#its just so frustrating to see the incredible work that was being put in during s2 only for it to not matter in the end

[badgorlcoven]

there’s genuinely no way that any team of writers, no matter how talented they were, would have been able to take the bum deal the owl house got and turn that final season into anything other than, at best, an anti-climax. there’s absolutely no way it wouldn’t have been rushed. i can only commend dana and the team for giving it their all, and trying their best with the constraints they were given. but the only thing that final episode can do is make me angry: not at the team, but at disney for handicapping one of their best shows for no reason, and leaving it like this. obviously rushed, so many ideas that should have had room to expand but no time, not much for the rest of the cast to do during the episode proper. with how cut short s3 became, it almost makes the prospect of rewatching the series later difficult knowing that it’ll hit a brick wall and just kind of end. i watched a rerun of the disney xd broadcast and it immediately cut before the credits so i only just now saw the extra stuff which im at the very least glad we got (older luz, some answers, more of luz and amity together, hunter and willow confirmed) but....ugh. dana terrace you will always be famous, you and the crew didn’t deserve this

[carrionhearted]

Im gonna infodump about my ocs because I can’t stop thinking about them. This will be a book… One day. Read on with caution, this is a horror book with very dark subject matter and mild body horror.

There are two mcs, a closeted gay trans man (Eden), and a severely repressed cis gay man (Harlow). Both raised in a hyper-conservative hyper-religious Deep South town IN THE 80S.

Their story is about the deadly consequences of repression, the cycle of abuse, learned hatred and destructive coping mechanisms. Harlow grew up with an INCREDIBLY toxic father who drilled toxic masculinity into him (having feelings is shameful) as well as homophobia. He only ever demonstrated "solving" problems with violence. Harlow was never given the tools or space to unpack any of his feelings ever. So he grew up to become this repressed, horribly frustrated and confused adult who could not understand his attraction towards other men.

Being gay wasn't even a thought in his mind, it wasn't a possibility to him. His father constructed this impenetrable wall of “us” vs “them” in Harlow’s mind- and like a plant deprived of sunlight, he never grew tall enough to see over it.

All he knew was this gut-wrenching hunger, this insatiable craving for other men’s bodies which he couldn't place- something about the flesh, the warmth, he hungered for it in a way which became unbearable. This did not register to him as sexual, again, that wasn't even an option… but he didn’t know what it was. And when you don’t know how to process your own emotions, it all eventually turns into frustration/ rage. So he solved this problem in the only way he was ever taught how- with violence! He killed men, initially choosing those he deemed deserving of death, and he ate them. An attempt to satiate the hunger. This became a habitual thing and he just… kept doing it. Not because it brought him any real satisfaction, it just snowballed into an addiction and he needed his fix. His town caught on to the string of murders, but he was flying completely under everyone’s radar. We’re talking about a 6’ mullet-having yeehaw dude who’s generally reserved and works for his family’s farm, nobody was really looking at him here.

Important backstory tidbit: Harlow was taught how to hunt as a kid. His father took him on outings, which were maybe the only positive memories he had of that man- and they would hunt deer together. He was taught to always use the whole animal, never let anything go to waste- because everything is valuable.

Everything is a gift. “It’s only murder if you waste the animal” (this heavily influenced his later cannibal ways).

One day as a young teen, he found himself alone for a trip. That's when he was approached by this deer- it looked sickly, almost like it was rotting while alive (it had Chronic Wasting Disease). It was clearly suffering, made clear by its complete lack of survival instincts. It walked right up to his gun. It was in pain. He shot it to put it out of its misery, but he did not take the meat. What was he supposed to do? It was useless to him,, he couldn't eat the rotting meat, and despite that he still felt an immense guilt for leaving it behind. Killing, and just abandoning the body. It registered to him as murder. He carried that feeling of guilt with him for the rest of his life. He vowed to never discard a body again.

Eden is a trans man who knows he's trans, but is out to practically nobody during the story. He’s the youngest in his family, with four older brothers. His parents were NOT suited to be parents- they were self centred people who treated their children like accessories. The parents obsessively kept up this “picturesque good Christian family” facade to the world, but that became harder to maintain as they had more kids. They started having to cut corners financially, to the detriment of those kids. That said, every one of their children was planned. The reason they kept having kids despite their situation was because the mother wanted a daughter. Then, Eden was born, assigned female at birth. Since his birth Eden had been treated like a precious doll more so than a child- he was sheltered and only received direct attention from his parents when they needed to dress him up all pretty for Sunday service. There was an incredible amount of pressure on him to be what everyone wanted. He was also raised VERY religiously, all of which MAJORLY contributed to his inner-turmoil abt being trans. He didn’t even have a word for it, to be “trans”. Only this unmistakable discomfort, guilt and shame, feeling like something is wrong with him, feeling like god made a mistake with him. Again, conservative religious south, he has no space to explore these feelings safely. He's pushed it all down and let it fester inside until it started gnawing away at his very being.

A few years prior to the story, this began to manifest physically as a literal rot. This spot of decay on his chest that's been growing and sinking deeper into his body for years. Sloooowly eating away at him, on track to continue until there is nothing left to devour. By the start of the book it’s claimed most of the flesh on his chest- his ribcage is sparsely covered with any skin at all- and the organs beneath are made vulnerable by it. However, he is horrified to seek medical attention. He sees the rot as a marking of his sin, god has stamped his body with this ugly decay to let everyone else know he's defective.

He hides it beneath layers of clothing. Being on his chest, it’s in a place that only an intimate partner would ever see- considering he's perceived by the world as a "woman".

In a… complicated series of events involving ✨societal pressure and coercion✨, an "intimate partner" does end up seeing his chest (Eden is not clear minded when these events are taking place).

This partner reacts with repulsion and violence, to the extreme that Eden fears for his life. He kills the other man in self Defense. (This sequence alludes to the “trans panic” legal defense which is still permitted by many US courts. If you pursue someone intimately, don’t like what you see beneath their clothes, and you KILL THEM- you can claim “I panicked because I didn’t know they were trans” and get a lesser sentence. It’s bullshit and I’m gonna attempt to very delicately write this scene to highlight how bizarre and unwarranted the male partner’s violent response is. The rot in this instance is symbolic of the perceived defect).

In disposing of the body, he runs into Harlow. They find eachother in a (undecided) remote, secretive location.

You’ll never guess what Harlow is doing! Also disposing of remains (bones n guts), at the same place, face hidden while he does so. They have a mutual deer-in-headlights standoff. There IS an open case of serial murders in their small town… Harlow is responsible. Eden realizes this after a short exchange of stunned words, and totally breaks down. Heavy dialogue exchange, Eden feels completely defeated and destroyed by guilt, he just begs Harlow to kill him. Harlow responds by saying he only kills men (Eden is closeted and passes as a woman). This pushes Eden over the edge and he snaps, he shouts that he is a man, this is the first time he’s ever said it out loud. Harlow is… confused, but intrigued. He doesn’t want to kill Eden, but he’s not sure what he does want to do. He decides to knock Eden out… which he does very easily.

Eden wakes up in a different location. Some not so great smelling farmhouse of sorts. Harlow enters the room eventually and explains… “I disposed of that body for you, don’t worry about that right now. I bruised your head pretty bad when I knocked you out, sorry about that, I didn’t mean to use that much force. I made you some soup! It’ll help. The meat is pork. Don’t worry about it. Let’s talk. :3” They’re still both very unsure of each other but neither have much to lose (they also have mutual blackmail) so they start talking. AND BOOM

COMPLICATED SERIES OF EVENTS

ENSUES AND THEY BOND OVER SHARED EXPERIENCES, TEACH EACH OTHER TO UNLEARN THEIR TOXIC AND DESTRUCTIVE WAYS, HAVE A ROMANCE WHICH SERVES AS A VALIDATION ARC FOR EDEN AND A SELF-ACCEPTANCE ARC FOR HARLOW AND YADA YADA. They are both profoundly disturbed individuals who have done terrible things but the whole point is to hold a magnifying glass to their actions and point out HOW and WHY they fucked up. To condemn that path, the mindset behind it, and the people who carried on those abusive cycles before them. I want to thoroughly examine and chip away at the layers of external influence that lead these characters to their lowest life points- and reveal the truth beneath them. These were once children, full of love and openness as we all once were- the problem is larger than the individual, it’s a societal issue of passed down bigotry and stubborn refusal to progress. It’s a toxic cycle of violence with very real, very deadly consequences for all involved. The characters both do BAD things, that’s the POINT.

Important backstory tidbit: In Eden’s childhood, he found a baby bird fallen a long ways from its nest. It was hurt, and he brought it inside to a small cage. He figured the cage would serve as protection for the bird as it grew- it was so delicate, it needed the shelter. But that cage was tiny. He fed the bird, tried to take care of it and gave it all its base survival needs. The bird was offered food, water and a cage. But that is all. That’s all Eden was given in his home, he thought that meant it was enough. He watched it grow into a young dove, but as it aged it only got sicker. This bird was deteriorating before his eyes and he couldn't understand why- he feared it would die in that cage. As soon as it became old enough to fly, Eden made the decision to release the bird. It was sicker than ever, Eden knew it didn't have long. He knew releasing it would practically be a death sentence, but it was going to die soon either way. He did not want the bird to die in the cage.

When released, the dove didn't even know how to flap its wings properly. The cage was too small to stretch them out, it had never even had the chance to learn how to fly. It didn't know how to find food. It didn’t know how to identify danger. And on the next morning, Eden found that bird on the ground outside of his house, dead. It was being picked away at by a vulture.

Eden felt relief.

The bird had died. It didn't make it. But it brought him peace to know it didn't die in that cage. That bird had never known the love of its mother, or siblings, it had never known what it was like to be wanted and cherished. That role was left to the vulture, who had never turned away from the unsightly or damaged. It had swooped in with the unconditional love of an angel, and carried the dove off into the sky above- its stomach, a chariot to heaven. It was gruesome watching the vulture feast- but it had such a tender appreciation in its eyes. It kept the circle of life in motion. In a way, Eden found this ending happy.

Eden’s symbolic bird is a dove, Harlow’s symbolic bird is a vulture.

They both die at the end of the story.

They'd become very close over the span of it though- they resolved their issues together, but in doing that they found themselves further ostracized from the world around them. They backed themselves further and further away from the world, until they finally hit a corner. Their past destructive actions were also catching up to them- the murders that is, they ended up on the run from police. It all came back to bite them.

The rot on Eden’s chest had spread throughout his entire body, and it was past the point of no return. No medical intervention would help at this point. One night, after a close encounter with police left them both wounded- Eden and Harlow both realized that these were Eden’s last few hours.

His body was decayed and rotted, he was sick, he was injured, he was visibly suffering. He would die soon, it was inevitable. Harlow decides to put him out of his misery. But he couldn’t stand the thought of discarding the body. He didn’t want him to die unloved.

Reaching into Eden's exposed ribcage, Harlow removed his heart from his chest. He knew this would be a death sentence, but he was going to die either way. He didn't want him to die in the cage.

He ate the heart, rotting and tainted as it was, he saw every part of his lover as a gift. Nothing goes to waste, for every rotting animal there is a grateful vulture. One which will see your defect and cherish you all the same.

Is now a good time to address the name Eden? I feel like most people are familiar with the gay love = forbidden fruit and/or cannibalism = forbidden fruit metaphor… yk, the embrace of supposed sin, being arbitrarily kept from the sweet, nutritious fruit of the garden. Passing through the gates of Eden (ribcage again) and eating the apple (his heart).

:3 anyways

Harlowstayed with the body until he also died (unrelated wounds from the chase). Decades later they would be found as skeletons in an unmistakable embrace, none of the flesh which made people scorn them during their lives. They were seen as lovers then, and were finally understood.

ALSO ALSO SO SYMBOLISM RIGHT. RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM??? REMEMBER HOW EDEN WAS RAISED AS HYPER-RELIGIOUS???

So cannibalism as a metaphor for QUEERNESS now. A craving for the forbidden flesh. To partake in another's body in the most intimate and fulfilling way. But living in a world that sees it as repulsive…

Right? You with me?

Ok and then the inherent divinity of transness. To partake in the act of creation alongside God, to resculpt yourself in divine image. Jesus was not simply born of genetic material (yk how transphobes love to say “blah blah blah you can’t change your chromosomes!!” Like… if we use that logic, Jesus is trans. He’d have XX chromosomes because... miraculous conception.

No sperm, which provides the Y chromosome, which creates a male body. BUT OBVIOUSLY THAT DOESNT FUCKING MATTER BECAUSE HES A MAN REGARDLESS!!!! JESUS WAS A DUDE!!!). He was created by WILL.

The will of god, a version of himself, to BE!!! Fully human, fully god, flesh and blood in an image he himself designed. Holy trinity being the same entity and all, Jesus’s body was his own design in a way.

YOU WITH ME???

OK

OKAY AND SO.

GAY CANNIBALISM… TRANS LOVER.

TO

TO PARTAKE IN THE BLOOD AND BODY OF CHRIST. THEOPHAGY.

THE ULTIMATE HOLY COMMUNION.

TO CONSUME YOUR LOVER AS AN ACT OF WORSHIP, CONVEYING YOUR LOVE FOR EVERY PART OF THE BODY THEY'VE GROWN TO DISPISE. TAKING A PHYSICAL PIECE OF THEIR LIFE INTO YOURS AND UNITING YOUR VERY BEINGS. UNCONDITIONAL AND ETERNAL LOVE, DESPITE ONE’S FLAWS.

TO THINK OF YOURSELF AS CARRION AND BE FOUND BY THE MOST GRATEFUL VULTURE.

A DEAD AND ROTTING GOD STILL BRINGS LIFE TO THE MAGGOTS WHICH FEED ON ITS CORPSE!!!

RAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m unwell I’m unwell I’m unwell I need to actually get to writing this NOW

[viperwhispered]

I've been thinking of pent up Jamil and its honestly kinda funny. There is honestly no way this man isn't sexually frustrated and I have yet to see anyone discuss the comedic potential of his suffering.

Dynamic: Jamil who's had several one-night stands but has zero romantic experience dating a reader who's had a few relationships but has zero sexual experience outside of masturbation.

Jamil basically told himself he'd wait a couple weeks to a month before broaching the sexual aspect of the relationship. It's the standard amount of time normal people wait before become active in a new relationship and he wants to fully settle into this foreign dynamic.

In all honesty, Jamil is eternally grateful that his s/o is mature enough to take the lead in this. They're very open/vulnerable with him and is very patient with him. Emotionally, he's never been so satisfied and he's so happy he has at least one person he'll never worry about betrayng. While he doesn't like the thought that they've dated before, he's aware that's hypocritical and doesn't dwell on it. Besides, if things keep going as well as they are now, he'll have the satisfaction of taking their virginity.

Buuuuuuuuutttttt nobody told him that romantic feelings would greatly increase his sexual attraction towards his partner. In other words, that month long adjustment period was absolute hell for him. It also doesn't help that help was already incredibly pent up from always having to worry about Kalim.

While he doesn't explicitly blame his partner, they just do things that just turn him on like a lightswitch. Its not even anything sexual, they could just be minding their own business and smile at him and he'd be up and ready to go. Every little thing they do draws attention.

Putting their hair up for PE? He's thinking about marking their neck and collarbone.

