#can be read as ship agnostic

[definitively-different-drivel]

Fic posted! It's short but crazy! I hope people have as much fun reading as I had writing it! :D Summary on AO3:

Stiles gaped after Mrs. Brooks. Derek stood beside him, eyebrow raised. Stiles pulled out his phone, searching frantically. "You're not looking that up." Stiles typed away. "Fuck off, do you really think I can just- ignore that possibility?" Derek grimaced, scraping his fingers through the back of his hair. Stiles sputtered beside him. "Holy shit I found it! Oh my god, this was a bad idea, Derek, why didn't you stop me?"

In which Stiles hears some interesting information about his father's past career aspirations and proceeds to makes literally the worst decisions possible.

[zenkindoflove]

Fandom Shipping Terminology 101: ACOTAR edition

Hi! So I decided to put a little resource together for the ACOTAR fandom. Since many people join the SJM/ACOTAR fandom and have never been in fandom before, they encounter a lot of fandom terminology that they are not quite sure what it means or have seen others use it incorrectly so they get a false impression of the meaning of the word. So I put this together, including examples from the fandom, so that people can use it as a reference to learn more about what these terms mean and when they're appropriate to use. This list is focused on words related to shipping.

Tldr definitions (note: these are definitions that I wrote based on my own experiences/research on fanlore. These are always up for interpretation and meaning and nuance change over time and depend on fandom context)

Canon ship - a relationship where the characters have romantic interactions in canon

Fanon ship - a relationship where in canon the characters are platonic but the fandom has accepted as a ship with romantic undertones, canonical potential, or has become so popular within a fandom it's has surpassed the need/desire for canon

Crackship - a pairing of two characters where the idea of them together is strange or funny depending on the circumstances. Often in these ships, the characters have little or even no interactions in canon

Rare pair - agnostic to fanon or canon status. A rare pair simply means the fandom does not make a lot of fan content for it.

End-game - This is a canon ship that is together by the end of a series.

Slash ship - Fanon ships that feature queer relationships. M/M usually takes on the term slash and F/F has the term femslash.

OTP - Stands for One True Pair. This is a ship that a shipper considers to be the most important one that they love in a fandom.

NOTP - anti-OTP, or a ship that a shipper detests/is squicked out by

Multishipping - the act of shipping a character with multiple other characters.

For more context and thorough examples read more under the cut 

First, what the heck is a ship?

The origins of shipping and becoming obsessed with fictional relationships predate our modern understanding of fandom. Modern fandom roots can be traced as early as Star Trek: The Original Series. But the terminology of calling a couple you like a ship or the act of obsessing over fictional (and sometimes non fictional) couples "shipping" has its origins in the X-Files fandom. While ACOTAR is a romance, many fandoms do not have romance as a central element of its plot, and yet, shippers find a way. That's exactly what happened for the fans of Mulder/Scully. Those who wanted them to be in a romantic relationship were called "relationshippers" which then got shortened to "shippers". The verb "to ship" would appear later from this origin.

The way to think about "what is a ship" though is really based on do people think up romantic scenarios with these two characters? If yes, then you have a ship. And in ACOTAR, oh baby, are there MANY, MANY SHIPS.

Canon vs. Fanon ships

Where does a canon ship end and a fanon one begin? Now that, my friends, is not as clear cut as you might think.

I think this discussion is very important for the ACOTAR fandom because of the state of the ship war currently. Often, there is back and forth about which ship is canon or fanon (and *eye twitch* people throwing around crackship as a derogatory term to de-legitimize a ship which makes me wanna punch shit).

I'm gonna burst everyone's bubbles and say, I personally think Elriel, Elucien, and Gwynriel are all CANON ships.

Why? Well, that's the part that is up for interpretations my friends. What is deemed canonical romantic interactions? That is where a lot of lines can become blurry and if you have ever shipped a fanon ship before - you KNOW what I mean by that. Is it a charged glance? A caress of a hand that lingered too long? Is it a shared kiss? Or do the characters have to explicitly declare "I'm yours and you're mine"?

I've shipped a lot of kinds of ships. Canon. Fanon. Canon that had its end-game blown up. You name it, I've shipped it. And to me, a canon ship is anytime the writer of the canon is putting characters in a romantic situation, regardless if they end up together or not by the end of the series. If they wanted you to feel butterflies and think "could they?", and you felt butterflies, well my friends, you're responding to canon romance. And we've seen evidence of all three ships having those moments.

But, what does that mean for fanon ships? I have shipped a fanon couple where I got butterflies from their canonical scenes together. I've read into their moments and thought "wow, that was romantically charged". I think this is where the lines of canon and fanon are blurred. Because what this comes down to is, did the author intend this? Or am I seeing more into an interaction because I like it? Most fanon ships do hinge a lot of their interest in said ship because of what happens in canon. But, often times, the authors of said content are not necessarily wanting you to take away from their writing that these two characters are interested in each other romantically. You just can't help it. You see it. You see the potential, and you want it to go there so you see more of it the more you look.

Sometimes fanon ships are very clear that the canon is not even hinting at these two characters together romantically. And that is perfectly fine. To me, a fanon ship is a ship that has become so ingrained in the fandom community that the fandom thinks of these two together romantically. That it doesn't really matter anymore what the canon says or doesn't. The fandom has created this relationship and it lives and breathes within what the fandom builds for it. Azris is a perfect example of a fanon ship in ACOTAR. The canon interactions between Azriel and Eris are sparse and platonic in nature, yet the fandom itself has created a whole fanon around them with a large enough community that as soon as you enter the ACOTAR fandom, you immediately know this ship exists.

Rare pairs and Crackships

These two terms are often used interchangeably as if they are synonyms. Now, a rare pair can be a crackship but not all rare ships are crackships and vice versa.

Generally, a rare pair is devoid of canon or fanon connotations. A rare pair is a ship that receives little attention from fans and has few associated fanworks. So, a rare pair could be a fanon couple that few people think about romantically. For example, Emerie and Gwyn have a lot of interactions in canon. I would not think shipping them together to be a crackship because I mean, they're friends, they like each other, they read smut together. There are a lot of scenarios one could imagine them falling in love. But they have a whopping 12 fanfics under their tag in AO3. Therefore, they are a rare pair but not necessarily a crackship.

