#i still listen to the soundtrack it's great it's just a bad musical when it's all put together

[onyourowndaisymae]

hi!!!!!! can i request the minecraft post u did for the dateables but for the brothers? i love ur writing sm it's so cute <3333

obey me brothers playing minecraft with you

thank you so much for the love <33 this was actually a lot of fun to write because all of these men are so very ridiculous. cheers to my first ever request!

[dateables version]

content warnings: language, bullying the villagers, killing the animals, you know how minecraft is

prompt: you've somehow convinced these guys to play minecraft, a human world game, one night, just the two of you. but how exactly does that experience go?

{established relationship, obey me x reader with the brothers}

Lucifer

oh. oh peepaw.

you really have to coax this man into playing with you. he's perfect at everything, all the time-- to engage in activity like this one, in front of you of all people, wounds his ego more than he'd like to admit. he doesn't want you to see him be bad at something. what if you no longer respect him? what if his inability to comprehend the little block people's actions are enough to ruin your love for him? he's genuinely distressed about this (not that he'd let it show), but you seem interested, so he reluctantly agrees.

two key things are necessary when playing minecraft with lucifer: patience and teamwork.

leaving him to do any task alone is daunting. the perfectionism paralyzes him a bit in these moments. take him with you! collect wood together, mine in the same mineshaft, hunt monsters together-- all of it starts to ease his mind when you work together. he starts to focus not on his pride but his love for you and spending quality time by your side.

as time progresses, he does eventually get a grip in the controls and mechanics-- well, as much as you can expect a dinosaur like him to understand. you still do a lot of tasks together in-game, but it's more of camaraderie thing by that point. he just likes being by your side, okay? don't make him say it, or you'll be hunting monsters by yourself bestie.

lucifer is also a really big fan of the soundtrack. it's so simple yet well-composed, a stark different to that garish video game music levi listens to. please play with the sound up and let him enjoy the sound of the rain intermingling with the music; his relaxed face is very cute.

Mammon

what's that? you wanna play minecraft with the great mammon? of course you do! he's gonna be the best player you've ever seen, just ya wait-- what's that? no, he's never touched the game before, but he knows he'll be fantastic. watch and learn, baybee, cuz the great mammon is here to show up and show out.

what he lacks in skill, he makes up several times over in enthusiasm. this is important, because he absolutely lacks skill.

mammon is a dangerous combination of unobservant and overenthusiastic, leading to every stupid situation you can think of. he thinks he sees an important resource, so he leaves for juuust a second... boom. he's lost. he somehow manages to attract lava in every. single. cave. at this point, you have to ban him from carrying anything important.

one thing he is good at is monster hunting. he's made it his mission from day 1 to protect you, whether it be real life or in a video game. he'll face a monster-- enderman, creeper, sneaky skeleton, you name it-- without an ounce of fear if it means you'll live another in-game day (some might call this excessive, but you just call it cute).

like everything with mammon, sometimes his instinct to protect you goes overboard. he tries to ban you from entering the mines and going outside at night because what if a monster gets you, human?? fortunately for you, he never figured out how to run in-game, so just sprint past him and carry on.

on a completely unrelated note-- this greedy motherfucker (said with SO much affection) hordes all the treasures in-game like a dragon. his goal is to build you two a mansion of diamond and gold. this is very cute if you once again ignore the fact that he keeps FALLLING IN LAVA with all his vauables. y'all are never getting anywhere in this game.

Leviathan

levi is, hands down, the best person to play minecraft with. you don't have to teach him a thing-- in fact, he's probably the one that brought it up to you!

he's very pleased that you'd indulge in one of his hobbies like this, regardless of whether you actually play video games or not. just the thought of you there, sitting next to him, hanging out with him because you want to be around a shut-in otaku like him... the thought gives him butterflies.

... y'all can't actually share a house by the way. he gets too flustered. make a joke about putting your minecraft beds together and he's blushing. it does not matter how long you've been together, his reaction will always be the same.

he's one of the only ones that you can progress through the game with. bashful levi is amazing in the mines. he's got a system down pat that'll help you guys find your way back to the entry point, where he's set up a base camp with chests and resources so you won't have to resurface until you're done. smart, right?

y'all actually go to the nether and the end. he's very quick to pick up the game's mechanics and use his luck to to help you guys progress. every victory is shared; what's the fun of winning if you're not winning together?

levi will play with you basically any time you ask. he loves when you refer to it as "our minecraft world". better yet, praise him for all his hard work in making your world and watch him melt. he's just a sucker for your love, and the fact that he's actually good at this activity makes him all the more happy to do it with you.

Satan

satan doesn't really know much about this game that you're describing, but he's willing to play it with you if you're really that interested. he's always ready to learn more about things from the human world; when you tell him this is one of the most popular games up on earth, he wants to try it at least once.

satan is not the best in general at video games, but he's quick-witted and resourceful, so the two of you get by just fine. the problem mostly lies in the fact that satan's audacity gets you into trouble sometimes. there is no little voice in his head telling him not to do something potentially dangerous and stupid, especially if there's some reward to gain on the other side. he is fully convinced he can take on an iron golem with a stone sword and no armor, just you watch--

be carefully with letting him run around freely. there's lots of ways to die in this game, and each failure pokes at the embers of wrath below his cool exterior.

this intelligent lil guy figures out redstone pretty damn quick. he'll use this knowledge to create lots of little creations meant to make your camp better. whether or not this actually helps is an entirely different story... but look! a gate! aren't you so proud of him? (please praise him, he needs it so bad)

and you wouldn't be playing with satan if all progress didn't come to a stop the moment he spots an ocelot. when you tell him you can befriend them, he's overjoyed. look at how cute they are! one ocelot turns into two, then three, then four... suddenly there's a small army of ocelots in your house that he's caring for. y'all better make room in your joint minecraft bed or satan will feel like a bad cat dad. he's so ridiculous and i love him

Asmodeus

this man plays minecraft with his priorities straight-- he spends way too long creating a cute character skin to play with, then builds a cute house and decorates it to the nines, then focuses on finding himself the cutest armor and weapons... all before doing literally anything productive, btw.

do not expect asmodeus to be much help. he's mostly there for moral support. he cannot do things "for survival" like gathering food and resources or building a starter home. everything must be perfect, or it doesn't get done. asmo did not craft himself a bed until he was able to dye the wool pink and have a cute pink bed. he cannot bring himself to live in an ugly house, so you either need to help him or listen to him whine about getting rained on or attacked by monsters until he's done.

this is not to imply that playing with asmo is not fun!!

asmo is not a monster hunter, a miner, or any good at gathering resources. however, his experience with makeup makes him insanely creative. while you might not have a house for several days, the end result even gives barbatos' house a run for its money. his decor is always very cute and clean, soft even in the blocky 2D world. he'll make your whole base camp aesthetically pleasing if you let him (please let him-- his smile is worth it).

asmo often finds himself a damsel in distress. he'll fall in holes and get very confused, scream when he gets attacked, and generally need you to protect him at every turn. succeed, though, and he'll hail you as one of the most amazing people he's ever met. the game will be discarded as he throws his arms around you, kissing you all over the face and showering you in praises, all for saving his house from a stray creeper.

oh, and he'll definitely put your beds next to each other and smirk at you. what did you expect from the avatar of lust? cornball

Beelzebub

sweet, beloved baby beel. he's ready and willing to play with you whenever. if you want to make some actual progress, prepare lots of snacks and set a cozy atmosphere to keep him full and content. playing with the avatar of gluttony does require a little prep in that regard.

this (metaphorical) angel really has a hard time killing any of the livestock. he apologizes aloud anytime he has to slay one and explains to the poor creature why he's killing them. sorry, little sheep guy, but you two need to make beds. the cows make him feel especially bad because they remind him of belphie.

he's really big on making sure you guys have a secure, safe home to hide away in. sometimes, things get really overwhelming in the game, so he wants you to have a space where you feel safe and protected enough to calm down. this bunker is definitely a bit ugly, but we can't win them all.

play with him long enough and all the food will start looking really tasty to him. that bread looks a little too real, doesn't it, mc? and that cake is so life-like... redirect him to his snack horde, stat.

he also wants to do all of your tasks together. when he's there with you, he can make sure you're safe or offer you help when your struggling to complete a task on your own. he want to make sure you're having fun! let him help you, please, it makes him feel loved. he likes spending time with you.

definitely doesn't get the "putting your minecraft beds together" joke. you can either explain the to him and watch him blush, or let him live with the assumption that it's for extra cuddle room.

Belphegor

you've got to coax belphie into playing with you for a few days, because honestly? that sounds like a lot of work. not only does he have to participate, but he's also got to learn, too? he's already yawning just talking about it all.

he'll eventually snuggle in with his back against your chest and your arms clumsily holding the controller in front of him. he doesn't particularly care that this position makes gaming difficult for you, not when you're cuddling him like this. it's really a win-win situation in his eyes: he'll play the little block game if you shower him in unconditional affection any time he wants. what a deal! his youngest child energy really shows in times like these.

belphie is heartless when it comes to raiding villages and collecting resources. what's that? you feel bad? they're not real, mc. they don't have feelings. they don't care that you're stealing from them. if it really makes you feel bad he'll stop, but he will complain about how much easier things could have been if you'd just robbed a village or two.

somehow, some way, he's also super lucky?? he'll stumble upon rare resources with little to no effort and snicker about how you're still scrambling for supplies. don't worry, he'll share. only if you beg, though. go on. he wants to hear it. maybe, maybe he'll be willing to give you the diamonds he found if you convince him. (what a fucking menace!)

he will, eventually, fall asleep while playing. the music is too soft and your arms around him are too warm for him to not drift off. that's okay. carefully take the controller away from him, save the game, shut down the system, and settle in for the night. he'll cuddle closer in his sleep, unconsciously touched by the gesture, and drag you into dreamland with him.

[ducktracy]

What's your favorite SpongeBob episode/track?

GOOD QUESTION!!! my favorite episode as of right now is probably Texas! i think it has such a great balance of everything i love about the show, i absolutely adore the way it is drawn/looks, the humor is sharp and memorable, it really places such a big emphasis on character and their motivations and conflicts, and i ESPECIALLY love the novelty of it being scored with Junior Brown’s music!! they brought a guest musician in to do the soundtrack!! HOW COOL!! i’m a big fan of steel guitars, particularly in Hawaiian music and old (‘30s-‘60s) country music and this episode combines both so charmingly. and, of course, the episode has such a great heart to it :’) just look at this and tell me your heart doesn’t swell immediately

other episodes i particularly love are Ripped Pants, Jellyfishing, Plankton!, Walking Small, Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy II, Bubble Buddy, Christmas Who?, The Algae’s Always Greener, Plankton's Army, Have You Seen This Snail?, Mimic Madness, Bunny Hunt and Mind the Gap. THIS IS ALL A VERY SELECT FEW THOUGH and there are a lot of episodes i haven't seen in many years that i bet i love just as fervently and forgot to mention. i also can't think of an episode that i truly, genuinely dislike or can't watch. i need to catch up with a bunch of post-sequel episodes since that's around when i stopped consistently watching the show (which isn't the show's fault necessarily, there was just a hiatus for a bit and i was finally becoming a teenager who didn't spend every waking hour watching SpongeBob when that was happening). but realistically you could throw every episode from s1-3 up there as a favorite. and more beyond that! i love the Sponge unconditionally and always have

AS FOR TRACKS. OHOHOHO. SpongeBob production music was one of my first online hyperfixations as a young'un and so i can, have, and maybe one day will talk about the music in this show for hours. it's so hard for me to narrow it down. but i'll say two overwhelming favorites are this:

and this one:

BOTH VERY NOSTALGIC TRACKS FOR ME.. i think the first one maybe wins out since it's more prominent and thusly associated with more "widespread" nostalgia, but i have a very special love of the second one because i remember it being impossible to find. the only copy available once upon a time (like, 12 years ago) was a very garbled and Bad mix of it cut up from various episodes, and even then, it was revolutionary to have THAT since i remember when it was still an "unknown track". so the fact that we can listen to it cleanly now still kinda blows my mind HAHA

here are some others i love that i would feel bad for excluding, SOOO:

[budderdomo]

Andrew Neiman // Miles Teller -- Whiplash (2014) Dir. Damien Chazelle

Screenshot used:

From the scene where Andrew sees Fletcher's band practice for the first time

Ok, I watched Whiplash for the first time about a month ago and I MEAN- (I can't believe I haven't seen it earlier)

Amazing movie! I seriously think this is one of my favorite movies of all time now. Great acting, great cinematography, great editing, great story. Intense and thrilling in all the right places, the soundtrack is outstanding (obviously), the deep multi-faceted relationship between Fletcher, Andrew, greatness, obsession, and music. It's dark and I love it.

I had always seen clips of this movie, but I don't know why I didn't just go and see it, IMAGINE seeing this in theaters. damn. Anyway, this is a long winded way to say that I've been obsessed (which is also thematically appropriate) with this film. I've listened to the soundtrack multiple times, watched all the interviews, know all the fun facts, seen almost every Youtube analysis to man, watched all the fanedits, read the fics, watched La La Land, started going through Miles Teller's other movies like The Spectacular Now, Top Gun Maverick, realized JK Simmons voiced the yellow M&M and Ford from Gravity Falls and Cave Johnson and every other piece of media from when I was younger. I'm down so bad guys, help.

Please go watch the movie, if you haven't seen it! (Except if you're a minor, it's R rated sorry! But it's like the most asexual R rated movie I've ever seen haha) (And only if you're in a good head space, it's very stressful, there's yelling and abuse) It's about jazz drumming and passion turned to obsession. So do with that what you will :) It's on Netflix right now!

Besides my descent into madness, (as this is still an art blog haha), I'm really proud of this piece. I've really worked on my realism (can you tell?) and I'm getting to a place where I'm pretty happy with it. I also bought Corel Painter on sale recently, and now I can do cool text and stuff, I will be experimenting... Hopefully I can work on more art for this movie!

[bengiyo]

Comfort Films Tag

Rules: List 7 of your comfort movies, then tag 7 people.

Tagged by @callipigio

1 - Shelter (2007)

I often joke around here about how I’ve been watching queer cinema for over half of my life at this point, and it’s easy to recommend this film. This is a coming of age film about a guy who gave up art school to become the primary breadwinner and caregiver for his family. However, when the older brother of his best friend returns to their town to collect himself, our artist and he reconnect and find something special between them. Great use of a young actor in this shores up the caregiving aspects.

I’m probably going to rewatch it now. Because it was produced by Here! TV, you can only legally watch it via a subscription to their platform. I own it on DVD because I fell in love with it and knew I needed to keep it forever.

2 - Big Eden (2000)

Big Eden. Oh, Big Eden. This is the film equivalent of a warm blanket and a tight hug. It’s about an artist named Henry Hart, who is preparing for a big exhibition in New York when he’s called back home to Montana because his uncle has had a stroke. We are greatest with the most queer-friendly town to ever exist as Henry manages his old angst about his straight best friend as the local general store owner also secretly pursues him. It’s absolutely lovely.

3 - The Blues Brothers (1980)

Luna has great taste, because this is one of the best films ever made. What was originally just an SNL bit turns into a fun road film about getting the band back together so that two brothers can raise enough money to pay the back taxes owed by the orphanage they grew up in. We also run over Illinois nazis in this movie and demolish dozens of cop cars. Cab Calloway, James Brown, Carrie Fisher, Chaka Khan, Paul Reubens, and Aretha Franklin are in it. John Candy orders orange whips. This is the kind of film I would watch with my dad any time it was on.

4 - Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

This is one of the most man movies ever made. I don’t know any woman who wants to sit down and watch this film, but me and boys will spend an entire afternoon on this film in a heartbeat. The sexual tension between Russell Crowe’s and Paul Bettany’s characters goes unremarked on this website in a way that lets you know for sure this hellsite is dominated by femmes, because those two have definitely fucked. At least twice. It’s 1805 and oceans have become battlefields!

5 - Clue (1985)

A movie based on the board game of the same name should not have been this good, but it instead goes on to become a camp masterpiece. Many people will end up remembering Tim Curry for Rocky Horror or even Muppet Treasure Island, but this is still one of his favorite performances for me. This film is batshit and I love it. 

6 - Camp (2003)

Speaking of camp films, let’s talk about one of the best of all time. I know we often talk about the bad singing in Thai BL, but I unironically love all of the musical theater in this film. I regularly listen to this soundtrack, and have been for over 15 years. It’s a film about a bunch of weird theater kids who get to escape the bullying and hellishness of their lives for a few weeks during the summer, where they get to put on a bunch of classic plays. It’s so camp. I love this film because it was difficult for me to find queer films that had happy components with them, and this little movie has a wide array of queer kids in it.

7 - Make The Yuletide Gay (2009)

This was the first queer film I ever watched that had a happy ending that was also a comedy. Prior to this, I think I had watched Beautiful Thing (1996), Edge of Seventeen (1998), Get Real (1998), and Bent (1997). Most of those films ended resolved or sad. Yuletide is a silly little gay film of almost nonstop innuendo about a guy who goes back into the closet when he returns home for Christmas, but hijinks ensue when his boyfriend shows up unexpectedly. It’s an annual watch for me around the holidays, and I usually host people for it. 

Also, Adamo Ruggiero is in it! He played Marco on Degrassi: The Next Generation.