Cooking with an apron? He's imaging the classic "dinner, bath, or me" fantasy.

Wearing short clothes (which is very common for Scarabians whenever its a laundry day)? Eyes keep wandering from neck to arms to chest to abs to ass to thighs to legs to back to thighs.

Stealing his sweater and/or basketball shirt? He as to adjust his underwear to hide the boner.

Touching him in any way, shape, or form? He's too busy wondering if their insides are just as warm.

God forbid, eat a popsicle? He's stuck jealously glaring at the damn thing as his own treat is stuck melting.

Throughout all this, the poor bastard masked his dirty thoughts with the world's best poker face + his joy at just being around his s/o. On the inside he keeps mentally slapping himself for being a perv. The entire time is both bliss and torture.

Finally, a month passes and the pair start discussing being intimate. Jamil has been ready to just go from day one but he knows he can't go crashing in as his s/o is still a virgin. Thankfully they're not completely clueless and has a general idea of what they like.

Ironically, the true torture begins during their first time. It takes all of Jamil's self-control not to start slamming away while his darling lets their warm wet insides adjust to his size. Be it to his own skills or blessings from the gods above, Jamil manages to start slowly and work his s/o up to being able to take a rougher pace. Then his self-control just snaps as he enjoys the symphony of noises coming out of them.

Good news is his lover appears to be as much of a masochist as he is a sadist, so Jamil will be sure to repay all the suffering he's had to go through.

Took a few weeks, but eventually his libido evened out.

Nikki bonus: One of the core aims of human life in hinduism is Kama aka pleasure. This term refers to all sorts of pleasure and just happiness in general. Basically, hindus need to be able to enjoy the life leading up to enlightenment in an ethical manner that allows them to fulfill their societal and familial responsibilities. This includes sexual pleasure. The conservativism regarding sex in modern day India leftover from the British. Looking at ancient art and texts, its easy to find that pre-colonial indian society had a very complex and diverse perspective on sex and certain areas were even tolerant towards LGBT. Hell one of the most widespread gods is Kama, god of sex and erotic love.

Why am I saying this? To explain how Nikki is okay with pre-marital sex. Their only condition is that its with someone they're in a relationship with and its done in safety and moderation. There's also the fact that they were raised in Canada aka exposed to western appraoch to sex, their mom is a nurse who's had one too many encounters with stupid teenagers who weren't educated by their parents, and spent time training in temples that offered prostitution. Nikki also has a secret locked drawer with some toys for stress relief.

The only issue is that Nikki is a bit of a masochist with shit taste so none of their previous relationships ever lasted more than two weeks. Its their disastrous love life that inspired the "Jamil VS the Ex" ask I sent.

Nikki, being the observant cookie they are, did notice Jamil's plight and was touched by his willingness to wait for them. So Jamil and Nikki have a system where they frequently trade books as a way to teach each other about their respective worlds and cultures. When Nikki felt ready to get intimate, they slipped in the Kama Sutra in that week's batch of books.

Context: The Kama Sutra is a hindu text that talks about how to achieve pleasure in romantic and sexual relationships. It covers subjects like how to prepare for these relationships, how to fit it into a blanced lifestyle, the types of partners they should look for, approaching said partners, how to balance multiple lovers/wives, occult/herbal recipies and rituals for increasing pleasure, how to approch courteseans, and (of course) how to do sex. Its this final aspect that the Kama Sutra is most famous for, specifically the many different positions suggested for maximum pleasure.

This book is written in verses and takes about 6 to 8 hours to finish. I haven't read it, but according to my research most translations are pretty boring as they read like instruction manuals.

Didn't stop Jamil from blushing like mad as he read it though and it didn't really help with his nigh bursting libido. But he does get the message and starts plotting.

Despite what I've explained earlier, Nikki technically being a priest just makes the problem even worse with his corruption and possesion kinks rearing their ugly heads. Honestly Jamil, just be glad I didn't design Nikki to follow an abrahamic religion or you would've really been screwed.

Hasdfgh yes to all of this. Man's so ready to go but also so conscious of being sensible/normal (and considerate) I love it.

(I mean I've been with my partner for over a decade yet there's just some things he does, some of them totally innocuous, that just get to me. I'm sure Jamil would have several moments of self-discovery of like “wait this does something to me, at least with this person” *tries to compute how and why*.)

Also that popsicle bit… pure gold.

I do wonder if he could keep himself from slowly broaching more “lewdness”. Like the jokes slowly become more suggestive, the touches more bold, because a) he wants to and b) partner doesn't seem to mind.

But also: I feel like the first time would start a new kind of torture (or excitement). Like, first times (and several after) can easily be fumbly and just very much an exploration of how you fit together (not that that ever really ends).

But now Jamil's had a taste. He's no longer imagining what it could be, he has some real, actual experience to extrapolate from. So how could he not think of all the other things they could be doing, the new things they could try and experiment with? Or even just thinking of having more of the same.

And if s/o is teasing him, too, or encouraging him and is in it with him…

Like, anticipation and yearning are one thing, while greed’s a beast quite of its own, especially in those early stages.

Ngl, I've mostly heard of Kama Sutra as the sex position manual, ty for the extra context!

(Now, I do wonder if Twisted Wonderland has similar concepts of “purity” and all as we might, especially with those abrahamic religions you mentioned, and how that would factor into how Jamil sees things, but at the very least he can still be making his partner his and enjoy introducing them to new lewd/sensual things or exploring them together.)

[effemar]

hi are there any trc fics you would recommend? (saw your tags on that one fandoms with good fic post)

ohhhhh tumblr user after my own heart...

First of all, some of my thoughts on the subject. I love fanfiction -- both as a phenomenon and as a genre of writing. I have a deep and sincere appreciation for the earnest engagement with media it fosters, the creative potential it holds, and the way it can be truly and deeply bad. This being said, what I think makes a fic good is different from what makes a book or a movie good. To me, a good piece of fanfiction is simultaneously a story and a piece of analysis. It should respond to the work it's based on, even (or perhaps, especially) to the detriment of its functionality as a standalone narrative.

This is all to say that the fics I'm recommending here rely heavily on knowledge of the books, and their main merit is in how they engage with the canon narrative. So bear that in mind.

TRC has a lot of fic in a variety of niches and tones. I will try to give you a diverse sampling. That being said, the vast majority of TRC fic that exists is Adam/Ronan (because fandoms are predictable like that) which means the recommendations here are slanted that way.

In no particular order:

Son of the Nuclear A-Bomb -- This is the fic I recommend most among this selection. A clear divergence from canon, it nevertheless extrapolates perfectly on existing themes, to the point that it straight-up predicted several plot points regarding Ronan's family in The Dreamer Trilogy. It's the TRC fic of all time.

Out for Re-henge -- Among TRC fics, there's a surprisingly substantial percentage that are, simply and exclusively, about Blue and Ronan having platonic bonding moments. It's just two teenagers having unmagnificent adventures. Like, as a distinct genre. I've never observed this in any other fandom. You can find more of these under the 'Ronan Lynch & Blue Sargent' relationship tag, with Gen checked as the work category. There's some real gems.

empire that runs on its own -- MIND THE TAGS. I said I'd give you diversity, so I'm giving you diversity. I hesitate to recommend this fic usually, as it can be unpleasant to read and has genuinely upsetting subject matter, but if I'm going to talk about how good TRC fic is, I have to pull out the big guns. It's genuinely incredible work. There's imagery and themes in this that still echo in my head, years after I first read it.

feels better biting down -- Everything by this author is incredible, but I enjoy this fic in particular because it's set in an unexplored bit of time before the series actually starts. It has a unique, lethargic tension that mimics the state of the characters' relationship at this point. It is almost pointedly unromantic, despite dealing with characters who we know have/will have a romantic dynamic during the events of the books.

my bones into your bones -- This fic frustrates me so much. It's incredibly emotionally intense, it has lines that are tattooed on the inside of my eyelids, and it's completely and unapologetically About People Fucking so I can't recommend it to anyone without paralyzing embarrassment. I skipped over this fic in the tag for like three years because of this, but eventually I decided to see what all the fuss was about, and gave it a try. When I tell you it's good, I mean that I felt like I'd been put through the fucking laundry.

Those are mostly pretty serious fics, so here's some light(er) runner-ups as palate-cleansers.

see you somewhere, someplace, sometime -- Ronan assholery, feat. Declan

Hey, Brother (PUNKBITCH) -- Ronan assholery, feat. Blue

in your manner of speaking -- Ronan assholery, feat. Adam (are you beginning to notice a pattern)

[a-door-to-somewhere]

Ok watched spiderverse 2 again here's some thoughts in no particular order (spoilers and long post ahead):

- peter b is reading a book called "how to talk to kids" at the very end. Presumably because may can't speak yet and Gwen and Miles were zapped away I choose to believe he was reading this so he can go talk to Miguel LMAO

- I fucken love the way spot, after he powers up, move around via just like... sliding around in the air basically with his bad posture like he's hung from strings like a puppet

- when gwen is drumming at the opening and when spot gets zapped both are intercut with frames from later in the movie and also later in the future. I'm guessing spot got a glimpse of canon events but when Gwen was doing her intro it was phrased like a retrospective- but unlike most intros it didn't have a shot of a new spiderman comic being thrown on the pile. So when was she doing this retrospective? I hc she'll pick back up at the end of the third movie

- someone needs to make procreate brush packs for each universe/character PLEASE

- ok the "watercolor" effect being a mood ring is incredible but I havent seen anyone talking about the sort of abstract animation?? It almost reminds me of like experimental film from the impressionist/dada/supremetism eras, you can see it synced to the drum in the intro and also in some of the backgrounds during her big speech

- also during the Guggemheim fight when the Renaissance Vulture was like "you call this art?" And Gwen was like "well we're talking about it aren't we" YOU'RE SO RIGHT GWEN I AM KISSING YOU ON THE LIPS

- the shaky 1st pov cam when Gwen's dad sneaks up on her both times reminded me of when Miles accidentally watched kingpin kill perfect Peter? Idk if it was exactly the same I'd have to go back and rewatch but UGH it really gets that Gwen's dad has two sides too and the cop side isn't really human almost, lurking in the shadows, silhouetted

- also Gwen's dad just being a shit cop, giving her mixed instructions, raising a weapon at an unarmed person who is trying to communicate, firing warning shots, yelling the Miranda rights over her which is not how its supposed to be given

- contrast that with Jeff who literally never pointed a weapon at anyone and went charging after spot with his bare hands, is casual with his spiderman. I mean even when Jeff was talking about Miles not capturing Spot correctly it was lighthearted and joking, he's actively not going by the book, he's keeping the squad off of Spiderman's back, he apparently talks to spiderman about his family troubles???

- have I mentioned I LOVE MUSICAL MOTIFS????? Seriously they’re always good (fuck Wagner everyone knows Toby Fox invented the leitmotif) I mean everyone noticed the horror style Prowler stinger but even more characters got some: Gwen got a Little Rock theme with a guitar lick that echoes the ‘spi-der-man, spi-der-man’ song, Miguel’s distorted synth whine, the interesting mouth and bells percussion that Pav gets (good job Hollywood avoiding the exotic Asian pentatonic lick for once), at the end when the 42 prowler reveal slowly changed the prowler stinger into a human scream???? There’s probably more but I’d have to go back and watch it again again lmao

- I really love how Miguel is kinda goofy. He’s aloof and over serious but he makes mistakes and shows other emotions despite his best efforts. His flaws are shown off in his very first interaction, with his unwillingness to ask for help despite the fact that he knows he needs it. He’s frustrated. He’s got group object leader energy. It makes it so much more lovable that he’s susceptible to quips and he also gets knocked down and messes up and shows up and has his quirks that everyone puts up with. THATS how you make an interesting, relatable, lovable antagonist. Perhaps it worked too well LMAO

- I am an Oscar isaac simp I gotta go rewatch moon knight

- when miles was swinging around with gwen he passed a truck called "redex" bc gwen rejected him lmao

- theres an 8 clearly visible in the background of earth 42? Wacc

- the Spread Your Wings, Man scene focusing on the plastic wrap on top of the Alchemax flowing in the wind like it’s an ocean?/??? I really hope they call back to that imagery later because it clearly means something and I need to know what

- I’ve got an inkling of something that specifically revealing one’s spider-dentity to a loved one is some kind of anti-canon event, like maybe it’s the thing that fixes the destabilization? I mean we’ve seen that it’s ok if loved ones figure it out themselves (or if they then die, like uncle Aaron) like it’s a clear theme that miles keeps trying to tell his parents, and then Gwen tells her dad, which causes him to quit the force, thereby averting the canon event of him dying indirectly??? Also, it’s implied that the MJ of 1610 sold out Perfect Peter Parker to Fisk, leading to his death, ALSO also, gayatri probably figured out Pav’s identity right before HIS world destabilized??? Idk lmao

- I hope spiderbite/Margo and Jess get proper intros I can’t wait

- the background spider hockey girl has my heart, I couldn’t stop looking at her during the chase scene

- God I need to watch moon knight again

- when mj moved into mays room to greet them she lifted a picture frame back up as she moved in the door? What's up with that???

- not Spanish originally starting as a too-relatable joke that Miles gets a B in despite his mother speaking Spanish at home as well, not living up to his expectations, and then 42!Miles presumably speaks more/better Spanish due to being closer to his mom because his dad died???

- not miles aceing ap physics and ap studio AT THE SAME TIME in his SOPHOMORE YEAR free my boy from grounding he’s done nothing wrong

- btsv’s main villain is gonna be the sat I’m telling you

- most importantly: what was up with the Comic Code Authority’s seal being shown after the studio logos at the beginning??

Did that happen in the first one??? Why would it be there??? The cca has obviously been defunct since before superhero movies were really a thing. Famously, the cca seriously censored a ton of content, causing Marvel to be unable to portray darker stories involving drugs and other more mature themes, which they wanted to do with many superheroes including Spidey??? Is the Spider Society secretly the cca, censoring storylines that they think shouldn’t be portrayed, including darker timelines like 42? There was also issues with the convoluted Spider-Man comic lines going through unsatisfying ‘resets’ to keep Spider-Man relatable, without evolving the character into anything too far away from the OG Spider-Man, ie young, relationship issues with MJ, nerdy, tragedies etc. this is the detail that had me wondering the most because it was so clearly displayed right at the beginning, and the cca was generally a shameful part of comic book history in which publishers submitted to satanic moral panic. Like, not really something that reads as a cute little callback to an era of comics like he use of Ben day dots or misaligned printing or the onomatopoeias??

[stuiie]

hi! *Waves a bit shyly* I just wanted to say I've really been enjoying your fic, the color of you!! I found it while scrolling yesterday and started it at some point and was barely able to put it down, only pausing for things I had to do XD I ended up staying up late after some events and reading it and before I knew it it was 5 am, I could hear the birds chirping and I could barely keep my eyes open hehe. Made it through chapter fourteen though, huzzah!