A rare pair can also be a canon ship. For example, Thesan and his unnamed lover are canon. However, when you look up their relationship tag on AO3, there are 23 works and most do not appear to be focused on them.

I also have seen people use rare pair for very popular ships (like Azris) when they mean fanon. Again, rare pair is really an indication of "how much fan content can you find for this" not necessarily are they canon.

Crackships really were birthed from the intention of putting two characters together "4 da lulz" to bring back early 2000s internet lingo. Crack shipping is usually a pairing that the idea of them together is a little absurd but also fun. Beron/Tamlin is a quintessential crackship example, especially why it came to be (but we will avoid getting into all the origins of that). There is no real reason to think Beron or Tamlin would ever have a romantic interaction and thinking about it makes you laugh. Crackships can sometimes turn into fanon ships. This is another example where the lines do get blurry. But really, crackshipping is about intention and the use of absurdism within fan creation.

I also want to say, often what I see in the Elucien v. Elriel and Elriel v. Gwynriel ships wars is the use of crackship in a derogatory way, and thinking that if one of these ships does not become end-game, therefore, it proves the other was a crackship. Simply put - no. That's not how it works.

End-game

Related to the above point, I think often where the ACOTAR ship wars really derail themselves, is conflating fanon/canon/endgame with each other. I don't see people often using the term end-game, when really, it would help so much with the judgmental and strange ship policing that this fandom loves to do. Specifically, this fandom has a hard time talking about the value within shipping fanon, or shipping the blurriness between fanon and canon for any characters that do not have end-game potential. ACOTAR is not a complete series. Therefore, in a strict definition, no couples are end-game. However, given the genre, there are several couples who are clearly going to be end-game. And really, what I think the ship war community needs in their discourse, is to start using the term end-game when they want to discuss the outcome of Elucien, Elriel, or Gwynriel having a canonical Happily Ever After. The reason being is that you can use end-game, and not insult another ship. End-game is simply a fact. There is no hierarchy involved in what ship is best or not. Because ships can be beloved whether they're canon or fanon or canon who did not end up together. And they all can have very valid reasons why people ship them despite not achieving end-game.

I also urge the ACOTAR fandom to realize that end-game is not the end of YOUR experience of your ship. Your ship lives on despite what the canon may or may not give you. Even if you ship a canon ship that does not achieve end-game, you can create those fanon end-games for yourself. Many popular ships end up being popular because of the effect of that ship not achieving end-game. And while I am using the prime-ship war as examples within this post, I've seen other microshipwars popping up within the fandom as well. So, I'm not trying to pick on this specific set of conflicts, it's just the one I see most prominently.

OTP vs NOTP

I think the ACOTAR fandom could also really benefit from adopting this terminology.

The point of declaring OTPs and NOTPs is a way for you to signal to others in your fandom, "This is how much I care about this ship. Whether I love it it or hate it. Tread carefully". These terms are not meant to say one ship is better than the other from a moral standpoint. Instead, it's to indicate to others that you have a strong preference. You're going to love your OTPs regardless of what arguments others throw at you to convince you to not love them. You will probably be very annoyed by your NOTPs regardless of what others try to do to convince you that they're actually cute/sexy/hot/perfect for each other. And what the ACOTAR fandom could benefit from, from readopting OTP/NOTP language, is having a common understanding where different shipping communities boundaries are and how they can better utilize those boundaries to prevent constant fighting. Now, ship wars are inevitable because of how people see their OTPs and NOTPs, but general rule of thumb is - don't engage with your NOTP's content for your own mental sanity.

Multishipping

Multishipping can be used in many ways. Some people use it to say, hey I'm in this fandom, and I ship a lot of couples. But the origins of multishipping as a term, comes from ship war discourse in other fandoms. Multishippers generally are people who ship one character with multiple other characters. For example, if you ship Elain/Lucien, Elain/Azriel, Elain/Gwyn, Elain/Tamlin, etc etc etc, you are a multishipper. I generally would not consider someone a multishipper if all of their ships do not cross streams. It just sort of means that you ship a lot of couples. Which tends to be normal for romance series with a lot of couples. Maybe not a single of those couples is your true OTP, and that's what you mean by saying you're a multishipper. And that's okay. I think though that multishipping generally in other fan spaces is a marker of you telling others that you don't draw harsh lines with who you see characters with. I often see multishippers not declaring NOTPs. It's kind of a state of how you go about shipping often. I, for one, identify as an OTP shipper. I've never really multishipped. But I also have a very strict standard of what I call my "ships". Anyways, this is to say, this term has a lot of uses. And sometimes it can be confusing which of these uses a person means when they say it.

Slash shipping 

I've seen over the years that slash as a terminology has fallen out of favor. In the past, slash shipping was the pinnacle of shipping in fandoms. The term slash comes from the first modern fanon ship, Kirk/Spock, where the / between their names, which we now all know and use to indicate a romantic pairing (note: & is used to indicate a platonic interaction between characters), exists because the Kirk/Spock shipping community really were the originators of shipping communities creating fan content and sharing it in with each other in a massive way. In general slash (and femslash) is an important modifier of shipping because it explicitly tells you that this is a queer ship which often were not mainstream and considered canon until more recently. With the rise of canonical queer ships, I think the subversiveness of shipping queer couples has lost it's edge, therefore slash is not needed as much anymore to directly state the nature of your ship.

I wanted to keep this in the post though, because I think it's incredibly important history for ALL ACOTAR fans to understand. Shipping queer couples, and especially shipping FANON queer couples, has always been the backbone of fandom. Kirk/Spock walked so Destiel could fly. These are all queer ships that have strong fanon roots (and that fanon has had impacts on their canon) and have shaped fandom and your concept of shipping and romance tropes in inextricable ways. You don't have / without Kirk/Spock. You don't have Omegaverse, without gay shipping within the Supernatural fandom. And I wanted to make this point because this fandom has a strong het (heterosexual) ship bias. Which is okay. It's a romance series with a lot of heterosexual canon couples. But, I think because of that, many people are not entering this fandom with an understanding that people shipping queer fanon couples have been the ones who were the originators of many fandom terms that we have come to know and use today.