This was fun! I think most folks have been tagged that I know, but I’ll tag @warningtothecurious​. If anyone else does this, please tag me back if you do this! I want to know what films you all return to.

[nica-my-beloved]

Ikemen Series IN-Game Soundtracks I'm Dying For....

These Ikemen Series games have some of the best soundtracks I've ever listened too. The Main OST or theme songs are great but the in-game ones are magical. Usually I don't pay attention to the in-game music from Otome games because I'm too focused on the voice acting. Since the Ikemen Series, barely have voice acting besides the Prologue, I was able to pay more attention to the music of these games and I was stunned at how good some soundtracks were. Here are some of my favorites.

*The titles of these soundtracks are not official. They are made-up by me.

*They are in-game recordings.

*Headphones recommended!

Technically not an 'Ikemen series game' but it's still partly developed by Ikemen series developers so I think it still counts. I wanted to shed some light on how refreshing the soundtracks of Morganatic Idol are. This one in particular is so refreshing that I'm thinking of making it my ringtone. This soundtrack really reminds me of the Healer Kdrama Theme song. Rejuvenating me every time I listen to this.

This one as well. When I first heard it in Xeno's route, it fit the scenario so perfectly that I freaking LOVED IT. It's kinda similar to the Main Theme but much cooler, fast....and maybe a little bit badass.

Okay, I'm done talking about Morganatic Idol. Let's start with the actual Ikemen series now. Ikemen Revolution's main theme is epic. I fell in love with it when I first heard it and that mindset has never been changed since. The music fits the vibe of the game perfectly and it does sound magical.

I don't know why, but every time I listen to this theme, it makes me feel.....naughty? The music sounds like a lustful yet pure romantic moment between the characters and I find myself blushing, a little too much.

This one is a more sweeter and lovely version of the Main OST of the game, and when I first heard it in Ibuki's ending I just felt a lot of blissful emotions that I can't talk. This music makes me both happy, sad and loved at the same time. How is that even possible?

I saved the best one for last! When I first heard this soundtrack in the 2nd Prologue....my heart was pounding. I was blushing. I wanted stuff my face into my pillow because I was feeling all kinds of emotions. The song made me so happy, I could die!! This one too, is a sweeter version of one of the OST of the game. I feel like this theme fits the game even more perfectly than the Main OST by Do As Infinity. Just to be clear, I'm not saying that the Main OST is bad. But this one is so magical that it hits the spot!! I wished they used this as the ending theme as well because every time I hear it, it makes me happy for no reason.

There are more soundtracks I like, but I don't wanna dump everything in one post, so I'll make another one once I finish recording it.

[sohcah--toa]

bullet train/マリアビートル details ~

Hello!! I recently dug up the Bullet Train script (if you search it up, you should be able to find it relatively easily!! I'm not sure if it's completely reliable but it seems to be the first version) and listened to the soundtrack. (It's awesome, you should listen if you haven't already!!)

There's a lot of stuff here about マリアビートル, I hope you enjoy reading 🥳 (It's really ridiculous)

-- 1 ) LEMON'S CHILDHOOD // BACKGROUND(??)

I attached a photo for reference in the book!! :D (there's highlighter marks, I'm sorry) His backstory is tragic and aahh noo 🥹... I won't say much on it because we're all thinking the same thing. In the script, this is carried over when Lemon passes out because of the water. But apparently, in the final movie, this isn't shown a lot. In the book and movie, they aren't brothers and have a considerably colder relationship, so I can understand why the childhood scene in the cut is so much more wholesome. (Still supersuper cool though!!)

-- 2) "I'm forever blowing bubbles"

The original reason why this song was chosen for Bullet Train was because of Tangerine's West Ham United sticker (turns out, that's a football club). Hey!! But wait a minute!! There's a funny coincidence because Ladybug in the book was trying to become a football star. He has a quote that's like "my friend told me that someone like me could either become a footballer or a criminal, so I did both" and he says that his first crime was stealing a football.

The song delves into themes surrounding fortune as well!! I love their music selection 🙇‍♂️😤

-- 3) THREE ASSASSINS/グラスホッパー REFERENCES

Okay this part (in a way...) contains spoilers for Three Assassins, which is the first book of the "series"! ! The story revolves around a guy named Suzuki, who appears again in Bullet Train!! He kinda-sorta becomes friends with Ladybug and it's like 😊 they are so happy. To be completely honest, Suzuki's a bit traumatised but so is Ladybug, right?? Lovely friendship!!

It's also so interesting that he's reading a hotel buffet menu because his wife used to love eating at buffets and he adopted the habit of hoarding all the food as well. He's on the train to meet with his dead wife's family (which was extremely difficult for him after her passing).

-- 4) BULLET TRAIN REFERENCES IN THE MANTIS/AX

There's this other book in the series called The Mantis or AX for the Japanese version. This one isn't talked about a lot but if you like family stories, this book is so so soo good. It really pulled at my heartstrings when I first read it but I can't say too much without spoiling everything. Anyway, it makes a few references to Bullet Train and literally starts with the main character, Kabuto (an assassin), having a flashback to talking to Tangerine and Lemon during one of his missions, where they had the same target so they worked together. The Twins really respect him, actually, but find it funny that he's so careful around his wife (YES KABUTO, AN ASSASSIN, HAS A WIFE). Some characters reappear so.. :")) yay!!

-- 5) 777

Ladybug comes back!! He comes back in the latest book in the series; 777. So far, the Japanese reviews have been pretty positive and I think there's an English translation coming in November!! 🥳 I like how the title is 777; 7 like 7 tails in Nanao (七尾), car 7, his favourite number is 7 (if I recall correctly), 7 the "lucky number".

-- 6) THIS GUY

No one asked but I heavily dislike the Prince in the book. (to be honest, who doesn't...) He's just mean for no reason and likes ruining people's lives, makes fun of poor Ladybug (this really isn't that bad compared to the other stuff he does) and yeah, the list goes on. Also apparently he (heavily) tortures other schoolmates and it's not like he gets paid for it like the Twins or the other guys. He just does it for fun?? OK!! The premise of his character is amazing and it's great to see a villain that's actually just straight evil but since he's designed that way, we are validated when hating him ww. He talks about politics as well for some reason... keeps referencing historical tragedies.... man.

-- 7) ASAGAO/THE PUSHER

The Pusher is back too!! Weee~ (not really)

In the movie, it seems as though this entire part got cut out which, like, is reasonable. I attached a photo from the Grasshopper (2015) movie for reference hahaha. The guy in the black suit is the Pusher!! Yeah, he pushes people!! (not in the fun way!!)

He is in charge of protecting Wataru from the Prince's guy, although he's reluctant at first. He's obsessed with bugs and stuff. Whenever he opens his mouth, it's probably going to be about bugs. The Pusher's also strangely poetic. Maybe it's because he likes old bands like the Rolling stones? Oh!! And he gets mentioned in The Mantis.

And speaking of the Kimura family, Yuichi Kimura says something very true and it's:

"who do they gotta make the train toilets so nasty"

-- 8) LADYBUG IS COOL

This is very much a fact. In Mariabeetle, he gets kidnapped when he's 8 years old because he gets mistaken for a rich kid (after he lost a bet with his wealthy friend and had to wear his "rich person backpack"), then in the place he's being held captive, he escapes by HIMSELF since his dad isn't able to give the guys money for his son back (since they took the wrong person!!). But heyy he's resourceful and smart.

AND guess what?? He gets traumatised because there was this other boy being held but Ladybug didn't save him and it's haunted him ever since. This is also one of the reasons why he ends up helping the Prince even though he knows it won't do him any good.

Obviously, it gets worse from there. He makes it back to his family and they're pretty happy. Unfortunately, they're far from rich and Ladybug has to study extremely hard to get into a college. Spoiler alert, he doesn't. THE THING IS!! He studied so hard!! It's just that during his exam, some kid sneezed on his paper and he wiped it, smudging all his work and even his name!! Nanao! No!!

-- 9) TANGERINE BOOK RECS

To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

"We perished, each alone."

-> He really loves that quote. A lot. Also he's a Virginia Woolf fan!!

2. Forbidden Colours - Yukio Mishima

-> He's also a Yukio Mishima fan... I wonder if he's ever read "The Sound of Waves". What would he think about it? Hahaha this will keep me up at night 😅 (<- SLANTED EMOJI!!)

3. The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea - Yukio Mishima

-> To talk about Article 41 of the Penal Code of Japan. (Mr Kotaro Isaka, the author, studied law, by the way!! It's interesting!!) However, here, Tangerine quotes Mishima on Article 41 ;)

4. Hemingway and Faulkner

-> Actually it's a collection so it's not really a book recommendation but these two people are real - Ernst Hemingway (the Old Man and the Sea guy) and William Faulkner. They didn't really get along, by the way, and even though they respected the other's work, they criticised more than praised. Sounds like the Twins.

5. Demons - Fyodor Dostoevsky

-> "Crime is no longer insanity, but simply common sense, almost a duty; anyway, a gallant protest."

I think the author is a heavy Fyodor Dostoevsky fan, just because he also referenced his works in Three Assassins.

6. Crime and Punishment ;D

-> "Science now tells us, love yourself before all men, for everything in the world relies on self-interest."

(CONT'D) yeahh this book was referenced in Three Assassins and one of the characters is obsessed with it. Glad to see that Tangerine is a fan too hahahaha.

-- 10) LEMON IS AWESOME

Opinionated text here but Lemon is plain awesome.

"Between the principal's name and Doraemon's gadgets, it was blindingly obvious which one was more important."

To each their own and I know he's a criminal but he seems like he has no enemies. Sounds very wholesome.

-- 11) HORNET THE MVP

She's in Three Assassins AND the Mantis!! Hypercool. In both books, the Hornet is a team of a male and a female. The female is eliminated (this word choice ww) by Ladybug but the male is still up and kicking, though Ladybug feels bad about it. They use poison needles, like the movie, but they trigger anaphylaxis, which is a really dangerous allergic reaction that causes body shocks.

-- 12) SUZUKI: PHILOSOPHER AND ECONOMIST

"If people knew that they might be killed by someone tomorrow, economic activity would grind to a halt."

... well 😅 take from that what you will.

(that's Suzuki!!)

Cela dit... that's all.... so long, I'm sorry. But thank you so much if you read until the end!! I hope you at least found it a bit entertaining!! :"))

[bizarredawdler]

FF14 all expansions and post patch quests done!

I've always been hesistant to try this game out before, due to my bad experiences with other MMOs before (it doesn't help I didn't have a whole lot of people to play them with lol), but this surprisingly won me over.

The story and characters were the highlight for me. However, it did start quite slow. Starting with "A Realm Reborn", the story is mostly just kinda there with some predictable beats. But then, once I hit the first batch of post patch quests, the game really hooked me. It was a twist I didn't see coming, and added much more depth to something that I usually thought was more of an afterthought in MMOs. It then just kept getting better and better, only really hitting a snag in the Stormblood post patch quests (I found the whole memory loss arc with Yotsuyu incredibly stupid and a waste of time; cool boss fight though). Then I reached Shadowbringers and Endwalker, and that's when the game's story and characters really hit their stride, and I was now fully engaged. What amazes me with this game is that the writers are able to keep the story going in interesting ways even after 4 expansions (and soon to be 5 with Dawntrail), which is absolutely insane to me.

The gameplay was fun! With the help of some friends, I was able to slowly grasp some of the more subtle mechanics of the game and gradually started getting better with my class (although I still fumble my rotations sometimes even at lvl 90 lol). Although I didn't do a lot of side content, since I was mostly focusing on the main story quests, the structure of each quest was still really solid and rewarding, and I was surprised to see how chill the random people I played in a party were, always being cheerful and understanding when I was making mistakes in some boss fights. Compared to WoW and Maplestory, this felt like a breath of fresh air.

The music was also really good! It would be a crime for a Final Fantasy game to have a terrible soundtrack, and this game has some really great variety of awesome tracks that I still listen to on Spotify. Again, incredible production value for an MMO.

I think my only real nitpick, aside from the aforementioned stormblood post patch quests, is that although some of the visuals are great, because A Realm Reborn was originally released in 2014, some of the character models and lighting are dated by today's standards (and even then, a lot visuals are gonna get an overhaul in the next expansion Dawntrail, so that's not really too big of an issue).

Overall, this was well worth the 354 hours of playtime I put into it. Really excited to play Dawntrail with my buddies!

[forgthetheaterkid]

Can you do a mini review for heathers? /not forced

I'm obsessed with it rn and you asked for asks lol :>

I’D LOVE TOO :D (AND IM SO SORRY THAT THIS IS LATE)

Heathers

Rating: 5/5

How familiar I am: I’ve seen the og movie, a bootleg, and I’ve memorized the soundtrack

Characters: I love these characters so much! I really like how the musical gives Veronica way more depth and shows her regret for killing Heather C, Kurt and Ram (they really show this in “Prom or Hell”) ALSO CASTING DIRECTORS WHY DO YOU ALWAYS MAKE HEATHER CHANDLER AND JD HOT???? I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE ATTRACTED TO A (pardon my language) MYTHIC BITCH AND A PSYCHOPATH!!

Plot: Aw look! A girl finally gets her wish to be popular! 😊 And she meets a cute, totally mentally stable boy ☺️! I’m sure no murders will happen here 😁

Ok but for real this is such an interesting plot. When I first listened to it, you literally could not tell what was happening next. It’s really entertaining and gives a lot of characters a chance in the spot light.

Songs: Dare I say there’s not a single bad song. Candy Store? Iconic, even though my alto ass can’t hit those notes. My Dead Gay Son? Hilarious and their rainbow ties kill me each time. Meant to be yours? I love acting out being a little bit psycho :) Dead Girl Walking Reprise? I’m not quite sure why this song scratches my brain perfectly but it was my third most played song on Spotify last year. Blue? Even though I prefer “Your Welcome” since I think it handles the topic better, Blue is still unsettling under its upbeat demeanor. (just like All You Wanna Do) I could literally do a mini review on each of these songs if somebody wanted (actually that might not be a bad idea because I’ve lost a wee bit of motivation to do big reviews everyday as you could tell) These songs are great and the only one I’m not the biggest fan of is “Kindergarten Boyfriend” but I’m not taking off points because I can kinda sing it :3

Final thoughts: This is such a good musical with great characters, (AND great character development), iconic costumes, fantastic songs, and an all around fun (and kinda murdery) time!

ALSO FUN FACT WHEN JD SAYS “You’ll go to some college and marry a Lawyer” THATS A REFERENCE TO LEGALLY BLONDE BECAUSE ONE OF THE PRODUCERS (or maybe writers idk) ALSO WORKED ON THE LEGALLY BLONDE MUSICAL

[dollarbin]

Sandy Saturdays #20

I'll Keep It With Mine

There are plenty of versions of this tricky Dylan song. Nico, Judy Collins and Dylan himself stumbled over it for years before everyone shelved it altogether.

Everyone, that is, except Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention.

The story starts in June of 64 when Dylan recorded Another Side of Bob Dylan in one rambling and probably pretty drunken night. Dylan did not attempt the song during the session, even though it was freshly written. Would the resulting record be better with I'll Keep It With Mine in place of the whiny, sophomoric Ballad in Plain D? Yes, totally.

But it's a tough song! Here's Dylan that same month trying to figure it out for copyright purposes. Suffice it to say that he does not figure it out.

6 months later, in January 65 (don't believe the date on the video below; I clearly know Dylan's timeline better than he does) he gave it another go, this time during the Bringing It All Back Home sessions. Bob was a far better musician and studio presence by that point and he lays down what is perhaps the song's most elegant take.

Most of us born in the 70's or 80's grew up with this version. Beloved copies of Biograph served as our introduction to all things Bob and this version of I'll Keep It With Mine is one of the collection's signature moments.

But no one in the 60's ever heard this version: Dylan recorded just this one take and then immediately abandoned the whole thing, jumping back into the far more manly, silly and obscure songs that actually make up the record.

At that point Dylan clearly felt done with the whole thing. I'll Keep It was either too complicated, too earnest or too melodic; probably all those things.

And so he tossed the song to Judy Collins, telling her it was meant for her anyway, and she immediately put out a fussy and almost good version that never merited space on one of her albums.

It's too bad Collins got her hands on the track in 65; a year earlier she would have slayed the thing by playing it solo acoustic; don't be fooled, Collins could totally play guitar.

But in 65 she was entering her pop arrangements phase, during which no let her pay an instrument. You can hear the dumb men in the room undercutting her greatness here: everything is rushed and hummable, lacking depth.

Dylan's producer, Bob Johnson, clearly wasn't impressed with Collins' version because he tried to talk Bob back into the song a year later while they were making Blonde on Blonde. Listen to Johnson here, cajoling Dylan into playing the damn thing while perhaps the great assembly of studio musicians in white man musical history work out their parts.

Johnson was so sold on the song that he put the musicians to work on an entirely new arrangement soon thereafter while Bob was momentarily missing in action (he was either writing Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands at that exact moment, taking uppers and/or downers, or recovering from just having done all those things).

Wow, don't you wish Dylan had given in to Johnson and completed this version? The whole thing is so tight and crisp; I'd love to hear Dylan mangle it. But no dice: Bob had Sad Eyed Lady to record instead, and I guess that worked out pretty damn well.

Still, Johnson's promotion of the track must have stuck with Dylan because the next time he had a goddess to impress - that would be Nico - he offered I'll Keep It With Mine to her.