You're writing is truly a joy to read and I really love how you've crafted the story! I honestly have ended up seeing myself reflected in Ducky in ways I wasn't expecting and it's made me ponder on some things heh (/positive). I appreciate the patience and effort you put into the slow burn!! I truly enjoy build up to relationships and the wait has been truly worth the reward as I'm arriving to the part where Ducky is actually entering into the relationship! I really appreciate the thought and kindness and heart you've put into some pretty hefty topics as the story progresses, and really enjoyed how you portrayed it narrative wise (my main thoughts especially being on her working through her lack of attraction towards the guy/men and her frustration over it, something I've also been dealing with lately ahah, so it was actually really nice to read someone uh. Also upset over a lack of 'normal' feelings so to speak, and over similar things (though thankfully a much kinder situation in my case). And the other being how you handled Nat confessing! It made a lot of sense for her to be morally distraught over her attraction to her, and I love the grace in which you wrote those emotions and experience!)

I've also enjoyed the ability to project a little neurodiversity onto y/n, whether or not that was intended! Its always quite nice to feel kindred in that way in regards to y/n's and honestly some of my favorite fics have that element to them. Anyways uh! Wonderful story so far! Can't wait to read more but also dreading catching up bc then I'll have to wait and be patient tehe (/silly). Thank you so much for sharing it!!

~ @anactualwolverine

Hi there sweet anactualwolverine,

Aaah, my teeth hurt from how incredibly sweet you are. Your words hit me right where I needed it the most, and knowing you enjoy the story so much fills me with such warmth. All I wanted was to create a healing fic, one for all of us who just want to feel that comfort and kindness. But I do hope you got some well-deserved rest after reading so many chapters; I'm impressed you powered through to chapter 14 😍.

It really does something to me when I get messages where you and others can see yourselves in Ducky, and I hope it brings you some comfort to know you aren't alone. Ducky is special to me, and I have to admit I wish she were real so I could hug her. I love writing Natasha and Wanda caring for her.

And yes, Ducky's journey to self-discovery and attraction was a delicate process and something I struggled with a lot when I was younger. I wanted to shed light on the inner thoughts and feelings that can go through your head during that journey. Again, it makes me so happy that you share your thoughts on this, how you've experienced it, and can relate. It warms my heart.

Oh, and it pleases me so much that you highlight Natasha's confession and the struggles she had with her feelings for Ducky. It's something I had hoped would come through in a good way. So thank you truly for sharing your thoughts on it.

I wish you the best week, and thank you again for taking the time to send me this absolutely lovely message.

[animehouse-moe]

Manabu Otsuka, Mappa, and Jujutsu Kaisen & Yuri On Ice!!

Today (or well, yesterday in Japan), an interview went live with Manabu Otsuka (who is the CEO of MAPPA), which is equal parts disheartening and disappointing, making it an important read for any anime fan out there, and I'll explain why here.

The single largest red flag here is this paragraph. They want to reach the heights of Kyoto Animation and Ufotable, but in a fraction of the time. This entire concept is a fallacy and just ridiculous in nature.

Why? Well, because Ufotable became a studio in the year 2000. They are just past 20 years of business. Kyoto Animation? That ones a little more valid since it was 1985, so I'll just provide an example to the former.

Ufotable, as a studio gained massive critical acclaim and success with Kara No Kyoukai / The Garden of Sinners, thrusting the studio into the limelight. The year that movie was released? 2007.

Only seven years after the official formation of the studio, they put out an insane success as a studio. Of course, that wasn't entirely consistent, but when you speak to the critical acclaim and refinement of a studio such as Ufotable, Kara No Kyoukai is by no means off of the table. Though, it's not like Fate/Zero was much further behind in 2011.

These dates will remain important later, but I just want to address the final part while I'm here.

Otsuka's solution to "catching" these studios that have a decade or more experience over Mappa? Brute force. Need experience to get better? Well, we're just cram in as much as we can to improve. Oh, but you're worried about quality? Don't worry, we'll make sure to maintain high quality.

Forget what's going on with Jujutsu Kaisen, forget even the issues with Hells Paradise. Series that they 100% funded struggled with production, outsourcing an incredible amount of frames to Chinese studios, even the original season of JJK and its movie struggled with production timelines while delivering.

The sheer hubris of Otsuka as a producer and the CEO of the company is impossible to grasp. During a season where staff members have been crumbling on social media, getting upset over complaints and words from fans, struggling to do good work, Otsuka believes it a good time to provide an interview about front-loading on productions to increase the rate of growth with the studio.

Incredibly frustrating to read, I can't imagine how the actual staff from Mappa feel about the direction they're being dragged in.

But that's only one of two parts to this interview that are just beyond repair.

Otsuka directly credits Yuri On Ice!! and In This Corner of The World for the success and modern image of Mappa. But wait, isn't there supposed to be a Yuri on Ice movie happening at some point? Oh yeahhhhh, it's in production hell and Mappa won't say a word about any actual developments.

I think the only good thing to arise from this paragraph is the fact that they give credit to In This Corner of The World and have recently released Alice and Therese's Illusion Factory. It's the first movie they've release since 2016 that is not a complement to an existing anime IP.

Still, incredibly disheartening to see them credit such foundational series and yet stray so far from them. But hey, they're adapting battle action shonen #3451 so it's all okay.

Anyways, the numbers I mentioned earlier. It took Ufotable 7 years, or even 11 if you want to focus on TV anime only, to find massive success as a studio.

Mappa? They did it in 6 years with Yuri on Ice. Yuri on Ice!! quite literally built Mappa into the studio it is today. Otsuka admits that as fact. But still, Yuri On Ice!! remains by the wayside as a priority for the studio that owes it its standing in the anime industry.

I know that a lot of high level staff with various studios are very much out of touch with the industry as they focus on tradition and the more enigmatic (to Western populations) Japanese business practices, but this exists on an entirely separate level.

Which is incredibly disappointing because there's good conversation from Otsuka about independently produces anime and the monetary challenges that face a studio. But it's hard to feel sympathetic and agree with them when they handle so many other aspects so poorly.

So yeah, I'm not really sure I have some grand reason for why people should read it, but I think it's important in pulling back the curtain on the industry and your favorite studios to realize that these are all corporations trying to make money before they do anime.

[fipindustries]

btw finished full metal alchemist

yeah, i mean there isnt much i can say that hasnt been said before, it IS a really good fucking anime, probably one of the best.

there were like maybe one or two stumbles right at the very end where it was a bit frustrating that no matter everything the heroes tried the bad guys plan just worked like it was supposed to without a hitch, but on the other hand everything the heroes did during the show contributed to the bad guy being defeated after they won, so thats cool.

the other little problem is that a lot of the solutions the heroes pulled depended a lot on cool alchemic tricks and loopholes which i wasnt able to entirely follow, the magic system of this world is not hard enough for me to feel like the manuevers they did made total sense, like ok, sure, i guess alchemy can do that, i supposed it was never explicitly said that it couldnt. im just not super comfortable with a story when incredibly important and pivotal moments hinge entirely on what can be done within a system that hasnt been thoroughly and rigidly defined. it skirts suspiciously close, narrative wise, to pulling things out of your ass.

maybe ive just been spoiled by sanderson, i dunno.

regardless. this is a beautiful story, filled to brims with the most endearing, lovable ensemble cast of characters ever put to screen. they are all beautiful special babies, even the villains, even the secondary and tertiary characters. there is such a palpable love for humanity in this story and its shown in the lovingly empathetic and humane way that every single character, no matter how righteous or how vile, is shown. this feels like the work of a kind loving god who just wants to gush about their creations. this is a mom proud of her babies. yes, even the naughty ones can be endearing.

(i want to make a quick aside to say this is, bar none, the platinum standard for a female cast, this show has women the likes of which you havent seen before, SPECIALLY in anime, there is no woman who isnt a queen here, who isnt serving cunt 24/7, who isnt sliving, like contrapoints would say. top notch ladies, incomparable, perfection, it cant be done better than this, dont even try, cheffs kiss)

its super engaging how the plot never stops moving forwards, how everyone is sharing information with everyone else immediatly, how there are no plot contraivances, everything flows so organically. it feels both loose and tight. its emotional and profound and thrilling and touching and epic.

im sad that i didnt get to see this sooner, i feel that this would have hit me so much harder at a more impresionable age, maybe before worm or unsong or terra ignota, when i wasnt used to coming across masterpieces that attempted things like this at this scale, this well excecuted.

8/10

[residentdormouse]

Hello! This is your chance to answer this ask with whatever you'd like to talk about right now! Whether that be a story you're working on, something you're excited or worried about, your current book/movie/binge-watch, or a cool bit of trivia you think the world should know.

AHHH Thank you!! 🥰🥺😭 This is incredibly nice, and I can't help but feel like I may have an underwhelming response.

I have found myself in a bit of a creative slump since finishing ‘Diving’. As with any good hyperfix, I never expected to get so caught up in the Stand and its characters (it's all from Glen, let's be honest), and now I'm in year two of being solidly focused on this. One of my longest fixes to date (maybe second to GoT - for Tyrion - but that also had new content coming out regularly to help extend).

Honestly, I expected to get to the end of ‘Diving’ and be ready to move on to the next thing. Hell, I was scared I was going to lose focus and not even finish it, as much as I told myself I would not do that. Usually, my fixes last a year, and while I don’t put my blorbos in a wet box on the side of the road, they usually fall into the background and pop in on occasion, while another fix takes the forefront. But these guys are not leaving my head. Canon and OC alike. They don’t want to leave, and to be fair, I love them and don’t want to see them go. So I don't know if that means another sequel, spin off, a bunch of one shots.... I truly don't know.

With the Stand still taking the wheel (again blaming Glen), I had started into a cross. Picking up at the end of ‘Diving’ and heading to a new world (True Blood) but I'm struggling on the idea still. I have a few pages typed up, and one sketch*. But it's hard to find motivation. And again, being up front, I don’t know if it's even worth it. I know, I know. Write for me. But it is incredibly frustrating to work in a vacuum, and it's hard to push myself when I know there's little chance of anybody reading it and getting enjoyment from it. Truth be told, I almost stopped writing Spiral until an out of the blue amazing comment from @anths-girl gave me the motivation to go on. I am eternally grateful to her, and she has no idea of the positive effect that had on me.

And that’s where I’m at. Until motivation hits me right, I've just been reworking Spiral chapter by chapter (damn the typos... What was I doing?!? You’re being sloppy, girl. Just sloppy.) I also started sketching out a few of my favorite scenes from it, although I feel my skill level is nowhere near where I'd like it to be. Unfortunately, all of this, it's just not scratching the itch the way writing it the first time did.

So here I am. Stuck in limbo. All I can really do is hope inspiration strikes me soon, and in the meantime, I'll keep putzing about in an attempt to find something that strikes me during the process.

But that truly is a shitty ramble in response to a very lovely offer to have the floor to speak openly. So, while it is in no way finished, I guess I can share the sketch I’ve been working on for that cross over I mentioned. I’m still not happy with it, but I feel bad just coming to this with my nonsense, and offering up nothing but sad words.

*True Blood/Stand/OC nonsense below the cut

I need to get the features adjusted, especially on Sam, but it's getting there. Slowly. So slowly...

[jazlynriddle]

Welcome to your life - Pt 2:

Acting On Your Best Behaviour Ch 15:

Summary:

They'd seen it in their fellow orphans often enough to recognise the pattern and were now forced to admit, despite their hopes to the contrary, that Isidora had likely suffered similar side effects.

No… they'd always known she had. The Keeper had just wanted the power that Ranrok had, enough to convince themselves that they would be able to handle it better than that naive woman.

With the start of the Keeper’s sixth-year in Hogwarts, comes a whole slew of headache-inducing challenges from the most unexpected of places. Between insignificant pests throwing wrenches into their plans and tedious teenage drama, that the Keeper is entirely unprepared for, they wonder if they'll make it to their NEWTs without losing their sanity.

Or worse, Ominis or Sebastian.

Warnings: Sebastian x MC x Ominis! Drug Addiction! Spoilers! Slow-burn corruption! Dark content! Fucked up 1800s orphanages! MC has no love for Anne or Solomon! Dubious happy ending (it's happy for MC, Seb and Ominis at least).

You can also read on AO3! (chapter specific warnings below)

Notes:

"Oh, Ominis, you're visiting today too?"

Warnings: Kidnapping, canon-typical violence and adorably jealous boys! (And not necessarily in that order xD )

Somehow I suddenly decided to write a bunch of smexy times so, that'll probably be in the next chapter, I miiiiiight need to take a break next weekend buuuut I'll try my best to get the next chapter out on time, sorry in advance if I can't make next weekend!

There's just a lotta work (and triple checking said work) that I gotta do to keep the story consistent and I'm drawing a terrain map for the Keeper's territory to help you guys with visualizing (and myself so I don't contradict myself somewhere) and oh boy, topography, geography, and mountain incline angles, materials and elevation are... ha ha ha fun. x')

At the sound of Poppy's voice, the Keeper looked up from their potions textbook, lowering the spoon in their right hand back into its bowl. As their group of friends entered the infirmary, Ominis gave a heavy sigh.

The Keeper patted his hand sympathetically under the table placed over the cot. While it was nice that their group of friends cared enough to drop by at least once a day during mealtime breaks, it had been five days in a row and the Keeper could understand Ominis' irritation at their time together being interrupted so frequently.

"I could ask you the same." Ominis replied dryly, continuing to run his fingers along his notes dismissively, trying not to show his frustration. He wondered briefly if the Keeper's sympathetic gesture was sincere or merely another attempt to pacify him. They certainly hadn't put much effort into discouraging their ragtag groupies' attention.

Ominis understood that the group was useful and had been helpful, but that didn't make it any less insulting that the clique remained consistently blind to all signs of his and Sebastian's claim on the Keeper. He didn't really have much against the boys, but Onai had been incredibly rude, and Sweeting's bald-faced flirting was just annoying.

"Ugh, Blainey's giving you pottage again?" Garreth grimaced as he peered at the Keeper’s bowl.

The Keeper shrugged, setting aside their textbook, and picking up their spoon again. "At least it's made with milk."

"You telling me that you've eaten oats made with water!?" Garreth exclaimed in horror, and the Keeper raised an eyebrow flatly. "Don't think I could eat water pottage unless my life depended on it."

The Keeper snorted, not seeing the need to respond to the ironic statement, instead lifting their spoon to their mouth again. While it wasn’t great being forced to eat milk pottage every day, the warm and full creamy milk was far better than their rations from before.

"Ah, you're already halfway through your potions essay?" Amit gasped as he spotted the title on their parchment.

This prompted Garreth to actually notice the notes and papers on the table beside the bowl, recoiling further in shock. "You have a free pass from classes and you're studying anyway!?"

"I don't think this counts as a free pass from class." Natty heaved a resigned sigh, shaking her head at Garreth's juvenile perspective.

"Thanks to those two gits, I need to catch up with classes." The Keeper grimaced, before giving Ominis a fond glance. "Ominis and Sebastian have been helping me with that."

"Well, I think that's an excellent use of your time here." Amit nodded approvingly. "I guess I hadn't realised your classwork had suffered. Ah, not that I'm saying it's not understandable. It's completely normal to have a hard time focusing when-"

"I appreciate the thought, Amit." The Keeper chuckled, waving a hand placatingly to derail his awkward spiral. "I'm taking advantage of the safety of the hospital wing to relax."

"I can imagine, though I wish we had better news to bring you." Natty shook her head with a frustrated sigh. "Professor Black finally made an announcement about Sunday in the great hall at dinner tonight."

