as he looked to Emilie, surprised that she was staring at him with such contempt. “I know what you’ve been doing while I was in that coffin. Tormenting the city and people I love, isolating our son and treating him like a burden. If you had ever succeeded in getting the Cat and Ladybug miraculous, it would have destroyed Paris. But you didn’t care. As you said, all you cared about was hearing my voice and holding me in your arms. Congratulations, your wish came true, and you will be the one to pay the price. Not Adrien.”

His legs gave out from under him as the fabrics dripped from the excess blood. He couldn’t understand how this had happened, Emilie would have never done something like this… but was this really her? With his vision fading, he took a hard look at his wife, only now noticing the dullness of her eyes, the greying pallor of her skin, and the fact that she only seemed to breathe when she spoke… “Who are you?”

Her head tilted again, the corner of her mouth lifting slightly. “Serafina. Quite astute of you to figure that out in your state. Your wife’s soul passed on a long time ago, all you have been doing is preserving a corpse. And I was telling the truth; even if you had made the wish, it would have cost Adrien his life.” Her hand shot forward, removing the butterfly miraculous before he could stop her. “Your actions have hurt someone close to me and I could no longer stand back and allow it to happen.”

She stood, walking to his desk to pull out a piece of paper and writing something down before neatly folding it and leaving it on his desk.

“Wh… What…”

“You just wrote a letter to Adrien; admitting what happened to his mother, that you were Hawkmoth, and the reason why you did what you did.” She said calmly before looking back at him. “Whether he tells the rest of the world is up to him. As for the miraculous, I will give him a chance at redemption. Though if he should fail, you may be seeing him sooner rather than later. Either way, they will soon be back where they belong, with the guardian. And you, good sir, have just committed suicide after bringing your wife’s body upstairs, so you would be able to hold her in your arms as you died.”

Unable to sit upright anymore, Gabriel barely felt his body collapse to the floor. He was hardly aware of Emilie lifting one of his arms to tuck her body to his side. The last thing he was aware of was something that he swore would haunt him in the afterlife; a porcelain doll emerging from the folds of her clothes and standing beside them. It stood there on its own, watching him until he could no longer keep his eyes open and he took his final breath.

Taglist (even longer):

@themagicmistic​ @andromeda612��� @ramos123​ @t1dwarrior-of-earth​ @justanotherweirdo277​ @irisfox​ @thestrangestofthemall​ @plz-excuse-my-inner-ravenclaw​ @certainmuffinbagelcalzone​ @the-fandom-girl @wisecolorthing @mewwitch​ @luxurioushellgirl97​ @seraphichana @fantasiame​ @whydoexamsexist​ @wispyrainbow​ @legodetectivemalsblog​ @kindasoundslikealien​ @shadowangelreborn​ @kazedancer @unmaskedagain​ @7-sage-7​ @irontimetravelflower​ @ghostmaster83​ @izang​ @ulmban​ @plushbookworm​ @corabeth11​ @darkened-flame​ @caffeinetheory​ @iamablinkmarvelarmy​ @raiderofthelostbooks​ @cheshire5210 @chocolateherringtacofan​ @city-of-all-tunas​ @aadnrsstar​ @kitten12113​ @interobanginyourmom​ @pandacatxd​ @nerd-nowandforever​ @jesussavedevenme​ @zoiechance​ @the-smallest-kittenz @wonderbat91939​ @maskedpainter​ @tazer6787​ @that-girl-sakea @seesea22​ @with-forward-motion​ @ola-is-dead​ @thecrazyfantrollshasmoved @bayball​ @2confused-2doanything​ @queen-in-a-flower-crown​ @sabrina1414 @ceres-zephyr​ @if-you-give-a-chat-a-cookie​ @zalladane​ @tails-and-scales​ @rumbelle18​ @sam-spectra​ @collegefae​ @pale-lady-dreamer​ @animegirlweeb​ @evaraux @consumeconstantly​ @iz-bell-saiah​ @puspa-san​ @wishing-to-be-a-fictional-chara​ @sassakitty​ @miraculous-ninja​ @fandom-trapped-03​ @idontfuking​ @sillyfishrubberducky​ @anonymousreviewer-t​ @i-am-fallen-angel​ @zotinha456​ @throneoffirebreathingbitchqueen​ @chocolatecatstheron​ @crypticsabbat @startouchedqueen1318 @para-dox-normal​ @marinettepotterandplagg​ @incredulous-reader​ @professionalfangirl1738​ @fangirlnerd001​ @redscarlet95​ @sixtyeightdays​ @iamtotalfandomtrash​ @tazanna-blythe​ @animehime94​ @mysticsoulgirl​ @miraculouspenta​ @local-witch-of-mn​ @roseinbloom02​ @senpaiweird​ @iggy-of-fans​ @tropestropestropes​ @sleep-deprived-aroace​ @comteqfr @neromerp13​ @prudencerika​ @galaxylightmoon @c-s-stars @spartanxhunterx @shadowhex99 @abrx2002 @lunartaravlar @theymakeupfairies @myazael @wannajointhecrabcult @some-weird-multifandom-girl @marvel--unsolved @kuroko26 @mcheang @nach0ava @syrencall @mexicantttt @insomniac-nerd-posts-things @enchanted-nerd @actual-disaster-human @mashmallow619 @clumsy-owl-4178 @hollowwisteria @kanamexzeroyaoifangirl @fandom-trapped-03 @lunataravlar @lady-phoenix-of-tardis @tishwinchesterannabethjackson @mariposa-macaroon @starlightshield @255940g

[harveywritings92]

BNHA scenario: You can’t feel pain

You were born with a heightened reflex quirk but you were also born with a very rare birth defect called chromosome 6 deletion, that causes you to not feel pain, hunger or fatigue, and you have like zero sense of fear & self preservation , your boyfriend only knows about your Quirk, you've kept your medical history to yourself, until you have an accident and he notices something off and start asking questions!

=======================

Dabi: He hadn't see you in a couple days and got worried, he then got a call from you asking to take you to the slums walk-in clinic, (I like to think, that the villains have whole a network of black market doctors that sympathize with them and run pop-up clinics, you have to have a password to to know where and how get in.) He checked his burner phone for a pop-up clinic and found one near by. 

He got to your location and was stunned when he saw your right arm with a large knife jammed into it and a dead guy on the ground sporting a broken neck, He checked out your arm and winced realizing he couldn't pull it out without causing you anymore damage, He then examine your face, expecting tears, but... you seemed more annoyed by this whole situation then anything, Dabi was expecting you to be crying and whining at him to stop poking and moving your arm around... He thought you were in shock at first, but something was nagging at him that this wasn't normal.

Dabi was silent the entire way to the clinic, his eyes were burning holes into the back of your head, when you both arrived... and the first words the guard said to you was. "Y/n back again, for what? out of pills?" he sighed as you narrowed your eyes at the idiot and raised your injured arm up to show him, his jaw dropped and opened up immediately letting you both in. "What did he mean by that?" Dabi's voice was tense suddenly speaking up, "Why do you need pills?" You stiffened obviously hesitant to say anything, knowing full well Dabi doesn't like people keeping secrets from him! 

"Just wait for Dr. Yuhei to come..."

"You're on first name bases with the staff now too?" 

"...Dabi."

"..."

The cremator crossed his arms as a middle age man came in looking very happy to see her! "Y/n? what the damage today dislocation? burn damage, (cue Dabi flinching) road rash, broken bones..." His eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas as he oh and awed at seeing the knife lodged in your arm. "Ha! you got knifed! I love it!" he exclaimed jubilantly while slapping his knee as he took out his tools. 

Dabi just looked at this man like he was mad as a March hare! "What fuck is wrong with you?!" he demanded out getting the doctor's attention, it took a moment for the man to respond.

"Oh! Are you the boyfriend I've been hearing so much about!" the cremator's brows furrowed as Yuhei shook his hand congratulating Dabi for finding a real diamond in the rough! "Not many doctors can say they've worked on a patient with Chromosome 6 deletion!" the raven haired man blinked incredulously. "Chromo what?" now it was the doctor's turn to be confused. "She didn't tell...You didn't tell him?" he watched your face and saw your fraught expression. 

"Huh...Well I'll be. That's certainly new!"