Conclusion:

I hope you all found this informative and that you can take away something from this post that can help you have better interactions and ability to communicate with others in this fandom. Again, I want to stress, that this is heavily influenced by my own 25 years of experience being in fandoms. And I haven't seen it all. Others will have different interpretations of these terms and experiences using these terms. So, feel free to add on anything that you think would be helpful to those in the ACOTAR community to better understand how to "ship and let ship". I do think that ship war are inevitable and not necessarily a bad thing. But using the right terms can help you engage in a more respectful way within ship war discourse.

[userautumn]

Please don't feel the need to respond but I feel like you're one of the more level-headed shippers (ship-agnostic) so I wanted to get your opinion on something.

I personally believe Ryan Guzman when he repeatedly says Eddie is straight. Obviously, these can change any second and people are allowed to headcanon whatever they want, regardless of what the show tells us.

But seeing people use the juice bar scene to prove Eddie's a repressed gay man is a little weird. I just saw, "Eddie said he was straight. And then the priest told him to stop punishing himself (drinking bland water) and enjoyed what he really wanted (fruit juice)"

It kind of just feels like they're inadvertently calling him fruity, which is more pejorative than I think people realize when the person isn't canonically queer and the actor has asked to us to revisit why we think he secretly is.

I don't know, I guess I just wanted to know what you think. You're good about remembering this is a TV show but that it also has real world consequences every now and then <3

Howdy! 🤠

Oh man, ship-agnostic. Haha. That's great. I'm stealing that, thank you.

Yeah, since 8x6, I've also seen people directly and indirectly assert that Eddie is gay because of the fruit juice choice and, if we're being honest, I find that theory to be problematic. (Problematic in the way the word was meant to be defined, not in a these people should be cancelled way). Not even for the reasons you suggest, and not even because I disagree with the reading that Eddie is Queer (I don't), but because believing that the narrative is implying he's fruity is gross. "Fruity" is still a derogatory term. It's only in Gay/Queer circles that we use slurs or historically denigrating words to refer to each other casually.

But recontextualizing the existence of 9-1-1 outside the fandom bubble and realizing it's written overwhelmingly by heterosexual men should make people raise an eyebrow if indeed that were the implication (which, for the record, I don't think it was) because that's not a term anybody should be using for the Queer community unless they're Queer, and especially not if they're trying to handle such a potentially beautiful arc with care. You know?

I too believe Ryan when he says Eddie is straight. Mainly because 9-1-1 spent years skirting the line of ambiguity regarding how they handle Buddie and Eddie's sexuality specifically, only to throw that ambiguity out the window now. As you said, this could change at a moment's notice. But at this time, that definitely doesn't seem like the direction they're trying to go in. Which is unfortunate! But, alas. Nothing we can do about it from here, now is there? Lol.

[weirdsociology]

Distractions (The Mandalorian, E)

Title: Distractions (6.6k)

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

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

Pairing: Din Djarin x Female Reader

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Is that what you call it?"

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Good girl. Now turn around."

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I have to tell you so--"

"Mandalorian, why are you--"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There was a long silence. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

series masterlist

[creature-wizard]

I have a question that if you cannot answer, I understand. I’ve been lurking on your page for quite a bit and I’ve read most of your FAQ + Newbie orientation and I’ve come to the realisation that a lot of my beliefs, both as a witch who used to believe in manifestation and starseeds and as a former extreme evangelical Christian (now agnostic) who grew up in that environment and is still in it, were actually extremely antisemitic.

From the manifestation and starseeds shit to the way my family and other evangelicals were taught about and thought about Jewish people, culture, and religion (as if Jewish folk are people that need to be “saved” and converted into Christianity and are basically pawns to ship to Israel in order to bring on the rapture/revelations, the concept of Messianic Jews, viewing Jewish people as simultaneously superior as well as inferior, superior in the sense that they are the true people of Jesus, inferior in the sense that they didn’t/don’t believe in and accept Jesus Christ as a messiah and aren’t Christian, viewing Jewish people as the “elites”, etc), I’m very deeply disgusted with these beliefs and values, but they’ve been instilled in me since I was born, I don’t even know how to get rid of them.

Is it even possible to rid yourself of an implicit bias? How would one even go about that? I don’t wanna think this way forever. I don’t want to hurt anyone.

You gotta learn critical thinking skills, and study and learn from reliable sources as much as you can. It won't stop you from fucking up all the time, but it'll make it less like you fuck up. Here's some posts that might help:

Recognizing the difference between real history and pseudohistory

Beginner Witch Tip: Remember The Five W’s!

Critical thinking in witchy spaces, using the fae as an example

Vetting Witchcraft Books: a Brief Guide

How to talk about cultural appropriation in an effective way

List of red flags and safety tips

Another post about red flags

Beyond dogwhistles – racists have a new rhetorical trick

Learn to moderate your assumptions

How conspiracy peddlers and cult recruiters make you feel like you're "thinking for yourself" when you're actually not.

How to be properly critical of science rather than anti-science

How to think critically about a scientific report

For deconstructing Christian beliefs in particular, I recommend Bart D. Ehrman. He's got published books, and you can also find him on the Misquoting Jesus podcast. Justin Sledge, who runs ESOTERICA on YouTube, is a great source of esoteric and religious history in general.