As we speak, my famous brother is sitting up a little straighter, a look of potential fury forming in his beedy eyes: if I insult his beloved Nico and her VU bandmates his wrath will know no bounds.

Well, tough luck broheim: I think Nico's version, which is from 67, sucks like a cranky old vacuum. The guitar sounds good, and Nico is great in her standard I'm-not-familiar-with-your-language-or-how-to-sing-in-it-but-I'm-fabulous-anyway manner. But John Cale clearly had nothing to do with the string overdubs and they make this whole thing sound like a soundtrack for Honey Bunches of Oats: they're the cheery and wholesome way to start your day.

Enter Fairport Convention. It's 1968 and they suddenly have one of the greatest singers of all time, Sandy Denny, standing alongside their more than capable male vocalist, Ian Matthews. It was time to up their game with a complex, big deal song that everyone knew but no one had ever done quite right. It was time for them to play I'll Keep It With Mine.

Is this the song's perfect take? No. Denny and Matthews had not yet learned how to support one another dynamically (though they'd soon figure it out in a big way) and Matthews' contributions feel competitive here rather than complimentary.

Okay, you ask, it may not be perfect, but is this the best version of I'll Keep It With Mine out there? Naw. I like Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home take just as much.

But, whatever: Fairport's late 68 version is still pretty damn great. On the other side of the Atlantic Neil Young was getting ready to reinvent lead guitar playing on Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. But you can hear Richard Thompson doing much of that same work here, albeit in a less flashy fashion: his lead guitar chases itself all over the mix as Simon Nicol ably fills the Danny Whitten chair.

And then there's Sandy's lead vocals. Denny had never played anything larger than a coffee shop at this point and had had just one real recording session with a band beforehand. But she sure doesn't sound like a newbie here. Rather, she sounds like Athena: assured, patient and powerful; Dylan, Collins and Nico are mere mortals beside her.

Update from an hour after posting:

My famous brother just humbled me yet again, offering up two more versions, neither of which I knew about until this moment; I'll let him introduce them himself:

I think I prefer the Richard & Linda Thompson live version over Fairport — uses a pretty similar arrangement, but Linda might have the edge vocally. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q6Y-R-p7J4

And yeah, the Nico version isn't great, but the Velvet Underground version ... it kind of cooks! Beware of horrible bootleg quality sound here. Legend has it that Lou Reed hated this song but Nico insisted they play it a few times early on. So they basically do it like it's "I'm Waiting For The Man." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP5-vv9mmZM

Imagine emails like this showing up in your inbox regularly. It's sure nice having a famous brother...

[nihilnovisubsole]

it's that time of year again: AK's 2023 Wrapped™. no, not the music thing. the december year-in-review thing. my spotify charts were deeply unfunny this time around because of all the game soundtracks i've been listening to. i don't know when these end-of-year posts became tradition for me, which is to say i could find out and i'm too lazy to check. the important thing, like lemon pigs or eating black-eyed peas, is that it feels like we've always done it. in the depths of winter, the warmth comes from the routine.

i won't beat around the bush about it: it's been a difficult year. it's been hard enough that it doesn't seem appropriate to joke about it or wave it off in favor of big, blog-worthy wins. times are dark right now. it behooves all of us to think deeply and check on each other. i hope i've been a decent friend to the people who needed it. so instead of scraping together a halfhearted victory lap, i'm going to go against my better judgment and be vulnerable.

it wasn't all bad. i got promoted to staff narrative designer this year, which is a fancy way of saying "you don't have to do time cards anymore." it's strange: in an industry infamous for volatility, my job has become one of the few things i can rely on to be positive. i believe my coworkers like me, which is good, because i like them. i feel not just included, but welcomed at work social events. i've developed a reputation for being a garbage goat on my writing team. "got an odd job? give it to AK. we can count on her to eat it." i had the chance to collaborate with someone i've looked up to for years, and i was delighted to find out how amenable they are to work with. there's work stress and there's work stress. everyone has challenging days, but it's not the crab bucket that voltage was, so it never seems that bad. i keep it in perspective. sure, these tasks keep me on my feet, but is it three cents a word, seven thousand words a week? i'll live.

i just wish it had all been good. it speaks to how my health has been that getting covid in february was one of the most mundane things to happen to me. i did everything right. i had all my boosters. i had paxlovid. i recovered well. still, it knocked me out of orbit in the psychological sense. i stopped getting enough exercise, though i'm building myself up again. i became neurotic about my stats. am i Getting A Good Grade In Blood Pressure? what about Pulse Rate? two months later, i came down with a strange, unrelated condition that was nowhere near as serious as covid, but made my life ten times more difficult. i'm happy to report i feel worlds better these days. even so, it was a bizarre time. bodies sure are curious.

later, my sink flooded my closet, and for a few days, i had to reckon with the idea that mold might destroy my entire wardrobe. all those irreplaceable pieces of character design that i've built my identity around since i was eighteen years old. who would i be without them? a wise person would say it was a lesson: stop defining who you are by your looks and find worth in your inner self. the mold is gone and my clothes are fine, but sometimes i have days where my lungs seem like they're sort of operating at ninety percent. i'm trying not to fuss about it. my checkups are normal, and i feel fine whenever i get out of the house for a while. maybe it'll go away when i move. because, hey, i can contemplate saving for a house now. how about that? remember when my mother and i were homeless? what a surreal landscape of highs and lows.

maybe grief is strange like that. in july, just when my health started to settle down, my grandmother died. it was a long time coming. she was 94 and extremely frail. i handled it well at first. it took the ensuing few months for the full weight of human mortality to sink in. before, i'd mainly been to funerals of warm, but distant old men, great patriarchs who loved but didn't relate to little girls. her, i knew. she was there when i was born. i won't go into detail, but it was not a peaceful passing, and it left problems in its wake. you don't live through that without taking a long, hard look at your life. everyone gets the invincibility knocked out of them sometime.

my mother is too disciplined to let it get the better of her. on the worst days of her life, the stove still got cleaned and the bills got paid. when people give her condolences, she encourages them to look on the bright side: she got almost seventy years with her. how many children can say that? but i can tell she's sad, and i'm not under any illusion i can help. i have to sit with it. there's nothing else for me to do.

under different circumstances, i'd have thrown myself into my work. i'd come up with some writing project to avoid thinking about it. i guess the dominant theme when it comes to my personal writing has been inertia: accomplishing nothing and being unsure of myself. if it's a growing pain, it's a rough one. i question my storytelling instincts so much, it's hard to get a story off the ground, let alone take it anywhere. i've hit a point where i find the conventions of the romance genre limiting. i still want to write about people in love, though, and i can't reconcile the two. why do some love stories get to be love stories and others are "just romance?" you could ask why it's "just" romance, and that's a good, but different conversation, i think. what are the great love stories saying about the human condition that i'm not? what is my work saying, period? not a whole lot, i'm afraid. i used to be pugnacious about writing from my id brain, about doing it for the fun of it. i worry that's not going to cut it anymore. i have to push myself harder. i also have to stop fretting about being perceived as pretentious for asking these questions.

it would be easier if i had more answers. i'm not sure which project to work on next, because they're all half-formed outlines with plots i don't know how to fill. i'm not sure whether it'd be weird for someone with my job to keep writing or posting fanfic, no matter how informally. i'm not sure what role physical intimacy should play in my writing, if any, because along with everything else, this was the year shame caught up to me. i'm not sure what happened there. i hope the "are sex scenes necessary" debate didn't get me, because i'd argue for their artistic merit any day. but when i do it, i worry that it's indiscreet somehow, like i'm revealing myself in ways that make strangers uncomfortable. some days i feel like going through my backlog of published work and tearing out all the sex-adjacent content like a power-mad inquisitor. i won't, because i'd regret it, but i spend a lot of time being embarrassed. it's embarrassing. i can't escape the feeling that people don't want to know that about me.

despite it all, it's still bad form to end on a down note, so i'll leave you with this: after five years, i finally got into physical therapy for my arm. i told my doctor the whole sob story and she put in a referral to a hand/occupational clinic. will it help? i don't know. i've tried so many things that haven't. but they're optimistic that i'm in better shape than i think - i've heard a lot of "wow, we get patients who can't even open a jar!" - so it's worth a shot. if it means i can draw a little more, it's something. i still make time for the picrew every day. ever onward. thanks for hanging in there with me, guys. you keep things interesting.

[tomorrowxtogether]

TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s playlist

Songs for young people taking on the real world

2023.10.17

The five boys of TOMORROW X TOGETHER have overcome the sweet temptations in front of them to step into reality and into free fall. They’ve mustered up their courage and are facing the inevitable aches and pains that come with growing up in this world head-on. In this playlist, TOMORROW X TOGETHER tells us about some of the songs off The Name Chapter: FREEFALL, the group’s third studio album, where the idols come to terms with their fate and get ready to sprint from a new starting line—as well as some of the songs they’re listening to as they grow up.

TOMORROW X TOGETHER - ​“Chasing That Feeling”

SOOBIN: This is a really catchy song that’ll get stuck in your head fast. I hope you watch us dance along to it!

YEONJUN: I think this song really highlights every one of our voices and shows off what we’re good at. The way the chorus repeats is catchy so I think people will really like it.

BEOMGYU: Make sure to pay attention to the catchy melody and the synths. Just one listen and you won’t be able to get it out of your head!

TAEHYUN: This song’s about young people dealing with the real world. It’s not dreamlike or paradise. Still, I think a lot of people will relate to the idea of knowing what you want right now and pursuing that. 

HUENINGKAI: This song’s all about boys leaving paradise to take on the real world. The longing in our vocals worked really well with the beat and the vibe.

TOMORROW X TOGETHER, Anitta - ​“Back for More”

SOOBIN: Everything’s great about this song, including the choreography. There’s several different versions and I hope you listen to them all.

YEONJUN: Everything about this song, from the beat to the singing and dancing, is so cool and impactful. It really gives you a sense of how TOMORROW X TOGETHER has a dandy vibe but a sexy vibe at the same time. It’s all of our favorites!

BEOMGYU: The instant I heard this song, I thought, “This is the one.” It’s an amazing song, and it makes you feel confident and strong.

TAEHYUN: This song’s just great from start to finish. You’ll feel like the star of your own movie when you hear it!

HUENINGKAI: This is a really impactful song. The music and choreography both turned out really cool. I feel a rush of confidence whenever I dance to this song with the other members.

HANRORO - “Let Me Love My Youth”

SOOBIN: HANRORO wrote my favorite song off our new album, “Skipping Stones,” and this is the song I first found out about her through. It’s a beautiful, warm-hearted song. I hope MOA can stand strong, just like it says in this song.

Akina Nakamori - ​“OH NO, OH YES!”

YEONJUN: I’ve been really into Japanese city pop lately, so this has been my go-to song. It makes me feel chill and slip into my memories anytime I listen to it.

Yorushika - “Left-Right Confusion”

BEOMGYU: This was on the soundtrack to a movie I saw recently. I’m recommending this because the vocals and whole sound are fantastic!

Justin Bieber - ​“Bad Day”

TAEHYUN: I feel the ability to overcome something starts with acknowledgement, so when I don’t feel good, I like to listen to something that matches what’s going on rather than something exciting and upbeat. That’s why I listen to this song at night when I’ve been having a day that hasn’t gone my way.

Tom Misch - ​“It Runs Through Me” feat. De La Soul 

HUENINGKAI: The bass in this song is amazing and I’m completely blown away by the rhythm and how it can be so good when it’s all low notes with nothing high-pitched! This song’s just really cool—that’s why I’m recommending it.

SOOBIN’s Recommendation: easy life - “nightmares” / TOMORROW X TOGETHER - “Skipping Stones”

YEONJUN’s Recommendation: TOMORROW X TOGETHER - “Growing Pain” / WILLOW - “t r a n s p a r e n t s o u l (Feat. Travis Barker)”

BEOMGYU’s Recommendation: TOMORROW X TOGETHER - “Skipping Stones” / Post Malone - “Overdrive”

TAEHYUN’s Recommendation: Frank Ocean - “Self Control” / TOMORROW X TOGETHER - “Happily Ever After”

HUENINGKAI’s Recommendation: MAX - “Love Me Less (Feat. Quinn XCII)” / Bruno Mars - “Talking To The moon” 

[whatifyoulivelikethat]

dedication | myg

pairing(s): yoongi x reader

summary: A conversation about happy endings, dedication, and fear.

notes: language; talking about life; Yoongi’s POV; I wrote this months ago, found it recently, and thought it aligned with his new album (or what he has revealed so far) and for some reason I felt that this conversation was too significant on its own to be dressed in a story, so here it is

--

“Happy endings don’t exist.”

“Why not?”

She smiled. “You can’t have forever if there’s an ending.”

He looked back, reflecting her smile. “Are you my forever?”

She shrugged half-heartedly. “Until I’m not.”

His smile turned into a smirk.

“Good thing I’m committed to falling in love all the time.”

He used to wonder what the most important thing in the world was. No, he thought he knew, riding on the dreams of others and driven towards his own, until he reached the highest high and looked around to see nothing and no one beside him, not because there weren’t others that walked with him, but because he only showed them the best of Min Yoongi.

There was no one to show the other sides of Min Yoongi.

“Do you ever think you’ll hate me?” he asked, curious.

“Not really,” she replied, one earcup of her headphones on and the other off to listen his questions.

“Why not?”

“Why should I?” He could tell she was listening to music because her head was bobbing lightly to it. A soundtrack to their conversation or completely unrelated. He didn’t know. “I like you until you give me a reason to not like you, which is all on you, by the way.” She shrugged again. “But I probably wouldn’t hate you. Seems like a waste of time for someone not worth your time.”

He chuckled. “Ho. You’re tough.”

She poked him in the chest. “That’s why I like big softies like you.”

He laughed and he was quite sure he was not any kind of big softie, but it would be reckless to fight that determined expression, so he didn’t. He just sat down and waited for her to put her phone down and lower the headphones, giving him a confused look.

“Is something wrong?”

He turned his head to look at her. He wondered why he thought he could do anything when he looked into that face. Why he thought no dream was too far, nothing too impossible, nothing unachievable, and while she would most certainly give him the logistics to bring him back to the ground…

Still.

“I am grateful to be loved by you,” he said.

He used to think he knew what the most important thing in the world was.

“I should be saying that about you, Yoongi,” she replied with a smile, a piano melody leaking from the headphones by her chin.

But the truth was that there were many important things in this world. It all depended on who you were and where you were in life. On whims and stubbornness and being able to let go, because nothing mattered unless you made it matter. Young him used to think that it was most important to prove that he was something and someone. Older him sometimes thought about what it was like to be nothing and nobody. Would he be a more complete, more well-rounded person if he never had the world at his fingertips? Would he have a better message, a better sound? Sometimes he looked into the sea of faces and it felt like home. Sometimes he looked into the sea of faces and he wondered how fucked up he really was. There must be things he didn’t understand because he was in his position, and there must be unconscious bad habits he had now picked up because of who he had become.

“I’m not that great,” he hummed.

“Isn’t that weird?”

“Is what weird?”

She leaned back against the couch and tilted her head. “I know you believe everyone has good and bad. You know that everyone has their own backstories and situations, making the good and bad parts of them relative and subjective.” Her shoulders lifted, accompanying a pensive frown. “Why would you think that you must be great to be loved by me?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Isn’t that what you want? A great partner?”

She looked away from him, to his desk and computer and equipment.

“A great partner knows their flaws and acknowledges them. He knows his limits. Instead of closing his mind to the world, he opens it to better understand himself and then others.” She laughed slightly, shaking her head. “You’re a workaholic with a sharp tongue. You’ve already dreamed up every way you would break a rule you don’t like. You just don’t. But you could.”

“Don’t tell my boss.”

She smiled and mimed zipping her lips shut.

There was a moment of silence until she broke it again.

“I have never met someone so dedicated to something as you are to music.”

“It’s not always the best thing,” he replied with a sigh. “When nothing comes, you feel like a failure.”

“Only those who fail become masters.”

“Yeah, well, failing sucks ass.”

She snickered. “Fair enough.” Looked into his eyes, and he really believed he could do anything. “I just mean that is why I’m grateful to be loved by you. Someone who knows dedication was not just a one-time promise, but something you struggle with forever. Maybe aimlessly, maybe foolishly, maybe getting stuck at an impasse but always choosing the same route, even though you don’t know where it will lead you.”

“Huh.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Makes me sound like an idiot.”

“Yoongi, you have to be an idiot to fall in love.”

“I don’t think so.”

She gave him this look.

“I learned dedication from you,” he said to those eyes, the eyes that made him believe he could be himself, all sides of himself, without fear. The eyes that made him believe he could admit his flaws. That he really could do anything. “I used to think, this is it. The run will be over soon. But then it kept going, and I wondered… did I really want to run anymore? What if my reasons changed? Would that make all this less meaningful if I don’t know the meaning anymore? If I don’t know where I’m running? If I don’t know the end?”

She didn’t say anything.

She simply listened.

“But you taught me there’s no such thing as an ending. And I used to think, that’s fucking daunting, thinking about forever and what that meant, but then there’s you and for some reason I think you can do anything if you wanted to.”

He stared at her.

“You just don’t want to.”

She smiled, and the whole world lit up.

“Well, I probably shouldn’t cause a ruckus for the betterment of society.”

“Society probably needs a ruckus to move in any direction at all,” he grumbled, half-smiling.