The doctor hummed before telling Dabi what was up about your condition, your boyfriend kept a neutral face but inside his emotions were churning. "Her reluctance to inform you of this...is probably to closes adduce to fear I've ever seen her display." Your face felt hot as you stared at Dabi expecting to him storm out instead, he just watched as the doctor pulled the knife out of your arm in fixed you with no anesthetic or pain-killers , Yuhei informed you that the knife had cracked the bone so you had wear a sling for a couple weeks, then reminded you to change your bandages properly, then handed you a refill of melatonin.  

The walk back home was awkward as hell Dabi had yet to say anything... Before you reached your safehouse you felt Dabi fingers grab your jacket sleeve while keeping his eyes on the ground. "Listen... this thing you have, did I ever hurt you?" You cocked a brow bemused before recalling Yuhei asking you about your injuries, he mentioned burns... and realized where Dabi was going with this, had he burnt you any given point and not known about it due to you not noticing or not telling him.

 You really wanted to say no... You really did! but accidents happen. "Not on purpose..." He winced hearing this as you continued. "sometimes during sex or when you're in a combat high." You reach up and patted him on the head making him flinch before relaxing into your touch. "If it'll keep you sane I'll tell you if I get hurt when we go on a run." Dabi hummed holding you close to him, needless to say the cremator became a tad more wary and protective of you during and after missions insisting he check your body over any injuries you hadn't noticed before leaving. 

===================== 

Hawks: "Can you feel that?" a Nurse asks baffled as You let out a bored sigh as she and the doctor reset your left leg. "No." you huffed for the umpteenth time, wanting to leave the damn hospital already! but Keigo insisted you needed the hospital, cos your leg was swollen and turning purple after really, rough fight with a villain who had gotten a hold of you by the leg and toss you off like a rag-doll as a snapped echoed through the battle field!

I didn't take long for you to figure out your femur was broken and you were a sitting duck! until Endeavor and Hawks showed up they beat the villain, then noticed you sitting in the road with your left leg in your hand hanging limply in your grasp like a wet noddle! 

Your lack of impulse reaction caused them to think you'd gone into shock! Keigo quickly gathered you up flew to the nearest hospital! Telling you not panic everything was gonna be fine, you were gonna be alright! If only he knew the whimpering you were making wasn't from crying, but from laughing at him! 

After the docs had reset your leg (with no meds.) and put it in a cast again without any medication, you rolled your wheelchair out into the hall in time to see the doctor telling your fiancée about your one a billion condition! You can see how nervous the blond was he almost seemed skeptical, Hawks asked the doctor if he was overexaggerating a bit? "...I don't think you get it Hawks! this condition so rare that only 40 cases have ever been recorded globally!" you felt your stomach twist... this was definitely not how you wanted Keigo to find out about this. Your original plan had been to sit him down some time next week and tell him about it!

You were brought out of your thoughts by a someone's gaze burning in to your head, you looked up and met Keigo's analyzing gaze as he observed your condition, not in a bed, not hook to an I.V. and certainly not under the influence of any sort of pain medicine... He seemed a little pale as he approached you. "Hey... can we talk?" he asked you nodded as the two of you got on the elevator to the roof. You could feel him still leering at you as you arrived at your stop. 

"So..wha- what are you doing?!" You asked watching Keigo pinching your arm hard! and realized he was trying to invoke a reaction, but it was useless task as all it did was annoy you, this was the first thing people do when they find out about your chromosome 6 deletion, checking and seeing if you were faking it, Keigo felt panic bubble in his belly as he observed your reaction... or rather your lack of reaction. "Keigo..." You yelped suddenly feeling something tickling you under you chin, causing you to squirm and whimper as you tried not to burst out giggling.

You looked and saw the feather necklace Keigo had given you to be the culprit. "St-stop Keigo! stop!" When he heard you laugh, the blond relaxed, when the doc said you couldn't feel pain... he started wondering if your other senses were numb too, *of course that would be dumb!* he thought thinking back on how you react during sex and how you were acting now, pretty told him that everything else running fine. "Why didn't you tell me about this Chromosome thing?" You pretty much explained how you were, well... scared wasn't the right word, as you have no sense of the feeling, it was more like you were nauseous that his reaction would be negative... 

Hawk looked at you wide eyed. "Wait, you...can't feel fear?" He asked curiously you nodded explaining that you lack of pain has pretty much dampened your instinctive sense of self preservation, which why you tend to go on for so long in a fight even when things get dicey... "So that whimpering on the way over." you nodded. "I was trying not to laugh..." You said bluntly Hawks went oh then curiously asked if he had accidently hurt you during intimate moments? 

You were straight with him, he may have gone a little overboard during ruts, but nothing serious. Keigo didn't seem to like this answer. "Hey look at me." you huffed making gold eyes met your [y/ec] eyes. "I know you'd never hurt me on purpose, and if it makes you feel better you can check me over personally and pull me off patrol if you think somethings not right, does that work for you?" you waited as Hawks thought this over before nodding, The next day neither You nor Keigo were prepared for the tabloids headline: #2 Hero Hawks engaged to Bionic woman! You both cringed at the tacky tile!

=====================

Bakugou: "Stop you idiot!" Katsuki shouted as he watched you get up after one his explosions had sent you flying and crashing into one of the simulation buildings on the training field, as you looked around bemused as everyone was panicking, Toshinori aka your dad and Aizawa came up to you worried, the black haired teacher used his scarf as a bandage on you profusely bleeding head... which you just noticed. "Get a stretcher!" the teacher ordered.

"I don't need one I can wal-" Bakugou cut you off. "Get on the fucking stretcher Y/n!" You robotically obeyed as the medical team carried you to Recovery-Girl, who just shook her head when she saw you come in, she knows about your condition. "Y/n back again today, I'm started to wonder if you and Midoriya are related?" she teased causing you sweat-drop as Bakugou listened intently, and was very confuse when the old lady said this wasn't your first visit today....

"Oi, what exactly was she talkin' about?" the blonde huffed eyeing you suspiciously and was put off by you lack of reaction over your injuries. It didn't take a doctor to know that the knockback from his explosion should've cracked your skull and may have also broken your back, when you hit that building. "Oh, I had a little fall earlier, nothing to worry about."  you said nonchalantly Your dad who was trying to keep himself from coughing up blood on the other hand spoke up. "I wouldn't call getting hit by a car a "Little fall" Y/n." Katsuki's eyes widened, oh if looks could kill. "YOU WERE HIT BY A CAR AND DIDN'T TELL ME?!" He bellowed as All-might jumped back in shock while You stared at your boyfriend with a blank expression. 

He was frothing at the mouth as you listened to the blond rage like a chihuahua on caffeine, you looked at you dad having a metal conversation with the honey blond skeleton who nodded giving you the okay! you were gonna tell your boyfriend about your condition...With a sigh you calmly reached up and pinched Katsuki's nose between your index and middle finger. "Breath damn you!" you hissed the ash blond stilled and looked at you with annoyance for being interrupted. 

"I get that you're angry... But you need to know something." Katsuki let out an inquisitive growl as you looked at him seriously. "I can't feel any of this... at all." You chortled his red eyes widened as you continued. "I was born with a rare Condition, Chromosome 6 deletion?" You looked at your dad, Toshinori nodded you let go of Bakugou's nose. as your dad continued. " In short Y/n can't feel pain, fatigue or hunger, so naturally she lacks a sense of fear." Recovery girl returned wiped the blood off your forehead, and kissed your cheek a few seconds later your head was healed, Katsuki stayed silent as he absorbed everything you and All-Might had told him the teen was really quiet which worried you.  

Your dad sensed the tension and suggested the two of you go for a walk and talk this out, it was silent as you and Katsuki walked to a different part of the school that was more private, You turned to face you and were met with a fist flying at you! then stopping a few inches from your face, You didn't even flinch just gave him the same impassive expression from earlier. "If that was supposed to get a scream out me of you failed...royally." you hummed as as the blond frowned putting his fist down you can’t feel fear, even Half-n- Half’s eyes twitch when Katsuki psych’s him out!