[mystical-sleepy-musings]

About Me💤

💤Names you can call me💤

Morpheus, Moop, Dream(Preferred), Mystic(Preferred), Birbo, Nightmare

💤Gender💤

Nonbinary/Gendervoid/Novarian

I seem to be one of Liminality and of the unknown void .The gender is there, but sometimes it is not... It stretches into the formless abyss. For the sake of my sanity, I just but if I had to put a term to it it would be gendervoid or Novarian(Masc Nonbinary)(Preferred Pronouns are He/Him They/Them, Void/Voids but you can use any)

💤Orientation💤

Asexual Panromantic

💤Myers Briggs💤

INTJ-A

💤Enneagram💤

5w4

💤Alignment💤

Chaotic Neutral

💤💤💤💤💤💤💤💤💤💤

I am a Hellenistic pagan and a Demonolator who specializes in Astral work, Energy work, oneriomancy, Divination, baneful magick, Chaos Magick and Celestial/Cosmic magick and Chthonic Deities and Demons

My patron deity is Morpheus

Patron Demon is Prince Stolas

Spirit spoused to Volo from Pokemon(pcp) he is my fictional other ie I self ship with him (yes he is a pop culture pagan entity that exists and he is fiercely in love with me apparently and unhinged as f)

💤Beliefs and Philosophy💤

Pantheist and Neo-platonist with a bit of animism(spirituality)

Luciferian ( morality)

Ethical and Existential Nihilism

Pessimist(Outlook on Life)

Relativism

Agnostic on some things tho

☆Zodiac: Pisces Sun(♓) Capricorn Moon(♑) Scorpio Rising(♏)

💤INTERESTS💤

Astronomy and Cosmology

Philosophy

Botany

Demonology and Angelology

Occultism and witchcraft

Mythology/Ancient History

Dreams and sleep science

Quantum physics

Ornithology

Psychiatry and Jungian Psychology

Geometry

Weird, dark, obscure, disturbing things in general

💤Other things I like💤

☆Writing(I write poetry)

☆Stargazing

☆Reading(Mostly Nonfiction, Classical Lit and Horror)

☆Heavy metal(Doom metal mostly)

☆Classic vinyl(60s and 70s with some 80s)

☆Gothic/Etherealwave/anything of that genre(newer to it and always looking for more bands of that nature)

☆Dark Blue, Dark purple, and black are my favorite colors

☆Neil Gaiman's The Sandman and Doctor Strange

☆Pokemon

☆I love Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss(I don't like Vivian as a person, though)

☆Anime

☆I love birds, especially corvids and owls

☆I own a black void kitty named Alice Cooper

☆parent of many photosynthetic children

☆I love collecting Oddities, Curiosities and Antiques

☆Misc☆

☆Neurodivergent up the ass(on spectrum)

☆Ravenclaw/Slytherin hybrid

☆expect some dark sarcastic humor from me

☆I am Gothic and voidpunk with some dark whimsigoth/Occult and Dark/Natural/Space Academia in fashion and aesthetic(Also WeirdCore , Psychedelic/Surreal, Dreamcore aesthetics are appealing as well). Liminal spaces are my j a m

☆I am an Otherkin/Therian/Fictionkin. My main Fictotypes are Dream of The Endless( The Sandman), Stolas(Helluva Boss), Giratina (Pokemon),Stephen Strange(Marvel), Aaravos(The Dragon Prince), Alastor(Hazbin Hotel), Princess Luna (My Little Pony) and Lord Sesshomaru (Inuyasha) My top otherkintypes are Fallen Angel /Demon, Angel/Seraphim, Eldritch/Void/Cosmic being, Corvidae (Cladiotherian), Jersey Devil. In general I am just here as a being of stars and thought up dreamscapes a borderline liminal conglomerate of holy and unholy abstractions

[thebreakfastgenie]

Hawkeye for the character ask game please ❤️

How I feel about this character

"Character of all time" is perhaps played out, but... I love this character. He's complex and interesting and shaped like that. He's one of my favorite characters ever. He's from Maine! He has one of the best character names of all time.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Margaret

Frank

Trapper

Charles

Bigelow

Carlye (not endgame)

Inga

I'm also a big fan of Hawkeye/OC, especially Female OC but Male OC too

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Hawkeye and Trapper probably takes the cake, but I also love his dynamics with Radar, Klinger, and Sidney.

My unpopular opinion about this character

This is tricky because there's a lot of fanon that I agree with the broad strokes of but disagree with the details, or feel it's taken too far. I'm a fan of exploring his trauma; I think he has PTSD and he's still going to have an adjustment, but I don't think he's a broken bird.

I don't think he's overly political. I don't think he's read theory, I don't think he throws around words like imperialism. He certainly has political opinions but I don't think they're ovelry sophisticated. I think he's much more of a mainstream liberal than a leftist and he's definitely not a communist (though people like Flagg would call him one). I think his strong anti-war feelings come from a more basic moral place of hating death and violence and his anti-bigotry views come from a similar place. I think that's an important part of his character, because the show is trying to say that the horror of war should transcend politics, that everyone should be as horrified by it as Hawkeye is.

I don't think he's especially feminine, I think he has a lot of masculine traits and he's a man who's very comfortable in his masculinity which makes him willing to explore more feminine traits too, because he's not afraid of being "less" of a man. I think most of his gender-nonconformity is about about rebelling against authority much more than gender expression. Even his more feminine traits feel like more of a statement of what a man is allowed to be.

I don't think he's a bottom and I hate the bratty bottom characterization (he's vers; I can buy bottom-leaning but he definitely enjoys topping).

The last thing he would ever do is sit around pining for someone who wasn't available. I don't think fandom consciously characterizes him as a pining love martyr, but a lot of ship fic/fanon relies on that characterization, so it's very popular.

I don't think he was wrong in Fallen Idol, Commander Pierce, or Bottle Fatigue, but I don't think he's a saint who's never wrong.

I think a lot of his friends treat him badly in the later seasons, especially 8-11, and he doesn't deserve it.

I'm not sure what the popular view on this is these days but I feel very strongly that Hawkeye was raised culturally New England protestant but agnostic.

I think he wants to get married and have kids someday, just not yet, and he probably does eventually.

Of course, my least popular opinion is that he has no romantic feelings for BJ whatsoever.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I wish he'd gotten a medal! You could get a great storyline out of his attempts to avoid it. Unlike BJ's bronze star storyline, it wouldn't be out of guilt, it would be purely because he doesn't want to be honored by the military.

[sleepykamukura]

Omg hihi! I saw that you followed me back, and I love McAshe/Cashe. that's the reason I followed you. Ashe is one of my favorite Overwatch characters. I know their lore, but I need to read deadlock rebels. I'd love to know your headcanons, though. As an artist, maybe I can draw them. I'm working on a Cashe comic as well.