“I often think,” she continued, and he noted she was getting back to his original topic with her tone and thoughtful expression. “That fear and determination can co-exist and should not be mutually exclusive. You can take precautions while being reckless.”

“Uh huh. You know most people don’t think that, right? People avoid feeling afraid and being reckless.”

She frowned. It was very cute. “Hah. Why?”

“Nobody likes negative consequences.”

“They’re only negative if you look at them that way.”

“That’s what criminals say to the cops when they’re caught.”

She held out her hands in a carefree shrug.

“Don’t get caught. Stay a criminal undercover.”

He twitched.

She grinned. Playful and fully knowing what she did there. “Mistakes, failure, negative consequences, they all teach you in some way or another. Life is about learning. There’s no story without a journey and no journey if you’re paralyzed in the past and the what-ifs of the future.”

Like he thought, there was a reason he felt like he could do anything when he looked into her eyes.

Like living a movie.

Like he was the main character.

Like life was in color, in shadows and in light, diving between darkness and brightness, knowing it would come and go, and also knowing he could simultaneously be afraid and fearless at the same time. He thought he had to cast aside parts of him to be the best of Min Yoongi. He used to be glad and dismayed that he was no longer who he was in the past. Now, he recognized that he was learning lessons from his past self, new ones and old reminders, and he was grateful to be loved by one who knew dedication.

“If I’m dedicated to music,” Yoongi found himself asking. “What are you dedicated to?”

She shrugged.

Thought about it.

Deeply.

“Dick?” was the final answer.

Admirable, he concluded.

--

drabbles masterpost | masterpost

[itsjuststardust]

Heaven in Hiding - Chapter 16: The Cord That Binds

Heaven in Hiding Masterlist

Chapter Summary: And if someone overpowers one person, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not easily broken.

Word Count: 14,337

Author's Note/Chapter Warnings: MINORS - DO NOT INTERACT - 18+ ONLY 🎵Chapter soundtrack(s)🎵 'So High School' - Taylor Swift; 'Maroon' - Taylor Swift; 'As It Was' - Hozier

Chapter 16: The Cord That Binds

Alaina couldn’t stop grinning.

The day had started… not so great.

Her sour mood started yesterday when she shattered her hand by punching Mando’s helmet. But then they learned that the kid could heal people, and then said kid passed out, and they spent the rest of the afternoon and into the evening worried over him. Not to mention her persistent headache, only amplified by the stress of the day before. By the time dinner came around, Alaina just wanted to go to sleep and be done for the day. 

She tried to hide her tears from Mando, but she knew she hadn't been successful the second he began removing his armor. However, when Mando’s strong arms wrapped around her and held her tightly to his chest, Alaina thought he had single-handedly chased off her bad mood. Only her sour mood bled into the next day when she woke up this morning. She just kept staring at that spot on the floor where she had been pinned to the ground and was suddenly overcome with the need to scrub the entire hold, wiping Calican's memory clean from the Razor Crest. 

The cleaning had worked… to an extent. She maybe wouldn’t be able to wipe the slate clean, but she did find a radio. And oh, to be able to listen to music again. That little radio had already lifted her spirits so much…

And then Mando returned from hunting and…

Her eyes flicked to the Mandalorian polishing his armor across from her, and her smile grew.

Maker, she felt like a teenager enamored by her first crush all over again. It was all a bit silly, really. The whole day had been just that—silly. She didn’t know what had gotten into Mando, but she was thankful for his spurt of child-like insanity. Their afternoon spent swimming at the lake was just what she needed to snap out of her funk.

The afternoon had been perfect.

“What do you see when you have one of your visions?” 

Alaina blinked at Mando’s question and looked up from the pot she was stirring to fix him with a frown. “Why?”

Mando shrugged as he continued to polish his chestpiece. “Just curious,” he answered, trying to appear nonchalant about the question. “Just thought I could get to know you a little better. Thought you’d like having someone who understood what happens when you have one.”

She narrowed her eyes at the casual way he asked the random question… almost too casual. What was he up to? When Alaina didn’t answer his question, he looked up from polishing his armor, and she stared back at him with a single, high arching eyebrow, a sure sign that she didn’t believe him.

“What?” he asked with an innocent tilt of his helmet.

“Normally, people start with easier topics when they are trying to get to know someone. Things like, ‘What’s your favorite color?’ or ‘How old were you when you started dancing?’ or ‘I see you’re traveling with a Mandalorian; how long have you been friends with a bounty hunter?’” she snarked.

“Yeah, well, I don’t think we’ve gone about things the way normal people do,” he shot back, but she could hear the easy, teasing tone in his deep voice that put her at ease.

Alaina smirked back at him before returning to stirring the stew and saying, “You mean normal people don’t meet all their friends by being their bounty?”

He chuckled and shook his head as he returned to polishing his armor.

When they made it back to the Crest, Mando worked to push the heavy crates Alaina had managed to push out earlier while she gathered the other odds and ends back inside just as the skies opened up. She was still highly suspicious that Grogu used his powers to help her move the heavy containers. Otherwise, there was no way she was strong enough to get them out, especially once she watched Mando struggle to push them back up the ramp.

He left the ramp open at Alaina’s behest so they could watch the storm roll through as rain poured from the black clouds, blanketing the sky overhead. They took turns showering the lake off them and changing into dry clothes before they started working on dinner. Mando prepared the rabbit he had caught earlier. Alaina sorted through some of the dehydrated vegetables and spices the villagers on Sorgan gave them and began making a stew that smelled delicious, if she did say so herself.

It was all very domestic—an afternoon spent swimming at the lake, working on dinner together, and now the three of them were lounging on the hold floor in companionable silence. Grogu was near the ramp, watching the storm with rapt fascination. Alaina was barefoot, dressed only in his old tunic, and had a towel wrapped around her head, hiding her hair while she knelt in front of the electric warmer and pot, focusing on dinner. 

After Mando’s shower, she was surprised to see him decide to join his companions in their casual attire and redress in one of his older, threadbare black short-sleeved shirts and a pair of black sweats she’d never seen him wear before. 

Alaina couldn’t help the smile that blossomed across her face at the first glimpse of his bare arms and feet, free of their usual coverings. Her smile was even brighter when he tilted his helmet at her as he sat across from her, almost daring her to say something before he began to polish his armor.

“Black,” he said randomly, trading his chestpiece for a vambrace.

Alaina frowned, took the spoon out of the pot, and placed a lid over it before moving to sit on the floor. “Black?” she asked, resting her back against one of the crates.

He nodded, “If you would have asked me five years ago, I would have told you my favorite color was black.”

Alaina smiled at his answer. “Five years ago, huh? And what if I were to ask you now?” she asked as she unwrapped the towel from her head, allowing her damp hair to cascade around her.

Mando paused from rubbing his vambrace with a rag to fix Alaina with his helmet before answering with, “Green.”

A soft, pink blush blossomed across Alaina’s cheeks at his answer, and she ducked her head from view. With her face slightly hidden, she used the towel previously wrapped around her hair to scrunch the remaining moisture from her blonde locks.

“Let me guess,” Mando started, resting an arm over his knee. “Your favorite color is pink?” he teased.

Alaina stuck her tongue out at him and tossed her wet towel at him. “And what if it is?”

“Pink? Really?” he half grumbled, tossing her wet towel off to the side.

Alaina rolled her eyes and laughed. “Mando, I’m a ballerina who, until five years ago, didn’t even know what a Mandalorian was and, before that, was content to live my life as a basic girlie girl.”

“Basic… girlie girl?” he questioned slowly, attempting to decipher Alaina’s description of herself.

She snickered at his confused words. “You know, like when someone says, ‘Oh, there’s a girl,' and your mind automatically goes to dresses, flowers, and pink? Basic.”

Mando’s helmet remained fixed on her in silence as if he didn’t understand her words. Of course, with Mando’s lifestyle, she realized that he’d probably never had any interactions with your typical girlie girl for him to understand what she was talking about.

“Never mind,” Alaina shook her head and rolled her eyes at his silence. “And for your information, my favorite color is yellow,” she told him, smirking when he tilted his helmet again at the new information.

Lightning lit up the sky quickly, followed by a loud crash of thunder that made the three of them jump. 

Grogu let out a quiet eep at the booming thunder that echoed around the hold. The adults watched the toddler as he waddled from his spot near the ramp and came to sit between them. The Child’s eyes drooped as he fought to stay awake, but she could feel that he was hungry and knew he would drop off the moment his stomach was full. Alaina gave him a comforting smile as she soothed the child by gently stroking his head with her fingers before standing up to walk back to the alcove. She had to stand on her toes to search the kid’s hammock, but finding his stuffed frog didn’t take long.

“There you go,” she said, her voice sugary sweet as she passed the toy to the toddler. “I used to be scared of storms when I was little, too. But now they are one of my favorite things to watch.”

Grogu gave her a couple of slow, sleepy blinks before he clutched his stuffed frog tightly to his chest and let out a quiet coo while he focused on the pot cooking in front of him instead of the storm outside.

“Doesn’t seem very girlie girl to like storms,” Mando commented, setting aside his last piece of armor.

Alaina shrugged and moved to check on the stew. Once the lid was off the pot, she closed her eyes in contentment as the delicious smells wafted under her nose. She wasn’t the only one who thought it smelled good, too, judging by Grogu’s excited squeal that barely covered Mando’s growling stomach. With one last stir of their dinner, she ladled them each a helping of her rabbit stew before passing her companions their bowls.

“My mom had a thing for watching the weather. Rain, storms, snow, it didn’t matter. Just something that rubbed off on me, I guess. The rain and snow were soothing, but I was always partial to watching the lightning,” she told him, moving to retake her spot on the floor. “What about you?”

Mando cocked his helmet at the question, “What about me?”

“Do you ever just sit back and watch the weather?” she questioned, taking a bite of her stew.

“I prefer a clear sky,” he answered, stirring his bowl. “Any other kind of weather is a hindrance to the job.”

She rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to speak, but whatever Alaina was about to say was cut off by the kid banging his spoon against the bowl. “No, Grogu,” she began, showing him how to hold the spoon in his small, three-fingered hand. “See, you use it to eat your stew.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mando turn away from them to lift his helmet and take a sip straight from his bowl. Her lips quirked when she heard a hum of appreciation from the ordinarily stoic Mandalorian. Maybe he’d understand why she hated his ration packs now. Alaina returned her attention to Grogu to help him with his spoon, but his focus was entirely on watching Mando eat his dinner. When she watched Grogu’s ears perk, she knew he was about to ignore her lecture about proper dining etiquette. Grogu dropped his spoon on the ground only a second later, grabbed his bowl between his hands, and took a sip from it, copying Mando.

“Grogu, manners,” Alaina tutted at the child and turned just in time to see Mando turn to take a sip straight from the bowl. “Really?” she grumbled, and he shrugged his shoulders. “You’re teaching him bad habits.”

“It’s kind of difficult to eat soup with the helmet on,” he countered, lifting the bowl up. “But if manners are that important to you, I can go up top to eat.”

Alaina pouted and looked between him and the kid before she heaved a sigh, dropped her spoon to the floor, and took a sip straight from her bowl. Grogu smiled brightly at Alaina’s change in attitude and lifted his own bowl back up for another sip.

“I’m guessing this isn’t how the dinner parties you keep mentioning usually go?” Mando asked, amusement lacing his question before turning away to take another deep drink from his bowl.

Alaina let out a snort at his question. “No, not exactly,” she confirmed. “My dinner parties usually had a few more people, and everyone there knew how to use their eating utensils,” she groused, taking a sip from her bowl. “I also normally wore pants to my own parties,” she added, looking down at her bare legs sticking out from under her shirt.

Mando chuckled at her, “What other kinds of things would you do?”

Alaina smiled when Grogu grunted and waved his already empty bowl at her. She then refilled the kid’s empty bowl with a second, smaller serving before passing it back to him.

“They were nothing elaborate,” she explained, taking a few bites before continuing. A warm smile made its way across her face at the fond memories of years past floating to the surface of her mind. “Just friends from my dance company and some of their significant others. We would eat, drink wine, and gossip about work or the new dancers. We’d usually get tipsy by the end and dance it off at the club afterward. One of my favorite parties was during a storm like this, and we all went out and danced in the rain instead of going out,” she told him, smiling brightly at the memory. “I started hosting the get-to-gathers after my mom died,” she explained, her smile faltering slightly at the mention of her mother. “My mom and…” she started again, and then her smile faded away completely. “Um, my mom and Penn were my only family. So, after she was gone, it was nice to gather up all of my friends once every couple of weeks or so and catch up. I guess it seems silly now, but it was nice,” she finished with a shrug.

Mando appeared to tense at the mention of Penn. “He was really your friend?” he asked, sounding as if he had difficulty believing she had ever been friends with the doctor. 

Alaina nodded, keeping her focus straight ahead, feeling embarrassed by her answer. 

“I’m sorry,” Mando murmured.

Alaina shrugged again. “It is what it is. Part of me hates that every good memory I have of my past is tainted with him… but… He was my best friend,” she finished with a sigh. “He hated that I made him come to my dinner parties. He always felt out of place but would still come just to see me. He knew that if he didn’t show up, I would do something embarrassing to him at work, so he suffered through my other friends. But that’s also just who he was.” She grew somber at the memories of her former friend and seemed to force a couple of bites of food down before she set her bowl aside, suddenly unable to stomach eating.

“He knew how much I hated being alone,” she continued, tucked her knees under her shirt, and wrapped her arms around her legs. “The last week my mom was in the hospital, we knew she was nearing the end, and he took a leave of absence from work just to be at the hospital with me. He was there when she passed. He took care of me. Penn let me live with him. He made sure I ate that I got out of his apartment; he made sure I didn’t quit dancing…” she scoffed and shook her head, and her face shifted from sorrow to rage. “He was my best friend. He knows everything about me. He came to my dinner parties, he came to my recitals, he was there for me when my mom died… He knows my biggest achievements, my hopes, my fears… And he used them against me. He knows I hate being alone, and that’s exactly what he did to me.”

Mando didn’t have an answer for her. She wasn’t expecting one. There was no changing the past. Penn was an integral part of it, and now he wasn’t. Now she had a Mandalorian and a strange green alien toddler… well, at least for now, she did. What Mando had planned for them once they left, she didn’t know and didn’t want to think about, especially after this afternoon. Even the thought of separating from either of them made that tiny invisible string she had felt in her chest pull taught, reminding her that Mando had healed it with his actions over the last few weeks.

“Oh dear,” Alaina tutted, looking away from Mando to try to hide her tears from him. “Looks like someone had too much fun today,” she commented and shuffled around to pick up Grogu, who had fallen asleep next to his bowl, using his stuffed frog as a pillow.

She gently rocked the sleeping toddler and carried him back to his hammock. She took her time tucking him and his frog under the blanket, not ready to face Mando one-on-one just yet. Alaina could feel his helmet fixed on her, burning holes through her. It took another minute to gather herself before she could turn back to Mando and give him a faux smile. He shifted his helmet slightly, apparently seeing right through her mask. Oh well, at least she managed to stop herself from crying.

“I’m sorry,” was all he said, and Alaina found herself thankful that he didn’t try to argue or make her feel better.

She shrugged, “Sometimes I wonder what I would do if I ever saw him again,” Alaina commented when she returned to the crate she had been sitting in front of. Instead of sitting down this time, she leaned to rest her shoulders against the crate and crossed her arms over her chest. “A part of me wants to hope there is someone good still inside of there—”

“That kind of thinking will get you killed,” Mando cut her off. Her chest instantly clenched at his frank words, and tears filled her eyes again. Mando sighed and shook his head, but she wasn’t sure which one of them he was more frustrated with. “Alaina, the man put a bounty on you,” he argued. “Penn Pershing is not the man you knew. He fabricated a story about the two of you being married—”

“Oh, he didn’t fabricate that,” Alaina interrupted, snarling a bit at the end when she said the words.

If she had thought Mando was tense after admitting that she had hoped Penn still had some good left in him, that was nothing compared to the silence that stretched through the hold at her admission. You would have thought that despite the hold doors being open, all of the oxygen had been sucked out of the hold, almost as if her words had set a bomb off.

“But—” Mando began before he silenced himself. Alaina watched him with a curious eye as he shifted uncomfortably while he tried to choose his words. “But… but you said that the two of you weren’t married?” he reminded her, and her face softened at the hurt she heard in his words. “You said you were just friends?”

Alaina blew out a huff of air and rolled her eyes. “So, five years ago, I didn’t think that I was married when I told you that,” she shrugged.

“You… you didn’t think you were married?” he asked with a skeptical tilt of his helmet.

She nodded, “Apparently, the Empire can marry you to someone without you realizing it. So, they filed all the paperwork to make it legit when Penn put the bounty on me to make the story believable.”

The dark words came out from under his helmet so quickly that Alaina had to wonder if he even realized he had said them, “I’ll kill him.”

Alaina snorted, “Why? Because he tortured me for five years, or because he’s technically my husband? Which means,” she paused to look at the alcove where Grogu was sleeping before looking back at him with a smirk, hoping to lighten the mood. “Which means you had s-e-x with a married woman,” she whispered. He chuckled at her mocking accusation and shook his head at her, making her smile again. “Homewrecker,” she teased, giving him a playful wink.

A bark of laughter escaped him, and he leaned back against the wall, looking a little more relaxed and content now that they were both laughing again.