"Why didn't you say anything anything about this?" he asked voice hoarse from yelling, You hummed trying finds the right words. "Well let's just say back in middle school I had a bad fricken time, kids can be cruel! you hummed not going into details on how others would exploit your medical condition for their own twisted fun. "I was...Scared is not the word, Sick the thought of you reacting the same as them made me feel sick." you were surprise when Katsuki pulled you close resting you head against his chest. "I would never hurt you like those brats did." he huffed wrapping his arms around your waist.

"Don't shut me out like that again," he kisses you nose causing you to blush. "fucking tell me if you think somethings wrong so I don't have to worry about your ass!" he huffed keeping one of his arms around you as you two walked back to class. After that Katsuki was a tad more protective of you often asking where that scratch/bruise came from? and checking to make sure you haven't broken anything during class or missions he was like Toshinori 2.0...

[beskar-cowboy]

A Close Call

Part Three of The Best Things Dwell Out of Sight Series

Summary: After bounty hunting in the jungle, Mando comes back to the Crest with many pent up... feelings. (6k words) ao3 link here

Warnings: NSFW, smut, canon typical violence, descriptions of injuries, blood, yearning, mutual pining, rough sex, the helmet stays ON, breeding kink if you squint cause its Mando, also no season 2 spoilers

A/N: this series will be uploaded in a non-linear order! i realize that this way of doing things might not be everyone’s favourite so please let me know if you would like to be notified when all the parts are uploaded (which will be linearly in my masterlist) <3

The sweltering heat was heavy, drowning you in your own sweat as you walked deeper into vines, tall grass and thick foliage of the unfamiliar jungle.

The air was humid, the forest vast and dense, filled with shades of greens that you never thought you’d experience with your own eyes. You were seeing colours you had only previously dreamt of. It was such a stark contrast to the ice planet you had been on maybe a week prior to this. You weren’t sure which extreme you preferred but you were not the biggest fan of the way the humidity was making your hair puff out, curl exaggeratedly and stick to your neck and forehead with the sheen layer of sweat coated on every inch of your body. Your clothes were beginning to stick to your skin as well.

Mando was a fan of that, however. Yet the helmet gave away nothing, as always. 

The moment you landed on the planet, he noticed the way your chest heaved, taking in the supple, fresh air for the first time. The look of wonder in your eyes, taking in the flora and fauna you could only have only ever dreamed of previous to this. You were very endearing, it made his heart feel heavy, tense, as if you were squeezing it in your perfect little hand, bleeding him dry.

You couldn’t believe this was your life now; travelling with a deadly bounty hunter, caring for him and his adoptive child day and night. What was even stranger, perhaps, was that you were having the time of your life.

No matter how cold Mando could be, how rude, closed off or just straight up silent he could get some days. You wouldn’t trade it for anything. This was much better than your life on that dingey planet, working that dead end job in the scummiest bar in town. You tried not to think too much of your past, but you couldn’t help the few untamed thoughts that crossed your mind every now and then. You shrugged them off with relative ease, usually being whisked away in some task the Mandalorian asked you to complete, or by the cries of the Child.

No matter how hard the days could get, no matter how lonely you felt some nights, you were thankful for the loving affection of the kid, you were thankful for how much he seemed to care for you. And you cared for him in return. Not because it was what you signed up for, to more or less be his babysitter, but because you truly cared and maybe even loved the little green booger like he was your own. He was very sweet, kind, curious and reckless like Mando. You liked how they seemed so similar in some strange little ways, it made your heart feel heavy.

Heavy with some emotion you wouldn’t dare name because it would only fuck you up further, fuck up the missions, fuck up your tasks, fuck up everything. That sickening feeling you got in the pit of your stomach everytime you caught Mando talking to the Child, staring at him sweetly, catching the way he seemed to stare at you sometimes too. At least you think he was. Whatever, that helmet made it near impossible to ever tell what he was thinking, feeling or even just looking at.

No matter how little he was actually beginning to warm up to you, he was still extremely apprehensive and closed off. He had his moments of perceived kindness, gentleness or whatever it really was, but he always seemed to take five steps back when he realized he had been too vulnerable with you. 

You couldn't blame him though, he was on the run from people who were trying to take the kid from him, or busy chasing after bounties himself, he didn’t have time for… whatever it was you were feeling. Whatever emotion you were terrible at suppressing, you know without a doubt that Mando didn’t have time for such trivial, childish things.

You huff and look down to your side, the Child’s pod floating seamlessly along your side, the two of you just a few steps behind Mando.

The Mandalorian was tracking a bounty and he said there was a good chance he’d be on this jungle planet seeking refuge with a friend or something like that. You had literally begged him to come along, not wanting to spend another day alone in the ship with the Child. It had taken a few days to get here, and you desperately needed to stretch your legs and breathe some fresh air. Mando was reluctant, very reluctant, but after enough begging and pouting from you he allowed for the two of you to come along, figuring it would be a pretty easy quest anyways.

Oh how he was wrong about that.

His visor display was showing multiple footsteps having walked in the same direction that the three of you were now walking. The footsteps were strange, seeming to be left by a herd of long bodied, four legged animals. Mando had no way of knowing if they were a threat or not, but he had a feeling he’d be finding out soon enough. The Child’s safety and… and yours was not something he felt like gambling with today.

Mando stopped dead in his tracks and you nearly walked right into him, having been engrossed in a more or less one-sided conversation with the Child.

“Head back to the ship.” Mando commanded, his voice trying to give the sense that there was no room for discussion. He barely even turned around to glance at you, but you noticed his hand hovering over his blaster.

“Why? What’s wrong?” Your own hand now hovers over your own blaster, technically Mando’s but he had trusted you to wield it after that one stunt back on Batuu when you saved him and the Child.

“Animals. Too many of them, you’ll be safer on the Crest.” He turns to glance at the Child who coos back up at him, his ears turning downwards as if he too knows of the animals which creep up on the three of you.

“No, I can stay and fight. I’m not leaving.” You, I’m not leaving you, you want to add. But you bite your tongue.

You can’t see because of the hemet but Mando is rolling his eyes at you, at your stubbornness but also your resilience. How eager you are to stand by and help him almost blindly. He doesn’t doubt that you judge him or criticize him in your mind, but he doesn’t think he’s ever heard a negative comment leave your mouth. You’re always sweet to him. Sweet girl.

“Our job is to take care of the Child, make sure he’s safe,” He huffs, pressing a few buttons on his vambrace and suddenly the Child’s pod is floating away at a leisurely pace, back in the direction you’ve just come from. “Follow it back to the ship, close the hatch and do not leave until I’ve returned.”

You glare at Mando and how he’s given you no choice but to head back to the ship. There was no way you’d leave the Child floating unattend, and without Mando’s directions, you had no way of finding the ship again on your own. You sigh but turn on your heels after the pod, following its lead through the jungle and back to the Crest like Mando had programmed it to.

//

It’s been hours.

Or at least it feels like it’s been hours. You aren’t aware of the planet’s day cycles so you have no idea if it's been minutes, hours or days but it was dark now and you’d been trying to keep the kid occupied, distracted from the fact that his dad wasn’t here and you had no idea when he would be.

Luckily, the Child was in an agreeable mood so he was distracted pretty easily, playing with various shiny things that he usually reached for on the ship. You made him a couple of snacks with what you managed to find stashed away, he took a nap and you cleaned up the tiny mess he made. Overall, a pretty good day for him.

You on the other hand, were fucking stressed.

It was dark, really dark, and Mando hadn’t even contacted you on the comlink, not that he even did that before but you think that if he comes back- no, when he comes back - you’re definitely going to make that a new rule.

The Child was rocking sweetly in your arms, you had been trying to get him to fall asleep for the past thirty minutes and he was finally getting a bit dopey. Those big eyes of his seeming to get heavier, his blinks growing slower. His little hand was wrapped around your thumb and you quietly hummed a random song to him, maybe it was one your mother sang to you, you’re not quite sure but it seems to be doing the trick.

You can hear small disturbances outside the hatch and you use your hand which isn’t holding the Child to hover over your- Mando’s blaster. You lean against the wall, blaster in hand, hoping, praying it’s him.

Please be him, please be him, please be him.

The hatch groans as it releases its locks and opens slowly to the ever humid jungle. That familiar beskar glints and shines in the moonlight like a precious jewel. You exhale a much needed sigh of relief, Mando was back.