YES i would love to talk about my headcanons!!!!!

i've discussed in detail before although it's probably buried in my tags but i'll summarize!!!

more below the cut (there's a lot)

ASHE

raised catholic (i like to think this because of her mardi gras skin), now atheist

of spanish, french, & scottish descent

bisexual !!! SHES BISEXUAL!!!!!!! look at her

horrible horrible cook. in fact she's banned from the kitchen. BOB and cass are the cooks

you said you havent read dlr but there's a character named frankie that i like to ship her with as well (i call them lavenderrose) ((also i like bars & ashe together if you've read luck of the draw. they're cute))

i do hc her to have borderline personality disorder (maybe im projecting a bit)

she's born & raised in arizona dont let the texas ashe truthers get to you. if you follow the landscaping that's briefly mentioned in dlr it makes 0 sense for her hometown to be in texas

CASS

raised baptist (LIKE ME!!!), now agnostic

irish, mexican, & indigenous american descent

he's also bisexual!!!!!!!

he's a better cook than ashe but nowhere near as good as BOB. specializes in comfort foods

another character in dlr, julian, is his crazy ex Ok. Hear me out. HEAR ME OUT!!!!

he also has bpd & autism !!!!!

i like to believe he's born & raised flopping between new mexico & texas. his backstory is very mysterious but i like to believe his parents were killed either due to the omnic crisis or at the same time for unrelated reasons

SHIPPING!!!

i made a post about this before but in their deadlock skins they both have a bandana -- (ashe has hers wrapped around her knee, cass has his on his arm) -- i like to believe this is a callback & honor to each other from a scene in deadlock rebels where cassidy is shot in the leg & ashe is shot in the arm during a fight & i like to think they both have scars there

cassidy got his tattoo first because ashe was afraid of the gun. originally she got just the skull & print then added the roses & thorns a few years after they split

before cassidy was publicly part of overwatch i like to think ashe & frankie tried to keep tabs on him but couldn't due to overwatch's high security. they only found out what happened to him after him being an agent was publicized

as above, i don't think they actually got much of a chance to say goodbye. blackwatch was a very undercover org. so ashe most likely has no clue why he left, she's especially not aware of the fact that he left to keep the rest of the gang from rotting in a prison along with him.

they got hitched the second they legally could and are still technically legally married

[dandelion-wings]

Aether and Lumine? Paimon too.

Thank you for the ask! :> I am going to split this not on Aether/Lumine lines but on Traveler/Abyss Prince(ss) lines, because, well, canon did set it up that way, and while if absolutely pushed, Lumine is my Traveler, I mostly prefer to be agnostic in my meta and fic about who is who.

TRAVELER

How I feel about this character

Ah, yes, Traveler von Protagonist Disease.

The thing that complicates the Traveler for me is that I absolutely loathe the kind of semi-self-insert-but-semi-independent-character protagonist that seems to be getting popular in video games these days. Byleth in FE3H is another good example. I wish they didn't exist! I wish that it was either a full self-insert, character-builder and all, or that they gave us a protagonist with a personality in the style of Tales Of and Final Fantasy games in the first place. I really enjoy roleplaying a character as I play a video game, whether given to me as a fully-realized character or as one I made up myself, and this in-between kind of robs me of that because I can't go full "this OC of mine believes this" and I also can't try for accuracy to the character I'm presented on-screen.

That said, they have been getting better about this with the Traveler over the last few nations, and I like the increasing sense of actual, independent personality that we've gotten for them! Obviously a protagonist of this kind of game, where all the others have to like the player character to make the gacha appealing, is going to want to help others, so I actually particularly like the occasional thread we get where they're like "no, I don't actually care half as much for Teyvat as I do for my sibling, I don't not care but my main mission is still to get to them" because it's very refreshing to me.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Childe with the Lumine version, as two people who can and will absolutely fuck each other up in a play-battle, post-fight sex optional but fun. (Also I once read a Childe/Lumine AU fic where Childe was attempting to pursue The Greatest Game with Lumine and she turned the tables and pinned him down with knives through his hands, and it was incredibly hot.) Ayaka, as a one-sided crush on Ayaka's part. That's... really about it.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Paimon! My bestest and beloved friend. :>

My unpopular opinion about this character

With a handful of exceptions, I... do not particularly enjoy Traveler-centered fic/art/meta. I don't know how unpopular that is but it's all I've got.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I know why Hoyo can't do this with their gacha game full of waifus and husbandos, but I wish we had at least one major/playable character who just did not get along with them. All their voicelines are along the lines of "you think I'm fucking telling you that?" I just want to see how it would play out.

THE ABYSS PRINCE(SS)

How I feel about this character

Honestly much more fascinating to me, in part because they've been a lot more allowed to have some kind of personality from the beginning! I want to know all about what's happened to them, why they hold the positions they do, why they give their twin so few crumbs, etc.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

I mean. Dain. XD

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Aside from their twin, also Dain! Love their history.

My unpopular opinion about this character

This sort of overlaps with the second, but while I don't know how plausible or how unpopular it is, the mirror in the Caribert quest where the Traveler saw them in it combined with some minor previous stuff to unlock a Theory for me that the Traveler and the Abyss Prince(ss) aren't twins, but a single person with, for the Traveler, altered memories, whom the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles broke apart in order to nerf their power and/or for other reasons related to the whole "Fourth Descender broken up for parts" thing. Fascinating to me.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Related to the above: Hoyo, please give me this. For all the game's deliberate sibling analogies and their pleasing narrative resonance, this theory honestly has way more appeal to me overall.

PAIMON

How I feel about this character

My buddy! My bestest friend! :> I get mad when people are mean to her (in-game or people who choose those options in play). I get sad when she talks about being scared without us (@chrysoula has a theory that this is all foreshadowing a quest/arc where she's taken away and I think this is reasonably likely but I'm also dreading it). I refuse to believe the theories that she's evil, but I do love the theories that she's a reduced/de-powered version of Something/Someone in Teyvat's lore, that would be very fun. I want to give her so many hugs.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

I do not. XD

My non-romantic OTP for this character

The Traveler, of course! :> I also love her rivalry with Itto. I love when characters treat her as a separate person from the Traveler and have their own relationships with her.

My unpopular opinion about this character

From what I've seen in the fandom... that I like her at all? XD;;

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Hoyo stop giving us options to be mean to her. She doesn't deserve it. >:( Appreciating and loving Paimon hours ONLY.

