#but it's very mandalorian of you which is fantastic

[ereborne]

Song of the Day: September 4

“Paint My Face” by The Devil Makes Three

[corazondebeskar-reads]

well it's love, make it hurt - chapter three

well it's love, make it hurt series

three: well it's love, make it hurt

series masterlist | prev chapter | next chapter

dom!Din Djarin x sub!f!reader

Word count: 4k

Summary: You mess up a hunt and lose the bounty. You panic, afraid you've ruined the tenuous work partnership and blossoming, if unconventional, relationship between you and the Mandalorian.

Warnings: bdsm, bad bdsm etiquette, miscommunication, good intentions, dom!Mando and sub!reader, slightly brat tamer!Mando and brat!reader, protective!Mando, d/s relationship, d/s dynamics, blurred lines, power imbalance if you squint, reader is a badass bounty hunter, pre-purge (and slightly ooc mando), spanking, punishment, discipline, canon-typical violence, wounds, oral (f receiving), explicit consent, aftercare, Din Djarin takes the helmet off but does not reveal his face, playing fast and loose with the Creed

Originally written for Kinktober Day 5 - Body Worship / Facesitting. Inspired by this prompt list from @absurdthirst

also on ao3

3 ABY - Fall

The intel was bad.

You’d been made the minute you entered the cantina, and they even had the smarts not to show it. Playing along, letting you flirt and sweet talk your way to a private room.

The bounty, Skaad Droff, was supposed to be an easy target. A low level spicelord who gambled too much of his profits and got on a few bad ledgers. It was an okay payout, if a bit insulting to a team like you and Mando. You had only accepted it because there were two other bounties here on Kijimi, and it was going to be an in-and-out op. Extra credits for little effort. 

It had been your idea to take the puck. The others were enough to pay your way, but if you were going to keep this deal with Mando, you wanted to buy a hammock instead of sleeping on a shitty bedroll on crates in the hull. To Mando’s credit, he had offered you the bunk on the first night, but neither of you had really expected to continue to work together. 

But you made a good team. And having the Crest was nice. (And the… other part of your partnership was fantastic). 

So. You stuck around.

Droff, like most of the slimeballs you’d met, had a weakness for a sure thing. Mando hadn’t loved the idea but had been willing to defer to you. 

Maker, he was going to be so kriffing unbearable if you messed this up.

Which, given how the two bodyguards hidden inside the room had gotten your primary blaster and commlink, seemed likely. You had already missed one check-in, but that was the nature of undercover ops. Mando wouldn’t be worried yet (would he worry at all?), so you still had time to pull this off. 

So, three to one in a locked room. They make quick work of patting you down and find your other blaster and explosives. They even take your boots off and find your knife. They do not put your boots back on, which maybe pisses you off more than losing your weapons.

One of the guards is trying to pull your arms behind your back, and look, maybe you hadn’t been trained from birth to be a killing machine, and maybe you didn’t have impenetrable armor, but you still knew how to brawl.

And also bite—something dickhead #2 learned very quickly when he went to wrap a hand around your throat. 

Biting really only works the once. It catches them off guard, especially when you have no reservations about going for a chunk of flesh. That’s okay. Once is all you need.

The momentary commotion gives you the opening to yank one arm free, pull the pin out of your hair, and slam it into the guard’s other wrist so he releases you. There's a spray of hot blood when you pull it out. 

Okay, where the fuck is Mando? It has to be extraction time.

You scramble to snag your blaster off the long table in the center of the room, but the second guard had recovered his wits and seemed a little mad about the weeping teeth marks around his forearm. He tackles you, and the compact pistol skitters across the table and onto the floor on the other side. 

Kriff. 

Fine, whatever. 

You have bigger issues now, like the man who has you pinned to the stained carpet, one hand over your mouth and the other around your neck. And then you see it—your comm, having rolled off the table in the scuffle but just centimeters from where your arm is awkwardly bent under the guard’s weight. 

Rather than trying to conserve your strength for a better moment, you seize your whole body against his and manage to wiggle just enough to wrap your fingers around it. The edges of your vision are boxing in. You had gotten the comm, but now what? The buzzing in your brain drowns your thoughts, the last of the air in your lungs punched out in your fight to get the comm. 

If I die here, you think, he’s going to be so mad at me. 

“What’s that noise?” Droff snaps.

The guard looks around, easing just a fraction off you. 

The static isn’t inside your brain. 

It was coming from the comm. In your struggle to breathe, you had tensed, holding down the button and opening the line to Mando. 

A detonator shatters the exterior wall, sending debris and chunks of stone into the air. The guard leaps back, abandoning you, and you roll to your feet. From the new, more convenient entrance, Mando has his rifle aimed at the guard but hesitates. You were in his only line of fire. 

It didn’t matter. You reach the other pin at the top of your braid and lodge it solidly into the man’s throat. He sputters and chokes before joining his peer on the floor as they bled out. 

“Why didn’t you check in?” he snaps. 

“I had it handled, didn’t I?” you rsay, turning around—not to look at Mando, but to grab Droff. He was already halfway through the door, fleeing for the crowded cantina. 

You lunge but catch your bare foot on a chunk of debris and go down. Hard. Your hand, rather than stopping your fall, gets caught between your body and the debris with a sickening crunch. 

It doesn’t hurt, so you push back up, but before you stand, Mando scoops you by the waist and tosses you over his shoulder like a dead womp rat. 

“What are you doing? Why didn’t you go after him?” 

“Why didn’t you follow protocol?” His voice is sharp and acidic. 

Neither of you speak again. You fume, hot tears of humiliation pricking at your eyes. He lowers you only to plop you down on the speeder, sliding in behind you and locking you in place with his thick, armored thighs. He reaches up around you and grabs the handles. 

By the time you had woven in and out of the tiny alleys and out of the city to the Crest, your rage had waned. The wind whipping at your face had graciously allowed your tears to disappear, and the few errant sniffles were lost in the rush. He dismounts and doesn’t allow you a moment to do so yourself before swinging you up over his shoulder and stomping up the ramp. 

He sets you down on your crate-bed and goes about closing up the ship for the night. You wanted to slink into the fresher and hide until he went to sleep, but now that everything has settled, now that the adrenaline has seeped out and left you shaking, the pain is making itself known.

Your throat is definitely bruised, possibly damaged. You taste blood, but your teeth are all accounted for, and while scraped and bleeding, both of your feet are fine. Your left cheekbone aches from hitting the ground, and a few ribs are sore but not broken. 

Your wrist definitely is, though. 

Bile burns up your aching throat. This was it, then. You fucked up a hunt, and now you're useless. The thought of being alone again, without a ship, scraping up whatever bounties were available on the same planet just to eat and sleep, sends your heart racing. 

Being alone had never bothered you before Mando. It had been such a mistake to get comfortable. 

Attached. 

Mando jumps back down from the cockpit and stalks over, still burning and ready to yell about it. But when he sees you trembling, staring at the floor with blank eyes, and cradling your wrist, the fight slips out of him. 

Medpack in hand, he kneels before you and pries your fingers away from your injured hand. You hiss through clenched teeth as he carefully evaluates the damage. 

“It’s a clean break,” he says, reaching down for a bacta patch. 

You twitch but held back from protesting. He adheres the patch around your wrist and wraps it with gauze before applying the spray that would harden the bandage into a cast. 

“Should only be a day,” he says. 

You still don’t look at him, don’t speak. 

“Where else are you injured?” 

“‘M fine,” you say to the floor. 

He narrows his eyes behind the shelter of the helmet at the croak in your voice. “Lift your head up so I can check, please.”

“I said I’m fine.” What you meant to be a frustrated snap breaks and squeaks, setting your lip twitching into a sneer. 

“I didn’t ask. Lift your head.” 

Somehow still defiant when cooperating, you jerk your head up and to the side, exposing the blossoming black and purple around your throat. He hisses, reaching a gloved hand up to brush against it, but you flinch away. 

“Stop moving. You need more bacta.” 

You want so, so badly to argue. Like a dying loth-cat, you want to scratch and bite and snarl. But it hurts to breathe, to swallow, let alone to pick a fight. So you hold still, looking anywhere but him, as he applies the spray. 

His eyes rove over your body, noting the other scrapes and cuts, cataloging them to check on later, but not pushing you to treat them now. 

Leaving you be for a moment, he moves around the hull to store his weapons. He mixes a bowl of hot water from the steamer with a packet of powder, stirring it into a thick stew, and brings it to you with a spoon. 

“No thanks,” you say. 

“Fine, then we can start talking about what happened.” 

Finally, finally looking up at him, you take the soup. You're glowering, but he takes the win anyway. 

He sits beside you on the stack of crates and waits patiently until you finish eating.

“We have rules—protocols, for a reason,” he says after you set the bowl to the side.

“The rules don’t apply out there.”