Alaina smirked and turned to the crate he had pushed back inside to its rightful place when they returned to the Crest and started digging inside. Of course, what she was looking for had to be buried at the bottom of the container. After a few seconds of struggling, she gave in and hopped up to fold herself over the lip of the crate so she could reach the bottle she was aiming for. She had to stretch to grab it and tried not to let herself be too embarrassed when she felt her sleep shirt, Mando’s old tunic, slide up to probably expose some of her underwear and bottom to the Mandalorian seated on the floor on the opposite side of the hold. “Ah ha!” Alaina muttered triumphantly from the crate before she popped back up, fixing her shirt.

Mando jolted at the sound of her words, and she blushed when his helmet snapped upright. She could almost swear she saw a slight red rash creep down Mando’s neck as if he was embarrassed to be caught ogling her. Had he really been looking at her? Like that? Her breath caught in her chest, and she felt that same teenager crush feeling sneak back up. She held the glass bottle by its neck to show him what she had grabbed out of the crate, and the blue liquid sloshed around slightly.

“Spotchka?” he asked, sounding surprised.

Alaina eyed him from the other side of the hold, and her chest tugged again when she saw his strong, muscular arms, which she had dreamed about since Sorgan. Maybe she should embrace feeling like a teenager again… 

She nodded, “No good dinner party is complete without good food, alcohol, and even better company,” she smiled. “Besides,” Alaina began, walking to stand in front of him with the bottle of spotchka. “When you’ve had a couple of drinks, you say adorable stuff, like calling me sweet thing,” she teased him, giving him a taste of a flirty smile that had just a sliver of her pink tongue poking out.

He shook his head at her words, and her smile solidified when she saw Mando’s neck flush red in embarrassment. “Mandalorians aren’t adorable,” he grumbled. No doubt, if Alaina corrected him to inform him that he was adorable, handsome, kind, and every other feeling that filled her head when she looked at him, she would very likely spook him and end this endearing moment.

“I’m going to go watch the rest of the storm,” she told him, nodding to the open ramp. “Come sit with me?” she asked hopefully.

Mando nodded, making her beam back at him. She headed toward the open bay ramp and could hear him shuffling around close behind her. She sat off to the side so her legs could dangle over the edge, but he opted to sit behind just inside the ramp to avoid getting wet.

“Cheers,” she toasted, popping the lid off the spotchka. She lifted the bottle to solute Mando before taking a drink of the sweet alcohol. When she was done, she passed him the bottle, trying to appear relaxed when his bare fingers brushed her own, sending a shiver down her spine.

Mando turned his head to drink from the bottle, and Alaina directed her eyes outside to watch the rain. The rain hadn’t let up since it started, and she felt a small irk of irritation when she realized that she’d done all that work scrubbing the hold, only for them to likely track mud all over it tomorrow.

Her mind, always planning five steps ahead, wouldn’t let her sit back and enjoy the storm. It poked and prodded to know what Mando had in store for her. He had told her on Tatooine that he wanted to be done with her… and at the time, Alaina had thought it was best that they part ways… but now? After how Mando had cared for her since the assault—how the three of them had settled in together, almost making it feel like they were a word that started with an F that she never thought she would have again?

“What comes next?” Alaina asked, keeping her head facing out the hold.

“I don’t know, I’ve never watched a storm just for fun,” he answered her with a shrug.

Alaina turned to give him a quick smirk before the smile fell from her face. “No, I mean after we leave here,” she whispered. “I know we can’t stay here forever,” she added sadly.

“We can stay here for a little longer,” came his soft response as Mando passed the bottle back to her.

Alaina took the bottle and studied the electric blue liquid inside as she tried to come up with her next words. “We’ve already been here a couple of weeks. I’m sure you’re bored and ready to get back to work—”

“We can stay here a little longer,” he repeated, taking his bare hand to tuck some of her hair behind her shoulder, and Alaina blushed when she realized he had done it so he could fully see her face. “We have enough supplies to last us a little longer. Once we do leave, I’ll need to find work for credits, which means I’ll have to find jobs outside of the guild, but we don’t need to worry about that tonight.”

Unfortunately, they’d already opened the discussion, and Alaina couldn’t let it go. She needed to know what he was thinking. She needed to tell him that she wanted to stay. “And when you do look for work?” she asked, obviously nervous about whatever she was about to ask next. “Do you have a plan? For us?” she added at the end, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth.

She held her breath while she waited for his answer. Her stomach was suddenly in knots as she waited for him to respond, and she was torn between wanting to hurl whatever she had eaten or downing the rest of the spotchka on her own.

“The truth is…” he began but tapered off, and Alaina wondered if he was just as nervous as she was. And if he was, what was he nervous for? “The truth is I don’t have one,” he admitted quietly.

Alaina felt her shoulders deflate at his admission, and she directed her eyes to the ground. “Oh,” she whispered, wishing she could hide her disappointment from her tone. 

Mando didn’t even have a plan? She found that unlikely to believe. What was more accurate was he probably had one but didn’t want to spoil their good day by telling her that they would eventually leave and would be dumping her on some planet for her to live out the rest of her life—without him. 

Mando’s sigh cut through the tense silence, “Alaina, it’s not—”

“No, it’s okay. I get it,” she tried to wave him off, still refusing to look at him.

“You do?” he questioned, cocking his helmet skeptically at her.

She nodded and finally turned to fix her sad eyes on his helmet. “Yeah,” she sighed, “I do. You’ve told me repeatedly that you don’t think we should come with you—”

“Alaina—”

“No, Mando, it’s okay. Really,” she told him with a forced smile. “I just got my hopes up—especially after this afternoon,” she admitted, trying to blink away the tears threatening to form in her eyes. “I know things between us haven’t been… and… I don’t know,” she shrugged and looked away from him to watch the storm. “A part of me was hoping that this whole trip wasn’t just you saying goodbye,” she finished, her words coming out as a harsh whisper.

She gulped down her disappointment as she watched the rain fall outside the ship and tried to let the distant rumble of thunder provide a comfort she wished she could seek from someone else.

Mando’s broad hand came to rest over her bare thigh, sending a shock of surprise through her when she felt his skin on hers. 

“I don’t have a plan because I don’t know what to do next,” he said, gently squeezing her thigh. “I’ve never traveled with others before. Alaina, my life is dangerous, and now that I’ll have to find work outside of the guild, that means finding work with less than reputable people. You and the kid don’t deserve that kind of life.”

Whatever flicker of hope Alaina was hanging onto was snuffed out by his words. “It’s okay,” she said, giving him a teary smile. She set the bottle of spotchka down, rested her hand over Mando’s on her thigh, and laced their fingers together. “We can just enjoy the time we have left—”

“You’re not listening to me,” he interrupted her, squeezing her smaller fingers tightly in his. “I don’t have a plan because every time I think about you and the kid coming with me, I see one or both of you getting hurt and… and you’ve both already been through so much, and you deserve to be happy.”

“People get hurt sometimes, Mando,” Alaina told him with a shrug, trying to soothe him by rubbing her thumb up and down his. “You can’t plan for every little detail. Life has a way of pulling the rug out from under you. Trust me,” she tried to joke, bumping her shoulder into his. “Trust me,” she repeated, turning to give him her full attention. “Trust me and Grogu to be there for you,” she whispered, unlocking her fingers from his to rest her hand on his chest over his heart. “Because a part of me thinks that you are scared to admit that by asking us to come with you, that would acknowledge that you have attachments to us, and I’m guessing that wasn’t necessarily condoned when you were in Mandalorian school?”

Alaina stared into his helmet, watching her green eyes reflect back at her while she waited for his answer. She could feel the muscles in his chest tense under her hand and swore she felt his heart pound against it. Suddenly, she felt guilty for never asking him what he wanted.

“Mando,” she whispered, “what do you want?”

“I—” he began but immediately fell silent and gripped her thigh tightly.

“Mando, do you want us to come with you?” she asked, rubbing circles over his chest with her hand. “Because if you don’t, then I will understand. Eventually,” she shrugged, trying to give him a teasing smile. “But if you really don’t want us to come with you, then we’ll—”

Mando’s hand left her thigh and gripped her wrist, stilling her hand over his chest. Alaina’s eyes went wide as she held her breath while she waited for his answer.

“I do,” he rasped, pushing her hand into his chest and covering it with his own.

Alaina’s smile returned in full force, and she nodded eagerly back at him. “Then we will just figure the rest out later,” she whispered, not trusting herself to speak more without bursting into tears of happiness to know that Mando wanted them—wanted her to be with him.

They stared at each other at the ramp threshold while the storm raged on outside, but Alaina couldn’t think of anywhere else she wanted to be. Cautiously, she leaned into his chest, and Mando intertwined their fingers again in one hand and used the other to wrap around her waist to pull her tightly against his chest while they went back to watching the storm.

Lightning flashed, and Alaina’s smile grew as she settled into Mando’s protective embrace. Mando tilted his helmet away at the bright flash, and once again, she found herself curious as to how the Mandalorian got to view the rest of the world.

“It’s kinda like that,” Alaina commented. 

She could feel his gaze fall back to her, no doubt confused by her words. Alaina smiled and squeezed his hand. He had admitted something to her. The least she could do was answer his earlier question.

“My visions,” she explained nervously. “When I get them, it’s like a bright flash, and I have to work it all out later,” Alaina waved her hand in front of her face, then snatched the bottle from behind them and took a deep drink before continuing. “Sometimes it’s a short burst of information that is easy to process, and sometimes… sometimes it’s a lot of information at once, and I start spouting nonsense. I think it’s because my brain wasn’t wired for it. The visions,” she clarified. “It’s like they unlocked the ability but didn’t program my brain to translate it, so I don’t understand them,” she finished, taking a couple of deep sips from the bottle.

The arm wrapped around her waist tightened. “What if it’s not nonsense?” he challenged. His voice was so quiet that she could feel his chest rumble over his words as he spoke, reminding her of the thunder rumbling around them.

His question alarmed her. They’d never discussed her premonitions or whatever you wanted to call them before, so she was surprised to hear him ask about them earlier. “I rarely understand them when they do have them, so why does it matter?” she asked him with a deep frown, turning her emerald eyes back to his helmet.

“Because I don’t think they’re nonsense,” he answered quickly. Alaina rolled her eyes, but he shook his helmet at her. “I’m serious,” he continued, letting go of her hand and unwinding his arm around her to turn her so he could give her his full attention. “On Nevarro, you had a short vision and told me I was ‘drowning in seas of green,’ and we went swimming in a green lake,” he stopped to point in the direction of the lake where they went swimming this afternoon.

“Mando,” Alaina sighed and shook her head. “We went for a swim. You didn’t drown,” she pointed out.

“But what if you just saw me underwater and assumed I was drowning?” he argued. 

“I’ve been down this path before, Mando. They have been trying to pick my nonsense apart for years and haven’t been successful.” Penn had almost driven himself insane trying to pick her prophetic ramblings apart, hoping to prove that his most recent experiment was successful. The last thing Alaina wanted was for Mando to go down that same road.

“Okay, but on Sorgan, in both of your visions, you saw someone coming, and someone did,” he continued, unwilling to let Alaina drop it just yet.

“Mando—”

“What’s Vermillion?” he asked quickly, catching her off guard by his question.

How did he know about Vermillion? 

Alaina schooled her features, but the subtle tick of his helmet indicated he saw the brief flash of recognition cross her face. She must have mentioned something about it during one of her fits, and Mando thought he was putting the pieces of something together that would never come to form anything.

“A color,” she answered, keeping her voice monotone and her face blank.

“Alaina—” 

“Go back to calling them fits,” she suggested with a pointed look. “That’s all they are. You’ll drive yourself mad trying to see things that aren’t there.”

His helmet stared her down, but she held firm in her answer. Besides, Vermillion was obsolete now. It was obsolete, and Alaina was here with Mando because he wanted her to be with him.

“Please drop it?” she begged, using her doe eyes to her advantage as she blinked pleadingly at him. “I promise it’s nothing, and I promise you that if you start taking my visions apart, you will eventually make yourself see things that aren’t really there, and it will cause you to go mad.”

A frustrated, static sigh escaped from Mando’s helmet, and he turned his head away from her in defeat. Alaina reached for his bicep and ran her fingers up and down the tanned skin there. Eventually, she felt the firm muscles under her hand unwind, and she leaned forward to kiss Mando quickly on the side of his helmet where his cheek would be.

Lightning flashed again, followed by the deep rumbling thunder. Alaina saw Mando tense again at the bright light, and she brought her right hand up to trace the left side of his helmet. “How much can you really see out of that thing?” she asked him as she studied his helmet.

Mando didn’t answer immediately, keeping his helmet fixed on her face. She waited for him to speak, hoping he would listen to her and take her words of warning seriously. After another minute of strained silence, Mando sighed and grabbed the bottle of spotchka from the other side of her. She smirked as he turned away to lift his helmet and take a long drink from the bottle without her seeing his face.

He brought the bottle down, allowing his helmet to fall back over his face, but he didn’t pass the bottle back. “There is a display inside. I can see just fine,” he said, finally answering her, and shifted to take another swig of the sweet alcohol.

Alaina relaxed when he dropped the subject and rewarded him with a warm smile. “But it’s just a regular display inside, right? Can you see colors like you can without it?” she asked with a curious tilt of her head.

He cocked his head at her question and set the bottle down next to him. Alaina got the impression he was studying her from behind his visor, trying to figure out what she was getting at. “I can see all the colors,” he answered with a shrug. “The lake is green, the tall grass is purple, the clearing is gray, and the trees are black,” he stated flatly. Alaina’s brows knitted together at his bland descriptions of the moon he’d taken them to. Apparently, he could tell that she was less than impressed by his answer, so he continued with a sigh, “Your hair is yellow, your eyes are green—”

“I didn’t ask if you knew your colors,” she interrupted him. “It’s just… this place is so full of beautiful color, even when it storms. I guess I was just curious how you saw it. I know that sometimes displays can distort the actual colors. I just didn’t want you missing out on anything.”

“I can see just fine,” he reassured her.

Alaina shrugged and turned away from him to watch the rain pour outside. 

Another bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating the area and giving Alaina an idea.

She shot up and gave him a mischievous smirk. “When’s the last time you danced in the rain?” she asked, wagging her eyebrows at him.

“This morning,” he deadpanned.

Alaina’s smile spanned her face, and she offered him her hand. “Come on,” she whispered, motioning for him to get up.

“Alaina,” Mando sighed, “I’m not getting wet again.”

Alaina didn’t move and kept wiggling her fingers for him to take. “Come on, Mando,” she pleaded, jumping up and down on the balls of her feet. “Everyone should dance in the rain once in their life.”

Surprisingly, he slid his hand into hers, and with an exasperated sigh, Mando allowed her to tug him up. “How about I watch you dance in the rain?” he suggested, but she shook her head, smiling at him with her bright eyes. “Alaina—” he groaned, but Alaina wasn’t having it.

“Please?” she pleaded, batting her eyelashes at him. “I won’t make you dance, but you still have to come with me,” she countered, giving him a little pout.

“Where are we going? The kid—”

“Is asleep, and we’re just going to the edge of the lavender field,” she told him, nodding toward the grass. “I’ll remind you that you threw me into a lake today,” she snarked, crossing her arms over her chest.

Mando looked at the rain pouring outside the ship and then down at Alaina, who was sure to give him her largest, eager eyes, making her shoulders sag in defeat. “Do you want to change or put your boots on?” he asked, pointing to her nearby boots.

“No,” she whispered, breaking into a manic grin as she latched onto Mando's hand and started tugging him down the ramp into the rain. 

“Then can I put my boots on?” he whined, sounding off-put that she was dragging him out into the rain without them.

“No!” she yelled back, gripping his hand tighter as they stepped off the ramp and into the grass.

The moment Mando’s bare feet stepped into the grass, he let out a displeased grumble as he sank into the mud. Alaina scrunched her toes in the wet grass and mud, feeling like she was given the chance to reset her soul and body. Alaina looked up at the sky and smiled as the rain pelted her face. She’d spent so much time locked away that she forgot what the rain felt like.

“Come on!” she whispered excitedly, pulling him toward the tall lavender grass.

Mando continued to grumble quietly under his helmet, and Alaina couldn’t help but laugh at the tall, intimidating bounty hunter complaining about a bit of rain and mud. She refused to let him turn around and kept walking until they reached the lavender field. Once the tall grass surrounded them, Alaina finally came to a stop.

“Okay, we played in the rain. Can we go back inside now?” he asked, wiping his feet through the grass in an attempt to remove the mud from the bottom of his feet.

“Maker, just a second,” Alaina rolled her eyes. “You’d think a tough Mandalorian could handle a little rain,” she teased, poking him in the ribs. Mando flinched and batted her hand away from him after the jab, and Alaina filed that piece of information for use later on.

Mando sighed but relented and let her shuffle his body into position. She grabbed him by his arms and spun him so he could face the direction of the lake. His helmet looked at her with an annoyed tilt as he watched her move him around like a doll.

“Okay,” Alaina muttered, looking back at the lake with a satisfied nod. When she looked up at him, she placed her hand over the center of his chest before saying, “You brought us here, and I just want to make sure you get a chance to take a moment and appreciate the true beauty of this place before we leave.”

“I was fine enjoying it from inside the Crest. Where it was dry,” he argued.