[orion-archives]

You know what this is:

INTRO POST

(This post will update from time to time)

About me:

♤ Mexican

♤ Aro/Ace (sex repulsed)

♤ He/him 🏳️‍⚧️ (I don't mind about pronouns that much but please be respectful :])

♤ I speak both English and Spanish

♤ Introvert

♤ Agnostic, but interested in learning more about religions

♤ I have thalassophobia and trypophobia, so please do not tag me on any posts or send me anything that showcases images that may trigger my phobias, since I get extremely anxious about them :)

♤ Previously known as ErrolLuck

Fandoms I'm in:

● Star Wars

● Pac Man and The Ghostly Adventures

● The Mandela Catalogue

● Five Nights at Freddy's

● Little Nightmares

● Ninjago

● Slugterra

● Mystery Flesh Pit National Park

● SCP

● Transformers

I like:

- Reading (Favorite book: The Perfume: Story of a murderer) (Currently reading: Paradise Lost)

- Watching movies (Favorite movie(s): Oppenheimer, Blair Witch Project, Star Wars: RotS, Parasites, Prince of Egypt and Terminator 2: Judgment Day)

- Watching TV-shows, cartoons or series (Favorite series/cartoon/show: Clone Wars [2003], The Mandela Catalogue and Pac Man and the Ghostly Adventures)

- Drawing (Traditional and digital)

- Listening to music (Favorite song(s): Beneath the Brine by The Crest Family, July by American Murder Song, Sugar by System of a Down and Gossip by Maneskin)

- Writing (Fanfiction and original stories)

- Learning new things (Currently trying to learn French and reading things about luciferianism)

- Making cosplays/costumes

- Playing videogames (Favorite videogame(s): Inside, Minecraft, Lego Star Wars: TSWS and SCP: Containment Breach. Currently playing: Party Hard)

My OTPs (Fanon and canon)

♡ SkyStar (Skyfire × Starscream) - [Transformers]

♡ MegaSound (Megatron × Soundwave) - [Transformers]

♡ BatCat (Batman × Catwoman) - [Batman]

♡ BrightCloud (Brightheart × Cloudtail) - [Warrior Cats]

My fanfics

~ Devotion Post Mortem - [MegaSound] Transformers Prime

~ Stay a Little Longer - [MegaSound] Transformers Prime

I will not talk to you and block you if you:

× Do any type of discrimination or racism

× Are a MAP or support MAPs

× Are a zoophile or support zoophiles

× Are being aggressive and an asshole with me or other people

× Are any type of spam account or porn bot

× Are an edgy who thinks gore videos are fun

Art requests:

□ Closed!

■ Traditional and digital

What I can draw:

+ Fanart

+ OCs

+ Ship art

+ Original art (not fanart)

+ Any other things! (As long as they don't fit in any category below)

What I will NOT draw:

× Pedo/zoo art

× Racist/discriminatory art

× Porn and fetish art

× Incest art

× Ship art of problematic ships (minor/adult, zoo, abusive, incest)

× Any other thing I consider innapropriate

AS AN ARTIST, I CAN DENY ANY REQUEST. DO NOT ASK ME FURTHER IF I DENY TO WORK ON YOUR REQUEST.

Ask box and DMS:

◇ Open and welcome

◇ I'm kinda shy, but be sure that I've read your words and I'll try to reply as soon as possible :)

Personal playlists:

[glorious-spoon]

As someone who doesn't watch 9-1-1 but enjoys seeing other people blog about it, I'm really curious: Do you think there's any chance of Buddie actually going canon? My impression as an outsider is that it's extremely unlikely; it seems like one of those ships where you can totally read romance into the subtext and it makes perfect sense but that was never the show's intention and it never will be. But maybe I'm just being cynical. Is there a reason beyond stubborn optimism to think the show is heading in that direction? I've seen some kind of conflicting perspectives, and I'm asking you because I trust your opinion.

To be completely honest, I'm fairly agnostic on the subject; there are a few things that would have to happen on screen (namely, confirming either of the characters as queer) for me to buy it that have not yet happened. Until they do, I will remain unconvinced.

That said, I do think it's more plausible than most of the non-canon M/M ships I've seen over the ~20 years I've been in fandom. They have an incredibly intimate friendship; they're treated as one of the family units alongside the canon couples in the show, and Buck's relationship with Eddie's son is much more that of a co-parent than a family friend. The show also has a number of other prominent queer characters, which if nothing else means that they're not really concerned about driving off the dedicated homophobes.

So my ultimate prevaricating answer is that I would be surprised if it happened, but I would not be falling-out-of-my-chair astonished like I would have been if, say, Sterek or Stucky or McShep or McDanno or Johnlock became canon. I don't think it's likely, but I do think it's possible.

[shegeekery]

Pretend there's a clever title here (intro post)

Update: I'm going to start putting links to my fanfics in this post as well. If you prefer reading on AO3, my author page is here. Splintered (DW/Loki crossover, 13,439 words) Dream Therapy (One-shot about Erik Selvig, 1,308 words) Misfits (Jane Foster & Loki in Valhalla, 15,714 words)

Update: I have a side-blog for spiritual stuff now (@finally-learning-to-be-me ). This main blog is mostly for fandom and general stuff. Norse Loki and MCU Loki are two very different things in my mind, but it can get confusing if it’s all jumbled up together in one blog.

Guess I should probably introduce myself on this platform...

Hi everyone. I'm a geeky, AuDHD, NB, Gen-X software engineer and mom. I'm a long-time Doctor Who fan, but since the Loki S2 finale I've been completely obsessed. (I mean, seriously? David Tennant and RTD were coming back and suddenly all I could think about was Loki? How did that happen?) I just needed others to share with as I'm socially isolated and my family doesn't get into these things the way I do.

If you couldn't tell from my previous posts, I spend a lot of time thinking about (over-thinking?) certain characters. Nice to read all of your posts and know that I'm not alone in this!