“You know what I meant. We have protocols for hunts. Not orders, not rules, but a system. It’s for safety—for both of us. We check in. We call for backup. We bail if the situation is out of control.”

“I had it handled.”

“You gonna keep lying, digging yourself into that hole?” 

A sigh. “No.” 

“Good. Why didn’t you call? Or leave?”

“I thought I could handle it,” you whisper. 

“Why was this bounty so important to you? We’ve bailed on bigger payouts before.”

Your heart sinks, self-disgust bubbling over. You used two bacta units. The cost of that alone was more than the bounty would have paid. “Doesn’t matter now.” 

“Hey,” he snaps, fed up. He grabs your chin between his fingers and forces you to look at him. At the helmet, at least. “None of this works—not out there, not in here—if you don’t talk to me.”

“Fine. I know. It doesn’t work. Will you at least drop me back on Cantonica since you’ll get the full payout?” 

It was his turn to sit in silence, head spinning. The conversation had gotten away from him very quickly. “You want to leave,” he says flatly after a minute. 

“Oh yeah, sure. I want to leave. That’s why I was trying to save for a real fucking bed.”

“That’s what this was all about? Why didn’t you just ask?” He's furious all over again. “We could have just taken that out of the maintenance budget. Why wouldn’t you tell me you were uncomfortable?”

You wrench your face from his hand, refusing to openly cry, blinking hard at the floor. “Dunno.”

“Stop lying to me.”

“Fine! I didn’t want you to say no. I didn’t want you to say there was no point wasting credits, that I couldn't stay. Okay?”

He clenches and unclenches his hands, gloves creaking, and takes a deep breath. “Okay,” he says, voice softer. Sadder. “This is my fault.”

“Ugh, Mando, that is not—”

“No, it is. I thought I had made myself clear with you, but obviously, I haven’t.” He peels off the gloves, throwing them to the floor before reaching up to unhook his armor, piece by piece dropping. 

You track each one with wide eyes. When he's down to his flight suit and helmet, he hops off your bed and makes room for himself to stand between your legs. 

“Do you think I’d do this with just anyone? You think I take my armor off every time I fuck someone?” He cups your face, sending a full-body shudder through you. “You think I take care of someone else like this?”

“I don’t know,” you whisper, sniffling. It wasn’t a lie, but a deflection this time. 

“Cyar’ika. I told you the only way this was going to work was if you trusted me. I’m sorry I didn’t show you that it went both ways.”

Whatever you were about to say dies between your lips as he lifts you and moves you over, and begins to peel your blood-stained clothes away, seeking the warmth underneath. You raise your arms obediently and bite your lip at how gently he extracts your injured arm from its sleeve. A firm hand pushes on your shoulder until you lie back on the bed, and you lift your hips when he hooks his fingers into your waistband, yanking your trousers and panties off together. 

“I need to know if you trust me,” he say. 

You nod.

“I need to hear you say it.”

You look up at him where he hovers. "I trust you."

“And I trust you,” he said, pulling the roll of gauze back out of the medpack. You hold still, confused, but compliant as he wraps it around your head, closing your eyes as he covers them. “I trust you to leave that on until I say you can remove it.” 

“Yes, sir,” you say, and flinch at a strange hissing sound. You exhale slowly, willing yourself to stay still and good for whatever he’s decided your punishment for all this must be. 

And then he kisses you.

You gasp, but it’s swallowed by his warm, wet mouth, his tongue that doesn’t wait for permission to seek you out. It’s rough and messy, and you reach up to wrap your arms around his neck but get distracted by hair. It’s shaggy, curly, and a little coarse. Your fingers rake through it and he moans into your mouth. 

“Wait,” you pant, but he presses forward for another kiss anyway, “no, wait, wait.” 

He reels back. “Sorry, I should have—I should have asked.” He sounds out of breath and a little broken.

“No, I... it’s just… your Creed—”

“Can you see me?” he asks rhetorically. He knows you haven’t even tried.

“No, I wouldn’t, I—”

“Exactly. Cyar’ika, the gauze isn’t there because I think you’ll look. It’s so you don’t have to worry about it when I’m making you cum.”

Your hips jerk against his where he straddles you. He takes that as an opportunity to dive back, aching for more. He kisses your lips again and moves down your neck, grinning against your breast as you convulse a little when his breath fans over your nipple. 

He takes it in his mouth, practically salivating to taste you, to make you cry for him. The moan that punches out of you when he sucks hard on the bud goes straight to his cock, and you can feel it grow against your bare cunt. 

He laves attention to your tits, alternating bites and kisses and murmurs of affection. “You’re perfect, cyar’ika; how could I not want you? Look at you; so sweet for me.”

His words and his mouth make you cry out. He kisses down your stomach and hips. 

Then he abruptly stands. “Sit up, sweetheart.” 

You do, cautiously, fumbling to hold on the edge of the crate. He helps you to your feet and makes quick work of his flight suit before hopping up on the bedroll and laying down. His hands tug at your uninjured wrist, pulling you over until he can lift you by the waist.  You scramble to slide your legs over him and move to grab his cock, beyond ready to welcome him inside you. 

“No,” he growls. He grabs your hips and tugs, lurching you forward. “Come here.”

“What?” 

“Get up here and give me your cunt. Now.” 

You hesitate, and he cracks a hand over your ass, albeit softly. You yelp and scoot forward, balancing precariously. He puts one hand firmly on your hip to help you stay steady. 

“Listen to me,” he orders. 

You hum, setting your hand against his chest to feel the rumble of his uninhibited voice. 

“I want you to stay. I want you to stay and be mine. But if that’s going to happen, I need you to be sure. And if we’re going to forgive each other, if you’re going to forgive yourself, then two things are going to have to happen.”

“I want to,” you cry immediately, “please, I don’t want to leave.”

“Good. Then here’s how this is going to go. You know you need to be punished.”

“Yes, sir.” The sob behind your answer threatens to waver his decision, but no. He has to, or you’ll hold this doubt in your heart forever.

“Why do you need to be punished?” 

“B-because I didn’t do what you said.”

“No, sweetheart. Hey.” He reaches up and strokes your cheek. “I promise. Nothing—ever—outside will affect you here. But if, and only if, you really want to be mine like this, then I have to punish you for lying.”

“O-okay."

“Why do you need to be punished?” he asks again, soft. 

“I lied to you about being hurt and upset.” It’s barely a whisper, but warm pride brings a smile to his face.

“Good girl.” He rewards you by pulling your hand to his lips for a kiss. You shudder again. 

“It’s been a hard day. So what I’m going to do is give you your punishment and reward at the same time. You’re going to scoot over here and let me eat your cunt. You remember your words, if you need me to stop?”

“Yes, sir.” 

He takes a moment to look at you, really look at you, bare before him for the first time with no visor in between. Your hair is a mess, half your braid fallen out with the loss of your pins. Your cheeks are splotchy and swollen from crying. “You’re so beautiful, sweet girl. You going to let me take care of you now?”

You nod, and he grasps both hips to settle you over his mouth. He can’t help but lick up into you right away, relieved to find you dripping. You cry out and waver, so he wraps one hand back around your hip and holds tight. 

He dives back in. You know he’s never done this before, and he’s certainly sloppy and fumbling, but the voraciousness of his tongue and the almost desperate way he digs in more than make up for it. It’s better than any of the men who’ve bothered to try before. 

He keeps going, licking, sucking, nipping at your thighs and lips, and though you’re tense with apprehension, waiting for the first strike, you find yourself on the edge of an orgasm very quickly. 

“Please,” you whisper.

You feel his lips curl into a smile, and he breaks away only long enough to grant permission before he’s wrapped back around your clit, sucking hard enough that you see stars as you fall apart. He moans, sinfully loud, and it pushes you into a second, smaller orgasm in quick succession. 

His licks get softer, backing off to let you breathe. When you’ve come down, pleasure warming your whole body, he pulls away.

“How many times did you lie to me tonight?”

You try to think through the haze. “Um.” You don’t want to be bad; you want to suffer for your sins and be redeemed through his will. You especially don’t want him to think you’re trying to lessen your punishment. “Um. Maybe six? Or seven? I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know.”

His thumb rubs soothing circles on your hip, and he raises his other hand to cup your cheek. “That’s okay, cyar'ika. Thank you for trying.” He strokes your cheek. “It was five.” 

“I’m so sorry.” You don’t want to cry yet; you know it’ll be harder if you do. You’ll cry in the end, anyway. But you want to be brave.

“I’m going to give you five for each. You know the rules.” 

You nod, and he pulls his hand from your face to cup your ass. You jolt in surprise when you feel his tongue again instead. As he licks deep into you, he pulls his hand away and lands a firm spank. 

“One,” you gasp. It wasn’t a hard hit, just past tingling, and the combination with his ministrations is making you dizzy. 