"Oh? What did he say?" The Keeper asked mildly, taking another spoonful of their pottage.

"He didn't even name Selwyn, just said some vague nonsense about an 'accident' that occurred and reminded us to 'be careful with stray casts, and use our magic responsibly'." Natty curled her fingers in the air mockingly, huffing in irritation and running a hand through her hair angrily. "The nerve of that man!"

The Keeper flashed a bitter smile as they finished their bowl, unsurprised by the Headmaster's behaviour.

"The Daily Prophet published a short article on the incident, so they didn't manage to completely bury it." Amit tried to calm Natty.

"Yeah, on page seven in the corner beside the gossip column." Garreth rolled his eyes, before turning to the Keeper. "It said Selwyn got caned at least, but in private rather than a public school caning."

"I can't believe he managed to weasel his way out of that." Poppy shook her head with a disheartened sigh. "I was under the impression that their parents wouldn't be too happy with them after they flunked their NEWTs."

"A pureblood house would never stand for such humiliation, regardless of the member's standing within the family itself." Ominis shrugged like this was obvious.

"Well, public or private, at least he got some pain in return." The Keeper shrugged, it'd do for now. "All that remains to be seen is if they'll leave me alone after Blainey deems me well enough to leave."

"Hopefully you're feeling better?" Poppy asked with a soft smile.

"Yes, I am. Blainey is just being overly cautious." The Keeper smiled wryly. "I shall be glad to leave my days of plain pottage behind."

"Oh, that reminds me." Poppy's face brightened and she raised the basket she had been carrying, lifting the cloth covering its contents to reveal an assortment of fruits. "I brought some fruit for you, I'm sure Blainey won't mind if you have them as a snack."

"Ah." The Keeper started, unsure how to respond, considering…

"Do you even know what they like to eat or did you just bring a random selection?" Sebastian's dry question made the girl jump and Poppy spun around to see him approaching from behind the group, a similar basket in one hand.

Pushing past the group gathered around the foot of the Keeper's cot, Sebastian placed his basket down on the bedside table. Taking a seat in the chair beside the cot, he gave Poppy's basket an imperious glance.

"I- I wasn't sure so… well, yes." Poppy shifted uncomfortably, slightly surprised by his uncharacteristic tone, she'd never seen Sebastian behave this way. She turned to the Keeper with a nervous smile. "You don't have to eat anything you don't fancy. Really!"

The Keeper lowered their head politely. "I appreciate the gift, thank you Poppy."

"You needn't be rude, Sallow." Natty glared at Sebastian while Amit and Garreth hovered uncertainly as the tension returned.

"I merely asked a pertinent question." Sebastian shrugged dismissively. "Surely you're aware of how much they dislike wasting food."

"It's alright, Natty, he's right, I should have asked first." Poppy shook her head, placing a hand on Natty's shoulder to soothe her, before placing the basket at the foot of the bed. "I'll leave this here then, please don't force yourself to eat all of them, I don't mind if you share them with others."

The Keeper nodded, and both Amit and Garreth relaxed as the tension cleared a little, awkwardly saying their goodbyes following as Poppy ushered Natty out of the hospital wing.

"What was that about?" The Keeper raised an eyebrow at Sebastian as he cleared the table in front of them and unpacked his basket, removing the cloth to retrieve a plate carrying a savoury array of meats.

"I don't like empty gestures." Sebastian replied simply as he set the plate down and began to cut the meat into smaller portions with some utensils he'd also brought. "If she wanted to give you something, she should at least put some effort into it."

Sebastian then raised a fork with a piece of meat attached and the Keeper blinked at him, feeling a wave of fondness at how seriously he was taking this.

The Keeper hadn’t expected their grimace, when Blainey had given them milk pottage for the thirteenth meal in a row, to propel Sebastian into action. He'd declared that he would get them something better and sprinted from the Hospital Wing before they could ask what he'd had planned.

Honestly, the Keeper was rather touched that he'd noticed their preference for protein rich foods, that they hadn't been able to indulge in during their upbringing, as well as their aversion towards allowing food to go to waste. Sebastian really was overwhelmingly sweet.

"Well, I suppose I can't argue with that." The Keeper chuckled, accepting the offered bite of meat with an appreciative hum, and enjoying the rich flavour.

A pleased glimmer shone in Sebastian's eyes and the Keeper couldn't resist dragging their tongue along the fork to collect the sauce running down its side, their eyes pinning his suggestively. Sebastian swallowed thickly as their warm and wet tongue brushed against his index finger.

The Keeper gave an amused huff as they withdrew, enjoying the sight of Sebastian completely frozen in a daze from their teasing. "Thank you, then, for taking the effort to bring me something I'd appreciate."

"A- ah yes, well, you're welcome." Sebastian cleared his throat, ripping his eyes away in embarrassment and returning to his task of cutting up the meat.

"Did you manage to get a copy of the Daily Prophet?" Ominis asked curiously as he examined the contents of Poppy's basket with his fingers.

"Oh, yes." Sebastian jumped slightly, taking a moment to pull out a newspaper tucked into the side of his basket, passing it to the Keeper.

The Keeper hummed as they unravelled the paper and flipped to page seven to read the article.

"Heh, apparently the Selwyn lawyer argued that an eighteen-year-old didn't realise the consequences of his whimsically cast spell and can't be accused of attempted murder." The Keeper sniggered.

"Literally 'your honour, this kid is too stupid to commit a crime'." Ominis rolled his eyes.

"And somehow the Killing Curse is worse than killing because you didn't care if that person died from your actions or not." Sebastian grumbled.

Ominis flinched while the Keeper nodded absently in agreement. "It's hilarious that the Ministry considers a mercifully painless death worse than other means of murder. It doesn't matter what spell or object is used, killing intent is equal, the only difference is that any means besides the killing curse can be weaselled out of with dishonourable lies."

"I disagree, yours could have been far worse than what my uncle experienced." Sebastian murmured, his hands stilling for a moment, and Ominis' stomach churned, remembering the thick stench of the Keeper's blood.

One that had been comparatively absent as Anne wept over her uncle's freshly dug grave.

The Keeper snorted, not noticing the boys' discomfort as they continued reading. "Talk about dumb ways to die. I refuse to pass in such an undignified manner."

This characteristic comment from their lover drew a snort from both Sebastian and Ominis, releasing their tension without the Keeper even noticing.

"Well, at least they didn't use my name. I'll take that vaguery." The Keeper muttered as they finished reading the article. "Not that it'll help all that much considering how many people saw both Selwyn, and myself, in Hogsmeade."

"To be fair, with this framing, the news isn't likely to go much farther than Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. While yours was particularly severe, magical accidents are rather common." Ominis grimaced, unsure if this was really a good thing or not.

"Good. I don't want too much scrutiny on those idiots. It'd just make things more difficult for us in the future." The Keeper smirked as they set aside the newspaper.

"True, and here you go." Sebastian smiled as he offered the Keeper the fork, having finished cutting up the meat into bite sizes.

"Thanks." The Keeper placed a quick kiss on his cheek as they accepted the utensil.

Sebastian beamed for a moment, before his attention returned to the basket that Poppy had left behind. His brows furrowed again before he reached over to grab an apple and took a bite out of it.

"You don't need these. You've already got food that I brought." Sebastian grumbled irritably in response to the Keeper's bewildered expression and Ominis began coughing behind them.

The Keeper tipped their head to the side in confusion. Somehow, they felt like they were missing something.

"Hold on, I'd like a word with you." Professor Sharp stopped before the Keeper's desk as they prepared to leave the class with their partners.

The Keeper blinked and nodded. "Of course, sir."

"We'll wait for you outside." Ominis gave them a mild smile before following Sebastian out of the Potions classroom's door.

Sharp gestured for the Keeper to relax. "You needn't look so wary, I simply wished to commend your improvement, I see that you have indeed managed to overcome your struggles on your own."

The Keeper’s tension eased as instructed, oh, is that it?

"I've received reports from the other professors that your class performance has returned to the learning curve you exhibited last year, with your written classwork steadily recovering as well." The professor nodded in approval. "Impressive effort, considering that you spent the first week of this month in the Hospital wing."

"Thank you, sir. I've been doing my best and I appreciate the acknowledgement of my efforts." The Keeper smiled politely.

"I look forward to seeing further improvement in the upcoming two weeks before the March holidays mid-month." Professor Sharp responded in an unambiguous dismissal.

"Of course." The Keeper nodded, and the professor returned to his desk, as they gathered their belongings and left the classroom to join their partners at the door.

"Anything concerning?" Sebastian asked as they approached.

"Just some low effort attempts to encourage my educational recovery." The Keeper shrugged nonchalantly.

"I suppose it's a good sign that you're losing scrutiny from the professors." Sebastian grinned as the three of them began to make their way to the great hall for dinner.

"I do wonder if Macnair and Selwyn are going to continue leaving us alone, it feels a little suspicious that neither of them have been stalking us since the Hogsmeade incident." Ominis frowned worriedly.

"I doubt they'll try anything, at least till school reopens. If they have any sort of intelligence, I imagine they'd try to repair relations with their family over the holidays." The Keeper shook their head. "Either way, this has given us ample opportunity to accelerate the development of Dìon."

"I think the underground floors are almost complete, right?" Ominis hummed thoughtfully, missing the sinister smirk that stretched across the Keeper's face. Though Sebastian certainly didn't, and his heart rate spiked at the dark expression.

Swallowing thickly, Sebastian struggled to keep the huskiness from his voice as he replied. "Y- yeah, we've just got to furnish the cel- er, rooms, and establish the wards we decided on."

The Keeper nodded. "We don't need to furnish all of the rooms, just a few will do for now. We can probably work on setting up the wards tomorrow."

"Are Onai and the others alright with you not meeting up with them over the last three weekends?" Ominis raised an eyebrow.

The Keeper waved a hand dismissively. "They seem to understand that I'm owed some privacy after all the stalking. They're mostly convinced that the private caning has scared the two cowardly bullies away and are busy celebrating our victory."

Sebastian scoffed. "Are they really so naive as to think that Slytherins would give up so easily?"

The Keeper shrugged. "I don't really care if they are either way, it gives us time to further our plans."

Sebastian huffed lightly and went silent as the three stepped through the doors to the noisy and crowded great hall.

"So, what's the real reason we left Ominis behind in Feldcroft?" Sebastian asked as he and the Keeper made their way through the dense foliage on the outskirts of their territory, having just dismounted Sepulchria a few moments ago.

"Do you recall the woman whom I paid a hundred galleons for information on Dìon?" The Keeper asked instead.

Sebastian nodded and tilted his head to the side curiously. "Of course, I still can't believe you paid so much for a folktale."

The Keeper grimaced. "Indeed. Now that the wards have been set, I'd like to test our established security on the cells and the overall territory."

"Ah, I see, that's why we furnished three cells in the underground dungeons rather than just two." Sebastian grinned.

The Keeper nodded curtly. "Yes, we can remove the security threat, presented by my having spoken with her about Dìon and her home being nearby, as well as test our internal defences. It'd be far worse for us if Macnair and Selwyn find a loophole in our security when we play host to those most esteemed guests."

"You sure we can just capture her without any issues?" Sebastian asked with a frown. "We don't need to prepare anything else?"

"Her father was accused of a crime, so they fled their town. That's why she's living out here in the middle of nowhere." The Keeper climbed over several boulders, reaching back to help Sebastian up as well before continuing.

"One doesn't bring their child with them on the run unless the kid is too young to take care of herself and there are no available family members to care for her." The Keeper shrugged. "Thus, logically, she has lived here alone since her father passed away, without friends or family."

"No one to miss her or search for her. Lucky for us." Sebastian gave a low chuckle, spotting the small hut just a few meters away, as they hid behind the forest's treeline. The hut itself was rather modest, surrounded by a stone fence and with a small vegetable garden out front.

"Exactly." The Keeper smirked broadly, drawing their wand, and giving it a quick swish. "Revelio."

The spell revealed a single red outlined target drifting back and forth inside the hut. The Keeper noted two exits from the small building, one in front and one behind, and quickly devised a strategy for their endeavour.

"Keep watch round back and be ready to stun her when she bolts." The Keeper muttered to Sebastian, pleased when he simply drew his wand, disillusioned himself and moved towards the back of the hut.

The Keeper made their way across the grass without any attempt to conceal their approach. Bracing their hand against the fence, they swung over nimbly, and made their way towards the front door.

Stopping before the door, they rapped their knuckles against the wood and a few moments later the door opened slightly, revealing the familiar woman's unpleasant face. The Keeper noted a chain lock, holding the door to its frame, hanging across the gap as the scowling woman peered out at them.

"You again. What do you want?" She asked brusquely.

"My money's worth." The Keeper flashed a sharp smirk and slashed their wand in an arc, slicing the chain attached to the door in half with a Diffindo.

Using a hand to forcefully shove the door open further, the Keeper cast a Stupefy through the doorway at the woman.

To their surprise, she managed to counter it with a Protego, despite having been thrown back slightly by the door. The woman quickly grabbed a pot beside her and threw it at the Keeper, who flicked their wand, deflecting the pottery and shattering it on the floor loudly.

Taking the opportunity, the woman ducked behind her couch, casting a Depulso on it and throwing it at the Keeper, who clicked their tongue in irritation when they were forced to cast Protego against the heavier object. With the Keeper halted, she opened her backdoor and sprinted out hastily, followed by a flash of red light and the woman dropping to the floor.

Moving around the grime-coated couch, the Keeper gave it a wide berth as they leisurely made their way out the backdoor, pleased to see that Sebastian had hit her with a stunner as planned and was already casting the Incarcerous spell on the unconscious woman. The thick ropes conjured by the spell wrapped themselves around the woman, binding her firmly.

Hearing their approach, Sebastian flashed the Keeper a broad grin. "Hey there, look what I reeled in."

"A very impressive catch." The Keeper chuckled indulgently, digging out and tossing the replacement broomstick Weekes had made for them to Sebastian. They watched their partner fondly as he cast a levitation charm on the woman and tied her to it.

There was something incredibly satisfying about watching Sebastian work, he was just so in tune with them. Theirs was most certainly the enviable relationship, lacking in the need for compromise or justification, both made entirely unnecessary by the simple fact that the two of them would come to nearly identical conclusions with the same information.

The Keeper doubted they'd ever get tired of that wonderful and thrilling feeling, knowing that they could trust Sebastian to always be on their side. Not because he was persuaded by them, but because he was like them. For better or for worse.

"Try not to drop her." The Keeper teased as they summoned Sepulchria from their Nab-sack, mounting the thestral as Sebastian straddled their broom.

"Already did, didn't I?" Sebastian chuckled, drawing a bark of laughter from the Keeper as he rose into the air on the broomstick. "You needn't worry, I shan't solve our security threat prematurely."

"How reliable." The Keeper purred back as they nudged Sepulchria into flight, Sebastian following them through the air towards Dìon castle.

A wide grin stretched across the Keeper's face. These two March-holiday weeks were going to be fun.

Notes:

While it’s been illegal in the UK since 1998, during the Victorian era in the 1800s, corporal punishment was common in the country. Schools in my country still do that actually xP

I feel like Sebastian would probably be the guy who hates empty platitudes. No doubt he's heard so many "get well soon, Anne" or gifts and he'd be like "if you actually cared about her, you'd help me cure her!"