I don't really get emotionally invested in ships, but I don't mind reading others' takes on them. Lokius, Sylkie, OB/Casey, whatever. It's all good. The only thing I actively avoid (in any fandom or in tabloids, for that matter) is anything that involves shipping real, living people. That's a line I'm not comfortable crossing. I've dabbled in writing fan-fic in the past and I think I may do so again in the not-too-distant future.

Other interests include studying history and connecting with other autistic folk online. I've stopped using other social media platforms, though — too much drama and not enough listening. Who needs it?

I know I'm older than the vast majority of people here and I'm more than a little self-conscious about it. I seriously considered not mentioning it at all, but I've spent most of my life trying to hide who I really am in a vain effort to "fit in" and just don't want to do that anymore. Hope that's okay with you all. Truth is, I've never connected easily with people my own age.

Views: social democrat, strongly pro-LGBTQI+ (one of my daughters is trans and nothing brings out the mama-bear in me like transphobic nonsense), anti-genocide, agnostic, anti-bullying of any kind.

[enzymedevice]

Long pinned post because I got excited about the idea of embedding a lot of hyperlinks

Greetings! I’m Enzyme or Q, and I’m an asexual transneutral person who uses he/him pronouns. The primary word I use to describe myself is "goth" and I like comics, robots, weird films, visual kei and fashionable gay people ✨

Other equalities data that may be helpful for some people to know:

I have autism, Tourette's and an intersex variation; I identify as disabled, am mostly white-passing and have a mixed-religion upbringing that has led me to identify as agnostic. I don’t live in the US.

With regards to what you’ll find on this blog, I work in sex ed and aim to work in funeralcare so there’ll be some heavy or sexual content here - often in the form of stupid jokes - that I don’t tag for. I do tag for gore, however, under gore cw. If you notice me posting things you’re uncomfortable with under a certain tag, please block that tag.

My visual art can be found under the tag my art.

My poetry (a hit on my DeviantArt but a cringe footnote in my Tumblr history) can be found under the tag my poetry.

If you’d like to see only my art relating to my favourite subject matter, I can present you with gay people grimacing, which is exactly what it says on the tin.

I also have a tag for appreciating other people's art! Most of my blog is this.

I try to tag fandoms/subjects appropriately! These don’t represent my favourite things in general, but my most oft-used fandom tags are probably for Doctor Who, JoJo, Dracula, Castlevania (games and TV series), the Eternal Champion cycle, Interview with the Vampire (TV series mostly), Cats the musical, DC Comics (more specifically Legion of Super-Heroes), the Crow franchise, The Case Study of Vanitas and Homestuck. Pokémon sideblog @mareaniewife. Additionally, I like a bunch of horror/gore/weird antiquated media that crops up from time to time. In terms of subject matter, I currently also use the tags goth stuff, trans stuff, undertaker stuff, robots tag and placeholder cannibalism tag, the cannibalism tag I wanted a delicious name for but nothing bit :(

My icon and header are Dracula from the manga #DRCL midnight children by Shin'ichi Sakamoto.

I know that writing a DNI won’t actually act as a preventative measure since anyone can just go on the internet and lie but considering I’m in my 20s I would prefer that anyone under 18 interacting with me proceed with caution since the content I share is not for you. This isn’t a slight on you, merely a personal boundary I choose to set.

Likewise, visible TERFs, trans/homophobes, racists/Islamophobes/antisemites, ableists, people arguing about shipping in a way that annoys me, people with a DNI criterion that resembles me or anyone else that just rubs me the wrong way for no discernible reason will be blocked on sight. It’s no big deal, I just prefer to look at things on here that don’t make me sad.

If I express enjoying some problematic media, please assume that I’m aware of all the things wrong with it and have, offline in my own time, unpacked its nuances, cherrypicking the things I like about it to uplift online.

… That's all I can think of to write! No one will read this ever.

[tinyozlion]

Parsing Gundam Wing: 

A Field Guide to a Classic Anime

So, you’re watching Gundam Wing.

Maybe you’re seeing it for the first time, maybe you’re returning to it as a fan of yore, maybe, like me, you’re trying to introduce it to a friend. Perhaps you are watching the English dub, or with English subtitles– doesn’t matter. There’s only one script for both. You’re trying to make it through the first episode, and oh baby, oh baby– What is this pacing? Who are these people? Why do they talk like that? What the fuck is a battle seed? Yes, the robots are cool, but the rest seems like a cursed soap opera. You are understandably hesitant to continue.

 This is normal. 

Take my hand. Shh, shh, come to my arms. You are safe now. I’m here to help. Welcome, brave explorer, to a classic 90's anime that once took America by storm. It’s very good. No, really, I promise, it’s very good.

Now, I can’t promise that you’ll love it! If the Space Opera And Ethics Course With Hot People and Robot Fights genre isn't for you, that's fine, take some hummus and go in peace my friend.

But the rest of you… we are brothers now.

Gundam Wing was lightning in a bottle when it first came out in North America, but even if that particular explosive debut will never come again, I think there’s still a wealth of enjoyment to be had for new fans– especially if like me you love stories that have a lot of depth, a lot of crunch, a lot of rewatch value, a lot of iterative shipping possibilities.

I realize that we live in an era of total media saturation; the notion of investing time in ANYTHING new these days is a tough sell. There are infinitely many things to watch, read, play, listen to-- so how do you justify getting into something that’s kinda old and a little janky? With some parts that haven’t aged as well as others? Something that maybe takes a bit of extra participation to get into?

...As a spoonful of medicine to help ease the media-fatigue, let me share with you something that I've found true in my life: rough edges invite you to participate in creation.

Stories that invite (or demand, or beg) you to participate in them have their own unique value, completely distinct from the value of those that satisfy you immediately; they will reward you for investing in them your time, your creativity, your curiosity.

And I think this is one of those stories! I genuinely want more people to play in this sandbox with me! So, here I am, making a blog about it.

--This is my guidebook to getting into Gundam Wing. It is intended to be a sort of companion, a primer-- maybe a walkthrough? An invitation? to this complex and juicy series.

This won't be a fan wiki-- those already exist, thank goodness, and people can check those out for themselves-- rather, I'd like to make this a repository of context and insight, and to fill in those troublesome missing pieces in the show that are big stumbling blocks to understanding what's going on!