The next one is harder, as is each subsequent strike. You count, none of the hits reaching the point of real pain yet. 

He cups your ass and rubs it soothingly. “Cum, baby,” he murmurs before sinking his teeth in around your clit. 

“Fuck, oh fuck.” Your hips jerk against his mouth and he chuckles, kissing and licking you through it. 

“Good girl,” he croons into your cunt and brings his hand down hard on your ass. 

“S-six,” you sob a little. It definitely stung more, but then immediately, he’s drawing cries of pleasure from you. 

He pauses again after the next four, soothing you and bringing you to the edge. He teases a little this time, withholding permission while you squirm, before telling you to cum. 

The next hit hurts. You choke back a sob, trying to spit out “eleven.” He delivers the next four rapidly, not allowing each hit to sink in before the next one. When he pauses again and refocuses on your clit, you realize what he’s doing.

It’s working. You’re so dazed from the pain bleeding into pleasure, you’ve started to moan with each strike. The way you burn from each slap makes the orgasm he rips from you more intense than you’ve had before. 

It makes you start to cry in earnest. You’re bawling and he freezes. 

“Check in, please. Are you okay?”

You nod frantically. “Yes, please, I’m okay, I can take it. Please.” You don’t have the words to tell him you’re only crying because you have no room left in your chest for your feelings. 

Later, you’ll ask him if you’re broken. If you shouldn’t feel so safe, so cared for, when he hurts you. He’ll tell you he doesn’t know, but then he must be broken too, since the way you cried for him, the way you gave yourself over and trusted him to catch you, is how he feels safe, too. 

The last two sets, the last two orgasms, are a blur. You feel faint, and delirious, like you’re floating away but also being held down tight. Anchored.

When it’s all over, he carefully slips out from under you and lifts you up, setting you up on your knees with your hand against the wall for support. He checks you over to make sure he didn’t go too far, that none of your wounds have reopened. When he goes to get a cream to ease the burn, you whimper.

“Don’t, please. I wanna feel it.” 

He hesitates. He just wants to take it all away. “Cyar’ika, you don’t need to punish yourself further. You took it so well; you’re such a good girl.” 

You sniffle but nod, and hold still while he takes care of you. He digs around and finds himself clothes, slipping the helmet back on, before gently tugging one of his tunics over your head, mindful of your wrist, and peeling the gauze from your face . Then, he helps you to your feet and opens the ramp.

You open blurry eyes, looking up at him. “What’re you doing?”

“We’re going to get a room for the night,” he says firmly, brooking no argument even though you know it’s not in the budget. “And tomorrow, we’ll go to the market before we leave and look for a bigger bed for the bunk. If you’d like.”

You can’t think of anything you’d like more.

*title from "Bonus Mosh, pt. II" by Taking Back Sunday.

[autumnwoodsdreamer]

The Bad Batch was amazing. Truly stunning story all the way through and an epic conclusion (and an epilogue that is still prompting some tears, I’ll be honest). But I gotta say something about the red herring in the room.

I really enjoyed all the “CX-2 is Tech” theories, fics and art, and although I was extremely cautious about locking my hopes on it coming true, I couldn’t help but pick up on all those subtle cues which kept pushing you to think “there’s something more going on here.”

Usually, I’m skeptical about theories (like the masked Inquisitor in Ahsoka being Ezra—cool idea but it never could grab my belief). But I didn’t think it was a stretch to consider that CX-2 might be Tech, Winter Soldier-style: Hemlock saying the goggles were the only thing that could be salvaged when there definitely would be other stuff (the body or the rest of his armour at least)… CX-2’s particular flying style, his notable reliance on gadgets, his peculiar word choice (that “domicile” line haunts me)… the way Tech’s absence was handled in an incomplete way (as compared to, say, Kanan’s death, whereafter we had a whole episode for the characters just to mourn, and another episode to make it clear he can’t come back).

But it went nowhere.

And I can let go of the Tech Winter Soldier idea (with great difficulty) but the whole execution of those Shadow clones—only bringing them out in the very last ep—was somewhat disappointing. They were legitimately terrifying and they made for incredible opponents, especially as they seemed designed on the principle of “the Bad Batch but evil.” But, in the end, they felt rushed; just ushered in to up the stakes and produce shock value.

I am not complaining and I am definitely not hating; it was an amazing finale and everyone worked so hard on it. But I have to ask: why was one clone from the Shadows singled out for so long? Theories were bound to erupt and the clone in particular bore such an uncanny resemblance to Tech that many had to wonder if there was a connection. But there wasn’t. So: red herring.

And the thing is, it’s becoming something of a pattern.

The Book of Boba Fett, The Mandalorian Season 3, Ahsoka… all of them were littered with red herrings: plot points and characters we believed were one thing but ultimately they weren’t that—in some cases, they weren’t anything at all and we were left wondering why they were included in the first place when they served about as much purpose as a decorative lamp (I cite: Garsa, the masked Inquisitor, even Din Djarin himself became a whole red herring).

Subverting expectations is a fantastic literary device, and some of it has been interesting, but I just… wonder why it’s become so prevalent. Rebels didn’t bait us like this, neither did Mandalorian Season 1 or Kenobi.

[aeskanera]

No one asked for it but here it is! My personal ranking of Swtor companions from most to least favourite (in a more general sense this time since there’s so many) (sidenote this is entirely based on the og class storylines as I have not found time to play/read through the extended games yet) (tw for bad and inconsistent grammar):

TOP FIFTEEN

Vector Hyllus (IA) - bug boy❤️

Lord Scourge (JK) - let me romance him you cowards (obligatory statement that yes i am aware of post-onslaught romance but i don’t want to have to play through all that just to bang him)

Blizz (BH) - BLIZZ!!!!!!!

Risha (S) - one of the most detailed, nuanced companions in the game, my wife, top tier female love interest, she doesnt just have backstory she has Backstory ™️

Andronikos Revel (SI) - many points for the coolest name in star wars. ok like i think his character concept is kinda boring comparatively but they pull it off so well as a romance arc. he feels very real and human and natural and i like that he keeps the inquisitor grounded by being the everyman in a story about sith sorcery and going insane because of ghosts in your brain

Akaavi Spar (S) - she is SO hot. the superior Mandalorian like Torian Cadera who?

Treek - TREEK!!!!!!!

Kira Carsen (JK) - my first ever swtor love. she has a special place in my heart

Jaesa Willsaam (SW) - let me have lesbian sex with her

Qyzen Fess (JC) - i looove him, easily one of the most interesting characters and the deep dive into trandoshan lore is so fascinating and interesting

Vette (SW) - she’s my darling 🩷 i would die for her. i bonded with her so much cause i play female characters as a rule and her whole character and relationship with the female warrior is about her craving sisters and sisterly relationships and then finding that in the warrior. and at the same time that i was playing that class i was repairing and working on my real life relationship with my little sister who i’m now very close to. so Vette is my sister. plus if you play as female you still get to hit on Tivva (just not sleep with her) and the dialogue is extremely amusing to me

Elara Dorne (RT) - in game doing that sweet pseudo-enemies to lovers with Jorgan so my character meeting Elara was like FINALLY someone who i don’t hate. out of game i was like FINALLY my autistic companion. it’s not a swtor playthrough without at least one autistic companion

Holiday (JC) - she COUNTS ok!!!!

Aric Jorgan (RT) - cat boy husband

Khem Val (SI) - objectively one of the best companions, if not the best. he’s just so low because i have more emotional attachment to the ones above

MIDDLE FIFTEEN

Torian Cadera (BH) - super well written romance especially when you get to the GenoHaradan arc, an underrated love interest (at least in the circles i run in online). however. sir we need to have words about that facial hair. also i guess it’s not an old republic game without at least one character that makes me say “they are NOT a nineteen year old”

Kaliyo (IA) - i get that she could rub people the wrong way but she’s my bestie. plus she coined the nickname bug boy for Vector

Tharan Cedrax (JC) - the superior version of Doc

SC0RPI0 (IA) - they gave that droid madonna cone titties. also i was so excited by her since i found the previous agent companion so bleh

Malavai Quinn (SW) - time to drop a controversial opinion…i think he’s overrated. like don’t get me wrong he’s a fantastic love interest, he’s just hyped up a LOT compared to other love interests and i think he maybe only deserves like 85% of the hype he gets (which is still a lot!). i just think he has a lot of the traits tumblrinas go nuts for and then they act like that makes him superior to other love interests when that’s not necessarily the case. and i say this as someone who romanced and placed him higher on this list than several other love interests so im being objective here. on a more positive note his deadpan humor is greatly enjoyable, and i find it very entertaining that when his health bar drops but is still like halfway full he starts saying shit like “my death is imminent” overdramatic king