Alaina just smiled and rubbed his chest with her thumb. And then she was gone. Quickly, before he could turn back around, she walked behind him to line her back up with his and rested the back of her head between his shoulder blades. Once in place, she wound her arms backwards, linking hers with his, and gripped his biceps. “Take your helmet off,” she instructed, reassuringly squeezing his arms.

Mando froze at her order, and she could only imagine the shock and questions racing through him.

“I won’t look,” she whispered, sneaking her hands under his sleeves to rub them up and down his arms in an attempt to comfort him. I promise I won’t look,” she said a little louder. “I’m going to stay right here so you can feel me and know where I am. I just want you to be able to really experience it.”

Mando remained stiff and unmoving behind her. She gave him another minute to process what she had asked and think it through. She knew that no one had seen him since he was a boy, and he had explained that he wasn’t supposed to remove his helmet with others around… but she wouldn’t see him, and Alaina wanted Mando to see with his own eyes, what she wouldn’t be able to describe to him.

“You have my word. I won’t look, Mando,” Alaina said again, squeezing his biceps.

He hesitated for another moment, and then slowly, Alaina felt his arms move as he lifted his hands to his helm and lifted the last piece of beskar he was wearing over his head.

The rain pelted against them, and the wind blew Alaina’s hair around wildly. Alaina held her breath while he looked around the moon. She had so many questions: Was this the first time he’d allowed himself to be exposed to the elements without a scrap of armor since he became a Mandalorian? What did he think about feeling the rain and the wind without his normal layers? Was he looking? Was he really looking at the beautiful slice of heaven he had brought them to?”

“Okay,” he called over his shoulder. “I took it off. I saw—”

Alaina rolled her eyes. “Wait,” she said, squeezing his arms again.

Silence stretched between them again, and Alaina hoped they didn’t miss out on the storm.

She could feel Mando’s chest inflate behind her, “Alaina—”

“Just wait,” Alaina called back, knocking the back of her head into his back.

“Alaina, it’s wet and cold,” Mando complained. “I’m putting my helmet back on. Besides, it’s too dark to see—”

Lightning cracked across the sky. Alaina smiled and relaxed into his back at hearing the Mandalorian stunned into silence.

Lightning spidered across the sky above them. She hoped that without his helmet, he could see each vein of electricity stretch over them and even make out how the white veins were outlined in purple and blue as they cracked overhead. The backdrop of the moon’s normal sky of silver, purple, and blue swirls of the galaxy peeked through breaks in the clouds, only adding to the experience. 

Her smile grew when she felt him jump when the thunder roared shortly after the lightning. The sound was so deep that she could feel it vibrate in her chest. Another crack of lightning spired above them, and she could feel the breath Mando had been holding slowly leaking from his chest. She hoped that he could see the green waters of the lake and the purple grass in the same vibrant colors she could.

Mando’s right hand reached back to grip her hip, and when he gave her a thankful squeeze, Alaina knew she had been right to force him to observe the beauty around them before it was too late. To think that he had almost missed this moment because he was too stubborn… she tisked at the thought.

“What do you think?” she asked, squeezing his biceps tightly.

His deep baritone voice dropped an octave when he answered her, sending a shiver down her spine. “You were right,” he murmured, squeezing her hip again.

She’s tempted to ask him to describe how he saw everything, but that could always wait until they were back inside where it was dry.

“Thank you for humoring me,” Alaina said over the rumble of thunder. “I won’t subject you to any more humiliation,” she finished and patted his arms before moving to let him go. His hand that was on her hip gripped her tightly, and she covered it with her own. “Don’t worry, I won’t look. My head is still forward. Just tap me on the shoulder when I can turn around.” With one last squeeze to his hand, Alaina let him go.

Everything was quiet behind her. With the exception of the background noise the rain and wind supplied, Alaina could not hear Mando make a sound. It was almost like he was frozen in place. Maybe he was reluctant to let this moment end.

Lightning cracked again, illuminating the two of them standing in the field surrounded by darkness, light, and color.

Alaina would be lying to herself if she said she wasn’t reluctant to let this special moment end. 

But Mando had already gone on with her wild idea longer than she thought he would. “Mando?” Alaina called back, keeping her head forward, not wanting to break her word. Instead of a response, Alaina heard a dull thud, followed by the sound of something ripping, and her face scrunched in confusion. “Mando? What’s going on back there?” she called back, concerned, but stayed still.

Suddenly, her vision was obscured by something, and she patted her face, becoming even more confused when she felt some kind of fabric covering her eyes and could feel Mando tying it behind her head. “Okay, Mando, what are you—” 

Mando stopped her from finishing her question by gripping her shoulders and spinning her around to face him. 

Alaina gasped and instinctively closed her eyes, even though she realized too late that was why Mando had essentially blindfolded her.

She could almost feel his eyes tracking over her, taking her in from the top of her head to her mud-covered feet. Alaina could feel her wet hair stuck to the sides of her face and rivulets of water streaking down her cheek. Her feet nervously shifted the longer Mando’s inspection went on. If she had known that this would be the first time Mando really got to see her, she would have changed into the purple dress that seemed to draw his attention more than anything else she wore. She especially wouldn’t have drug him out in what was essentially her pajamas into the middle of a storm, so she no doubt looked like a wet rat now.

“Mando?” she whispered, self-conscious by his lack of response.

Alaina jumped when she felt him cup her cheeks between his large hands. His thumbs began stroking her cheekbones as he held her in place.

Her heart was pounding under her ribs, and Alaina found it increasingly difficult to breathe. What did he see when he looked at her? Would she ever be able to see him? Would she ever be able to see his eyes with her own?

Mando’s hands pulled her just a fraction closer to him, and her eyes clenched even tighter when she felt his lips brush the top of the temple where her scar was—a permanent reminder of their first meeting five years ago.

What she expected to be a single kiss, a simple way for him to thank her when he couldn’t find the right words, continued with Mando leaving a trail of tiny kisses over her scar as his lips ended on her eyebrow.

This couldn’t be happening.

Alaina’s breathing came out in short, staccato spurts as she felt his lips continue to explore her face. She documented every detail, not wanting to forget a moment. The rain allowed his mouth to glide over the features of her face as he kissed her cheekbone before dragging his lips to her jaw. When his lips landed on her jaw, he opened his mouth and gently bit the edge of her jawline.

Maker, this couldn’t be happening.

Mando didn’t stop there. His lips followed her jawline until he reached her chin and gave her another gentle bite, eliciting a gasp of surprise from Alaina. She felt as if Mando had managed to light her body on fire in the middle of the pouring rain. The night chill and the wind were just gone as the fire consumed her, and she wondered if Mando could feel how warm he was making her. Surely, her body must be steaming from being ignited by Mando’s lips. 

Once her mouth was open, Mando latched onto her bottom lip and sucked it between his teeth.

Alaina jolted at the sensation and wondered if they had been struck by lightning. They must have been because she had never experienced a kiss like that before.

Mando groaned, and the sound snapped Alaina out of her initial shock. She stood on her tiptoes and looped her arms around his neck to tug him closer to her, responding with her own kiss. His hands fell from her face, and his arms wrapped around her waist to pull her small body closer to his. His lips attacked hers with a passion she couldn’t find the words to compare it to. 

It was simply Mando. He was forceful—his kisses were open and sloppy, and Mando wasn’t afraid to use his teeth. The way he kissed her was the way she imagined a drowning man gasping for air. His mustache rubbed into her upper lip, and she knew she would have a red rash once this was over. Alaina tried to slow his desperate kisses, but his arms only cinched around her waist tighter, and he growled into her mouth.

“Mando,” she whispered, trying to come up for air, but his lips found hers again and silenced her in another bruising kiss. She smiled into the kiss and unwound her arms from his neck to hold his face between her hands. She let her fingers drag through the scruff on his jaw and cheeks, noting it felt longer since her fingers had last caressed his face on Sorgan. “Mando—sl-slow down,” she murmured into his lips between his fervent kisses.

Mando pulled himself from her, but he was still close enough that she could feel the hot air from his pants puff against her face. “What’s wrong?” he asked, resting his forehead against hers. Without his helmet in the way, his nose knocked against hers, and Alaina smiled as she leaned into his head. “Do—Is it not good? For you?”

Alaina kicked herself when she realized this was very likely the man’s first kiss. How odd and backwards it must be to know precisely what it took in order to make her body sing all without ever kissing someone before?

She leaned forward and kissed the bridge of his nose. “Oh, it’s good,” she told him, smiling against his cheek. “Just slow down. Enjoy the moment,” she whispered, kissing his lips softly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Mando met her lips at her words, and she could tell he was trying to show restraint. Alaina smiled into the kiss when she felt Mando smiling under her lips. This was something that Alaina was good at. The way someone kissed spoke volumes. This kiss was no exception. This kiss wiped away the memory of anyone she had kissed before. This kiss told her that the others she’d kissed before Mando were boys. There was no comparison to the man who was kissing her now.

He let her take the lead this time. Alaina took her time exploring his lips, and she could tell that Mando was a tightly coiled spring, ready to leap into action but forced to stay put. She nudged his nose with her, unable to stop smiling into his lips as she ran her tongue across his lips. A grunt of surprise left his lips, and when he opened his mouth, she made him jump when her tongue found his.

A deep moan reverberated in his chest as Mando slowly returned to the present. His hands came and entwined in her hair, angling her head in just the right position to demonstrate to her what a quick learner he was. Alaina melted under him as he responded to her slow-paced kiss with a languid one of his own. Mando took his time with her, learning her lips and how they moved with him before he mimicked her earlier actions and brushed his tongue across them, requesting permission to enter her mouth.

Alaina wished she had better words to describe what happened after that, but the only word she could come up with at the moment was devour. It felt as if Mando was devouring her as his tongue tangled with hers. She lost complete control of the kiss after that. Mando’s tongue scraped across the roof of her mouth as his lips continued to torment hers slowly.

A sound left her body that she’d never heard before—somewhere between a mewl and a moan, but whatever sound she made seemed to snap Mando out of whatever spell she had cast over him. His hands left her hair and started gripping and tugging at her waist before she felt his broad hands palm her ass before he lifted her off the ground. Alaina gasped in surprise, but Mando’s lips smothered her gasp down as her legs subconsciously wrapped around his waist.

Her hands gripped his shoulders, and she was surprised to find them bare. Alaina tried to pull away from the kiss, but Mando’s lips chased hers down, so she was left with using her hands to continue her explorations. Bare skin and taught muscles greeted her.

“Did you—” she tried to start, but Mando silenced her again. She laughed into the kiss and pushed Mando’s chest until he finally ripped his lips from hers. “Did you rip your shirt up just so you could blindfold me?”

“Yes,” he panted.

Alaina laughed and grabbed his head, pulling him back into a forceful kiss. She could feel Mando’s grin match her own as they fought for control of the kiss. She felt one of his arms wrap tightly around her waist to keep her close while the other seemed to vanish. Mando dipped back down, and Alaina frowned into the kiss when she felt his other arm leave and pat around. She was about to ask what he was doing when she felt the awol arm rejoin his other around her waist. She felt cold steel against her and realized he had bent over to pick up his helmet.

That was the solidifying moment for Alaina.

Mando removed his helmet.

To kiss her.

He removed his helmet.

For her.

She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she was only vaguely aware that Mando was walking them back toward the Razor Crest. All she knew was that he wasn’t close enough. She held her hands over his cheeks, keeping him as close to her as possible.

Now that she had him, she was never letting go of him again.

Her fingers ran through the back of Mando’s head, scratching and tugging at his scalp, forcing a moan of pleasure from Mando’s mouth.

Alaina gasped when her back was suddenly shoved against something cold and solid. At her gasp, Mando’s lips left hers. She used her grip on his hair to pin his lips to her neck when Mando nipped at the sensitive skin just below her ear.

“Mando,” she panted, moaning when his lips latched onto her lobe, and Mando tugged the sensitive skin gently between his teeth.

Mandos warm breath puffed against the side of her face, and when she could hear his breathy pants in her ear, her insides lit on fire, awakening a familiar tingling sensation between her legs.

“Mando,” Alaina moaned when Mando’s lips traveled down her neck and bit into the flesh where her neck met her shoulder. Her hands clutched his head to her neck while his mouth and teeth continued to attack every millimeter of skin he could find. She gasped and subconsciously ground her center into Mando’s abdomen, looking for any friction she could when his teeth clamped down onto her neck again.

“Fuck. Alaina,” Mando managed to moan her name between kisses as his lips trailed back up her neck to her lips again. His fingers dug into her hips, pressing her tighter against him while his hips bucked instinctively below her, seeking friction of his own. “Fuck. I need you, Alaina,” he managed to get out between kisses.

Alaina mewled like a kitten from his words. Her body squirmed between him and what she assumed was the hull of the Razor Crest while her fingers latched onto the back of his head, forcing their lips together almost painfully.

His declaration slowly lifted the foggy veil of pleasure just enough that Alaina was able to pull her lips away from Mando’s. “What does this mean?” she whispered, silently wishing that she could take her blindfold off so she could study Mando’s expressions.

Mando growled, ignoring her question so he could return to attacking her lips with his.

She smiled into the kiss but used her fingers to grip his hair to tug his head away just enough so she could talk. “Mando—”

Mando growled, cutting her off with another kiss. “Would you just let me kiss you?” he asked. His lips moved against hers, and Alaina’s mouth instinctively opened when she felt his tongue swipe across her bottom lip.

Maker, he was really karking good at this. Alaina’s head was swimming in pleasure as their tongues tangled together. But she needed to know—she needed him to confirm that this was actually happening. She needed him to tell her this wasn’t goodbye, and he had meant it earlier when he admitted he wanted her to come with him.

“I will,” she whispered, pulling her mouth from his, ghosting her lips across his stubbled jawline until she found his neck. “I will,” she repeated, smiling when she felt a shiver run through Mando when her lips found his pulse. “I will, and you’re doing a great job, but I need to know what this means.”

“It means we’re kissing in the rain—” Alaina sunk her teeth into Mando’s pulse, effectively cutting him off. “Fuck!” Mando shouted. His hands pulled her hips further down his torso until her heat drug over Mando’s stiff, rigid length, straining for her under his trousers. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head in pleasure when his hips pinned hers against the hull, pulling equal moans of pleasure from their mouths.

“Mando, I’m serious,” she panted and weakly shoved at his chest to push him away so she could talk. “I will let you pick right back up where we left off, but I need to know what this means. For us. Because Grogu and I want to stay with you, but if you just made a pit stop here until you figured out some place to dump us, then… then I need you to tell me now before we go down this road again.”

Mando was terrifyingly silent as she waited for his answer. Alaina could only hear the rain pinging off the hull of the Crest for several long, agonizing minutes before she finally heard him murmur, “I want you to stay. I want you both to stay.”

“Do you mean that?” she demanded hopefully. “Really? Because if you do, I’m staying as your partner,” Alaina informed him, gripping either side of his head between her hands. She may be blindfolded, but she wanted to make sure that Mando was paying attention. “I want to be your partner. I want to be your friend… I want to be your lover,” she rasped, pulling his head down to capture his lips in another searing kiss. “I don’t want to be locked away in the closet whenever you leave the ship. If you want me to stay, we’re in this together.”

Mando pulled his lips from hers and pressed his forehead against hers. “Alaina, you and the kid…” he tried to begin and then cut himself off. “I’ve never had a partner before,” he admitted quietly.

Alaina smiled and pushed her forehead into his. “Me either,” she whispered, quickly kissing his lips.

“I’m going to mess this up,” he said, gripping her hips tightly between his hands.

Alaina softened at his worries and tried to soothe them away with a kiss. “I think we’ve both already messed up,” she said, smiling against his lips.

“Alaina—”

“Mando,” she said, placing her hand on his chest, and she felt his heart lurch under her hand. “Mando, I don’t know what I’m doing either. I’ve never had a serious relationship of any kind before.”

“Even when you were a basic girlie girl?” he teased.

Alaina’s smile broadened over his lips, and she nodded. “Even when I was a basic girlie girl,” she confirmed with a kiss. “Mando, you… I’m still trying to figure things out and figure out where I belong… but I know that I want you and Grogu by my side while I try and figure it out.”

Mando’s hands left her hips, and Alaina cinched hers tighter around his waist. His hands traveled up her body until they reached her head, and he gently cupped her jaw in his massive paws. “You mean it?” he murmured so quietly that Alaina almost couldn’t hear him. “You mean you want to be my partner?” he questioned, sounding more confident this time.

Alaina nodded her head in his hands.

“And what is your definition of a partner?”

She smiled at his nervous question. “A partner is whatever we want it to be,” she answered, turning her head to kiss Mando’s palm.

Mando’s thumb rubbed against the side of her face, and Alaina turned her head back to ‘look’ at him, once again wishing she could see his eyes with her own.

The words are on the tip of her tongue: I forgive you. She’d held onto them for the past couple of weeks, waiting for the perfect time to tell Mando that she had forgiven him for their past and was ready to move forward with him.

“Maker, you’re such a fucking sweet thing,” he growled right before his lips crashed into hers, preventing her from saying the words.

She smiled into the kiss, looping her arms back around his neck. There would be time for that later. Right now, Alaina just wanted to enjoy this moment.