You tuck the blaster back into your holster as you watch him roundup the quarry into the ship, pushing him aggressively up the inclination. He stands wide, broad and big as he does his job. He’s tired and annoyed, you can tell. You can always tell, but he’s strong too, always strong.

The quarry’s hands are shackled, his face beat up and bloodied. Mando really did a number on him… 

The quarry’s eyes meet yours, take in the sight before him, a beautiful young girl cradling a strange little green baby. He seems confused, he looks back to the intimidating Mandalorian inquisitively. It’s the last thing he sees before he’s frozen into carbonite.

You say something something to him, to Mando. You sound worried, but he can barely make it out. He had seen the way the quarry’s eyes racked the length of your body, landing on the Child as well. Mando saw red, his adrenaline still pumping heavy and potent in his veins, coursing through his body from the chase, the act of hunting. 

So much so, that he hadn’t even realized he had come to tower over you, caging you in against the wall which you had been leaning against.

You look up at him with wide, worried eyes, you look flustered, lips red and swollen. He wants to touch you, he… he wants to do more than touch you-

The Child’s sleepy cooing breaks him out of his wicked mind. He looks down at the kid who reaches for him sleepily with his tiny hands, eyes half closed. He takes him from you, out of your motherly hold. Your hands brush and he wishes he wasn’t wearing gloves.

“W-What did you say?” He finally asks, remembering you had said something to him and he heard absolutely nothing.

“I said your arm is bleeding, Mando.” Voice so small, gentle. 

Mando huffs, barely acknowledging it before he steps away from you, turning to the Child’s pod and placing him gently inside. It closes with a hiss. You suck in a shuddering breath.

Mando rummages around for a few moments before pulling out his tool kit, sitting down on the edge of his cot and pulling out his taser-like contraption. You watch almost dumbfounded, trying to piece together what exactly it is he’s doing. He reaches for the tear in the thick material of his sleeve, pulling on it and tearing it further to better show off his wound and his… his skin.

Flesh. Mando’s arm.

Maybe you weren’t supposed to be looking, maybe you were breaking his creed by seeing part of his skin but you couldn’t look away, and he made no motion for you to do so either. So you stand transfixed as he begins to shoddily cauterize his tanned skin.

“L-Let me help you, please.” You take a step forward, towards him, hands reaching out.

“I’m fine.” He basically growls at you, his rough tone startling you, stopping you in your tracks.

So you stand by idly, watching him burn his own skin, attempting to close his open wound.

You only interject again when he starts taking longer breaks between each electrifying tase. When his hand starts to shake and his movements slow down, motivation and determination leaving him as he slowly accepts the pain of the deep gash on his arm, blood trailing down his toned bicep.

“Here…” You say quietly again, hoping he listens to you this time. You reach into the tool kit, pulling out his bacta gel before coming to stand in front of him, your knees grazing his bent one from where he sits on the edge of his cot. 

He seems to have listened, his movements having stopped, the taser held weakly in his hand. You take it from him, setting it back in the metal box before zeroing in on his bleeding cut.

You shudder at the sudden proximity, his pent up adrenaline and anger palpable, intoxicating. It lays thick and heavy in the air between your two bodies. Your hands shake as you gently douse the wound with the gel, trying to stay focused, trying to get the bleeding to stop. You fingers brush gingerly along toned, scarred skin and you try, you try so fucking hard to focus. To not let your fingers linger, not let them wander to regions unknown to any other living thing.

Mando groans as it begins to seep into the wound and you wince as well, feeling his pain as your own. You mumble a quiet ‘I’m sorry’ but continue to apply the thick substance to his bicep. 

His gloved hand suddenly shoots out and latches onto your hip bone, fingers grasping the clothed flesh in a deadly grip, as if trying to ground himself to you, to the ship, to ignore the throbbing pain. You didn’t realize it would hurt that bad, maybe it went deeper than you thought. 

When you’re finally done with the gel, you turn slightly to get some gauze to wrap the wound in. Mando’s touch never leaves you, his hand seemingly welded into your form. His thumb begins to absentmindedly rub up and down in soothing motions, you try to ignore the way it makes your heart pound but… but it's not really a big deal is it? No, Mando’s touched you before, what's so different about it now?

The air? The tension? The way he looks up at you, through that mask, begging to be seen?

God, you wonder what colour his eyes are.

You bet they’re soft, beautiful, kind. They probably give away how secretly gentle he is, something no one else would notice or dare assume about the deadly Mandalorian, but you know. You know because he’s been touching you more lately, especially since the ice planet. Just passing touches but still, you can’t imagine how much significance a simple touch holds for a man covered head to toe in armour, and who’s never shown his face to another living being in decades.

“Who are you?”

His voice startles you. It’s dropped several octaves since he last spoke, it felt like hours had passed since he last spoke- or more, growled at you.

“What?”

“What are you? H-How do you do this to me?” He helmet tilts to the side as he gazes up at you and your heart fucking pounds in its cage, trying to escape and expose itself to this metal man, expose everything you’ve been feeling since you met him.

“Mando-” You don’t understand what he’s saying, he’s not making any sense. Could the pain really be that bad? Making him this incoherent?

“You’re not real… you’re too good, to us, too good to the child… to me-” He was rambling. Mando was rambling. When has he ever spoken this much to you before?

Never.

“You’re good to me too.” You interject meekly.

“But not as sweet… not as sweet as you.” His words make your next intake of breath sharper than usual, no doubt he catches it by the way his helmet tilts up further. You wonder if he’s looking you in the eyes. It sure feels like he is.

“I-I don’t know what I would do if, if anything happened to-” His fingers tense on your hip as he lulls over his words, tossing them around on his tongue, afraid. “The Child… or you.”

“You keep us safe Mando.” You try to reassure him, but you’re not sure if he’s listening. His left hand joins his right one, both sides of your hips now engulfed in his large, strong hands. You throb everywhere, your body pulses for him.

Mando thinks about just letting his helmet fall forward, to let it rest against the softness of your belly but.

But he can’t. He’s too fucking scared. You scare him more than anything. More than any unknown animal in an unfamiliar jungle, more than any quarry, bounty chase, Mythosaur. More than anything, you scare him more than anything because this is the only domain Mando truly always fucks up. Feelings or whatever the fuck going on in his head right now.

“You take such good care of us.” He says, deflecting your words.

He pulls on your hips and you rock forward, almost losing your balance but your hands come forward to lean against his beskar covered shoulders, dropping the gauze you held. You shudder at the cool bite of the metal on your warm, overheating palms. Mando barely budged at your added weight, and you look down at him from where you now tower over him.

Your eyes rake over the sharp edges of his helmet in the low light of the hatch, down to his wound which still needs to be wrapped up but he was... Seriously distracting you for lack of a better word. You notice the heave of his chest, the heavy fall of his breaths like he’s having trouble getting oxygen into his body. And then you notice- you notice the bulge forming underneath his thick pants.

Mando takes you in as you do the same, watching as you finally notice his state, finally notice what you do to him. What you’ve been doing to him since the moment he met you.

“Take your pants off.”

You think your brain short circuits.

Because there’s no way that’s what Mando has more or less just ordered you to do, judging by his harsh tone.

“Wha-”

“Take them off or I will.” He groans, hands squeezing your hips again.

You whimper and bite your lip, trying to see through the pitch black T of his visor, trying to find the man underneath the beskar. You remove your trembling hands from his shoulders, standing up straighter and letting them travel down, down, down towards the button and fly of your utility pants.

“M-Mando, I-”  

“Don’t make me ask you again, sweet girl.” You whimper at the nickname, it wasn't the first time he used it but this was probably only the third time at this point. With his thumbs relentlessly caressing your hip bones, you shiver underneath his touch.

You had been dreaming of this for months now, dreaming of his hands on you, sexual or not, you were so deprived of intimacy, having gone months now only barely touching, grazing each other. You both needed this, both needed this more than fucking anything esle right now and you were no one to deny him of what he wanted.

Mando keeps the helmet trained on you as your nimble fingers pry the button open, admiring how easily persuaded you were by his thick, lust-laced words. He couldn’t believe he had managed to draw this out as long as he did, his urge to just tear your clothing away from your body and sink his raging cock into your tight heat the moment he entered the Crest was…. overwhelming to say the least.