Xalek (SI) - the superior inquisitor apprentice

Zenith (JC) - let me romance him you cowards but im far less passionate about this one than i am about Scourge (yeah yeah the expansions i want him to be my MAIN story love interest in the origin)

Broonmark (SW) - i love my giant murderous fluffy alien monster baby

M1-4X (RT) - i do enjoy being told how amazing i am on a regular basis. the most egotistical character let alone the most egotistical droid but unlike other swtor companions he pulls off having one single character trait cause he’s funny about it

Doctor Lokin (IA) - the mad scientist thing is very cool but i feel like for me personally it was not as cool as it sounds in theory

T7-O1 (JK) - teethree 2.0 and since they made teeseven like several hundred years old anyway i genuinely do not understand why they didn’t just make him T3-M4

Lieutenant Felix Iresso (JC) - literally only exists for me as eye candy (and what a good job of it he does)

2V-R8 - they gave that poor droid anxiety

C2-N2 - i love my aromatherapy droid

Yuun (RT) - he’s just so nice! so pure, so wholesome. marge simpson voice i just think he’s neat

BOTTOM FIFTEEN

Talos Drellik (SI) - am a huge nerd over history and archaeology…literally me in star wars…so why don’t i like him more??? absolutely no idea it’s just a vibe. also not to be mean but according to the swtor encyclopedia he’s supposed to be younger than Quinn…bb girl you did not age well

Corso Riggs (S) - idk i mean he’s cute and all, and we’ve established that i love my autistic companions (plus he’s very luke-skywalker-my-favorite-character coded) but like he came across too young for me to want to romance him with the smuggler character especially with how superior the girl love interests are. Much potential as a bestie though

Guss Tuno (S) - i literally have no memory. could not tell you a thing about him. oh wait except this insanely hilarious line I came across the other day while casually reading wookiepedia (as one does) that goes pretty hard and honestly yoinked him up from the bottom of the list: “You've never known real rage until you've been lectured on controlling your emotions by a four-year-old in a robe.”

Sergeant Rusk (JK) - he sure is there i guess

Nadia Grell (JC) - i cannot wrap my head around anyone wanting to romance her. it just feels icky to me. like i can handle a lot of the power imbalances in the other romances but this one is just too much for me, especially if you’re a light side jedi

Ashara Zavros (SI) - yawn. she will never be Jaesa Willsaam no matter how hard she tries. pretty tho

Doc (JK) - bootleg Tharan Cedrax

Lieutenant Pierce (SW) - if i have to hear about the Bastion one more time i stg….ruined the trooper chapter three story for me. he’s not lower only because i enjoy that his dynamic with Quinn is literally just them

Ensign Raina Temple (IA) - god she is so boring

Bowdaar (S) - deep sigh of course the smuggler is the one who gets the wookiee companion. bootleg Zaalbar

Tanno Vik (RT) - on the one hand his recruitment quest made me want to shoot myself in the face seven hundred times…on the other hand he has that fuckoff awesome sword…much to consider…

Gault (BH) - so one note and that makes me sad. yeah so are a lot of companions but he’s neither adorable enough or funny enough to pull it off. i guess he does have a sliver of likability such as his ex-girlfriend storyline that makes him able to endear himself to me just enough

HK-51 - sigh i guess it’s not an old republic game without an HK unit

Mako (BH) - grow some balls girl. i genuinely don’t even know why i hate her so much. you’re telling me this girl’s supposed to be a bounty hunter? don’t make me laugh. maybe if she develops a real personality. im so mean to her for absolutely no good reason i really do turn into a high school bully about this girl. if someone wants to psychoanalyze me and tell me why i despise Mako that would be much appreciated

Skadge (BH) - yikes

[stars-n-spice]

A home with the door always open. Never not filled with delicious smells and lively music. Couches covered in cat fur. Scraped knees and dirt under fingernails. Toys on the floor. Paintings on the walls. A pile of stuffed animals and disassembled explosives. Animated dinner talks and native tongues. Endless pranks. The rumble of laughter. That feeling of trust, of learning to love and be loved again in return. That feeling of knowing you are not alone in your struggles and can share the weight of your burdens with others who love you.

Introducing the Nultezes!

Feel free to ask any questions about the family! :D

Links to the others and their families are here:

Hunter + Jung's Family // Echo + Viram's Family // Tech + Phee's Family // Crosshair + Tay's Family

Additional Information Under the Cut:

Wrecker & Khea:

- Put a Mandalorian and a clone together and you're going to have a big family with a lot of kiddos and furbabies - They practically have a little farm at their place with all their animals and the garden that their kids tend to, though on the side Khea continues to run a repair business and she and Wrecker help fix things up around Pabu - Wrecker takes up fishing and baking as hobbies while Khea sticks to her roots as a tinker and stays as far away from the water as possible (she can't swim) - Their doors are always open to anyone and everyone, with something always cooking or baking and music playing in their house, making it a hot spot on Pabu for its welcoming environment - May or may not add an additional OC (who was set up to be Khea's BFF with benefits) to make them a throuple because polyamorous Wrecker my beloved <3 - but I don't have a design for him at this moment, so we'll see

Stak:

- Was the first of the cadets to be adopted, Khea saw a kid in need of a family and was like, "is anyone going to adopt this Foundling? No? Okay, I will." - He's been raised as a Foundling alongside Itri, so over time he's acquired his own beskar'gam which he lets his younger sisters paint every time he's back at home (he is also quite often a test subject in their little experiments and games) - Like the older cousins in the family, Stak also helps out with the Rebellion as a skilled slicer and a pilot (skills he's learned form Tech and Khea) and he may or may not have met someone while working for the Rebellion - The scar on the side of his face was a result of him losing his footing while trying to get into a boat and subsequently hitting his face against the hull, scraping it up and falling into the water - he never tells this story and instead makes something new and dramatic up every time someone asks about it - Also pretty close with his Uncle Hunter (has learned a thing or two from him in terms of combat) and really admires his Aunt Phee

Itri:

- Khea found Itri as a toddler on her journey to reunite with her estranged older brother (that she nearly killed after he got their younger brother killed, long story-) and decided to adopt her as a Foundling - Was the flower girl at Wrecker and Khea's wedding - She has a faint connection to the Force that Jung has tried to help her with, but Itri is very much a Mandalorian since she was raised as one and has no desire to pursue much with the Force - She really, really wants to join the Rebellion and help her older brother and cousins out but Khea is having a hard time letting her go, claiming Itri is still too young - Is pretty close to Echo and Viram and will often go to them for advice or to see where she might be able to help the Rebellion out despite what her parents think and she also highly admires and respects Omega, seeing her as an older sister figure - Character Inspo: Kristofferson (Fantastic Mr. Fox), Ash Graven (Final Space), Blake Belladonna (RWBY) Leonardo (TMNT 2012)

Marama:

- The older twin by 32 minutes, Marama is a bright kid who takes after Khea and loves to tinker and create - Also enjoys gardening on the side and takes care of the little farm that they have on their property with the help of her twin and their cousin, Mox - Has a plushie collection that has accumulated over the years, starting with Lula (that was regifted by Itri who'd gotten it from Wrecker) and includes stuffed animals Tech and Phee had brought back and plushies Crosshair has made for her - Her hair is naturally poofy (the humidity of Pabu doesn't make it any better) but unlike her twin, she leaves it as is - Loves to spend time with her Uncle Tech, with whom she's learned a lot from and has gotten a lot of gifts from (including a lot of tools) and she's close with both Omega and Vela - Character Inspo: Meriadoc Brandybuck (LOTR), Aviva Corcovado (Wild Kratts), Kiki (Kiki's Delivery Service)

Maia:

- The younger twin by 32 minutes, Maia has an affinity for demolitions and stirring up trouble, taking after Wrecker - Wears hearing aids to help combat with sensory issues and because her eardrums got blown out during an incident she had when she was younger - She's an abstract artist who loves painting her older sibling's beskar'gam and really any kind of canvas she can get her hands on - Has developed her own little "water bombs" that she hides under her poncho (they look like thermal detonators) - Loves, loves, loves her Uncle Crosshair and Tay, she's always trying to climb Tay and loves to play pranks on Crosshair - she's also really good friends with Akona and they delight in messing with Crosshair and Tay - Character Inspo: Little Cato (Final Space), Ed (Cowboy Bebop), Nikki (Camp Camp)

Elio:

- The baby brother of the family and he is constantly reminded of this fact by everyone but wishes that they'd see him as the totally grown-up boy he is (though he does secretly enjoy the privilege of being the youngest) - The main reason why the family has so many tooka cats and the like because he seems to be able to "talk" to them to the point where he's essentially a Disney Princess - He's a little closer to his Dad than he is with his Buir because Khea had bad postpartum depression after his birth and a difficult time with him as he got older since he reminded her too much about the younger brother that she lost; but she's trying now and they're slowly rebuilding a relationship - He knows the most Mando'a than his siblings because it's a way for him to better connect with his Buir and because he does enjoy learning about other languages - Is a big fan of his Aunt Viram since she's a baker as well and gives him good tips and guidance and he's really close to Zisanu since they're alike in personality and the two of them plus Rangi have formed a little "club" centered around being the younger brothers of their families - Character Inspo: Bilbo Baggins (The Hobbit/LOTR), Dipper Pines (Gravity Falls), Peter Parker (Tom Holland's Version)

💫 Silly Squad Masterlist 💫 All Families SecGen Initial Post 💫 All Families SecGen Second Post

[tarabyte3]

Fic Updates

It's been a while soo....