“Alaina,” he moaned her name into her lips while his hips bucked between hers. Alaina ground herself into the hardness lurking under his trousers and gasped when her sensitive nub rubbed against him at just the right angle that it sent a shock through her. “Alaina,” he grunted, slipping his hands under her shirt to clutch her bare skin, and his hips continued to rock into her, firmly pinning against her while he rutted into her center. “Fuck, Alaina, partners,” he moaned in agreement. “I’m going to treat you so good,” he murmured into her lips.

This afternoon was perfect.

But this moment… this moment in time, kissing in the rain…

This was perfection.

“I’m going to treat you so good,” he repeated as his lips worshipped her. “I’m going to keep you safe.” One of his hands slid between her legs, and she gasped when she felt one of his fingers sneak past the hem of her underwear.

Maker, she never wanted this moment to end. Her head fell back against the ship, and her hands gripped his hair, holding his head against her neck while his tongue and teeth ravaged against the sensitive skin there. The finger that slipped into her underwear stroked between her folds, making her realize how wet she already was, and it wasn’t from the rain. When the roughed pad of his finger scraped over her tender nub, Alaina let out the loudest, most erotic moan she’d ever made before, making Mando smile into her neck.

“I’ll keep you safe,” he repeated, returning his lips to hers. “We’ll be partners, and you’ll be safe with me. They’ll never lay their hands on you ever again.”

All Alaina could do was nod at his lust-induced promises, but she believed him. His finger circled her sensitive flesh, forcing a strange combination of a shout and a moan from her. Her hips rocked into his finger, and her hands gripped his bare shoulders. When his finger slipped and slid across her opening, Alaina’s fingers dug into his shoulders as she cried out in pleasure. Her body pulsed, acting as if it remembered what it felt like to have Mando fill her, and it sang out to him, desperate for him to fill her once more.

“Mando,” Alaina panted, trying to catch her breath while her hips followed his finger, trying to encourage him to enter her.

“Laina,” Mando panted, sounding even more out of breath than she was. One of her hands slipped from its painful grip on his shoulder and dipped between their bodies. When her fingers skimmed his trouser’s waistband, the hulking Mandalorian shuddered. He moaned into her lips while his hips eagerly sought her touch. “They’ll never lay their fucking hands on you ever again,” he growled his promise into her lips. Alaina’s hand slipped a little further into his trousers, and her fingers brushed against the course curls lurking there, causing Mando’s growl to intensify. “I’ll keep you safe.”

Alaina smirked against his lips. She remembered from Sorgan that when Mando started rambling and repeating himself, it meant that he was short-circuiting from pleasure, and her fingers itched to find him to make him completely go offline.

“Even if I have to use your visions to do it.”

Alaina froze at his words. Every muscle in her body painfully tensed as she tried to process what he said. “What did you say?” she asked, opening her eyes, but she was still in the dark with them blindfolded.

“I’m going to use your visions to keep you safe,” he murmured against her lips before returning to kissing her, utterly unaware that Alaina was no longer responding. “You saw something happening to you. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I’m going to keep you safe.”

Mando’s words doused her like a bucket of cold water. She pulled her hand out of his trousers and tried to push him away, but he pushed back, nipping her jaw with his teeth. “That’s why you wanted to know what I see when I have one?” she asked quietly, unable to keep the hurt from her voice.

“Yes,” he answered darkly, kissing her cheek.

Suddenly, Alaina felt cold and uncomfortable in the rain. She raised her hands to his bare chest and pushed him away, maneuvering her head away from his lips. “Let me go,” she ordered, proud that she had kept the waver out of her voice. She wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and cry, but she didn’t want to fall apart until she was out of his view.

Mando stilled at her request, “Alaina?”

“Let me go,” Alaina repeated forcefully, shoving at his chest again.

He responded instantly, releasing her from his embrace. Alaina struggled to find the ground without being able to see, but once her bare feet hit the mud, she brought a hand up to the ship's hull to help guide her back to the ramp.

“Alaina?” Mando’s confused voice called out behind her.

She didn’t stop to look back. She was angry—angry with Mando for his words and even angrier with herself for not seeing this happening. Between her anger and the blindfold, her attention wasn’t on where she was walking, and when her foot hit a rock, she stumbled. Strong arms wrapped around her, preventing her from slipping and falling into the mud, but his kindness only kindled her fury.

“Go away!” she growled, batting futilely at the muscular arm wrapped around her waist. “Let me go!”

“No,” he answered lowly, pulling her back against his chest. “Not until you talk to me.”

Alaina spun in his arms to glare at him from under the blindfold. She shoved at his chest, and when Mando didn’t even budge, she found herself wishing for her powers—her real powers—just so she could send him flying into the lake.

“You want me to talk? Fine,” she growled at him through clenched teeth. “I thought you were different!” she spat angrily. “I’ve spent the last five years being used for my powers. Penn and the Empire used me for my powers, and I… I thought you were different,” she finished, trying to keep herself from crying until she was back inside the Crest and could lock herself up in the cockpit to get away from Mando before she would allow herself to cry.

Alaina couldn’t see Mando with her blindfold, but she could hear and feel him. She could hear his lungs pull in a surprised breath and feel his arms let go of her as if she had burned him with her words. “Am I not enough just the way I am?” came her painful question, and Alaina felt her chest constrict.

The only response she could hear was the rain and the distant rumble of thunder. She shouldn’t be surprised by the Mandalorian’s lack of answer, but the silence still cut painfully. She gave Mando another moment to try and defend himself, but the longer the seconds stretched on, the more tears filled her eyes. The silence was all the answer she needed, and with a disappointed shake of her head, Alaina turned away from the Mandalorian to head back into the ship.

Alaina concentrated on her steps, careful not to slip and fall again, and eventually found the open ramp to take her back into the dry hold. Once she was a couple steps into the hold, she ripped her blindfold off and angrily threw it at the wall on her way to the ladder at the other end of the ship.

“Alaina!” Mando barked. He must have put his helmet back on because his voice cracked as the modulator tried to process his deep, booming voice. The shout startled Grogu awake, and Alaina could see him look between the adults with confused, sleepy eyes.

“I’m going up top so you can change,” Alaina informed him as she continued marching to the ladder.

“Alaina!” Mando growled again, but she continued to ignore him. She tried to pick up her pace when she heard his bare feet pound against the metal floor, but as soon as her hand grabbed the ladder, Mando’s large bare hand grabbed onto her wrist, tugging her hand off the ladder, and spun her to face him. “Would you just give me a second to explain myself?” he asked, his helmet doing little to hide his angry growl.

Alaina snatched her hand out of his grip and snarled back at him. “Please,” she invited him. “Please explain to me why you think it’s okay to use me,” she added, crossing her arms over her chest. “And don’t tell me it’s to keep me safe,” she preemptively countered, forcing the Mandalorian to deflate slightly.

“You know, before all of this—before the Empire, I could do things. I could move things with my mind. That’s not nothing, is it?” she asked but continued before Mando could answer. “And then Penn got his hands on me, and he broke me. He decided I wasn’t good enough with just that power, which is more than the rest of the galaxy can say!” she continued her irate, resentful dressing down of the half-clothed man in front of her. “I was special, and he broke me. Now I can’t move things with my mind, and I can’t understand the visions he’s forced on me, which both you and Penn seem to think are premonitions, so at least the two of you have something in common.”

“Alaina—”

“No!” she screamed, pushing him away. “I used to be whole, and now I’m broken,” she cried. Her next words came tumbling from her mouth before she could stop them, “I should have been able to stop him!”

“Who?” Mando asked, sounding confused.

Every drop of fiery anger she had evaporated at that question, and she turned her head away in embarrassment, and her eyes inadvertently landed on the spot on the floor where Calican had pinned her. From the corner of her eye, she watched Mando’s helmet turn to join her gaze, and when she saw his hands clench to make angry fists, she knew he understood everything she wasn’t saying.

“I should have been able to stop him,” Alaina repeated sadly. Her chest tugged and clenched painfully until she felt that spark of anger reignite. “I should have been able to stop him!” she repeated, rounding back on Mando. “I should’ve been able to protect myself!” she screamed. “But the Empire took that away from me!” she bit out bitterly and stomped past Mando to head back to the ramp.

Alaina pressed her hand into her chest when it suddenly lurched. Briefly, she thought she was having a heart attack, but when the feeling happened again, it reminded her more of that stupid invisible string, pulling her back to Mando.

“Alaina, I’m sorry,” he whispered his apology, loosely looping his fingers around her wrist.

She hissed in pain and spun back to glare at him. “Let—Me— Go !” she spat, yanking her wrist from his hand.

Alaina blinked when something green grabbed her attention, and she looked down to find Grogu coming to stand between them.

“Alaina, I’m sorry,” Mando apologized again.

“Penn Pershing took my powers away—” she tried to continue, but a choked sob cut her off. “And—And I can’t even blame you anymore because it’s my fault!” Alaina cracked then, slumping into his arms as she cried. Mando held her, stroking the curls of her honey-blonde hair, letting her get it out. Even when her tears seemed to slow, he clung to her.

That feeling inside her chest continued to claw its way out. She sobbed, wishing that the string attempting to find Mando would disappear, which would make this so much easier. Mando misinterpreted her cry for still being angry with Penn and wound his fingers into the hair at the back of her head to his heart. Since Mando was still naked from the waist up, she could hear his heartbeat against his chest. The sound was almost hypnotic as the organ continued to beat, like his body’s internal metronome provided a calm, reassuring balm to her own broken one.

“I should have been able to toss that mudscuffer halfway across Tatooine!” she murmured sadly into his wet chest.

“I know,” he murmured calmly while stroking her hair.

“And it’s all my fault,” she continued quietly, her words breaking the recently sealed dam of emotions, and she began crying into his chest again.

“Alaina, it’s never been your fault—”

“Yes, it is!” she argued, pushing herself away from him.

Thankfully, Mando let go of Alaina this time. However, whatever relief she felt at that disappeared when his hands grabbed her face, forcing her to look up at his helmet.

“Listen to me,” he ordered, stroking her cheeks with his thumbs. “None of this—not for one moment—has been your fault.” She opened her mouth, but Mando’s hands squeezed her cheeks tighter, preventing her from arguing with him. “Alaina, listen to me. Pershing and the Empire—they are the ones who did this to you. They are the ones who took your powers away. They are the ones who tortured you,” he finished with so much conviction that Alaina believed him. Almost.

“They still broke me,” Alaina whispered, and Mando’s thumbs rubbed her tears away. “If I would have listened to you, I could have avoided all of this.”

“You don’t know that.”

Alaina scoffed, “Well, I do know that I didn’t listen to you, and I lost my powers and now ramble like a lunatic when I have a fit, so I kind of think that makes it my fault,” she argued, continuing before Mando could say anything. “Penn always thought I was fragile, even before his mad scientist phase…” she tapered off, shaking her head. “When the testing began, it just made him worse. He would do all of these terrible things to me and then look at me like he expected me to shatter. And for some reason,” she stopped to give him a curious look, “you don’t,” she finished flatly, wondering what the Mandalorian ever saw in someone broken like her.

Mando kept her face between his hands while he studied her silently. Alaina was startled when his helmet leaned down so he could press his metal forehead into hers. “You’re beskar,” he finally said, finally letting go of her face.

Alaina blinked, staring back at her green eyes reflecting back at her from his helmet. She rolled her eyes at his analogy. “Cold? Hard?” she asked flatly.

He sighed and shook his head. “In its purest form, beskar is one of the strongest metals in the galaxy,” he tried again. “It’s only when you start trying to dilute it by adding other, weaker metals that it loses its integrity. That pile of osik,” he spat, “didn’t realize what he had. He took you, thought he could forge you into something new by adding things to make you stronger, but couldn’t see that it was just making you weaker.” He stopped to let her go and stood up to his full height.

Alaina watched her emerald eyes as they reflected in his helmet. She couldn’t decide whether to laugh, cry, or run screaming from the ship. Grogu banged his clawed hand against her leg, distracting her before she could decide what she wanted to do, and Mando knelt to pick the kid up off the ground so he could pass him to her. The kid cooed excitedly now that he was on the same level as the adults. She couldn’t help the small smile from breaking through at Grogu’s happy smile.

“I wouldn’t use you. Not like that,” Mando rasped. “That’s not how you treat your partner,” he finished quietly, stepping closer to her.

Her face crumbled at his words. Grogu placed a gentle hand on her right cheek as if to agree with Mando, and Alaina shattered.

Mando’s left hand came to rest over Grogu’s on her right cheek. “I’m not using you, Alaina,” he murmured, resting his other hand over her heart. 

Alaina opened her eyes to look up at him, hope blossoming in her chest. The tiny spark of hope warmed her, almost making it feel as if it were defrosting her heart. When she reached out to copy Mando and place her hand on his chest, over the Mandalorian’s heart, she was only vaguely aware that their hearts were beating in sync. 

“Alaina, I’m not using you,” he repeated more confidently. “I’m restoring you, and when I’m done, you’re going to be even stronger than you were before.”

Her hand left his chest and came to join Grogu’s and his on her cheek. When her hand landed on top of Mando’s, she closed her eyes and pressed her cheek into their palms, taking a moment to revel in the three of them being connected.

Never had anyone, since her mother, even entertained the idea that Alaina Corra was strong. But Mando did. Maker had she made a mess of this. Now was the time to tell Mando he was forgiven. Now was the time to ask for forgiveness for everything she had said to him, past and present, and hope that they could move on—

Her chest clenched painfully, forcing a surprised gasp. 

Something was lurking inside of her. Something was twisting and winding its way around her heart and lungs, cinching so tightly it prevented her from breathing. Her gasp turned panicked as she tried to inhale, but her lungs only burned in protest.

“What are you doing?” Mando rasped, and her eyes flew open at his question.

She watched helplessly as Mando twisted in pain, and his hand that had been resting over her heart clutched at his own chest as he appeared also to be struggling to breathe.

Alaina’s eyes flicked around the ship, looking for what could be the cause when they landed on Grogu, whose eyes were closed in concentration, reminding her of how he looked when he healed her hand yesterday. She tried to question Grogu about what he was doing or, at the very least, yell at him to stop, but her words only came out in an undecipherable wheeze.

“Alaina—” Mando gasped in pain, and she could only press her hand harder over Mando’s to provide a tiny amount of support.

Lightning flashed, and she suddenly found herself able to breathe again. She tightened her grip over Mando’s and Grogu’s on her cheek while she tried to compose herself. However, whatever was inside her wasn’t done with her—with any of them yet.

It shifted inside. It slithered and searched, almost like it was reaching out for something. When it seemed to lock into place, the three of them froze as they took a simultaneous breath together.

Her mind and heart were full.

That’s when she realized that string was the wrong word.

She felt her string wind and braid with two others, and she could feel that the other strings belonged to Mando and Grogu.

With a final shift, cords of yellow, green, and silver locked into place, only confirming her suspicion that her use of the word string was wholly inadequate.

String… cord… tether… they were all wrong.

It was a bond.

An unbreakable bond connecting the three of them together.

The three of them took another synchronous breath, and Mando’s fingers dug into her cheek, but he still didn’t dare to break their connection.

Alaina wanted to tell him not to be scared—because she could feel Mando in her very soul and knew he was scared by what was happening to them.

Only, she never got the chance to reassure the Mandalorian.

In their next breath, lightning flashed, illuminating the hold in a bright, blinding light. The light disappeared just as quickly as it came, with the roar of thunder chasing on the lightning’s heels.

The thunder roared, the sound dragging on as it clung to the hold, blanketing the three occupants of the Razor Crest as they lay unconscious on the metal floor. Together.

Author's Note #2: Did I write an almost 14.5k chapter that used 3.5k of those words just so I could describe their first kiss? You bet your ass I did. Have I been patiently waiting since chapter 7 to *finally* confirm that Mando and Alaina possibly have a force bond? Also, yes. Did I leave the chapter on a bit of a cliffhanger? I feel like y'all should just be used to those by now 😅

Also—THANK YOU for all y'alls comments and kudos after that last chapter. Who knew that the rag-tag group of degenerates—I mean friends—following along with this story would love a heaping dose of fluff? 😜 But in all seriousness, I'm ecstatic to know that y'all are enjoying the moon interlude chapters as much as I am.

💙💙💙

Tag List: @racheldon @zenrobbins0021 @locked-ness

Drop me a message or comment if you would like to be tagged when new chapters get published.

Heaven in Hiding Masterlist

Next chapter in series - Chapter 17: Title TBD (coming soon)

[amethystina]

I was tagged by @a-very-fond-farewell! Thank you so much darling 💜

1. Last song: Shishen Take On the Challenge from The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity soundtrack (which I paid a small fortune to get my hands on so you bet I've been listening to it almost non-stop ever since. The music is SO FUCKING GOOD OKAY)

2. Favorite color: Purple — which I feel should come as a surprise to no one xD

3. Currently watching: The Killing Vote, because I apparently need more dramas where the Korean public is allowed to vote on whether or not to execute people. Quite enjoying it so far! The characters are a hoot xD And I'm curious to see what they do with the Kwon Seok Joo dude.

I also just started The Guest because I want to watch it before they remove it from Netflix but BOI. That's not one I'll be able to binge, that's for sure. Horror is great but also, well, terrifying x'D

Though, I must say, I might have to take a detour and rewatch the Along With the Gods movies. I've been meaning to do so for ages and seeing Kim Dong Wook in The Guest makes the urge even stronger. Because, let me tell you, I'm SO EAGER to rewatch the movies and observe the characters now that I've seen the twist at the end of the second movie. A twist I figured out before I actually reached the reveal, sure, but I don't think that's a bad thing? Like, for real, guys. The AUDIBLE GASP I let out when I realised what the twist was going to be and then got to sit there and see it slowly dawn on the other characters? BEAUTIFUL. And it CHANGES SO MUCH. Like, I need to rewatch them because so much of what I thought I knew is now a lie! Circumstances have changed! My initial analysis might be wrong! Characters I thought I knew are now completely different! I need to do more research! I NEED TO KNOW.