Duuumb ways to die~ Hope that started playing in your head when you read the line xD

Also, do look forward to some upcoming smut finally arriving next chapter x3

[thepoliticalvulcan]

Look, I'm still coloring in the right bubble but...

I feel like we should all be able to express some collective anger and frustration. What even was the point of bullying Biden off the ticket if Harris is going to go on interview after interview and repeatedly say she can't think of anything she'd do differently?

This is the Dem elite thesis that the only thing making Biden unpopular was Biden himself. I.e. he was too old. A lot of polling even seems to be bearing this out. Either Biden had already lost the 2020 coalition or Harris can't put it back together and is unwilling to take any risks to seek out new voters. And by risks I mean actually take a different and definitive policy stance on something besides abortion.

Going on Fox is admirable. I really and truly respect that. Get out of here with that "platforming" nonsense, Dems need to be able to take a rhetorical punch, show they can think on their feet, and that they don't think red team are entirely brainwashed zombies incapable of changing their minds. So going on Fox is great.

Its political malpractice of the highest order to be be completely unprepared to answer obvious questions that are incredibly important to purples who might be tuning in to reevaluate their priors like "would you do anything different from Biden?" and "you say all the time you worked closely with him, did you ever have concerns about Biden's fitness?"

Because you can't go on Fox and say "no" without having an explanation as to why you're the candidate now and he isn't. You just can't.

Either throw Biden under the bus or don't and be prepared to argue that you disagree with the "Biden too old" discourse (even though you're using it against Trump now), that he really did have a bad debate night, that everything else is some mix of his stutter, senior moments, uncharitably interpreted, deceptive editing and his actual ability to make decisions is sharp while his ability to express himself is not; but everyone understood that that narrative had taken hold and trying to fight it was swimming upstream.

But you can't just say "he's awesome" and pivot to how Trump is a wreck. You'd have to be super super super blue pilled to not recognize this as bad politics if your goal is to persuade the persuadable undecideds and shore up the NeverTrumpers.

I don't understand what this campaign is doing and why it thinks any of this is good unless there's a lot being unsaid.

Things like maybe they don't really think democracy is actually on the ballot in a substantive way that will foreclose the possibility of competitive elections in the future. Which I think is an incredibly dangerous assumption if true but you never lose by betting on establishment Dems assuming rules and norms will hold.

Things like Biden not being a lameduck as President is more important than winning.

Things like the administration's Israel policy being rhetorically critical but when it comes to consistent delivery of offensive weapons, its virtually uninterrupted. Ukraine, who almost exclusively only fires on military targets has to beg and plead for every bullet. Israel? I wouldn't even be surprised at this point to see an announcement tomorrow they'd been given cluster munitions.

Bragging about having the endorsement of the Cheneys when you need votes from people who were of military age during the Bush years and worried about a draft to go to Afghanistan or Iraq or had friends die or be horribly maimed.

On its own the Cheney thing could be read as "not even Dick Cheney will associate with Trump" but paired with the hawkish foreign policy? It looks like the NeverTrumpers are acting as a stereoid for the part of the Democratic coalition for whom its not just doctors who are the experts we should listen to, its also Department of Defense and NatSec think tankers who have spent their entire careers working intimately with their Israeli counterparts on a host of issues and developing deep affinities and friendships.

Put another way, if someone has worked in defense for 30 years, not one single year of their career has taken place prior to the original Gulf War and 23 of those years and counting have been since the dawn of the Global War on Terror. I kind of suspect that doesn't make those people all that good at separating the conditions that fuel Islamic guerilla warfare from the often quite heineous things that members of these movements do.

That DOD, State, Homeland Security etc. has tended to recruit heavily from people already predisposed towards thinking that ethno-chauvanism isn't bad if its the right people doing it before they even spend 30 years working alongside Israeli military and security officers is another thing I can't rule out.

Again, don't @ me here. I'm going to vote for Harris to vote against Trump. Although as a red stater, I don't know that my vote matters. I do want to signal that I think Biden running in the first place was a mistake and voting for Harris is the only way I know to do that.

But I'm frustrated. And I'm worried, because everywhere I see signs of a re-alignment back towards the center right and beyond. Not just towards pragmatism but fully disavowing the moral ideals that have crept into the Democratic party from the progressive side during the last two decades. A lot of progressive policy after Trump won was stupid and poorly thought out. That demands corrective action, but the high minded principles were worthwhile and I think we're rapidly losing those too.

[rewcana]

it's the 2 yr anniversary of me getting hit with the corner of a 43lb box containing an AC unit. it scraped against my back over my left shoulder blade. i am currently disabled by that injury, 2 years later. it's a different form of that injury but it is a result of it. i've not gotten any medical treatment because it's a work injury and my employer won't take responsibility for it. im in the middle of a months long lawsuit trying to get compensation and treatment. ive been disabled for 9 months. i healed okay from the initial injury but during heavy lifting activities or anything involving my shoulder it would aggravate the injury. then i got another heavy lifting job and the injury was severely aggravated again after not bothering me for months. i decided to go through workers comp and the dr told me to work and continuing to work through immense pain (i informed the dr how severe the pain was) aggravated the injury SO MUCH that it has stayed with me this long. previous aggravations of the injury would heal within a week but because i was forced to work because my doctor restrictions held more weight than my present experience, now i have a severe physical disability and chronic pain.

i have relived the injury so many times, re-experiencing the physical trauma. and the emotional trauma from having to justify and defend my pain to my managers, health care professionals, fucking insurance agents. my insurance bitch wouldn't listen to me when i wanted to go back to the doctors so they could change my work restrictions because lifting 15 lbs was incredibly painful for me, i could barely move my arm without severe throbbing pain. she wouldn't shut up about the process and only listened when i was having a full on melt down in my car outside of the clinic. fully sobbing and screaming in my car because no one is taking my pain seriously. she finally approved it and insisted that it "wouldn't matter" bc all she cares about is the case and if the company will be held liable. but getting more severe work restrictions saved me from extreme pain.

then i had another full on sobbing melt down in front of my supervisor and manager which is an autistic person's worst nightmare. this one was because i was put into work that i was pressured into agreeing to that technically didn't fit into my dr restrictions and i was in severe pain still. i told my supervisor that my injury was really painful today so i would be icing it. he said that was fine and that i could do so for as long as i need. i did that and then he confronted me and said i was doing so for too long. i rushed away and burst into tears and sobbed in the bathroom because my pain was so extreme and i was so frustrated with people not being clear and feeling like no one was considering my pain. masking pain is such a traumatic and prevelant narrative in my autistic ass life. but this insane physical pain was just too difficult and i felt so weak and pathetic and i was sobbing for like over an hour while trying to talk through this with my manager and the supervisor. the supervisor was taking it personally but i just keep saying that it's because i'm in so much pain. my manager was actually quite sweet and understanding about it because she had been through an incredibly painful injury as well.

pain is really like... if you haven't experienced it to a certain degree, it's just conceptual to you. you really can't understand it unless you've felt its horror.

anyway being autistic and injured in a workplace sucks. it also fucking sucks being disabled with a special sting that it's a work injury that is legally complicated so the lawsuit is taking forever and who knows if i'll ever see the end of it. i really hope i will. these are free lawyers so they kinda don't care but they do but it takes time i guess. gods. i just fucking hate capitalism so goddamn much.

i regret so hard not suing when i first was injured but my social anxiety and avoidance behavior kept me from it. if i had known how much it would have fucked me over in the long run i would have. not to mention the mountains of trauma i went through at that workplace. gods no wonder i've been unemployed for so long (well besides the disability that makes most work i qualify for impossible) i have so much goddamn work trauma. fuck.

i miss the good ole days of dining hall work. i didnt get paid much and didnt really talk to anyone but at least i wasn't experiencing the horrors.

on a brighter note the severity of the pain and disability is much less. i can cook, clean, carry some things, shower, get dressed, use the toilet, etc. with minor pain. i still feel severe pains after periods of lots of activity (lots of cleaning, moving around, cooking, driving, etc) and i can't carry heavy things with my left arm or extend it far for long. there is lots i can't do but i hope to do. maybe on the 3rd anniversary of the injury, i will have justice. i will be actively getting treatment. i hope this will be true. im glad that at least i finally did sue. i'm taking steps tho the journey is slow due to extreme avoidant behaviors (due to extreme burnout). day by day by day by day.

[mitigatingacademics]

{10.09.23}

I spent the evening reading about the almost unbelievably dramatic experience that has been Norman Finkelstein's academic career.

Then, my morning consisted of poll worker training for election #3.

Yes, in that order. #ThirdShiftLife

Focus, overnight, wasn't good. Again.

Attempted LSAT Trainer Lesson #28, as the agenda indicated, but it was a struggle. I was annoyed and getting nothing out of it.

I don't find that anything worthwhile comes out of forcing it at times like that, so I put it aside, unfinished.

Twitter brought me, once again, into the debate surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict.

I decided to see what kind of books I could find, on the history of the issue - from the beginning, specifically, available for e-borrowing from the library.

Put a hold on a few of potential interest.

Of those currently available, Norman Finkelstien was the author of several, including the one that seemed the most worth investigating further.

...a comment in the praise for the work found in the Forward led me to Googling to see if Mr. Finkelstien is still alive.

He is. ...and he's...a lot.

Reading about the Dershowitz Finkelstien affair rabbit holed my entire night.

Finkelstien has some controversial, pro-Palestinian views to be sure.

He also says things like, there are circumstances in which it's alright to target civilians during the course of war and "...I'm not going to be in a cult again."

The whole thing is very 😬😬😬

But Dershowitz is a lunatic of a different breed.

Beyond being a member of the criminal defense team of an impressive amount of questionably sub-human individuals, Dershowitz came for Finkelstien's academic career and right to publish his own work in a rabid manner of a kind I had never before even considered.

It's unAmerican to write to a publisher in an effort to stop a book from being published because you don't like what it says.

It's outside of any stretch of rational appreciation to personally come for an individual to the extent that the result is their being denied tenure despite popular approval. (DePaul University was also strikingly in the wrong here. Yale has a bit of explaining to do as well.)

Dershowitz was not unprovoked...but his response has been beyond ridiculous.

Suffice it to say that then Dean of Harvard Law School, now Supreme Court Justice, Elena Kagan was name dropped as being involved in investigating allegations of plagiarism over the course of this outrageous undertaking.

For the record, nothing of the sort was ever conclusively determined...on either side.

Moreover, it wasn't as if Finkelstien was trafficking in indisputably harmful falsehoods. He has his own respectable supporters, his own evidence to offer for every claim that he's made, etc.

Whether I ultimately overwhelmingly agree with Finkelstien's perspective is inconsequential.

What happened to his academic career is an atrocity in its own right.

I don't know if I'm going to take the time to read his book after all. It does seem to be more heavily biased than the type of historical overview I was looking for.

But that brings me to my main point: You can't just pick up a book and educate yourself. Almost nothing exists outside of the inherently biased perspective of those reporting on it.

Fake news is everywhere.

It makes trying to determine the truth and stay informed incredibly frustrating.

It's little wonder that so many folks don't bother.

Speaking of...

Liz tweeted today about Hamas beheading babies.

Within an hour there were reports in response to the reports Liz (and others) cited, claiming they were false.

(It does seem that the other crimes she mentioned have been better authenticated.)

...and if we've learned anything about Liz since we've decided to accept her problematic self for exactly who she is (while lovingly calling her out, of course), it's that we can't really take seriously our favorite warmongering 👑 when it comes to the subject of the killing of babies.

God bless her, she has a history of being...not quite right...on that topic.

🤦🏻‍♀️🫠

EDITED TO ADD:

Biden claims to have seen photographs of the beheaded children.

I'm not one to believe everything he says just because he's the President, but short of seeing said proof with my own eyes (I'll pass, thanks all the same), I'm not sure how much more confirmation I could ask for.

Apologies, 👑.

You weren't wrong this time.

I wish you were.

(Democrats still aren't lining up for partial-birth abortions, though.)

EDIT THE SECOND:

"The White House clarified that President Biden and US officials have not independently confirmed that Hamas terrorists beheaded Israeli children.

The White House says the president based his comments on claims from Netanyahu’s spokesman and media reports from Israel."

...additionally, I fucking give up. 🤦🏻‍♀️

END EDIT

THIS is an interesting and both-sides style timeline of the major events of the Israel-Palestine conflict from the beginning.

The most recent 20 years are missing, but how things developed from the jump was of more interest to me, anyway...at least at this point.

PBS seems like a fairly neutral source. ...though I'm sure there are some who would disagree. 😂

I love the folks at the Board of Elections.

Never met anyone there that wasn't super patient and kind.

Veronica and Christine made my third time through the same 3 hour class, fueled by caffeine having worked all night, almost enjoyable.

I feel that I owe an apology to everyone that was there this morning because I've done this enough now that my anxiety no longer silences the sass. 🤣

I was fairly well behaved, save for in the middle where I made an under-my-breath comment to my seat partner, Paul, that I didn't want to be a Republican today when signing into the e-poll book for demos -- (Veronica, the Democrat representative of the bipartisan training duo, good naturedly scolded that 'we all need to get along!') and towards the end, after being gently chastised by Christine for not waiting our turn (because we knew what to do) during machine set-up, Christine came at Paul again during voter processing demonstration.

She reprimanded him for not following along exactly and he came back with "we already know what we're doing." ...and, exhausted, over it, shamefully amused by witnessing just how far Christine's patience would stretch before she, too, was over it...I completely lost it. 🤣

Christine was not as amused.

Oh, well.

I told her that they (the instructors) are great on my way out.

Because they are.

She wished me a good election.

I think Christine is actually a rover by election-day trade, as well as assisting with training. Would love to see her on our rotation. One of our regulars is a little 🤨 ...and Christine, amused or not, would not be...that. 🤣

Walking out to the parking lot, talking to Paul all the way to his car, he mentioned that he is, in fact, one of our county's rare Republicans.

Oops.

It never fails to amuse me, though, how easily I make friends with the folks 'on the other side.'

I would far rather an informed, engaged voter that I disagree with than one that doesn't care to put any thought into it.

If you can handle a little self depreciating humor (and I'll meet you barb for barb), we'll be fine.

I'm actually hoping one of the Republicans that worked election before last but not the August one ends up working November. I missed having her around.

We have Liz to thank for my participation in this civic duty.

Elections are A LOT of work.

A LOT of people are involved.

It is very much absolutely worth it.

[wifeswarmacademy]

I wonder how much harder I could fuck up the clamp multiverse if i tried. I just make shit up as suggestions wondering what could be miserable

I have a proposition. We clone the clones and extract their memories and put them into the new double clone bodies. Its increasingly unstable, but they are desperate for time together and for them to be back together. Coming back to life increasingly wrong. Work from trc non clones to stablize it is increasingly distressing.

At the same time, ccs sakura is growing up and just figuring out this multiverse shit. She meets up with watanuki in his shop to help her research more, venting her frustrations about the wizard clans and recieving some small bits of advice.

The trc gang could give up on the clone project as it seems torture to bring them back only to see eachother die again. seeking a different route to get their friends back, but others may not back off as easily. The funniest answer is piffle tomoyo for who, something multiversal with clone boy from X is another way. The bodies going increasingly wrong, and their minds fading, cries for help eventually reaching watanuki.