I Want You to Show Me Weak — As I've stated before, there are only 2 chapters left in the entire fic. I'm going to be finishing both of them before I post chapter 26. Then I'll be posting chapter 27 the next day. Gonna end the fic with a bang 😏 I have everything outlined and thought out, I just have to finish writing it (I'm very excited about what I have planned/written for the final chapter, which includes the ending). Though I will admit, it's been difficult to write knowing I'll be saying goodbye to this story. I'll miss my boys SO much 😭, as well as this version of Kino x Reader, but I want to finish it for myself and for all of you! Besides, there's always the possibility of oneshots set in this universe in the future AND I'm not done writing for Kino. Not even close! I have no date estimate at the moment, but I'm trying to give this one my full attention so 🤞

The Devil Makes Us Sin — Once Show Me Weak is done, I'm going to give this one my full attention for a while. (Though, to be honest, even though I'm trying to focus on finishing Kino first, I still keep this document open and regularly pop in to write a paragraph or two. What can I say, David is VERY fun to write for 😏, I love him, and I must follow the serotonin). The next few chapters will be shorter so they should go quickly, and I already have around the next 4 of them half written (I actually have about ~25k of future stuff written last time I checked, including parts of chapters MUCH further down the road 😅).

Other Wips

While my focus has been on my ongoing stories, I do have a few other WIPs I have actual content written for! So here's an update on those as well. For fun.

Personal Trainer!Kino x Reader Modern AU — I have the beginning of this story and a few scenes written, and SO many notes for it. (My relationship with my trainer is fantastic. He's 50% big brother energy, 50% wingman energy, but he says THE most out of pocket shit so I immediately write it down after my sessions. Because him saying it does nothing for me, but imagining Kino saying it?? 😵‍💫🫠🥵) It will probably end up ~5 chapters total. Probably.

And Your Heart, Love, Has Such Darkness (David x Reader smutty Oneshot) — I started this one a year ago because I wrote something for TDMUS that didn't quite fit, but I liked it enough to keep it and make it its own thing. It's over half done right now, so it will likely be the next oneshot I post.

I Didn't Want to Hurt You, but You're Pretty When You Cry (Dark!David x Reader) — I think this one will end up about 3 chapters long and will contain a lot of content warnings. It's going to be more horror focused (with splashes of dark humor because I cannot help myself). I adore the opening chunk I've written. It gave me goosebumps.

Secret Andy Blorbo x Reader Oneshot — This one started as a joke on Discord about an Andy blorbo that is not only incredibly niche/unknown, but is actively not attractive (one of the very rare times Andy Serkis does nothing for me. In fact, when I see him, my vagina makes the windows shutdown noise). Except I made the mistake of saying, "I want to try to write for this character as a fun challenge just so I can sexually confuse everyone." And it, uh, spiraled from there and made me rethink my entire stance on this character (thank you for not only indulging me, Hannah, but encouraging me and giving me more ideas 💖 I loved [redacted] thirst day in TNBF)

Halsin x Tav — That's right, I'm writing for the sexy druid. It'll be 2 chapters, and it's about a third of the way finished. This Tav will be a human fighter, but is otherwise written more like a Reader Insert. (Side note: going back to 3rd person POV after writing a lot of 2nd person POV is harder than I imagined 🙃)

Paz Vizsla x Mando!Reader Oneshot — That's right, I'm also writing for the big Mandalorian. It's about a third of the way finished as well. (These last 2 are actually a little intimidating because the fandoms are MUCH larger, but I need to get them out sooo fuck it, it's happening.)

So as you can see, even though I haven't posted very much outside of Liam Black, I'm still writing a lot. Apparently I just have commitment issues and a lot of ✨thots✨ 😌💖

[omaano]

AO3 Kudo Chain! Reply with a link to the last fic you left a kudos on, then pass this on to five other readers!

I believe I've sat on this ask long enough, because I have the unfortunate habit of leaving kudos on multi chaptered fics only when I get to the end of it (or the latest update if it's still a work in progress) but I've been meaning to leave all the love and kudos on this particular fic for 14 chapters and I finally made it to the end, so here it is:

Mand'alor Cabur by nautilicious

Is fantastic and thoughtful and beautifully written, and deals incredibly kindly and emphatically with topics of grief and found family, questions of identity, and how complicated and simple at the same time it is to survive and to be a Mand'alor Ian (aka everything and more I could have ever hoped for s3 to even touch on). Din is a magnet for force sensitive children, and ends up with the most amazing and badass Mandalorian daughters ever, also the narrative is very gently bullying him into becoming the leader we all know he very much is capable of being, and he can even have some time to develop a huge crush on Boba - for which he really can't be faulted, because Boba is an amazingly solid and awe-inspiring presence in the story, and I just really really love it when they get to talk Mandalorian philosophy in Boba's office.

All I'm saying is that you should go and read it, and heap kudos and praise on the author, they totally deserve it!

[burnwater13]

Grogu touching the snout of Boba Fett's rancor. Image from The Book of Boba Fett, Season 1, Episode 7, In the Name of Honor. Calendar by DataWorks.

Grogu never thought that he was going to be lucky enough to see a rancor, let alone touch one. But he had. Been lucky that is. Most people didn’t hope to get that close to the huge critter. Rancors were extremely large and very scary looking and weighed more than a land speeder. They were also carnivores. Yikes. 

Honestly, Grogu wasn’t really worried much about that last part. Sure, other people needed to worry about a rancor eating them or grabbing them with their huge hands, but not Grogu. If you think that’s just because he can use the Force and is very special because of that… you’d be correct. 

“Know your strengths and weaknesses, young Grogu, and you will make wise choices.” 

Obi-Wan Kenobi told him that and Grogu was grateful for the advice. It had served him well over the years. Grogu didn’t have to wonder if he should try and overpower the rancor with a fantastical feat of strength. That would be silly. Grogu wasn’t even half a meter tall. He was just over a third of a meter in height which meant that the rancor was easily 14 times as tall as he was! Fourteen! He couldn’t even put his arms all the way around one of the rancor’s digits. 

Nope. He couldn’t use strength. 

Then rancors were only sort of sentient. They were trainable. They mostly knew friend from foe. They were a lot like a very large barghest. And them imprinted on the first person or creature they saw. They would be devoted to that being and protect them at any cost.

Grogu had spent time reading up on rancors as part of his training at the Jedi Temple. The critters were originally from Dathomir, but had been found on other planets. They definitely weren’t native to Tatooine, but few of things on Tatooine were native species. He suppose that’s what happened when smugglers and gangs and other criminals made a place ‘home’. They brought things to that place that just didn’t belong there for one reason or another. 

But the lack of full sentience in rancors meant that Grogu couldn’t negotiate with the big critter. He couldn’t just smile and giggle and win them over. Nope. Rancors didn’t seem to care about things like that very much. 

That all meant that Grogu had to deal with the rancor using a different tool. One that he was reluctant to use right up to the point that he saw the huge critter try to bite his dad’s head. Thank goodness Din Djarin had been wearing his beskar helmet. While Grogu wasn’t typically a fan of his dad hiding his face, it really helped that day. 

The rancor attacking his dad meant that Grogu had to take firm action and it had to be decisive. But he didn’t want to see the critter hurt. Not like what happened with the mudhorn. He didn’t know the Mandalorian as well back then, but he really wished Din Djarin hadn’t felt the need to kill the critter and had just stunned it or something. The Force was not well served by diminishing the lives that supported it. 

That created a dilemma that Grogu had to be creative to deal with. He couldn’t just lift the rancor up and shake it and drop it. First, that just seemed mean and second, it would put him at substantial risk. Picking critters up required a lot of concentration and focus. One of those scorpan things could have hurt him or one of the Pykes, if any of them were still living. No. Grogu had to do something different. Something subtle. Something that the rancor would actually like. 

Grogu thought about his choices for a split second and remembered another saying that the Jedi Masters used from time to time at the Temple. “If all else fails, take a nap.”

Grogu couldn’t remember who said it, but one of them did and it was good advice. Sleep resolved a lot of problems. Not sure if you are really hungry or just bored? Take a nap. If you can’t fall asleep you are really hungry. Not sure if you should study more or go outside to play? Take a nap. If you fell asleep you didn’t have enough energy to do either thing. Need to deal with a rampaging rancor but you don’t want to hurt the critter? Use the Force to make it take a nap. Easy peasy!