(This is what happens when your brain works like mine. And one day I might tell you all about why Kang Yo Han is such a fascinating character to me, because, let me tell you, I've rarely seen a character remain so solid in his characterisation even through the kind of reveals we're given in the drama. It's fucking SPECTACULAR)

4. Currently reading: Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (I do it in bursts because it's not the kind of book I can just binge, okay? x'D), We Have Always Lived In the Castle by Shirley Jackson (I would have finished this LONG ago if it didn't give me so much anxiety (but in a good way?)) and Eld by Mats Strandberg and Sara Bergman Elfgren (though I should probably start over on this one since I was very distracted when I read the first chapter)

5. Last movie: No Regret, because why not dabble in older Korean LGBTQ+ content? It was a ride, that's for sure xD And the next movie will be The World to Come (also one I want to watch before it's removed from Netflix)

6. Sweet/spicy/savory: Either sweet or savoury — it depends on my mood, really.

7. Relationship status: Married! :D

8. Current obsession: I'm not sure if I have one right now? Though I am hoping to get back on track with that diorama thing soon. I've almost collected all the materials I need! I just need fake foliage (preferably red) and I'm going to try and buy that either tomorrow or on Saturday.

9. Last thing you googled? Why my phone kept taking only green photos. And everyone kept telling me I shouldn't have unlocked the bootloader (which I don't think can be done by accident and I sure as hell haven't done it intentionally) so in the end I just restarted it and now it works just fine xD

10. Selfie: I don't really take selfies but here's a cropped version of a drawing WIP of mine.

If you know, you know ;)

(... LOOK, the suspender-pulling had to happen eventually, okay?)

11. Currently working on: Chapter 5 of A New Dawn (Begins With Us) and, after that, it'll be either chapter 37 of Who Holds the Devil or maybe the sequel to Gravitational Pull which I'm STILL struggling to find the time to work on. I'm also working on, like, six different drawings simultaneously. Because why make things easy for myself?

Tagging: Whoever wants to do it! Tell me about yourself! :D

[delicatebluebirdruins]

Village complete listen through

30th October 2023 as i said some thoughts that are simply made me curious enough to look at the tracks on my phone

(started scrowling through gallery on the wiki and found this picture and this should have been a cover for the physical release no idea why there is so many things on fire)

Monologue

Summer Twilight: whatever you think of the title it is not what you think

Memory of Mia (mom for short)

a bad feeling: is interesting

pain in the darkness

Luiza's House

Villagers

Off the Hook: I wonder what scene this is paired with

Danse Macarbe

A moments respite 1 and 2: basic soundtrack love it dearly

In the Mist and Stay With Me: really eerie

Music Box: what it says on the tin really

Phantom

Promenous- nous dans les bois: Angie boss really uncomfy to listen too

Beasts

treading water and acid rain (basic soundtrack)

attack from the air: initially i was confused about this and i still am as i am typing this

internet cut out and the music paused so I missed roll out

confrontation

eradicating evil and rose: basic soundtracks i just love them

Take Us Up

I Know: listening to the preview was good full thing is better and it turns fairly sinister around 1:53 (is it when we see the mysterious figure? probably) for a moment then turns nice again

memories

the mercenaries titles (RE4R sounds like it a little)

the mercenaries village

Shadows of Rose

Dive

Just Like Me

They're everywhere (kind of made me jump reminds me of Coraline and has the sound effects of face eaters)

Guardian Angel

Touch My Word

Michael

Tick Tock

Reward

Executioner 2 (sister walked in on this and we were both cringing it is a lot that's the only way i can describe it)

Jump

welcome rose

Playtime: very short

You did it! is when we cut open the teddy bear

Dolls: or as we called it hide and seek if there were any way to download mp3's from youtube this is one of the songs i would have gotten for sure

Malice

No one loves you

that voice

deeper

the purifying crystal: the tale end

Run! Rose!

I've got this

Offer Yourself (other song I love the remix of eradicating evil)

I'm Okay: has the same notes as Rose and it makes me sad

Begining of the End: okay title and sounds a little bit like descent into the village and has vocals at the end

In Life and In Death

Blood and Death: goes silent for the last few seconds and it is effective

Light At the End: might be a trailer song because of the lyrics from Yearning for Dark Shadows (long ago i went searching for berries) but i really like it

The Winter's Legacy: is great and it still sounds like two steps from hell song (i just can't think of which one)

Roll Out is a cool its kinda reminiscent of the first Alice film which is interesting comparison to make

[iamafanofcartoons]

Rabbit Debunks Hbomberguy’s “RWBY is Disappointing Video” and explains why the Critics are wrong about RWBY.  Part 1 of 2

Making a thread reacting to the hbomberguy RWBY is Disappointing video.

Mostly as a refresher and also because there’s been a lot of dissension regarding it so why not.

Intro Calls it R (Rue) By lmaoo.

You’re not supposed to pronounce the W So the gist of it, is that he feels like it has great concept that could be interesting, but fails to execute it in any meaningful way???

Like overall it’s bad but there’s few good glimpses-

Of what could be a great show.

I guess for now I guess I can give it the benefit of the doubt and assume good intentions so far.

No words on the History of Monty Oum and RT history.

I mean it pretty much all checks out

Though immediately admitting your bias against the show takes the validity of some of your criticisms away ngl.

So he loves the Red Trailer but brings up the views it gained and then brings up the views of the episodes (Vol 1 ep 1 and 2) as a sort of gotcha like “oh see the trailer is more popular than the episode like look at the 15M to (episode 2) 6.8M ratio!!!”

Like those are two-  Wildly different things my guy

But what’s up with that “Red Like Roses Part 1 is the best composed music Jess has ever done” take?????

That’s wild asF fr.

Like no way you listened to the soundtracks of V1-3 and still have that opinion.

Like it’s amazing but????

“Does she get the scar from the fight or from something else, oooo mysterious”.

Is this a bit????

She so obviously gets the scar from the fight so I hope it’s just a bit lmao.

Also the complaint about Adam is so weird?

“He’s so obviously a bad guy that it doesn’t make sense”

“Since there’s already wolves set up as the baddies in the series”

Like, it’s not word for word what he said but that’s the gist of it?

It’s a bad and very nitpicky complaint since there are many series with more than 1 antagonist and antagonistic force.

I don’t know.

Saying “it’s coming from a well meaning place” but then saying it’s extremely bad, followed up by an intro song saying that RWBY is lame and it sucks all while dedicating it to Monty is…. So disgusting??? And very disingenuous???

Using the ending of Vol 2 as a point in your “they don’t know their story” when Ruby is laying down all the things that they have yet to solve (leading into the new volume and this laying down the groundwork for it)

It’s obviously in your face my dude.

Ah damn, a little out of order, but is there instances where Miles or Kerry  acknowledges good faith criticism? Panels? Deleted tweets? Anything?

Mainly just curious if it’s true that they haven’t and he just didn’t do the research by saying he “has a hard time finding any”

Another thing. Forgot to mention.

Really wish he prefaced his complaints about the voice acting and writing that he understood that the studio itself was amateurish and small with not a lot of budget to work with. (Unless that’s true) not that there isn’t criticism but that- There are TANGIBLE reasons why it’s the way that it is.

Where Do We Even Start?

Uhhh they never dropped the Dust Theft plot line????

Volume 2 was literally the culmination of the dust theft and the reason is because of Cinder’s plans.

Another thing that’s in your face but just, weirdly you gloss over???

“The intro doesn’t set up the story properly… leaves out the fragile peace between the nations…. Leaves out faunus… leaves out semblances…”

Quite literally, the intro talks about things that weren’t even revealed until Vol 4 to 9. The intro is good and sets up what it NEEDS-

Like sure you can say “oh but it’s only added till later when they got the story that they wanted to tell straight”

Mate, a pro tip for a lot of writers renowned/acclaimed have admitted that some of their works or some of their best writing decisions were made by the seat- Of their pants.

You think Naruto, one of the most iconic and popular anime of all time would have spun into how it is just off the intro of the first episode?

What about Bleach?

ATLA?

One Piece???

There are so many instances where the intro just isn’t all encompassing bc- That just isn’t how story writing goes.

You can have the best most rigid outline in the whole world, but at times you’re gonna go off script because there’s something you want to expand upon more or explore.

Ends off this segment by saying that RWBY’s story is interesting and it has neat ideas (backahandedly by adding “to write a wiki about”) but the storytelling only gets worse.

Which, I sort of disagree with???

It’s not stellar by any means, but I chalk that up with them- Not having the sort of resources available.

However from what they managed TO put together it was coherent enough to convey what they were meaning to portray.

Though I do have my gripes with certain aspects of the first two volumes.

But from V3 on? It’s only gotten- Stronger.

Yes I harp on V5 a LOT and it’s still one of the weaker volumes, but the conversations and character dynamics where stronger than they’ve been.

It was mainly the animation in the last few episodes of the giant fight that I just, wasn’t vibing with at all.

Worldbuilding and Conveyance

So next he talks about how aura was explained.

Bringing up both Harry Potter and ATLA and how they tell it as an example.

Following it up by making a rwby edit to make it seem as if it was mundane and boring.

Which isnt the case at all.

If you- Actually take the time to watch the scene.

It's about 1:20 long and while the explanation of what Aura does is being told to the viewer, it shows Ren taking down the King Taijitu with his aura.

It's another valid form of story telling because it's not just two characters talking on screen.

it's also giving us an insight of how it would be put into action.

"No one just happens to have full on speeches prepared in case anyone is to ask"

Uhhh, have you met Weiss?

Even the examples you gave literally is Hermione and Katara.

"Why does Jaune not know about this?

When he came from a long line of hero's and monster Hunters."

Idk, how does Naruto not know about Chakra despite 8 years as a academy student.

He probably just skipped out on it or didn't take it seriously enough.

He never went to- A prep school like Signal either.

His transcripts were faked, so you could easily say he went to Beacon with nothing more than a Dime, A old Rickety sword and a dream lol.

Also Pyrrha is super smart and also a really great battle tactician.

Of course she would be able to- recite what Aura does word for word.

It's not mischaracterization.

You just want to twist that narrative against her.

And not just that, I feel a strong mischaracterization of Jaune.

If Jaune is played off as an idiot for jokes, that's cool. But if he's shown to just not- Understand or doesn't know about the world at large, then that could hint at the fact that Jaune is more than just an idiot.

He's probably born in the sticks/boonies.

A country bumpkin if you will where Hunters aren't all that well known nor pop culture.

It doesn't dumb down the other characters.

Because Weiss is frustrated herself that someone so famous isn't recognizable by anyone and everyone in the world.

Same thing with her and the SDC

For Christ sakes, he only knew Pyrrha from a cereal box be fr

Well he brings up the Jaundice thing and yeah that's fair, a lot of people have gripes with that (i'm not one of them) and brings up how Pyrrha is only really a character for Jaune's development as a fighter and romance option but not much else on her own.

Which... Yeah I kinda- get that too.

Like, I liked Pyrrha too, but I do wish she had more to do in V1 and 2.

But in V3 is where she shines.

Hell there were so many people who did cry and got shocked by the end of Vol 3 even with the amount of screentime she gets.

"Praise RWBY for being feminist and progessive cause most of the mcs are women... But Jaune has 4 episodes dedicated to him, and has the coolest girl in school flirting and helping him become a stronger warrior."

Jaune isn't the main character.

How I've always viewed RWBY and JNPR has always been: RWBY as the protagonist and JNPR as the deuteragonist.

They hold about the same amount of importance because of how close their teams are.

So of course you're going to want to give the deuteragonist development and screentime to.

And yes Jaune had Jaundice.

RWBY still has an ABSURD amount of episodes dedicated to them as well so the balance/ration will always be in RWBY's favor regardless of how you feel about Jaune as a character and Jaune's importance to the story.

Same goes for the rest of NPR

"The writer's dont know what Yang's semblance is.

It goes from her being angry, to it being her taking hits and she transfers that energy back to them by hitting them again, and then temper tantrums, and then re-xeplain it as a redirection of energy stored from hits."-

Uhh, no.

Her semblance has always been about redirection of stored energy from attacks and aiming them back at the opponent.

Every single time we see her use it, it's always after she's taken several hits.

It's probably still possible to use it without taking hits, but its more than- likely less powerful.

He goes on to talk about how semblances are abstract and only gets mentioned 14 episodes later.

Which sure ok, but the gist of them and how they work are still easily within the story.

Could they have expanded upon it more earlier on? Yeah they could.

But to sit there and say, "When Pyrrha used her abilities and Ruby and Weiss look at her like she was weird and surprised and confused she has powers too"

no no no no no, that is grossly misreading the scene.

Pyrrha has kept her semblance a secret from anyone and everyone.

No one knows what it is or if she even had one.

They were just confused by what she did, why her hand glowed black, and why her hand was out.

It had nothing to do with them being confused about why someone else had a semblance, but more so they never knew what Pyrrha's was.

and also, the reading of Semblance = magic is both meh and eh.

Like if you looked at any and every single semblance that exists in RWBY, every single one of them have to do with concepts that has nothing to do with earth, wind, fire, and water.

Whereas Magic in the series- has Maidens throwing storms, lightning bolts, fire, ice, etc. at any enemy they choose.

That's the major difference between magic and semblance.

Magic is divine, naturalistic. Semblances are more man made if that makes sense.

Man he really does not like how semblances are portrayed/exposited.

Like it's been just as long as he harped on for Pyrrha expositing the aura scene.

like the exaggeration that he's going to, to explain this is kinda crazy

It's not a semi complicated concept at all, like he said it was.

It's very easy to follow and very easy to understand. he brings up Emerald and Cinder knowing about it, but doesn't bring up the fact that Pyrrha had to have put it in her application for Beacon or her personal- record that only Beacon has track of.

A record that they broke into with the helps of Watts, but not just that.

But Mercury also figured it out because he's an intelligent fighter just like Pyrrha is.

You can just say that Pyrrha's opponents were all just dumb for not figuring it out.

But no, it's just bad writing I guess.

Brings up WoR as an example of not being able to tell the story completely and labels it as homework.

It's not necessarily out of the norm though.

There are lots of character guides, extra material that expands on characters, worlds-

nd ideas that you can't really put the time in the show to do.

Like let's look at the first 3 volumes and how most episodes where 12-15 minutes long.

And even then they were still trying to get the hang of writing for something so massive as RWBY.

Having extra material so readers can get a better understanding of the world around them isn't bad. because even then, most everyone knows who Faunus are.

How Aura works, what a semblance is. all of these on a surface level.

If you want to dig deep, thats what WoR is for.

Unless you just wanna insult the show and embrace ignorance?

Some Positive Examples

Such a nothing complaint really. 

Just Miles and Kerry's writing vs Monty's character acting (in terms of how he conveys the four in a team fight (example being Team RWBY vs Mecha Roman)). 

I mean, I dont know what to really say here.

"The writers are so busy writing drama and wacky skits to explain why they're friends while Monty is putting in the REAL work with the fight scenes and showing how close they are and how far ruby has come at becoming a leader."  

Yeah... Cause that's what writers and animators do

Briefly touches on Ships and how Monty, Kerry, and Miles referenced them in the fight. (also decided to call it creepy since Ruby is 15 and the other girls are 17...

Which isn't that bad??

Like Sophomore and Senior in High School really).

Wasn't Ichigo Kurosaki 15 and Naruto not even 13?

Also says they didn't make a name- for Ruby and Yang because of the certain fans that ship those two together so they avoided that one altogether

.... Which yeah??? Did you want them too lol??

I can't seem to see his point of bringing this up because on one hand it feels like he's admonishing them for it, but  on the other hand he seems... like he's a little upset that they dont have a team attack name?

Maybe just at the inconsistency of it. Which i can understand.

I would have maybe came up with one that isn't fandom made so they can have a cool SISTERS team attack, like Rose Dragon!

Ends off this segment talking about more Miles and Kerry vs Monty (with Shawn being added in).

Another example of writing vs character expositing through animation by using the Pyrrha vs Mercury fight as well as the exposition between Emerald, Cinder, and Mercury.

Lots of talk about animation being weird and how he's seen worse animation but the stories were good enough to overlook it.

I'd be a broken record by stating this again and again.

But just look at what they had to work with. Look at how divided the writing and the animation- really were with Monty coming up with new characters that the team had to shove in last minute.

Look at Poser even and how the engine was something really only Monty and Shane (oops I made a mistake in that other post) could work to the level that they did.

Look at RT and even CRWBY at the time.

And now look where they are now.

You can't tell me that they've gone downhill when most of your gripes that you've complained about are/have been fixed in the later seasons.

Gonna end it here and make it a 2 parter. This thread is-

Long enough and I'm tired extremely lol.

I'll do a QRT tomorrow and start it back up. 

If anyone has more to add or correct me on, feel free to QRT anything you feel i didnt do a good job of explaining or just missed in general.

Any help is appreciated.

https://twitter.com/PhonyMangaka/status/1653898140678856704