But he had barely touched you up until now, and he wanted to work you up to it, no matter how much restraint that meant he had to have on his part.

The sound of your metal zipper sliding down below your belly button tests that restraint. He keeps his eyes on you even though he knows you wouldn't be able to tell where he’s looking. He knows you feel it, knows you feel the way his eyes burn holes into you, devouring you silently, pleading with you, please, please show me.

He feels your hands come to rest over top of his gently, as if you’re still nervous about touching him. You interlace your fingers with his and lower your pants, shimmying them down your hips and thighs together. It makes Mando’s breath catch in his throat and his heart pummel in his chest. 

Never had he undressed someone before. Never had the patience, never cared to. But with you, oh with you.

Maker, did he care.

Maybe cared too much, but now was not the time for such ill inducing thoughts. You were becoming more and more bare to him as the seconds passed. You only let go of his hands once your pants went past your knees. Pushing them down to your ankles, you stepped out of them, kicking off your boots as well.

There you were, standing before him in a black tank top and that fucking thong of yours… of course that’s what you had decided to wear today. Mando groans as his hands come up to touch you again, tentatively this time. He can’t believe you were allowing him this, letting him touch you, letting yourself be vulnerable with him when he wasn’t sure how ready he was to be vulnerable in return.

Maybe he could learn.

His hands travel up to your hips again, toying with the thin waistband of your panties, letting his gloved hand run along your pristine flesh that was once covered in ugly bruises. He-

He thinks he wants to be the only thing to bruise you. From now on, he made a promise to himself (and to you, secretly) that he was the only thing in this galaxy that could mark you up, claim you.

Mando’s hands travel back, reaching for the supple meat of your ass, clutching it in his large hands, kneading it before he pushes you forwards again, into him. You yelp as you land in his lap, catching yourself quickly as both of your knees rest on either side of his hips. You readjust and sit back down, your minimally clothed cunt coming to land on his hard bulge, you gasp, eyes wide as you look into his visor. He was so hard, he felt big too.  

“S-Sorry I didn’t mean to-”

“What are you apologizing for now, hmm?” He asks tauntingly, helmet tilting slightly to the side, as if he were considering you. 

His gloved hands come up your sides, going underneath your tank top and brushing along the underside of your breasts, feeling the tight skin. You unintentionally rock in his lap, creating friction on your already embarrassingly wet center. Mando’s hands tighten at your sides, groaning as he tries to still your movements but. But it feels too fucking good to stop.

He brings a gloved finger to your lips, running the worn leather over the pillowy flesh as if to let you taste it. You look at him, confused.

“Bite.” He instructs, voice clipped, sharp. 

Without needing further instruction, your teeth latch onto the absolute tip of his glove, letting him slip his hand out of its leather confines, revealing to you the most precious amount of skin of his you’ve ever seen. 

Tanned skin, thick fingers, large palm, perfect. Him. The urge to litter the rough calloused skin in kisses, lick his entire hand, just put the whole fucking thing in your mouth was all consuming. Yet you sat there in his lap staring at his hand like it was a vase of water and you were a flower, parched for water. He asked you to do the same with the other glove and of course, you did as he asked. You quickly found yourself wanting to please him.

You stared at his bare, rough, strong hands in awe, watched as he let them peek underneath your thin top to skim along your silky smooth flesh, an expanse unknown to him. His fingertips brush over your nipples, feeling how the pretty buds pebble for him. He twists and pulls them in between his fingers, watching the way your face contorts in pain and in pleasure. It’s his new favourite thing, he feels drunk off of you already.

“Please.” You aren’t quite sure what you’re begging for, Mando isn’t really sure either. But he knows one thing, and it's that the sweet sound of your voice, begging for him, begging for anything, just so desperate, was enough to make him cum in his pants. His fingers dig into your skin, trying to cool his overheating mind, trying to slow down a bit before he actually does cum in his pants, before he’s even properly seen you.

His bare hands come down to your panties, toying with them again between his agile fingers.

“You want this?” He asks, daringly pushing your panties to the side, getting the smallest glimpse and your slicked up and drenched pussy. He thinks he could die right now, die happy, never want anything, ask for anything again.

“Yeah, yeah I do, always- have.” You choke on a hiccup, emotions welling in your eyes already from how fucking built up all of this is. You feel like you were both about to burst at the seams. You still couldn’t believe this was happening, even if it were to stop now and not progress any further, you couldn’t believe he had allowed you this much of him.

Mando wraps his arm around you completely, gripping your waist tightly to spin you around, pinning you underneath him in the tight space of his cot. You gasp, shriek at the sensation of it all, as he comes to rut against you, grinding his thick bulge into your cunt.

You notice how his arm has begun to bleed again, the skin ripping open and the deep red liquid trickling down what little part of his bicep was exposed, further proving his humanity, exposing the man beneath the beskar. You really felt like you could cry.

Lost in your whirlwind, Mando pulls off your thong, throwing it somewhere unpreciously behind him before doing the same thing with your tank top. Completely vulnerable, you laid bare before him as he hovered above you, covered head to toe, save for his hands, in beskar. That fact alone made you throb deep inside. The sheer power and size of him enough to get you off. 

You knew what little he had already decided to show you was all he could afford, you were so grateful for it anyway, that he was even willing to show you his hands, the little glimpse of his bicep. His skin was beautiful, but you couldn’t possibly grasp the words to tell him.

So you hook your legs around his backside and pull him to you, silently begging him to do something, anything. You would take anything he gave you, you’d even thank him for it at this point.

“Fuck.” Mando growls, bare hands coming to work at unbuttoning his pants, pulling them low enough to pull out his engorged, thick cock.

Mando was… he was huge.

This came hardly as a surprise to you, however. You would have had to be blind to not noticed how he walked. He walked like it was big, talked like it was big, fought like it was big. But fuck.

You were not prepared for that.

“Mando, I-I don’t know if it’ll-”

“It will.”

You moan and arch your back towards him, needing it now, needing that sweet burn and stretch that you know is about to come.

And oh does it come.

Mando thrusts into you without further warning, giving you no time or preparation to adjust to what he was packing. 

He makes you take it. He makes it fit.

The stretch burns, it bites and it knocks every single breath and thought from your body as he nestles himself all the way up against your cervix. Your body convulses in retreat, trying to push him away from the aggressive intrusion but your mind wants more, needs more. Needs him to fucking split you in half on his cock.

You scream and Mando growls, loud, his helmet falling forward and resting in the crook of your shoulder which meets your neck. His helmet is cold and your skin is burning hot, it creates a fog on his visor and he desperately tries to wipe it off on your skin, trying to look at you so up close. The way your eyes screw shut, squeezing tears out, watching the beautiful dew drops roll down your cheek so perfectly.

It hurts. Maker, does it hurt but fuck does it feel good. The pleasure overrides the pain more than you could imagine and you find yourself begging him to give you more even though he’s already started thrusting into you like he’s on a mission, a mission to sever you in half with his cock.

He was surely succeeding.

Mando watches you cry in pleasure as he fucks into your pussy with such aggressive fervour, like someone had a gun to his head. One hand on your hip and the other around your neck, bruising your skin in that beautiful way he always wanted, how he always dreamed of. He holds you in place so that his hips don’t drive you up his cot because they surely would from how fucking deep and hard he’s pounding into you. Stars, you think you can feel him in your stomach, in your throat.

The hand on your hip travels up to one of your bouncing breasts, kneading the sotf flesh in his palm and watching you wither beneath him. So desperate -

“S-so helpless.” He moans, watching your body bend to his will beneath him.

“Mando- oh my god.” You cry, hands and arms flailing at your sides, not knowing where to put them. Mando sees your struggle and takes both of your hands into each of his, pinning them above your head and using it to drive into you even harder somehow.

Your pussy squelches obscenely, trying to suck him in deeper, keep him inside forever. The only sounds in the cot are fucking lewd, skin on skin rhythmically slapping. You pray the Child can’t hear any of this from inside his pod, you pray he’s asleep.

“So fucking wet... You’d let me do anything, wouldn’t you?” You nod your head so fast you think you’d give yourself whiplash.

“A-Anything, anything Mando- fuck.” That familiar coil was beginning to tighten in your belly, your toes curling, fisting gripping onto his, no doubt cutting off some of his circulation.