Kind of. 

Not really. 

Yes, it was the best possible outcome. The critter stopped attacking his dad and didn’t threaten anyone else. It was obviously tired, scared and injured because the Pykes were mean and the Scorpan droids didn’t care who they fired at. So getting it to calm down, feel drowsy, forget the pain, and feel warm and secure and loved, which were big elements of using the Force to make a critter fall asleep, was a very complicated and delicate balance. That took a lot of focus, persistence, and compassion. And energy. A lot of energy.

That made Grogu’s next decision far easier than he imagined. The question had been should he run over to Peli and give her a hug and check on that tooth she lost, or should he run over to his dad and make sure his helmet hadn’t gotten dented by the rancor’s teeth. He made the only choice his training had prepared him to make. 

He took a nap. 

What was good for the rancor was good for the Grogu. It was as simple as that.

Grogu touching the snout of Boba Fett's rancor. Image from The Book of Boba Fett, Season 1, Episode 7, In the Name of Honor.

[knifesxedge]

stuck in funpoison world rn and you are The funpoison guy to me so please.. any spare funpoison thoughts for the poor?? 🥺

WHEE i’m honored!! and YES i would love to talk about them ❤️❤️❤️

FIRST AND FOREMOST i’ve been rewatching the mandalorian so i’ve been thinking about the fab four mandos au again which means that i’ve been considering mando’a again which MEANS i’ve been thinking about funpoison + “Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum” (“i love you” in mando’a, literal translation “i will know you forever”). AUGH AUGH AUGH AUGH AUGH AUGH. they are SOOOOOOO.

in unrelated thoughts, stream of consciousness style. they love each other SO much like before they’ve started dating kobra likes to make fun of poison because they will straight up just Stare at ghoul with this really big goofy smile just SO “anything you say, baby” but he also makes fun of ghoul because he’s always making excuses to touch them, to brush hair behind their ears and clean up their makeup for them and squeeze their hand. once they’ve started dating they’re SO shy with being affectionate around each other just because it’s so new but poison really loves being held and ghoul makes them feel safe so it’s not uncommon to see them curled up together on the couch with their hands wound together. and ghoul will blush and grin and roll his eyes whenever jet or kobra walk by but just sweep poison’s hair out of their face and tuck them a little closer.

ghoul likes to say they’re soulmates not because their love story lacked any hardship or was fairytale perfect from the beginning but because it WASN’T. and even though it wasn’t perfect, because life isn’t perfect, they kept running into each other. their lives kept meeting and intertwining for better or for worse. and ultimately what came of that was them both gaining an understanding of each other that blossomed into friendship that then slowly turned into being in love with each other. because they’d seen of the worst of each other right from the start and still ultimately said “you’re the one that i want”. for ghoul it means that the witch set their feet on a path towards each other, for poison, who doesn’t believe in the witch and barely believes in the idea of a higher power at all, it feels like maybe they could believe in destiny if nothing else.

oooohhh my god. i do not use tiktok so forgive me if i’m getting the source wrong but the one adventure time clip that’s like “you were a wonderful experience”/“you were everything”. in terms of personal flaws, poison is not necessarily always 100% healthily attached to their loved ones and i honestly think that ghoul’s death ends up being a kind of world-shattering life-altering event for them because he WAS everything. it’s like sometimes they don’t even know how to breathe without him. between the two, ghoul would have been better equipped to deal with poison’s death than poison was for ghoul’s not because he didn’t love them completely or because it wouldn’t have meant as much to him but because ghoul has been dealing with death of his loved ones from a very young age. it’s part of why he became so spiritual, because he let that belief that he would see his loved ones again, that they were safe and protected in their afterlife, be a comfort. poison doesn’t have that, and has never dealt with the death of someone so close to them before in a meaningful way. so it kind of breaks something in them. they don’t handle it very well in any sense.

on a less serious note i think ghoul loves to take poison dancing because it’s one of the only times that they’ll let their mask come off in public. they love to dance, they’re not fantastic at it, and unlike other times where they’ll feign disinterest in a skill if they know they aren’t good at it to save face publicly, if ghoul asks them to dance they’ll do it and they will honestly not focus on anyone else except for him. ghoul likes seeing them when they’re sweaty and breathless and happy and not caring if their makeup is running or if they look silly or how their clothes cling to their body. so a lot of date nights end up being “hey, there’s a band performing at this bar tonight” or “want to go to this party in zone two?” or “the roller rink is having a disco night on friday, want to go?” in fact, i’ve mentioned it before but their first official date is a couples’ night at the zones’ premier roller rink, Mega Moon’s, which used to be a lesbian bar before the wars and now is a locale for all sorts of folks but mostly LGBTQ-oriented :]

another thing i’ve mentioned before but ghoul loves to cook and party is not so great at it. HOWEVER, party DOES like to bake, though that’s not as feasible always in the zones. on the rare chance they get the opportunity though, they’ll get ghoul to help them — their excuse always being that they could use the extra hands but the real reason being so they can hang out together (and steal sugary kisses). i think their favorite thing to make is cookies but brownies are a close favorite just because those are GHOUL’S favorite & he’s written down his grandmother’s brownie recipe which is a hot commodity in the diner.

OH AND I HAVE TOUCHED ON THIS BEFORE but i don’t think i ever properly mentioned that they’re sun and moon coded. TO ME. more specifically day and night coded. i try to push that personal agenda with my writing when i can. when the day met the night……….

i think that’s all i have for you tonight. feel free to put a quarter in another time and see what i have to say then 👍

[mcbitchtits]

the most horrifying part of alien romulus is the fucking facial cgi (as always)

pretty fantastic movie otherwise though, excellent horror. more in line with the original alien than any of its sequels, although it does feel like a lot of the beats are also like "DO YOU REMEMBER ALIEN (1986)??? see what we did there?!"

the writing starts off strong with what felt to me personally like a very interesting approach to, you know, the horrors of capitalism and mining (poverty, dead parents, teen pregnancies, trapped by the remoteness of the environment, company towns and company stores), and it does a fair number of interesting things contrasting that to the parts in orbit (gravity fields, etc.) and, frankly, some absolutely fantastic horror visuals that make you feel like they are really innovating with both creature design as well as like they maybe used to work in halloween haunt mazes? very... personal shots? which i appreciate because i feel like covenant et al were more cinematic, which was fine, but also less horrifying in some ways. the acting was pretty good.

however the facial cgi for [spoiler character] was fucking terrible! this has been my #1 complaint about cgi for going on decades now and i have to be honest, this was some of the ugliest finished work i have ever seen. textures not mapping cleanly, form distention with animation, just real shit work. dunno if it's lack of budget or a bad art/animation director or the ever-present crunch because SFX is ununionized, but jesus fucking christ i hate this shit. it was bad in I, Robot and it was slightly less bad in Tron Legacy and it sucked all over again in Rogue One and The Mandalorian and Dial of Destiny! learn some fucking lessons from animators and rediscover the uncanny valley!!! watch jaws and spend a metric asston of time considering why we see so little of the shark! APPLY THE LESSON

(or, like, you've already got a half-destroyed character, just lean into it and make their mouth mechanics destroyed by acid or something. or make it look even more unnatural on purpose! it's a horror film! there are a lot of solutions and bad cgi is the worst one always!)

anyway i just really DO appreciate any time the alien sequels really dig into the birth/body horror. it's good! more of them should be better at it! fuck off james cameron! (sorry had to get that dig in there) (also, i mean, specifically, all the growth and rupturing and body-breaking, and to a lesser extent all the giger-styled vulvas etc; the actual uh babies and so forth are less interesting to me from a horror perspective. definitely weird and unsettling but also a little slenderman-was-born-on-the-something-awful-forums, you know?)

also effective use of treating the facehuggers like spiders or tarantulas. underrated approach to reinterpreting their horror. (unfortunate time to have a fur gremlin running around the house.) what i liked most about this movie is it managed to take a lot of the existing horror elements of the alien franchise and make them feel fresh and new and horrifying in completely new ways. real good shit.

also i see you weyland-yutani "W" podships, i see you AD and props. go prod team

love the score also. felt almost williams-ish and kinda raidersesqe (in the ark horror sense) and i vibed with it severely

[takadasaiko]

There's something very off about the Coruscant scenes in Mando

When I watched 3.03 with Dr Pershing on Coruscant, it felt like an entirely different show was dropped in the middle of a Mando episode. Even when Din showed up in BoBF, it didn't feel as jarring as our visit to Coruscant that included a five-year-in New Republic (presumably finding Mon Mothma and Leia with high ranking positions in the government) that was really nothing more than the Empire Lite. This new government is already bogged down by a severe lack of imagination that doesn't fit the scrappy rebellion that won the war, but instead acts as if they just usurped everyone left over from the Empire that was willing to fake it and keep on like nothing had happen. Can you see Leia Organa standing for that? I can't, and I certainly don't think that as involved as she and other high-level Rebels would be at this point we'd see the depths of bureaucracy that look like it's piled up over decades and suffocating the innovation of a relatively small group of people willing to face off against the the dreaded Empire. We have the lights and the buildings of Coruscant, but the people that fill them don't make sense.