To stablize it, it needs some original dna and for an incredibly complicated ritual, all of which during watanuki can only think of yuuko, its stopping him from saving clone sakura and syaoran, so he gives permission to break the egg.

Watanuki completing this task for his customer is difficult, but he eventually does it with the help of ccs sakura, who sees him for the last time, a cold greeting. Once this service is done, he has no emotion to it. It does not look as sakura, it warped, hair blackened, and a gaze turned to forever. After 70 generations of cloning, its just yuuko again, but without watanuki recognizing it. He knows that the other one looks like himself though.

Heres the thing with the egg being broken. It did that for watanuki, but also all syaorans. Including the person he just cloned. A new clow reed with any memories from 70 transfers from the old clone syaoran ego deathed away, with a few memories of watanuki spliced in too, but only very little. Both of those new clones done, they escape with their absurd magical powers into other bits of time in the multiverse.

For extra pain, it made every syaoran forget about every sakura, solving the whole "clow reed expected sakura to fall in love with yukito" thing in ccs. They all need to relearn their love. It doesnt get undone but they will rebuild, their love will emerge again.

Thank you for reading my ruining the clamp multiverse proposal i will write it in my fanfiction i will write never because i have adhd.

[no-droids]

Whenever You Want

Part Fourteen of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 11.2K

Warnings: Listen there is some dirty smut in this one yall okay like I was blushing when I wrote it, it has a very stark beginning and theres a pagebreak afterwards if you would prefer to skip over it. Smut includes oral sex (female receiving) rough sex, sensory deprivation, butt stuff (ass to mouth, anal fingering/penetration) so PLEASE LOOK OUT FOR IT PLEASE. Also there is jealous/possessive mando in this, season 1 Karga makes another appearance, and some angst/fluff towards the end

A/N: Nothing much today yoditos just love you all

***

Din said he’d meet you here.

You’re currently sitting across from Greef Karga in a cantina on Nevarro, a closed shield next to you and a blaster tucked into the back of your waistband, hidden underneath your shirt.  You’re barely even looking at him, though—your eyes are attached to the door by an invisible string, forcing your gaze back to it no matter how much it bounces around the room.

You don’t know where Din is, you haven’t seen him in hours.  But you do know that when he left, he was moving slower than you’re used to.  You don’t think anyone else would notice, but you sure did.  Not that he was obvious about it—you only picked up on very subtle hints.  Leaning up against things just a bit more than he usually does.  Taking slightly longer exiting the ramp of the Crest than his normal strides would carry him.

He didn’t say what he was going to do—just that he needed to find someone before meeting with Karga, and you accepted it.  But truthfully, you didn’t want to.  You were worried about him—still are, actually.  But for all intents and purposes, he was speaking and acting like himself, showing no real signs of exhaustion other than the smallest instances you described before, so you didn’t really have a leg to stand on.  He’s been through way worse, and you know it.  You just… find yourself worrying about him so much more than you used to, and you need to learn how to gain some control over that part of you.

The kid was still passed out from healing him and you remember Din carefully setting four pucks down in the sleeping baby’s sphere and giving his ears a gentle rub between leather fingers.  He turned back to you and told you to meet him at the cantina in three hours, but if it ended up taking him too long for any reason, to try your best to see if Karga will let you exchange on his behalf.

Admittedly, he didn’t sound too confident about it—the instructions were delivered with a tone that implied a doubtful, just-in-case scenario he wasn’t foreseeing happening.  Or maybe he just doubted the likelihood of Karga agreeing to do business with you, you’re not entirely sure.  All you know is that when he left, you were almost certain he wouldn’t be late, but you also took the time to grab the smallest blaster from his armory before heading out just in case.

Yet—here you are, three and a half hours later, eyes flicking between the door and Karga as you attempt to keep up polite conversation.  After turning down his offer of alcohol for the fifth time and still not seeing any glimpse of beskar coming to your rescue, you figure this may be as good a time as any to start the exchange.

During an extended break in the small talk, you slowly reach over to the corner of your booth and press a button on the face of the kid’s shield.  It hisses open and you completely miss the way Karga’s hand raises while three of his guards automatically reach for their hips.  The little green monster is still snoozing comfortably while you pull out the four glowing pucks Din left you and set them on the table one by one.

They scrape along the top of it as you slowly push them over to him, before sitting back in the booth and clearing your throat, flicking your eyes between Karga and his guards.  To you, nobody appears to have moved, so you muster a polite smile at him.

Karga smiles back, but makes no move to gather or inspect the offerings in front of him.

“Um…” you say after a moment, suddenly feeling your heart start to beat a little faster.  “Mando… Mando gave me permission to exchange on his behalf.”

“I believe you,” he drawls out in response, but the pucks still sit untouched in front of him as he leans back in the booth and studies you.  “Mando has always had a… let’s say, a frustrating penchant for disregarding the pillars of our code.  My apologies, young lady, but I’m afraid that I cannot accept these from you.”

Your voice comes out quieter than you’d like it to sound.  “Why not?”

“It is… unlawful,” he answers after a moment.  “Our organization operates under strict rules.”

Does it?  You blink.  No, it doesn’t.  You’re nothing to the Guild and you’ve sat next to Din quite a few times while Karga talked, listening to him drunkenly boast about return rates and out members by name.  You’re not sure why he’s barring you like this, but you’re also not self-assured enough to put practically any spine into it whatsoever.  “I’m… afraid I don’t understand.”

“I cannot legally do guild business with individuals not recognized as members in an official capacity,” he sighs, sounding grave and almost apologetic about it, but you don’t know him well enough to know if he’s a good actor or not.  “There’s nothing I can do for you besides provide you with my company, not until Mando decides to show.”

Well now that doesn’t make any sense, and you’re starting to worry that for some reason or another, he isn’t going to show.  Though it was incredibly well concealed, you’re well aware that Din was still lingering in the final recovery stages when he left the Crest earlier and all you have to go on is his word that he’d be here.  Something could’ve happened.  Something could be happening right now, you need to push.

“People pick up bounties for extra credits all the time,” you mumble, still way too fucking quiet about it.  Maker, you’re not even sure if he could hear that over the sound of the cantina.  Speak up, speak up.

“Yes, but those quarry are listed on the New Republic’s most wanted database,” Karga acknowledges diplomatically, educating more than he is arguing, before uncorking the bottle of glowing blue alcohol in front of him and beginning to pour himself another shot.  “They’re fodder.  Up for grabs—names, last known locations, and biometrics published for the entire galaxy to read.”  He tilts his head down at the four metal pucks on the table without removing his gaze from the gradually filling glass.  “Those pucks are different, they’re commissions.  Tied specifically to Guild contracts.”  Karga clunks the bottle back down again and corks it, pinning you with a stare.  “For all I know, you could’ve murdered a member of our ranks and come to collect payment for his bounties.  Can’t have that.”

Your blood suddenly turns to ice at the implication, eyes wide and your heartbeat rocketing as you look from Karga to the three guards casually stationed behind him.  “You—You think I murdered Mando?”

“No,” he says, easily and in the very same breath, before throwing the shot back and wiping his mouth with a grimace.  “Not sure I’d care too much if you did.  It’s not my rule, but I am required to follow it or risk losing my position in the Guild.”

Shit.  Shit.  What do you do?

You’re blank, left quiet and feeling increasingly unsure of how to proceed.  Karga, however, seems completely unbothered and even appears to be enjoying himself and your company.  He gives you another smile, this one a lot friendlier and more genuine than the one earlier, before setting his elbows on the table and leaning forward.

“Look, I want to help you,” he admits, keeping his tone light, “but my hands are tied.  Just relax and share a drink with me until he gets here, it’s not a problem.”

Fuck, you don’t like this, and a quick look around brings another reminder of Din’s continued absence.  Your chest feels tight, the anxiety starting to compound and make you jumpy.  It’s been too long—it’s been at least forty minutes or so of waiting by now and something just feels wrong about this.  Not having him next to you feels wrong enough on its own, but when he specifically told you he’d be here?

You clench your jaw and try to work up your nerve.  Karga is a nice guy, right?  He knows you by name, he knows who you are to Mando.  And while you never really thought about the bounty hunter’s omnipresent protection as being anything other than metaphorical, you suddenly realize that… it might be literal, too.  How much sway do you actually have here, you wonder?  You’re not stupid, you’re not going to try anything stupid, but maybe just another question won’t hurt?

“Well, um… how do you become a member, then?”  You ask him, and you watch as he leans back in the booth, raising both eyebrows at you.

“Excuse me?”  He asks, though there’s a genuine amusement in his voice.  Stunned that you’d even say the words aloud.

“I have four bodies,” you tell him shortly.  You’re still quiet about it, but his thoroughly entertained astonishment is beginning to rub you the wrong way.  You don’t want to be part of the Guild, you don’t want to be here, you’re doing this out of growing necessity.  “One of which I dragged through a blizzard on Hoth by its ankles and put into carbonite myself, so please just tell me what I have to do to get you to take them.”

“I can’t,” he repeats, shaking his head like you’re just not getting it.  “New members are only accepted if they bring in an S-level criminal from the database or if they complete a commission that was granted to them by someone of my station—neither of which apply to you.  If you cannot present me with any sort of reasonable argument for which they could, then I’m afraid this is not a favor I can swing.”

“I was sitting right here,” you return, suddenly finding your voice.  If Karga wants an argument from you to get this to happen, then you’ll do it.  You just need to finish this exchange, go back to the Crest, and scan around for Din’s signal.  “When you first gave the pucks to Mando, I sat right here and you pushed them over to this side of the table—I was present for the commission and now I’m here to complete it.”

He shakes his head.  “But I didn’t give them to you, I gave them to Mando—”

“Yes, but you only wanted to give him three,” you immediately point out.  “The last one, the one I told you I put into carbonite—you said you threw it in because you liked me, it could’ve been for me.”

Karga suddenly stops and blinks at you for a few seconds, and you bite your lip, wondering if the logic will hold.  It’s flimsy as fuck and you know he could very easily rip it apart if he wanted to.  It could’ve been for you but it wasn’t, he gave it to Mando.  You also purposefully leave out the fact that you’re also the reason Mando only gave him three bodies in the first place; your only goal here is to complete this transaction as quickly as possible and leave.  You don’t like the fact that it’s taking Din so long, and you also don’t like the fact that Karga seems so keen on keeping you here with him, no matter how many reassurances he provides.  He said he wants to help you?  This can be his chance to prove it.

After a few extended moments of consideration, Karga finally shrugs like he really couldn’t care less before reaching across the table for the pucks and beginning to stack them in his palm.

“What is your last name?”  He asks, turning behind him to gesture for one of his men with a jerk of his head.  The bodyguard exits the cantina without another word and your eyes flick back to Karga’s.

“Why does it matter?”  You ask uncertainly, watching another guard approach with a holopad as he shrugs once more.

“It doesn’t, but we need something for our records,” Karga explains, grabbing the device as it’s tapped against his shoulder without removing his gaze from yours.  “I can just use Doe if you don’t feel like sharing—most of our members tend to prefer anonymity, including your companion.”

Your eyebrows furrow even as your heart continues to pound, wondering how they can afford to be so lax about some things but take others so seriously.  “You have him down as John Doe?”

“First name Man,” Karga grunts in response, finally breaking eye contact to begin navigating through pages on the holopad.

“Ah,” you say shortly, knowing you’d probably find the joke funny in other circumstances.  You’re not out of the trenches yet, you still feel the worry tugging hard at your chest.

“Very well,” Karga announces with a sigh, pocketing the pucks in his leather overcoat and then handing the holopad back to one of the men flanking him after a moment.  “Someone is collecting the carbonite plaques from your vessel as we speak.”

You give him a nod, taking a deep breath that you hope is slow and subtle enough to not give your anxiety away.  He helped you out, you’re halfway through this.  Now comes the exchange.  Now it’s his turn to give you the credits and four more pucks, that’s how this should go.

Only, Karga leans back in his seat and cocks his head at you.  “Unfortunately, I believe we have found ourselves in the midst of yet another predicament.”

Your heart continues to slam, praying you haven’t somehow majorly fucked things up by getting this far.  Din still isn’t here, why is he so fucking late?  He nearly froze to death and you handled a dead body just to make this meeting on time, where the fuck is he?

You raise an eyebrow at him, willing the building panic not to show on your face.  “Have we?”

“You’re lucky credits are attached to commissions instead of rank within the Guild,” he prefaces, pulling out a large handful of them to begin counting, and your eyes flick around the cantina while you know he isn’t looking, “or else you’d be getting about half of what I’d normally give him.”

Heart galloping when you still don’t see any sign of him, you just decide to keep extra quiet as you watch Karga divvy out a sizable stack of credits, hoping your prolonged silence will protect you somehow.

“The question now becomes…” he lifts an eyebrow at you while sliding them across the table to you, “how many pucks do I give you in return, hm?”

Fuck, you don’t like this, you’re trying to make it crystal fucking clear that your intentions do not extend beyond the perimeter of this table.  There’s no you to be found in this deal, you’re just an emergency proxy in Din’s absence and you only inserted yourself in the situation to accomplish that task.  “I told you I’m only here to exchange on Mando’s behalf, that’s it.”

“Be that as it may…”  Karga glances around the cantina like he’s thinking extra hard about it.  This is a made-up problem, you both know there’s no predicament here.  He knows you didn’t kill Mando, he knows there’s no real reason to be giving you such a hard time about this, and you clench your jaw as he still seems to take his time considering it.  “Tell you what, young lady,” he finally turns back to you.  “Do me the honor of sharing one sip of this fine spotchka with me and I’ll give you four pucks to pass along to Mando.”

Okay.  Okay, you can do that, if he really cares that much.  Karga gestures for the closest droid to come by with a glass for you, but you just grab the bottle in front of him and uncork it without thinking too much, balancing the glowing blue liquid with two hands and diligently taking a small sip of it before setting it down again.  Appearing satisfied with your demonstration of upholding your end of the bargain, Karga grins and reaches into another pocket.

“Four for Mando,” he pushes four pucks across the table, “same rate and return as last time, as promised.”  You nearly deflate in relief as you quickly gather them up and begin dropping them into the snoozing baby’s shield along with the credits, but then Karga reaches back and pulls out another puck, pushing it over to you.  “And one for you.”

You blink at him, frozen in place.

“Lowest level, lowest pay.  Not even a criminal by New Republic standards, just a missing person,” he goes on to say, but then quite suddenly… 

Quite suddenly you’re absolutely fucking horrified.

You don’t want it.  Everything inside you surges up to scream that you do not want that puck.  It’s a waste of time, even if it’s an extra job—it’s too much trouble, too much fuel for such a small reward.  You already know good and well that Din won’t want to bother, getting this extra puck would be considered a detriment to him.

“What if I don’t want it?”  You ask, sounding nervous and vaguely out of breath as you look down at it.

Karga scoffs.  “Of course you don’t.  Nobody wants these, why do you think I’m trying so hard to pawn one off on you?”

Shit.  This is not at all how you expected any of this would go.  You know he’s not really asking, even if his tone and continued courtesy implies it’s only a request.  There’s an expectation attached to this, and it appears you take too long pondering an offer that isn’t actually voluntary.  Karga stares at you and your clear apprehension for just a few seconds more, before finally giving you an ultimatum.  “You said you’re here on his behalf.  You either take all five pucks now or Mando only gets three next time, your choice.”