I want to give you what I didn’t have when I started this series back in anno domini two-thousand-and-naught:

All the damn information.

Naturally, there will be more drawings, memes, crabs, very stupid gifs, and probably some crying throughout. And you have my word that I will try and present this in a comprehensive, inclusive, character-agnostic way.

...That said, I am not stealthy! I cannot possibly disguise the fact that I’ve given exponentially more thought to certain characters than to others. You will almost certainly be able to tell when you’ve encountered my Blorbos, my Special Interests--

(Shh, Tinylion! Back in your teapot!)

--But! Look into my eyes. Here is an Absolute, Unwavering Truth about me:

I love, or at least love something about, Every. Single. Character in Gundam Wing. and I will do my absolute damndest to give them each their due diligence, because they're worth it, and so are you.

Thank you for coming, I hope you enjoy whatever you find here ♥

~ Wesley, and to a lesser extent, TinyLion

[all-pacas]

in a universe where chase and thirteen have reached prodigal siblings status and cameron is still around in some capacity for whatever reason, how do she and thirteen feel about each other?

Hard to say! Cameron and Thirteen really don't interact much in canon: I can only think of two ocassions, and funnily enough, they were pretty similar interactions: the first in The Itch where Cameron is trying to give Thirteen advice on Dealing With House… and the second in Unfaithful, where Cameron is, once again, trying to give Thirteen advice on Dealing With House.

You know I adore Cameron, and I'm not trying to read too deeply into this, but it does kind of make me wonder how they would get along. Cameron's … a bit possessive in some ways, you know? She needs to be needed, she needs to be that expert figure, to be a moral authority, to be That Person. She inserts herself into Diagnostics over and over in S4 and S5, she tells patients what's right and in some of her worst moments decides for them (Maternity), she picks at people and studies them like bugs and needs to understand them. She's a bit controlling, in a fairly benign way mind you, but time and time again Cameron approaches situations with this is the objective (my) reality, and it should conform to my expectations. Often from a place of great empathy and idealism, mind you. But she's very quick to get frustrated and petty when these expectations are stymied.

And the thing about Thirteen is… she is absolutely fucking allergic to this shit. Her secrecy is a meme. She likes Diagnostics and House and her buddies there, and she cuts her phone lines and vanishes for a year. House spends months trying to study her and pick at her secrets and she never becomes comfortable opening up, never gives an inch. Look at the episode where she gets out of prison. She's out of prison and spends days refusing to talk to House about it, barely humoring his guesses. He figures it out and she lashes out — despite this being the most obvious outcome — he literally could have googled it if he wanted — and storms off in tears. Thirteen hates opening up, being exposed, being forced to open up. Yes, her name being Thirteen is a meme, but it's also like. It's a mask. It's yet another layer of privacy and hiding herself away. She tolerates House poking at her because he's not actually very good at it (when it comes to her), and because they're genuinely close, they connect on some visceral level. And even with House, Thirteen barely can tolerate emotional openness.

I really think Cameron and Thirteen would be like oil and water. Cameron would take her secrecy personally — why isn't she opening up? Doesn't she know Cameron is nice? — and Thirteen would hate the prying and lapses into smug I know what's best Cameron tends towards. (I'm agnostic towards most House ships, but tbh, this one has always confused me. Pretty Girls Kissing, I get it, but for real.) Thirteen in turn can be mean, she knows how to poke at someone where it hurts and be dismissive and callous; she's not at all passive or easy-going. Cameron can't help but pry to understand; Thirteen can't help but reject it. Again, we see this in microcosm in The Itch: Cameron confidently tells Thirteen how to best handle House, only to be pulled into a long digression about her and Chase's relationship, to which Thirteen rather sarcastically responds oh, yeah, much faster your way.

That all said! I don't think they'd be antagonistic. Thirteen is quite good at a polite superficial friendliness, and Cameron is of course very good at being friendly and kind. In this wonderful AU where the Prodigal Siblings are hanging out and Cameron isn't off the show, I think they'd get along okay, but mostly for Chase's sake (and Chase, to triangulate all this, is notably different from Thirteen in one aspect: he is openly needy. He is nearly as private and allergic to opening up as she is, but he also very much wears his heart on his sleeve. Thirteen would sooner die than rely on anyone; Chase is constantly looking for validation despite his better efforts). I don't think Cameron would be jealous of Chase having an extremely good looking female best friend or anything, but I can see her feeling a bit left out if Thirteen and Chase start trauma bonding over their murders or fucked up families, for example. But I don't think Thirteen would antagonize Cameron or anything. They just wouldn't be best friends.

[remyfire]

hawkahy for the ship meme!

Do I Ship It?

Yes, I Ship It!!

What made you ship it? —MY BABIES. I love them. God I wish I could remember the first thing that tipped me over the edge. I know one thing that obliterated me was reading Canon's "Star-crossed and storm-tossed," which is devastatingly lovely and a must read for anyone who loves them (check out the sequel too aaaa so good). I bet in hindsight, I can probably blame Canon for me going from "Huh, they spend a lot of time near each other," to, "I need Mulcahy to throw everything away for this man."

What are your favorite things about the ship? —I've talked about it before, but they naturally seek each other out when they have something on their heart or when they sense the other battling against something alone, and I love that so much. And THIS is one of the ultimate displays of mutual respect in any of my ships tbh, the fact that you have a man fully devoted to his religious faith and a man fully devoted to his agnostic beliefs, but that they clearly hold each other in such fucking high regard. There's no pressure from either side, just a deep fondness that permeates almost any time they're interacting on screen. More than anything, I love the potential for Hawk to be a way for Mulcahy to move away from the cloth—I know in my heart he'd be one of the first people Mulcahy went to if he decided to step back. I love the idea of Hawkeye being so fond and hungry for this priest, but him being one of the few people that Hawk holds himself completely at bay for until Mulcahy initiates something first. I love the mutual pining of it all, even though they're completely unaware that the other is thinking of them just as much.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? —Maybe the fact that I would love for Mulcahy to move completely away from his faith, not just the cloth. I think a relationship with Hawkeye makes a lot of space for that and for the healing that could rush in after Mulcahy is able to get all of his heaviness, his bitterness, his fury out.