Then there was the acting... or the writing or the direction. I never could pin it down, but Elia Kane was clearly setting Pershing up the whole way with no subtly to be found. With the exception of the bookended scenes with Din, Grogu, and Bo, the episode felt misplaced in the Mandalorian.

I watched 3.04 the following week and things were back to normal. Okay. Even excellent shows have fluke episodes. It wasn't until 3.05 dropped that I started thinking it was intentional.

The production design for Mando has been fantastic. The planets, the aliens, the costumes… all very well done. When they’re sneaking into Imperial locations, it’s sharp and cold, but in the caves of Mandalor it’s dark and broken, shadows leaving all the dangers hidden until the last second. The design teams use the sets and the costumes and the lighting to elicit the appropriate emotions out of the scene. We’re there with Din. We believe, if only for that time, that we’re in a galaxy a long time ago and far, far away. It’s lived in and it fits the world that so many of us have loved since childhood.

Then we get back to Coruscant. It's not like we haven't seen it before. The Clone Wars did an excellent job of showing the contrast of a planet we only skimmed the surface of in Episodes 1-3. We saw grand chambers in the Prequels, and there are plenty of those, but in that series we were introduced to the lower levels. The citizens that often didn’t work directly for the government. It felt gritty and real, but it fit the world, even when introducing something new.

Then we had Andor which also had a high production quality. While TCW showed us the governing class and the lower levels of the city-planet, in Andor we were introduced to what is likely the middle class - the lower level bureaucrats, the everyday people on the surface that filled the endless positions of paper-pushing - lived and worked. The colour was sucked out of their world, but it still fit the galaxy far, far away.

But then we have Coruscant in Mando and it just feels wrong. From the cubicles (much close to what you'd see in a real, modern office space than what you see above from Andor)

to the colonel's cheap costume with noticeably poor quality rank badge

to the way they speak and the utter lack of subtly in their dialogue that anyone on Coruscant with half a braincell should be able to pick up on, yet only Teva did. Only someone outside of the Coruscant bog.

It’s so jarring and so fake that it drags you out of the story entirely. You’re no longer in the galaxy of heroes and villains, Jedi and Sith, Rebels (or even the New Republic) and Empire…. You might as well be watching a low budget scifi film of some different story.

So is that done on purpose? The more I see it, the more I question that. Having been spoiled on the slow build by storytellers like Timothy Zahn post-RotJ, I'll admit to having an extreme bias against this Coruscant and especially this New Republic that they're painting here, but we'll see... Is there something else at play? I suppose only time will tell.

[charmwasjess]

ask and you shall receive! :)

may i ask what are your opinions on the original trilogy? on luke and leia? and do you watch the disney star wars shows like the mandalorian?

YAY!! I'll survive this day of rain and meetings somehow. Thank you!!

I'm tremendously sentimental about the OT. As a strange, stifled child, it was the first "grown up" movie I was allowed to watch at my cool uncle's house - certainly my first exposure to magic or fantasy media. So I have a lot of emotion and nostalgia tied up in it; it stamped itself onto my soft little brain and heart. Leia was always especially important to me: I had genuinely never seen a female character act like her in my sheltered religious upbringing. She was fierce, FUNNY?!, strong, soft, and hot?! (My tiny bisexual heart beating twice as fast at the Slave Leia outfit. And then she fucking chokes the slug out with a chain?!) I didn't even know women could be all those things at once. It was freeing. That makes me somewhat limited on critical analysis because I loved it with childlike fervor and that has persisted. I loved Han; I still laugh sycophantically at all his lines. I thought Luke was a little whiny, but I wanted him to win! I am still terrified of Vader.

And really, TPM came out very soon after my first exposure to the OT, but something always made the PT feel like it was "mine," (to break, to play with, to rewrite, to wiggle around) whereas the OT was this complete magical story I shouldn't edit. Which is why I still write Dooku stuff, but not Leia fics, even though she's My Girl. I am.... picking and choosing Disney+ series stuff. I'm psyched (terrified) for Acolyte. I love Kenobi with all my heart; it was a love letter to the prequel idiot in me. Mando kind of whiffed for me, but I'm still watching/keeping up with it; I'm actually not quite sure why I didn't connect with it because it seems to be generally accepted as good TV. (Possible theory: I think fundamentally Jedi stories are my favorite stories in Star Wars, which has plenty of room for many other stories than just Jedi ones, but I still have my favorite.) Andor ruined me in a fantastic way. I didn't watch Ahsoka, but I did skip around and watch the Hayden scenes because I'm only human. I also really want to see the Wolf girl kiss the other one.

So yeah, they're not all my cup of tea, but I do really like some of it!

Thank you again - this was so so fun!

[thecleverqueer]

Again, I’m completely baffled by the lack of media literacy in Star Wars fandom… especially when it comes from people that literally write for a living and work in media…

I was reading an article about why Ahsoka decided not to train Grogu as a Jedi yesterday. The article claimed that she decided not to do it because she’s not a Jedi herself, but like, bitch, no… it had nothing to do with that. She LITERALLY SAYS she’s not going to do it because of Grogu’s attachment to Din.

Lemme break it down for you here…

So, Filoni has told us that Ahsoka does not consider herself to be a Jedi at the beginning of her series because she has lost faith in institutions. So, fair. She is, at that point, a Ronin that still follows the code and the teachings of the Jedi order, but because her faith in others has been totally shattered into a billion pieces, she works alone. It will not shock me if by the end of her series she considers herself to be a Jedi once more. It shouldn’t shock you. Filoni has been dropping bread crumbs to lead us in that direction since Ahsoka left the order. Moving on.

After Din simmers a very high-strung Ahsoka down by letting her know that Bo-Katan sent him to her, and Din explains the reason he sought her out, Ahsoka agrees to test Grogu the following morning. I’m confident she would have wasted no time refusing to do any of this if her reasoning were related to her relationship with the Jedi. She would have just been up front about that. Like, “No, I’m not a Jedi. I’m not qualified,” or, “I can’t help you because I am not a Jedi myself.” She doesn’t do that. She tests Grogu the following morning.

Ahsoka’s test was very deliberate and focused. She already knew Grogu was force sensitive because they’d communicated through the force the previous night. His force capabilities had nothing to do with what she was looking for. She was testing the bond between Din and Grogu. She was trying to determine how close they truly were. She tells Din to “connect with him (Grogu)”. Just as soon as she picked up on Grogu’s attachment to Din, she hard noped out. She wasn’t going to have anything to do with Grogu’s training. The very idea of training Grogu clearly freaked her out. She basically indicated that Din should just let Grogu’s force abilities fade, which I don’t know if that’s exactly how that works, but maybe she knows more than me about it.

Honestly, if we’re looking for the REAL (out of universe) reason(s) that she refused to train Grogu, it’s because Dave has something bigger planned out for Ahsoka’s journey.. whether that be finding Ezra, ending Thrawn and his cronies, helping Luke rebuild the order, becoming a Jedi or something greater, transcending into a force goddess, dying in some fantastical fashion or whatever is anyone’s guess.. she didn’t have time to train Grogu. Never mind the fact that Grogu is an intricate piece of the Mandalorian puzzle.

Still, Ahsoka’s unwillingness to train Grogu had nothing to do with being or not being a Jedi and everything to do with her own hang ups.

[autumnwoodsdreamer]

20 Questions for Writers

(Thanks for the tag @katebishopofearth 💛)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

18

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

452,721

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Avengers, Mandalorian, Star Wars Rebels, The Bad Batch, HTTYD, and I really want to write something for Prospect

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Lift a Sail

Head Above Water

Anchors

Black & Red I: The Early Days Chapter (okay, I was surprised this one made the top five)

The Lighthouse Keeper

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes! I appreciate comments so much and I know I love it when writers respond to my comments on fics and give me DVD special features behind-the-scenes commentary and I love giving lore and insights and explaining things. (I feel crushingly stupid with everything I say, though… 🫣)

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don’t know… I tend to cram the angst in the start and middle of a story but I compulsively aim for happy endings.