Eyes rolling into the back of your head, your chest arches up, up, up your breasts rubbing against unforgiving beskar. 

Underneath said beskar, Mando felt like he wasn’t getting nearly enough oxygen into his helmet, his skin flushing underneath the heavy armour but the pleasure rolling off of you and into him would be enough to sustain him for hours, he thinks.

Your pussy was squeezing him so tight, the ridges of your inner walls so soft, warm, wet, inviting. You felt like home. Absolutely fucking drenched, no wonder you were able to take him whole with almost zero preparation, you had fucking wanted it that way. Wanted him to be rough like this.

“I’ll never leave- never leave this sweet pussy...” He moans, hips stuttering, rolling and grinding deeper and deeper and you felt your orgasm quickly approaching, his words were only bringing you that much closer.

“Please, I- I…”

“Cum for me ner mesh’la, need you to cum for me.” He groans, cool and sharp edges of his helmet resting on your cheekbone.

You envisioned the faceless man deep inside you, what his face must look like now, deep in the throes of pleasure only inches from yours. You pictured the tanned skin covering his entire body head to toe, flushed and splotchy, hot to the touch. 

Would his eyes screw shut? Would his mouth hang open, little pants, groans, moans slipping through swollen lips, only loud enough for the ears of his lover to hear?

Your legs wrapped tightly around his waist, you try to look into his visor as your orgasm wipes your mind blank, eyes screwing shut, an endless stream of tears falling onto already damp cheeks as you moan and cry his name into the tight space of his cot.

Mando.

Mando.

Mando.

You don’t think you could recall anything if anyone asked you. Not the name of the planet you were currently on, not the name of the planet you were born on, the bar you used to work at, your old bosses name, your name. Nothing.

With two, three, four more thrusts, Mando’s hips still after he drills himself into the deepest and darkest parts of your hot cunt, spilling white hot cum into you with the lowest moan you think you’ve ever heard flowing deep from within his chest. You gasp at the sensation, that warm pleasant feeling of being absolutely stuffed full, somehow more than you already were.

He draws his cock out before pushing it back in, plugging you up with his cum, pushing it deeper and deeper inside of you. You cry, bordering on overstimulation, his cock only softening in the slightest so the hard intrusion was almost too much for you to bear.

“Fuck Mando I’m- I don’t have the implant..” You whimper, suddenly worried, voice coming out uneven with your ragged breaths. 

Mando feels another surge of blood to his cock at your words, groaning as his dick twitches and thrusting into you a few more times…. For-

For good measure, he thinks.

Not that he would necessarily want that right now but fuck. Fuck did the mere idea of it make him painfully hard against his own will. You…. swollen with-

“Fuck.” He growls, pulling away from you a bit to better look down at you. Your eyes are shiny, lashes coated thick and wet with your precious tears. Lips swollen, chest flushed. You look worried, but beautiful. His. 

Mando remembers your old job at the bar…. Wouldn’t they have made it mandatory for all the girls to have the implant to prevent them from getting pregn-

“But- your job, you-?”

“I didn’t do that, I didn’t fuck them… just drinks.” You smile up softly at him due to fatigue, bashful nonetheless. 

Mando likes that, it puts him at ease in some fucked up way to know that those men in those types of places couldn’t get too far with you, even if they wanted.

“We can, I can get it for you on the next planet if- if that’s what you want?” He asks, hips still gently thrusting into you and you start to see stars behind your eyelids. You whimper, feeling his cum mix with your and gush back onto his cock and down the backs of your thighs.

“O-okay… thank you.” Mando nods but says nothing, pulling his cock from your fluttering pussy. You gasp at the sudden loss, feeling terribly empty and used. More cum dribbles from you and you quickly cup your cunt with your palm, trying to stop it from leaking everywhere on his cot.

Moving quicker than you would have expected him to, Mando stands up straight and tucks his wet cock back into his pants before walking away abruptly. You, however, barely notice as you lay flat on your back, head staring up at the ceiling with eyes closed, trying to catch your breath, regain some sense of self after getting all of it fucked out of you.

You’re made aware of Mando’s return by the touch of a warm and damp washcloth to your abused pussy. You gasp and sit up on your elbows, looking down the length of you to see the Mandalorian between your thighs, wiping away the mess that both of you made. Together.  

You want to thank him again but you can’t find the words within you, all of them lost to you because of this sudden display of dare you say affection.

“Stay here, gonna put us into hyperspeed. Once we’re up there, go clean up.” Mando orders softly, nodding his helmet at you. You nod back, still breathless, still shaking.

[sam-t-a]

Okay. 

*Deep breath* 

I think I’m finally calm enough to put into words exactly why I hated the finale and why I wasn’t completely surprised that I hated it. 

(Heads-up: this is really long and pretty negative. If you disagree, I would of course appreciate your point of view and love to hear it, but just thought I’d let you know in case this is the kind of post you would like to avoid.)

To me, it felt like every character on the show got betrayed in some way or another, but the main ones are Han Seo (devastatingly), Chayoung (obviously) and Han Seok (bear with me). 

Cha Young: 

She started out as a solid FL who annoyed some people for sure, but who had so much promise as someone unconventional and bold. The way her mother’s death affected her and caused a clear shift in her personality was a super interesting plot point that really never got explored. We have no idea how she came to sacrifice her morality in joining Wusang, just that she wanted to spite her father, which is a very superficial exploration. She gets cute idiosyncrasies in lieu of an actual character and an actual character arc. 

We also, halfway through the show, seem to forget that her father's death was the initial trigger. Cha young does not suggest bold ideas or intricate plans, she doesn’t fill the gaps Vincenzo is incapable of filling (because that would require that Vincenzo have flaws, and that’s not something the writers can abide), and she’s literally victimized in episode 19 and bedridden in episode 20, and that is IT. 

Someone who started out supposedly as Vincenzo’s equal just became another piece in his chess set, no matter how important a piece she may be. 

So her role as a badass avenger is trashed. That leaves her role as a love interest. Now, as Vincenzo’s love interest, she was supposed to get kidnapped in like episode 5 or 6 at the most if the villain has any brains whatsoever (Han Seok may or may not, more on that later). We need a reason for that not to happen too early. Cue villain is somehow in love with her for all of 15 minutes or so throughout a 20-episode series because a love triangle is inconceivable with the show’s current structure and for its purposes. 

So, she spends 15 or so episodes making the first move on Vincenzo, every time, putting herself out there, creating cute moments, getting nothing in return, and then he leaves. No confession, nothing much, he wasn’t even going to say goodbye or give her the choice of coming with him. 

I’m sure more chayenzo-oriented fans have already expressed all the necessary outrage over this, so I’ll move on to the part that I’ve personally been way more emotionally invested in from the get go: the Jang brothers. 

Han Seo: 

I was among the minority that  hated the “Vinny hyung” angle from the get-go and I’ve ranted about it in another post, so I won’t get into it here in-depth, but basically it was because I felt like Vincenzo hadn’t earned it, so to have the last words Han Seo hears be “You deserve to be my brother” or whatever the fuck he was on about PISSED ME OFF. It’s VINCENZO who doesn’t deserve to be Han Seo’s brother and hasn’t done a single thing to earn it. He was a good ally. The situation he allowed Han Seo to be a part of was beneficial to him, but Han Seo’s attachment to him was neither healthy nor heartwarming, and it certainly wasn’t returned on the level he offered it.

Vincenzo’s disregard of his death didn’t strike me as odd because I never saw enough indications that this was a two-way street and Han Seo’s safety and well-being came second so often that I didn’t get the impression Vincenzo was doing much to keep him alive. This is what I meant when I said the show was glorifying a torture survivor’s trauma responses. Han Seo himself, as a torture survivor, meant nothing to them. He was just there to create one more contrived comparison between Vincenzo and Han Seok. Instead of recovering from the trauma, it’s simply employed to someone else’s favor. He doesn’t go to prison for Han Seok, he takes a bullet for Vincenzo, and we’re supposed to see that as so much better.