Oh.  Oh, no.  This is a lose-lose; three pucks means more fuel and less credits, five pucks means more fuel and less credits.  It’s not like you have any real bargaining power here—almost everything he’s done for you today has been a favor of some sort and you’re well aware that things can always get worse.

Still, you take a deep breath and try your best to throw around whatever weight you have left in one final agreement.

“Give me your word you’ll go back to giving him four from now on, no more hassling or hard time constraints and we’ll take it just this once,” you tell him, trying to conjure and put power behind your words even though you’re unsure if they’ll stick.

“Deal,” Karga readily agrees with a smile, reaching his hand across the table.  You have no choice but to meet him in the middle and clasp it, unable to feel anywhere close to good about your performance here.  It was clunky and insecure and even though you just barely succeeded in making the exchange overall, you’re massively disappointed in the specifics.

But then Karga’s eyes quickly flick over your shoulder.

“Ah, Mando!”  He suddenly calls out, and your hand nearly snatches away from his while your body goes rigid.

Oh, this isn’t good, this is not good.  Well, it’s good that he’s here but it also really fucking isn’t.  You don’t even turn your head; you sit completely straight and still while the cantina falls to a hush and heavy footsteps begin to approach behind you.  You fucked up—you fucked up, you didn’t wait long enough and you feel the sharp regret instantly twist in your stomach.  He said he’d be here, why didn’t you trust him?  Your anxiety and stress compounded and spurned you to act too quickly, you made the deal a few fucking seconds before he showed up.

And, as Din eventually comes into your peripheral, taking his time leaning his rifle up against the table, you immediately realize that you should not have worried.  Recovery isn’t even a word in his vocabulary right now—he’s more intimidating than he’s ever been, more powerful and certain and dangerous while he lowers himself into the seat next to you than he’s ever felt to you before.  Everything is so quiet now that he’s here; you feel like even just swallowing against the sudden dryness in your throat turns into an audible gulp.  The man sitting across from you may own this cantina and every material good under its roof, but the one sitting by your side feels like he steals the literal air from the room just by walking inside it.

Yet, in spite of the daunting presence of the Mandalorian, Karga beams and tips his glass at him.  “I believe you’ve arrived just in time for your favorite part of the conversation, friend.  The farewells.”

You stare wide-eyed down at the table as Din leans back into the booth and very slowly extends his arm behind your shoulders, saying nothing at all to him.

The testosterone is radiating from him to the point of near suffocation, you can taste the alpha in the air.  Your heart slams in your chest at the unspoken claim he just made with a subtle movement, and though you’ve never been one for masculine displays, this one weirdly feels… good right now.  You know it’s primitive and crude and you’re not a piece of meat to be fought over, but it doesn’t feel like that at all.  It’s the immediate feeling of security that serves to heat your cheeks, the fact that you’ve been a nervous mess trying to be extra brave this whole interaction and then suddenly you have the backup of an entire army contained within one single suit of armor next to you.

If you weren’t internally panicking at how badly you screwed this shit up, you’d probably be going fucking feral for him right now.

Karga says your name and your gaze snaps to his, feeling like you can’t breathe.  “My associate has collected the plaques, nothing keeps you here any longer.  It was a pleasure doing business with you.”

Still, nobody at the table moves.

After a moment, you carefully glance up and to the side at the sharp, metallic profile of his helmet.  Maker, you can’t explain it—it’s like you feel terrified but not really for yourself, if that makes sense.  You’re upset with yourself for not having enough trust in his word, absolutely, but something in Din’s demeanor tells you that he’s going to be considerably less understanding of how Karga handled this situation than the way you did.

The helmet slowly turns down to look at you, and you bite your lip while carefully placing your hand on his thigh brace under the table, letting him feel your fingers brush against the bend of his knee.

He turns back to Karga after a few seconds, still not saying a single word, until eventually Din’s arm is lifted from behind your shoulders and you feel his leather fingers gently clasp your hand, before he starts to rise from the booth and pull you along next to him.  You both stand, and he silently presses a button on his vambrace without dropping your grip, urging the kid’s shield to follow along behind him.

“Um, goodbye,” you just barely remember to tell Karga as Din begins leading you away, apparently not waiting for the polite farewells he arrived in time for.

“Wait!”  A voice calls out just before you can make your exit, and Din pauses just in time for Karga to extend that damned fifth puck out for you to grab.  Right in fucking front of him.  “Can’t forget this!”

Fuck.  Great.  Thanks.

Blood rushes to your face while you go to reach for it, taking the puck and then placing it in the open shield along with four others in a way that you hope is casual but you know isn’t.  You close the lid on it and then squeeze Din’s hand slightly, but he stays rooted to the spot for a few more seconds, having watched the entire exchange play out.  Though you obviously wouldn’t be able to read his facial expressions even if you could lift your head to look up at him, you can’t will yourself to do so right now.  You’re too disappointed in yourself and nervous—you just stand there silently as he looks back at Karga, staring at your feet and praying he doesn’t do anything brash.

After too many moments of uncertainty, you squeeze his hand again and slowly begin to pull on it.  Without needing much pressure at all, he goes where you go, and you end up being the one to lead Din out of the cantina by the hand still tangled with yours.

*** 

The walk back to the Crest lasts an eternity.

Neither one of you say anything at all to each other the entire way there, and you know he’s not mad at you yet, but you’re worried.  You feel incredibly self-critical right now and it’s really not helping that he seems even quieter and more wound up than usual.  You don’t know if it’s because he already figured out that you just handed him extra work or if it’s because whatever made him late to the cantina also altered his mood, hit a reset button and reminded him of the way he used to be, the armor he’s wearing.  Was there a confrontation, you wonder?  Is he okay?  He seems like he’s… extra Mandalorian right now, there’s not really a better way to describe it.

He doesn’t drop your hand, though.  As you pass through the markets and shanty huts lining the streets, Din holds onto you.  Shoulders tense and strides heavy, but his fingers stay tangled in yours.

Regardless, you keep your mouth shut and eventually the Crest comes into view.  The ramp drops to the ground and the three of you make your way up, and you have enough foresight to carefully drop Din’s hand and lead the baby’s shield over to the unused cot built into the hull walls, closing him in a safe quiet place to sleep and continue building up his strength again.

You turn around to see Din press another button on his vambrace.  He stays with his back to you as the ramp slowly closes, but as soon as it latches up against the hull and locks into place, he nearly whips around and suddenly he’s right in front of you, gloves cupping your face.

“What happened?”  He asks sharply, the helmet looking you up and down.  “Are you alright?  Why did you look so scared?”

You reach up to rest your hands on his, blinking up at him and not knowing what to say.  How are you going to tell him?  He’s gotta waste extra fuel and time on a bullshit quarry because of you, what are you going to say?  You don’t even know if it’s last known location is nearby; he might have to fly to some remote, desolate corner of the galaxy just for a handful of credits because you couldn’t wait a fucking hour for him.

“I, uh…  I-I’m sorry, I just…”  But it’s nearly impossible to form a coherent thought when he’s this close to you and sounding fucking sincere, genuinely concerned about you while you’re stuck worrying about how to break the bad news to him.  “Oh, stars, um…”

“Did Karga fuck with you?”  He asks in that same sharp tone when you don’t finish your thought, but you’re so absorbed in your own conflict that you barely even hear him.  “Because I can go back right now, the cantina is just—”

“Okay wait, please—” You suddenly speak up, “before I tell you, just… please keep in mind that I did save your life two days ago, so…”

“Sweet girl,” Din rumbles slowly, a subtle warning for you to hurry up and spit it out.  His fingers tighten just slightly on your cheeks, still so gentle but needing you to communicate with him right now.

Tell him, you just need to tell him.  If he gets mad, then he gets mad, but at least he’ll know at that point and you won’t just be springing it on him out of nowhere.

“I fucked up,” you breathe out, eyebrows pulling up in the middle as you tighten your own grip on his hands.  “I’m so sorry, I fucked up and you were late and I got nervous and I didn’t wait long enough and I tried to make the exchange like you asked me to but then I had to take a fifth puck and I didn’t want to but Karga threatened to short change you next time around unless I agreed to take an extra one for the lowest pay just this once and I didn’t have any bargaining power and you showed up right after I agreed to the deal and I’m so so sorry—”

You cut yourself off with your own ragged gasp, not having paused once to breathe throughout the entire thing while your expression twisted up with regret more and more the longer he allowed you to speak.

Din stands there in front of you and doesn’t move, hands still attached to your face.

“Okay,” he eventually tells you.  Stunted words, like he’s trying extra hard to find them when yours just fell out of your mouth in a complete mess.  “It’s okay.  You did… good.”

The silence is tense and you’re becoming more and more anxious the longer he takes to speak.  He’s lying for your benefit, he must be.  When he drops his hands from your face and takes a full step back, you take the gesture as symbolic and nearly launch into panic.

“Maker, I’m so sorry I didn’t wait for—”  You start to say, but Din cuts you off.

“Did he make you…”  His back suddenly goes a little straighter, voice finding a quiet edge through the modulator as his fingers subtly twitch at his sides, “…Uncomfortable?”

You pull back at the sudden change in subject and furrow your eyebrows.

“Who, Karga?”  You have to think about it.  Did he make you uncomfortable, or were you just uncomfortable already?  You might’ve just been scared because you were making it scarier than it really was, you can admit that’s a valid possibility.  “Um… no?  I don’t know, not… not really, I don’t think.”

“No?”  He asks, taking a small step forward.  “You don’t know?  Or not really… you don’t think?”

You know you can only see the blade of his visor, but something makes you feel like you’re looking right in his eyes.  You even go back and forth between where you’re pretty confident each one is, trying to read his intentions right now.  It’s like he’s purposefully trying to keep space between you even though he looks like he wants to move closer, fisting his hands at his sides when he looks like he wants to touch you.

“No, he just… lowballed me towards the end of it and I got intimidated, but I’m also not…”  Your expression narrows in concentration while you try to find the words to explain yourself, wanting to be as honest as possible with him.  “I don’t know, I’m not like you.  I’m not that strong, but I’m trying to get better.  I think he was probably just being normal.  He did offer me alcohol a bunch, but I’m pretty sure he also did that last time, so—”

“And I didn’t like it the last time he did it,” Din says quietly, taking another small step forward.

You blink up at him, completely dumb.  This is what’s bothering him?  Is he really not upset with you at all for giving him more work?  It’s like the major fuckup on your behalf just went in one side of the helmet and out the other, he barely even acknowledged it other than the role Karga played.  He said it’s okay and you did good, which are like… five of the most common words in Galactic Basic, a Wookiee could probably find a way to say them.  How are you supposed to take that?  Were you just overthinking this whole thing from the very beginning?  You know anxiety tends to be irrational by definition, but has none of your panic from the past hour been justified whatsoever?

“Why were you so late?”  You ask him, but it’s not accusatory in the slightest.  It’s… concerned, worried about his well-being without having a real reason.  He’s clearly more than fine right now, he’s like a hurricane enclosed in metal and holding still in front of you.  Too much potential energy just waiting for a reason to be released, too much tension held tight and ready to snap.

“I’m sorry.”  He quickly reaches out to grab your hand and squeeze it, before dropping it just as quickly.  Fucking lightning quick, you’ll never understand how he can be so damn quick with all that extra weight strapped to him.  “It took longer than I thought it would and she’s not really someone you can rush.”  His response, ironically, feels very rushed, like he’s trying to address the tangent but also keep things on track, but something in the answer he gives catches your direct attention.  “Did he flirt with you?”

“Who is she and what can’t be rushed?”  You blurt at the same time, not even taking a split second to think about it.

Din stops short at the blunt question, staring at you in a silence that feels like it’s vaguely taken aback.

After a few moments of that… strangeness, of the two of you realizing that you’re both feeling slightly possessive over each other for absolutely no reason whatsoever, you start to feel… warm.  In another weirdly stupid, primitive way.  You know that letting those kinds of thoughts have their day in a relationship isn’t a good thing, but you can’t explain it.  Some deep-seated, prehistoric instinct inside you just goes fucking nuts whenever he gets in either provider or protector mode.  Now you understand exactly why he wanted to get you alone after you admitted to being jealous once before.  You totally fucking get it, you’re right there with him right now.  He hasn’t said anything, but you think he feels it, too.

“She makes things,” Din finally answers you, careful with his words and somehow managing to address your question while also sidestepping it, leaving you with only the smallest bit of information to go off of.  “Did he flirt with you?”

“I don’t know,” you tell him honestly.  “Maybe.  He could’ve just been trying to be friendly.  What did she make for you?”

“She made it for you,” he responds, again not really answering the question but continuing to juggle two separate conversations for your benefit.  “Did he scare you?”

“For me?”  You ask, eyebrows shooting upwards.  Provider, that stupid cavewoman DNA whispers to your lower body, making your voice go a little breathless.  “You asked her to make something for me?”

“Did he scare you?”  Din repeats sternly, grabbing your hand and giving it a firm squeeze.  “Because I can go back, I swear—”

Protector, it whispers this time, and your knees nearly buckle.

“Everything is scary when I don’t know where you are,” you admit to him, knowing it’s the truth regardless of how self-deprecating it sounds.  The only times you’ve ever truly been brave was because of him or the kid.  Stabbing a Corellian and then immediately flying the Crest out to him afterwards, walking through a pitch black forest believing a dangerous criminal was hiding in it, dragging a dead body through snow and shoving it into carbonite, standing up for yourself and pushing a deal through when odds were stacked against you.  Though it’s nothing to him, it’s nothing, it’s leaps for you.  You’re slowly learning to find a backbone, and he’s the one inspiring it.

Din holds there for a moment, unmoving with his hand still clutching yours.  You can’t get a read on him but you know how you feel right now.  Achy.  Hot.  Needy.  Wanting him to come closer.

“Will you do something for me?”  He asks you after a prolonged silence.  His voice is quiet, but… incredibly restrained.  Controlled chaos—his body is rigid and he’s flexing muscles that aren’t necessary for just standing, feeling like a sprinter holding still on the starting blocks.

“Of course,” you breathe out.

Din lets go of your hand and tilts his helmet over at the corner of the hull behind you.  “Go turn around and face that wall.”

You freeze, immediately recognizing the undertone in his voice.  Heat ladles deep into the pit of your tummy, sends warmth pooling downwards.  He wants to do this here?  Right now?

“We’re—” you look around the enclosed hull, “Mando, we’re not in hyperspace, we haven’t even left the surface yet…”

He looks around too, taking a second to blankly take in his stagnant surroundings like he had absolutely fucking no idea, before turning back to you and not saying a word.  Maker, everything below your waist is already stirring, twisting hot and deep inside, but you’re trying to be the voice of reason for a second.

“What if somebody hears us?”  You whisper, and Din cocks his head to the other side.

“I can help you stay quiet,” he murmurs, and… fuck.  You don’t know what it means, but you immediately imagine his hand held tight over your mouth while he takes some of this stress out on you and you already feel yourself wilting at the thought.  Okay.