Maybe Lift a Sail? It ended with everything in the worst state (even though it was in the process of getting put right and I did put it right in the sequel! But. Yeah. It ended the angstiest.)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

It’s a tie between The Lighthouse Keeper and Shadows Dancing on the Walls. They’re my happiest endings ☺️ everyone together, reunited, safe and sound

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I’ve been really fortunate. I’ve gotten some but not too much, mostly just a few nasty comments but it was from ones who I think just didn’t understand what my endgame for the story was or they misunderstood something and thought I meant something I really didn’t. (Hence why I preface my stories now with so many warnings and notes. They seem ridiculous but I have had people get upset at me for not following canon in a story explicitly tagged “not canon compliant” so… yeah.)

This very memorable time, I had someone tell me to stop writing from Grogu’s POV because it’s not interesting and they get disappointed every time they see a new chapter and find out it’s his POV (may the record reflect that out of literally over a hundred chapters in the series, I have written from his POV less than 10 times and this comment was on the third). What surprised me (and continues to warm my heart) were the other people who jumped into the comment thread and they didn’t bash the person (I wouldn’t want that) but they assured me that they enjoyed these chapters and encouraged me to keep writing what I wanted to write. I’m so grateful for that because I take everything to heart and I seriously considered deleting that chapter (even though I really loved it and was so proud of it).

9. Do you write smut?

No.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Oh, yeah. A lot of in-universe crossovers (I mean, Avengers is itself a crossover, technically, and what I write for Star Wars counts as crossovers because I take characters from various shows who haven’t met in canon and I put them in situations together.)

I have loads of ideas for actual crossovers. My sister and I are always creating these convoluted meetings between totally different universes (you should see our HTTYD/The Mandalorian crossover. It’s wild)

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I believe some of my early stuff wound up on Wattpad.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

The aforementioned stuff got translated into Spanish, I believe. (Which… I can’t really argue with. I think that’s awesome; I can’t translate my stuff into Spanish, so I think it’s great that someone could and then more can enjoy it. But I just wish whoever did it had asked me first.)

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I help my sister with her fics sometimes. She’s a fantastic writer—her comedy is exquisite!

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Oh, don’t make me choose. Ironwidow (Tony Stark/Natasha Romanov) is so precious to me, but I’ve gotten swept up by Djarwren (Din Djarin/Sabine Wren) and (the actual canon ships) TechPhee (Tech/Phee Genoa) and Kanera (Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla) have my heart in a vice.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Probably the Black & Red series. And the Tough Act to Follow story. And The Face of the Lost. And…

16. What are your writing strengths?

I’ve developed a penchant for descriptions. I love painting scenes with words. Anne of Green Gables was my favourite book growing up and the way Montgomery describes the places always carried me away.

I also really love writing dialogue and capturing individual voices.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I struggle with making characters do or say things that I don’t agree with. Sometimes they have to do or say something (for the plot or that’s just what that character would do in that situation or interaction) but I don’t like it or don’t want them to do it because I’m a marshmallow and I want everyone to be friends

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

One word: italicise. That’s what I was taught in school and I love seeing it when others do it because it helps me see that it’s in a different language (I’m dyslexic. I once read a whole sentence and only figured out a few paragraphs later that it was in French. I thought I was just having a bad day).

(Of course, there’s always exceptions to the rule)

But, yeah, I think it’s great seeing other languages in a fic (real world ones or made-up ones like Mando’a, my beloved). It adds a lovely richness to a story, especially when the writer knows the language. I grew up in a multi-lingual community so reading something with characters coming in with different languages feels like home to me.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Doctor Who (like, fifteen years ago. It’s squirrelled safely away in a notebook, never to see the light of day)

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Anchors.

No pressure tagging: @seleneisrising @desertbeskar @sytortuga @sotvtaughtmehowtofeel @quicksilvermad @the-kittylorian-writes @heatherthetiredwriter @visitbespin (and I swear there were more I thought of just a minute ago but my mind has blanked so, please, if you see this and you want to do a round yourself, go right ahead, you can say I tagged you)

[heyclickadee]

Ahsoka spoilers under the cut:

1. Guess Dave Filoni’s as big a fan of Treasure Planet as the rest of the interwebs.

2. I’m not sold on some of the acting (mostly Hera), but it doesn’t put me off, either. I think I’m just very attached to the animated VA’s voices.

3. Love a crawl.

4. Love me some force weirdness.

5. They…sure do love fakeout deaths in the star war….

6. I’m actually intrigued by whole “Ahsoka tried to train Sabine as a Jedi and then quit,” thing. There’s a story there, and I suspect, or hope, that we’re going to see that story revealed. It allows both Ahsoka and Sabine to be a bit prickly, which is fun. But I also like the idea of someone who isn’t force sensitive training to be a Jedi, mostly because in universe, Jedi doesn’t necessarily mean “light side force user.” It’s a specific religious practice, and there doesn’t seem like super good reason to flat out exclude people who don’t have the aptitude for the force from that practice. And I could see it as a sort of grief response from Sabine. She has her Mandalorian heritage and family, and she’s very proud of and connected to it (especially after reconciling with her parents), but she’s also got her rebel family. Two members of her rebel family were Jedi, and those are the two she lost. I could maybe see her trying to learn more about Jedi teachings as a way of feeling close to them. I don’t like it, I don’t dislike it, but I am interested. I want to see where it goes.

7. Ezra’s in a galaxy far, far away. Of course he is.

8. I like Baylon and his apprentice. There’s something weirdly endearing about both of them.

9. I can’t believe the Disaster Lineage continues. You KNOW Anakin and Obi Wan are watching Ahsoka get so annoyed with Sabine through this and just. Laughing.

10. Excited to see Ahsoka and Sabine on their get-along mission.

11. I have some nitpicks and reservations about some things, but we’ll see where it goes.

12. I don’t mind Hera’s face paint that much, but the contacts are distracting. Then again, I think the same thing about Crowley’s yellow contacts in Good Omens, so….

13. The soundtrack is fantastic. The Kiner Family always delivers.

14. Generally? I like it. I can’t say I’m not having fun.

[youngpettyqueen]

What other shows are you into, if any? 🥰

hi Ally <3

so besides MASH im into tons and tons!! ill just list some off the top of my head-

Cowboy Bebop: just finished rewatching this one, I wanted my dad to watch it. im a big anime fan, this one is high up on my list of favourites, its a classic! I even recommend it to non-anime fans because the gorgeous animation, compelling characters and story, and unique world building are just soooooooo good

Mob Psycho 100: hey. hey wanna watch something truly fucking bizarre and unique. wanna watch something that feels like going through therapy. want to cry your eyes out to the most unexpected anime dude of all time. boy do I have a show for you. MP100 makes me unreasonably emotional and I think everyone should watch it

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood: my favourite anime of all time nothing else comes even close. I could write an essay on why FMAB should be required viewing. I wish everyone could experience watching it as a kid and going back to it as an adult and having your entire perspective and understanding shift because suddenly youre older than the main characters and shit is so much more horrifying than when you were the same age/younger

Gargoyles: what im currently watching. also a big cartoon fan. Gargoyles is such a wonderful product of the mid-90s and I adore it. I grew up on 80s and 90s cartoon so everything from the lore to the character designs is very nostalgic to me. I need to watch the last season still but I keep putting it off cause I know the quality dips

Avatar the Last Airbender: next show im picking for my dad and I to watch. I unironically consider it to be one of the best stories ever written, with some fantastic characters and what continues to be one of my favourite redemption arcs of all time

Batman the Animated Series: best Batman. no question. I do not accept criticism. I did watch Justice League + Justice League Unlimited with my dad recently and I quite enjoyed those, but nowhere near as much as I enjoyed BtAS. Kevin Conroy I miss you every day nobody understood Bruce Wayne like you did

Doctor Who: both Classic and New Who. we have a free streaming service with a Classic Who channel, and we've had the DVDs for New Who playing lately. my favourite show of all time! meant the world to me as a teenager and got me through a lot. I have a tattoo of 11's sonic and bowtie <3

Smallville: my dad did a rewatch of this recently and I was around for most of it. and listen, ok, Smallville is a cringe fest a lot of the time. its an early 2000s CW show. but its ironically still my favourite depiction of Clark Kent and Lex Luthor, and honestly probably my favourite Lois Lane

Star Trek: various Trek shows. TOS is currently playing a lot in the house, which I have seen all of and adore, but im also a huge TNG fan even though i. havent finished it. haha. Ive also seen most of Voyager and quite enjoyed it. at some point ill get to DS9 probably

The X-Files: another one I havent rewatched in years but think about often. X-Files truly had it all. not a day goes by that I dont think about Jose Chung's from Outer Space. this was the first show to make me physically grind my teeth and scream into a pillow over a slowburn

I have more but these are what I can remember off the top of my head and what I would rewatch! im big into shows and movies so I watch a lottttttt. shoutout to some other shows ive loved like Lucifer, the Mandalorian, Kenobi, Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel the Series, Schitt's Creek, The Owl House, Violet Evergarden, and others im sure im forgetting