All of that might (JUST MIGHT) not have ruined the show for me if he’d died better. 1) It was narratively pointless and totally avoidable, 2) they could’ve framed it as heroic, but instead Han Seok’s hand patting his head is pushing it down, so he can’t even get shot with his chin up and his back straight, Taec’s already taller, so the angle’s fucked and the whole cinematography screamed “kicking an injured puppy” and most certainly NOT “survivor finally stands up to his abuser”. The final nail in the proverbial and literal coffin is that he is mourned by no one. They’re FLIRTING not 3 MINUTES LATER, it felt so tone deaf and left such a bad taste. As I said, I didn’t expect significant mourning from Vincenzo (gotta say, I didn’t expect no mourning, that was a shocker), and Cha young and the tenants had no real interactions with him and no reason to mourn him, which left only one person who could. 

Which brings me to Han Seok. 

Han Seok started out as a solid villain, clear goals, clear skills that help him achieve his goals and basically make him a villain worth defeating, and a very complex relationship with both his own psychopathy and his brother. 

Let me get it out of the way: I do not believe Han Seok is capable of killing Han Seo because he had every reason and every opportunity to do so in previous episodes and couldn’t do it (I say couldn’t because a certain degree of reluctance is in itself inability). Han Seo’s danger far outweighed his material value the minute he shot Han Seok and then completely lost any value once he came out to the world as the chairman and it became clear that the prosecution would be going after him if anything happened, and not his brother. But time and again, he’s proven he’s all bark and no bite when it comes to Han Seo (killing-wise, specifically). 

The scene where he asks him to beat Vincenzo to death could be interpreted as him wanting to give Vincenzo the “painful death” he would have given him, but honestly, I think he was way past that point. He just wanted him dead in the “You crazy? we have to kill him before he kills us” sense. To that end, killing off a key ally of Vincenzo’s, who betrayed you and almost got you killed a bunch of times, should take priority, but Han Seok’s priority is reclaiming Han Seo by forcing him back onto his side. Now, much like his “love for Cha young”, Han Seok’s keenness on not killing his brother was essential to the writers so that Han Seo can justifiably make it this far and still be useful to Vincenzo (he can’t help if Han Seok completely excludes him from all events, plans and management processes, so Han Seok needs to want to keep him on his side enough not to do that even when it’s more prudent). 

All of this isn’t to say it’s unbelievable that he would kill Han Seo, but it’s DEFINITELY unbelievable that he would stay the same man after killing him. Someone here (I’m sorry, I don’t rememebr who) once said that Han Seo had become, over time, far more of a foil to his brother than Vincenzo was. To me, this means that Post-Han Seo Han Seok would be out of balance (tilted screen), unhinged in a way he never was before. The Han Seok we see shrugs and “oh, well”-s and moves on in a flash, not really any different from the villain he was four minutes and a whole brother earlier. 

This is very consistent with the way the show has been de-humanizing him from the start. I’m not saying this to defend Han Seok in any way, he’s a serial killer, an abuser and a total maniac. But you can be all those things and still a human being. In fact, you can ONLY be those things if you’re a human being. The show used its villain vs villain idea to justify a lot, but in the end, Vincenzo had to be a protagonist. He had to follow up every “I’m a villain” with a contrived “but at least I’m not (insert something worse)”. 

On the level of humans:

1) Vincenzo is supposedly different because he doesn’t hurt children or women (unless the women deserve it, and shooting a parent in front of their kid doesn’t count as hurting.) 

But we never see Han Seok hurting women or children either. In fact, if we proceed with the “chayoung is the myung hee of the good guys” comparison, he hasn’t hurt any women nearly as badly as Vincenzo did. 

2) Babel vs Mafia 

Babel’s corruption is compared a lot to the mafia, with Vincenzo commenting repeatedly that the people are WORSE than the mafia...which is bullshit. Babel is a set of companies that provide goods and services, but use illegal means to maximize their profit, so they hurt/kill people in the process because they want more money and care about money more than ethics. The Mafia is an inherently criminal organization that functions PURELY on the basis of its criminality. Every single dime Vincenzo spends is blood money. None of it is clean. And while we’re on the topic, I find the whole “taking Miri under his wing” thing pretty unreasonable too because he tried to have her killed you guys, I cannot believe we’re just glossing over that. He had everyone who worked on that vault killed, just random fucking construction workers. And he’s not sorry. And the show tells you he shouldn’t be. 

3) Repentance

Han Seok says outright he won’t atone, and while Vincenzo says no such thing out loud he just...doesn’t repent, I guess. He keeps the blood money, he goes back to being a full-time mafia dude doing mafia things. He leaves the same man he arrived. 

So, if on the level of harm inflicted upon humanity, Vincenzo and Han Seok are pretty much equal (and Vincenzo might actually be worse), then why should we root for Vincenzo? 

Well, my friend, that’s where the dehumanization comes in! 

I was initially very excited to see their portrayal of a psychopath because of the very interesting ways in which the informal moral code and official justice system surrounding a psychopath/sociopath/narcissist affect their behavior and their chances of not turning out rotten, and the show looked like it was looking at corruption in general. 

But as the show went on, the villain vs villain thing proved not to be enough, Vincenzo has to be better in some way (or if you’re as obsessed with him as the writers are, then ALL ways), so it became a villain vs monster narrative. Vincenzo isn’t ethical or fair or in any way interested in having a remotely positive impact on society, but at least he’s A HUMAN BEING unlike SOMEBODY. So, the characterization goes to shit, Han Seok becomes a cartoon card-board cut out of a villain and emphasis is put on how pointless his violence is, as opposed to how purposeful Vincenzo’s is. 

This is dangerous on multiple levels (and I promise this is the last point I’m making). 

1) For people in general, dehumanizing abusers/murderers/etc. makes us very liable to forget that you don’t have to be “a monster” to cause harm, and it makes people complacent in their belief that they are “not bad people” since they aren’t total monsters. The Banality of Evil is a thing, and in this series, it goes completely ignored. No one is inherently incapable of good or inherently undeserving of humanity. 

2) For victims of abuse in specific, it’s dangerous to portray abusers (including serial killer and non-serial killer ones) as entirely bad and unlovable, because it poses the dual risk of making victims less likely to acknowledge their abuse if it comes from someone who cares about or loves them on some level because the idea that someone cannot both love and hurt you is so stereotypical. Your abuser can genuinely want you in their lives and need you and, on some level, love you, and IT DOESN’T MATTER if that love doesn’t stop them from hurting you. 

On the other hand, portraying the victims of abuse as capable of flipping an off switch and hating the abuser with no hesitation or second thoughts to the point of unapologetically and cheerfully helping someone kill them and having no mixed feelings about it sends the message that if you CAN’T do that, then are you really abused? Are sure you’re not complicit in your own abuse? Do you even want to get rid of them? 

So this is basically why the way the show ended was so painfully disappointing for me. And the main reason it hit so hard was that it was initially so good and had so much promise. I really expected more.

[floralovebot]

I'd love to read more about what you think about how often they get in trouble! And since you said Riven would get flack for Musa's songs, do you think he'd get flack for having dated Darcy?

FUCK YEAH DUDE

Fair warning, this is a bit long!

So, for the Winx, I said that most to least likely to get in trouble was Musa, Stella - Bloom, Flora, Tecna, and then Aisha. And for the Specialists, I said Riven, Sky, Brandon, Helia, and then Timmy. Again, I do think who's the most hated greatly depends on the planet and culture, so how often they get into trouble also depends on this (for instance, Stella having a more laid back approach to certain things may get her in trouble on Zenith, but not on Solaria).

Musa: The classic problematic. It's not that she's a bad person, she's just in the news a lot. Sometimes it's about another heartbreak song, sometimes it's about a fight she had with Riven in public, sometimes it's about her dry humor and sarcasm being interpreted as mean, and other times it's about some vague tweet she wrote and never deleted. She advocates for a lot of good stuff and definitely uses her platform to try and change things so she's not the worst celebrity out there, but she also tends to speak before she knows everything and that can occasionally be a problem. She fiercely defends the others when they get into trouble and constantly vagues "news sources" (aka drama sites) so people still view her as a little negative by proxy. (Also, some people think her being a fairy of music gave her an unfair advantage in the music industry and that she isn't actually talented.)

Stella - Bloom: I'm putting them on the same level because I think they're both fairly similar in how often they get into drama. As princesses who often get involved in things, their every movement is under scrutiny. Stella handles it a lot better than Bloom due to her media training and being watched since she was young.

Bloom usually tries to stay out of the negative spotlight but that often makes her seem avoidant of important issues. She does speak up about things but it's usually after days of editing and rewriting her words so she gets accused of only talking about something because people wanted her to. She also tends to get nervous answering anything about politics or Domino so that makes people reluctant to listen to her words. Then there's the obvious drama with Sky. While they aren't as public as Rivusa, things get out quickly and when they're in a heated moment they tend to forget about their surroundings. People from Eraklyon tend to hate both of them because Bloom is "too loud and angry and just being rude" and Sky is "forgetting his place and rising to the challenge, not a great sign for a future king". On the flip side, Bloom has saved the magical universe multiple times and continues to do so. Basically, she's one of those celebrities that you either really love or really hate.

Stella is another classic problematic! Again, it's not that she's a bad person, she just gets noticed a lot. People accuse her of being classist and ignorant just because she's royalty. They also hate whenever she spends a lot of money on things like clothing and makeup because it's seen as a wasted expense (since most of her money pre-S3 was coming from her parents). People absolutely see her as a spoiled brat that can't read the room and doesn't deserve to be queen. Stella often tries to prove those ideas wrong in very subtle ways because she knows outright denying them would only further the problem. But just like the others, she spends a lot of time advocating for the good and for the better. She also cares deeply about her friends and it's obvious to everyone, even the people that hate her. So while she is in the news a lot, most people can see through it and support her. But she does still get into trouble for her shopping sprees. Her spending a lot of money on things is largely why people sometimes have trouble being on her side. It's almost always seen as a spoiled princess move and a large factor in why people think she's classist and/or ignorant.

Flora: Flora is interesting because a lot of people initially assume that because she's a very shy and nice girl that she won't get into any drama. So it's a complete surprise when she argues with people online and starts calling people out. She's often fighting for the right thing and she rarely gets her facts wrong, but people hate getting called out and they hate it when someone they think should be quiet and nice goes to town on their ass. Even the people that agree with her often think she's too aggressive in her replies (while others think her tone is fine). Flora also isn't extremely open about her personal life outside of fighting crime with the Winx so that doubles her online persona as being just mean and "too political". People say that she should just stick to watering plants and leave the politics to the actual politicians. She responds by calling them hypocrites since they were just asking for celebrities to use their platforms. She gets called out for thinking she's a celebrity. She responds that she has a large platform and people follow her for her work. It's just a constant cycle and she never runs out of things to say (which isn't bad, but it always gets her into trouble). Tbh, I can also see the exact opposite where Flora just doesn't get involved in anything because she's too busy posting pictures of her plants and random dogs she sees but, I think eventually the need to defend her friends would win out and once she gets a little taste of activism, she wouldn't stand down (yknow how she constantly berates the Winx for wanting to attack the controlled animals? Basically like that. She has very strong moral opinions).

Tecna: I had some trouble with this because I almost wanted to put her last but overall I think her general personality would get her into trouble more than what happens with Aisha. Tecna is often blunt and she doesn't necessarily hide when she doesn't like something. So sometimes reporters will come up to her and ask her a question and she'll just hit them with an "I don't want to talk to you." and then walks away. Tecna doesn't see anything wrong with this because she views being honest to the media as relatively important as they could easily find out if she's lying through spying and technology. Overall, people just see her as a little too honest and she gets into trouble a lot with being open about not wanting to interact with fans a lot or being cautious about press.

Aisha: It's a bit surprising that a princess is the last on the list no? Andros has a very good handle on things like media and press, and while they definitely aren't controlling it by any means, most news sites know not to mess with them. They're very strict on things like personal boundaries and privacy and try to protect anyone who could be affected by the media (celebrities, online personas, royals, athletes, etc). Aisha also has the best media training out of all the Winx and is really good at knowing what to say and what to share. People know just enough about her social life through sns that they aren't constantly asking about it but not enough to try and cancel her for anything. She's almost seen as the goody-goody of the bunch since she just doesn't get into a lot of drama (and when she does it's handled extremely well).

Now the Specialists!

Riven: It's no surprise that he's first I mean cmon. With Musa being the most "problematic" of the Winx, Riven is bound to get his fair share of scrutiny. People absolutely judge him for having a past with Darcy. Although... I really don't think it would be the biggest factor. While he did genuinely like Darcy, she used magic on him multiple times to manipulate his thoughts and then later betrayed him. Riven wouldn't want to put unnecessary hate on all witches, but he'd also be mad enough to eventually allude to what actually happened (he'd never outright say it since it also hurts his pride). Most people accept that he got manipulated by Darcy and assume that the entirety of the relationship was based on that, which Riven doesn't like either, but trying to defend her wouldn't exactly help his case. On the other hand, the relationship he does get hated for is his relationship with Musa. Musa definitely shares the good and cute stories about them too, but her sad/angry heartbreak songs are always the ones that get remembered. People assume he's a lot worse than he actually is and whenever Musa or one of the others tries to defend him, they just assume Riven manipulated them into doing that. However, after S4, people get a lot more understanding of the relationship and there isn't as much hate towards him (he does still get called out for being a bit brutish though).

Sky: I almost put Sky as first, but then I remembered he's royalty and definitely has a PR team. Still, he gets into a lot of drama. The Diaspro/Bloom situation was blown out of proportion and every news site was reporting completely different things. To some, Sky is a dirty cheater that lied to his wife and got some random girlfriend, "who knows how many other girls he's talking to! Someone get his phone records with Stella". To others, Sky and Diaspro were happily engaged before homewrecker Bloom came in. And to others, Sky was just the prince trying to protect his identity and got wrapped into some catfight. No one knows what actually happened with them but a lot of people start to assume Diaspro was in the wrong once it's confirmed Sky is officially dating Bloom. They start actively hating her when she tries to magic her way into a relationship with him. And that's just the relationship stuff! Erakylon's politics are so weak and absolutely crumbling before our eyes. Sky would constantly get asked about specific things to try and break him and it doesn't help that the media sites from the other royal characters are the ones doing it.

Brandon: Is this ranking a bit surprising? Idk? But anyway, Brandon would literally just get hated by proxy. Most of his "drama" includes what's happening with Sky and/or Stella. If one of them is getting into trouble, then people are bringing him into it for absolutely no reason. Brandon knows more about Eraklyon and Solaria's political climates than he will ever need to know. While he doesn't have as much media training as Sky, he does have to follow some rules just so Sky doesn't get into trouble for what he says. That means he can't speak up about as many issues and he certainly can't constantly defend his friends from harsh words. He tries to get away with it by liking comments instead of making his own. It helps a little.

Helia: Helia gets into the same exact trouble that he gets into with the Winx fandom. He's quiet and he shares absolutely nothing about his personal life. He's an artist but he doesn't post about it nor does he talk about it. He avoids talking to the press and when he does its always vague answers that could mean anything. Helia cares a lot about Saladin and Red Fountain's image and we know that what he does affects said image. So he treads very carefully and doesn't involve himself in anything. However, this is largely what gets him into trouble. People hate that he's not open about anything and some even go to the extreme of thinking he's suspicious. While Saladin's legacy largely protects him from this, it doesn't protect him from the media and random people constantly asking about his personal life. Helia also rarely if ever defends the others online (1. as he almost never looks at it and 2. because he doesn't want to get involved). He comforts them and gives advice to their face but no one else sees that so people often call him things like "pretentious, two-faced, avoidant, etc". People are also weirdly suspicious about his relationship with Flora because "it can't be that good right? there's definitely something suspicious about them".

Timmy: Timmy's just a genuinely nice guy that rarely gets into trouble. He chooses his battles (so to speak) very wisely so when he does defend the others online, it's almost always something a majority of people will agree with. Almost all of his social media is about the latest in technology and gaming so he's pretty big in those crowds but most media sites can't really do anything with that. Sometimes people from Zenith see him as weird but they recognize that he's a good match for Tecna so they're okay with him. By the time all of the Specialists are truly in the spotlight, he's already gotten buffer and more confident so those issues from S1 wouldn't be a huge deal either. The others also speak highly of him so no one really doubts that he's a good specialist. For the most part, he just doesn't get into trouble and when he does it's always connected to someone else rather than something he alone said/did.