“Okay,” you breathe without needing anything else at all, before spinning around and standing exactly where he told you to.  It’s just a corner near the back of the hull, nothing else here to look at besides two metal panels meeting at a right angle, but that’s admittedly what makes your heart start beating quicker.  You can’t see him come up behind you but you can feel it.  Slow, measured, but so restrained.

But then he stops almost immediately, before the back of your shirt is suddenly being yanked upwards and you remember at the very last second.

Din carefully grips his blaster and then eases it out of your waistband, the metal sliding warm along your skin from pressing against it for so long.  You never told him you took it with you, and he’s so fucking quiet behind you.  You have no idea how he’s reacting to that piece of information you originally didn’t think twice about.

“Do you like carrying my gun around?”  Din’s voice murmurs soft through the modulator to you, but then the blaster is tossed uselessly to the side, skittering loudly across the floor of the hull.

“Yes,” you reply, beginning to shyly turn your head back to look at him, hoping to gauge his response.

“Don’t turn around,” he quickly interrupts you, pushing your shoulder back into position and keeping you facing the corner.  You blink at the metal walls in a bit of a daze but follow instructions regardless, feeling your heart pound at the sudden display of dominance from him.  He has a very valid reason for it and you don’t realize what it is until a few seconds later, but even if he didn’t and he was just telling you what to do for the fun of it… you’d still like it.

But then his helmet is carefully being lowered over your head and you shudder as your vision is replaced with a familiar black abyss.  Fuck, his helmet, why does he like it so much when you wear this?  Admittedly, you don’t have much time to contemplate—as soon as it’s fitted and secure, he spins you around and you have to just do your best to maintain your balance, not having any visual to help.

“Can you hear me?”  Din asks, and your clothes start to be ripped off of you.  Your shoulders tip sideways with how quick he is about it, feeling him pull the fabric off and hearing the soft sound it makes landing on the floor.

“Yes,” you tell him, but he doesn’t respond, continuing to strip you completely naked in the hull.  Once your upper body is bare and he’s yanking your pants and underwear down your legs, you try saying it again as you step out of them, louder for him this time.

“I can’t hear you,” his voice grunts after a moment.  You know he’s in front of you but you can’t really tell where, now that he’s not touching you.  “Scream.”

You take a second, not having hard evidence anymore but still very well aware that you’re parked close to a marketplace on Nevarro and multiple people are nearby while you’re wearing his helmet.  This is dangerous for him, and not sure if you should, but then an arm is wrapping around your back and a large leather palm rests directly over your chest.  Din repeats his last word very slowly and clearly for you, waiting to feel it under his hands.

Your sternum lifts while it rises with your deep breath and then collapses as you diligently yell as loud as you can into the helmet, feeling like you might deafen yourself with the trapped sound.

“Good,” he growls, suddenly spinning you around and pushing you back into the metal paneling.  “I can’t hear you, be as loud as you need.  Hit me or something, put up a fight if you want me to stop, alright?”

Arousal rockets through you and you let out a moan already, taking advantage of the noise suppression and beyond turned on at this point.  You feel like you’re buzzing with it, lit up with excitement and wondering with bated breath what he’s planning to do to you.

“Alright?”  Comes his voice from behind you once more, and you quickly jerk the heavy helmet in a nod for him.  You can put up a fight and you know he’ll stop, you don’t have any problem with that and the fact that he specifically made sure to wait until he knew you understood him makes you start to pant inside the hollow beskar.

But then you feel him flick a small switch at the base of the helmet and then everything abruptly cuts out and goes dead silent.

Nothing.  Nothing.  You’re standing in a pitch black room where no other sound exists besides your own labored breathing.  Just like the waterfall on Naboo, but you can’t speak this time.  Temporarily making you blind, deaf, and putting a proverbial gag over your mouth all with one powerful piece of armor.

You shudder and he kicks your legs apart before you can do much else, yanking your hips back while you just try your best to cling to the wall for stability.  You don’t know what he’s going to do, you’re completely isolated in here and the only way you can even tell he dropped to his knees is the hot glide of his tongue through your pussy from behind.

Oh fuck—you arch into position as best you can while hands wrap around your ankles to pull them apart, trying to make the angle better.  His tongue licks softly over your clit and each time is like an electric shock jolting through your body, making you twitch back and up for him, stretching and begging him to do it again.  You can’t see anything right now so your mind readily imagines the visuals instead, providing you with a third party view.  Din, fully clothed and face shielded by your thighs, eating you out from behind while you brace yourself against the wall, completely naked and at his mercy, head tilted down from the weight of his helmet and living for the moments he decides to drag his tongue across your clit.

Without warning, a sudden burst of sensation ripples along your backside and causes you to lift the beskar in surprise, but without being able to hear anything, it takes you a second to figure out that he just smacked your ass.  The realization comes more or less at the exact time he decides to flatten his tongue and follow the curve of you back and up.

You gasp into the pitch black and there’s a moment where you just hold utterly still for him, experiencing and processing the sensation for the very first time.  His mouth is soft and warm as he tastes you here, his fingers digging into the swell of your cheeks to spread you open.  You’re glad your face is hidden so he can’t see the shock in your expression, the way your mouth drops and your eyes close as you let him explore you this way.

His gloved hands leave you for just a moment while he continues gliding his tongue against you, along every single bit of skin he can reach, and then you feel a bare hand reach up between your legs and begin to rub slow circles around your clit.  His other arm pushes against your lower back and you’re forced into the corner even more, your naked breasts pressing hard against cool metal and feeling his hot mouth and strong fingers work you closer to the edge from behind.

You’re panting into the helmet, your hips arching back to feel that stimulation on your clit better, and as his fingers move over it slow and strong, you feel a soft vibration against your skin and you realize he’s moaning into you.  The knowledge sparks a different kind of heat through you and makes you suddenly go still and tense right here.  If he stays just like this for even just a few more seconds, you’re going to cum.

“Din, I’m gonna cum,” your voice warbles inside the enclosed steel—just as his touch decides to abandon your body.  You groan loudly in distress, completely alone without his hands or mouth on you anymore, but all he likely hears is the silence of the hull and the way your palm smacks against the wall with it.  You were so close, everything feels like it’s pulled up so tight and painful and it hurts—

A hand clutches your hip and then a thick cock is suddenly pushing up against your soaking wet entrance, going to alleviate that twisting discomfort.  Your eyes roll back and your whole body goes limp as he slowly eases forward and breaks you open, fitting himself deep inside where you love to feel him most.  Your hands claw down the walls with a swell of bliss as he pulls out and then starts thrusting—and fuck, you love this.  You love the way he’s trapping you up against the corner and making you see stars at the same time, the way he’s supporting your weight but crushing down into you, too.  It makes you go boneless and want to riot simultaneously, groaning loud into the quiet abyss as he gives you what you both desperately needed.

One of his hands sinks down between your legs to play with your clit again, while a slick finger presses up against your ass and you gasp as he slowly penetrates you there, too.  Din’s hips work steady and powerful behind you, pushing you into the wall with every desperate thrust, using the arm shoved between your legs to support you as well as stimulate, and you just feel yourself move into a different place.  You don’t have a name for it but it feels like hyperspace.  Silence so loud it feels suppressing, faster than anything light can touch, nowhere and everywhere, hurtling towards something you can’t see but know lies in the distance.  You can tell he’s still fucking the tension out of his body, you can feel him working another wet finger inside you and stretching the virgin muscles back there, but every sensation begins to slowly blur together in a wicked uprising of ecstasy.

You don’t know where you are anymore, just that his fingers keep rubbing your clit and you think he's trying to ease a third into you when your destination abruptly arrives.

You nearly collapse when you cum, contracting so hard around his cock and fingers that you cry out unexpectedly—and because of the helmet, you think it’s just as unexpected for him.  He stops moving—everything stops moving besides you.  Your hips stutter backwards into his stationary body, dragging your clit back and forth against the tips of his unmoving fingers and fucking him as best you can.  It shatters white hot and goes straight through to your soul, wringing pleasure and wetness between your legs in waves.

Your knees are knocking against each other when Din pulls out, his cock still deliciously hard and now soaking wet with your cum, and then they just suddenly decide to give up without warning.  You don’t fall necessarily, but you do slowly slide down the wall like a slug and Din follows you to the floor instead of holding you up any longer.  His sternum moves quick and heavy against your back as he breathes and then suddenly the same switch at the base of his helmet is flicked, and sound bursts into existence all at once.

He’s panting.  Harsh breaths behind you that match the rapid pace of his chest, and the ambient noise of the rest of the hull.

“Can you hear me?”  He gasps, sounding fucking wrecked, and you nod the helmet against the wall while gravity and exhaustion and his beskar chestplate squishes you into it.  “P-Put up a fight if you want me t-to stop, p-please—” he rasps out, almost the entire thing air and so close to cumming, and then his knees lift just slightly and the blunt head of his cock presses against your other entrance.

And, if you wanted, you absolutely could.  He’s got you boxed into the corner but he’s not constricting your movements, he’s given you every ability to struggle.  You could easily throw an elbow back against his side, push against the wall to shove him away, smack at his arms or even just flail against his body in panic—you could do one or all of those things to signal him to stop and you know he’d do it immediately, he’s asking you to.  You could struggle.  If you wanted.

Instead, you just grab hold of the beskar strapped to his thigh and drop the helmet to your chest, nearly vibrating with the thrill and preparing yourself for it.  You know he’s gotta be inches away from orgasm, you know from the tone of his voice that he’s right there on the edge and it’s not like it’s going to last a long time.  Thanks to him, you also feel like you’re just as slick and wet back there as you are between your legs, stretched open by his fingers while you came all over him.  You want nothing more than to give this to him, to let him be the only person in the universe that knows how you feel this way.

When you pointedly do not put up a fight and even go so far as to arch your lower back for him in presentation, Din curses and his fingers begin jerking back and forth over your sensitive clit once more.  It might normally be too much for you, but your body is sparking with lust and quickly acclimates to the stimulation, learning to burn and ache for it, too.  Fuck, it feels so good, you tense and melt into it at the same time, letting him ease you back up to that peak once more.

He pushes up against the tight ring of skin and you can’t fucking explain it—his fingers keep rubbing your clit and he’s slowly pushing into your ass and—

“I—I think I’m—” you suddenly lift the helmet to gasp out in surprise, forgetting he can’t hear you, “ngh—D-Din, I think I’m gonna c—”

He’s just barely able to breach the tight entrance and fit the head inside before he freezes—and even though everything happens consecutively, it’s all so rapid that it feels simultaneous.

Your hips could go forward, but they don’t.  Your body decides to send you backwards into him, pushing him inside nearly halfway all at once as your muscles lock down and just fucking strangle his cock.  Your piercing scream gets trapped in the silence of his helmet as you cum once more—painfully, madly and with every fucking part of you for him.  There’s maybe one or two mind shattering pulses of ecstasy before the rest of your body catches up and starts convulsing, and by then Din is already gasping and fumbling behind you, suddenly realizing what’s happening without hearing the sound of your ragged warnings and then ripping himself away just in time.

He punches out your name when he cums like you just fucking snapped him in half—his body hunches and the beskar digs hard into your back as warmth starts splattering along your skin.  You crumple while he shoves his hips up against your spine, riding and working the orgasm out of himself while yours just fucking obliterates you.  You think you whine his name—or a curse word or something, but it gets strained and your lungs lose air every time his powerful armored body humps you into the wall of his ship.

Finally he eases up and you just lay there and listen to the ringing in your ears.  Blissfully empty, still pulsing from cumming so hard and feeling like your bones just decided to stop existing and the rest of you was okay with it since you were already on the floor anyways.  You feel him shudder and twitch behind you, letting go of that last bit of tension until he too allows gravity to slouch his heavy torso over onto you.

You both stay like that for a while, until your eyes close and your everything below your waist goes numb.  Eventually you feel him shift and your head bobbles as the helmet is slowly removed, but a large palm cradles your chin to stop your face from slamming into the wall in exhaustion once it’s off.  You just continue to melt into the paneling like you’re nothing more than goo of a human being while he trades it back to its rightful place on his shoulders and tucks his cock back into his pants, before wrapping his arms around you and lifting you both up.  The floor and metal walls, once feeling like you and them were one, suddenly decide to disappear entirely as you’re hauled up into Din’s powerful arms.

He slowly carries your naked, fucked senseless body over to the fresher, and you squint your eyes open over his shoulder to see… he’s still got his rifle slung around his back while his cum is dripping down yours.  Not a single thing on him is out of place and you’re, well… a mess is a word that works.  Limp and doll-like, carried like your weight is practically nothing to him after years of having the densest armor known to the galaxy strapped to his body.

Setting you down is a mess, too.  At some point you think he just gives up and decides to return you to your humble floor abode with a patience and care unexpected from someone who just defiled you so thoroughly.  You hear the fresher door open and the faucet squeak, before he turns back around and crouches to your level.

“Stay here,” Din tells you lowly, his modulated voice coming gentle and warm through the sounds of water raining down against metal.  You don’t feel his touch directly, but your hair moves away from your face.  “I’ll be right back, okay—just stay here.”

Can do.  Easy.  He waits until you murmur a soft mhm to him before he leaves the tiny compartment, and then you soon hear his heavy footsteps ascending the ladder to the cockpit.

***

You don’t think you fall asleep, but the powering up of the Crest’s thrusters make you realize your eyes were closed.  Opening them barely qualifies as a squint though; you look around to see steam slowly filling the fresher, the water already running hot and welcoming in the small room.

You know you need to shower but you’re so fucking exhausted, you feel like you can’t even move your body.  You also know you can just do the same exact thing in there as you’re doing in here, you just need to muster up the energy necessary to get inside it and then fall back asleep.  He set you down in the small little space outside the shower door and then got everything set up for you, you can at least stand up and take a few steps.

Unfortunately, you might pick just about the worst time possible to plant your hands on the ground and work to struggle upright on all fours like a newborn animal.  The steady rise through Nevarro’s atmosphere pushes gravity down harder than you’re expecting—is he trying to fly quickly or are you just that dead-limbed?—and then of course, by the time you do manage to fight it and successfully get on two wobbly legs to hold yourself up, the subtle shift of the hyperdrive kicking in nearly knocks you back down again.  You stumble and grab the walls, bracing yourself against them and looking down at your knees in exasperation.  Come on, work.  Move forward.  Come on.

You’re glad he’s not here to witness this monstrosity, honestly.  Just opening the door and taking a few steps into the fresher is a feat—while you’re not in any pain and he didn’t leave any marks on you, you just feel… steamrolled.  Ran over by a truck.  Only having the strength to keep your feet beneath you as you finally move under the water and close the door behind you.

Oh, but this is wonderful.  This was such a good idea, he’s so fucking smart.  The shower falls warm and lovely against your body, wetting your hair and immediately heating you down to your bones.  You don’t move really at all—you kinda just stand there and slouch, closing your eyes against the spray and slowly breathing the mist into your lungs.  It feels so nice—not really restorative even though you like that word, it would imply the water provides you with any energy whatsoever.  It just feels like a comfort, a relief and sedative for your already wildly fatigued body.

You haven’t been in here for more than a minute or two when knuckles tap gently against the metal walls of the fresher, before the natural bass of Din’s unmodulated voice murmurs from somewhere beyond it.  “Hey.  Keep your eyes closed.”

How did he know?  You figured you’d be way ahead of him.  You’re standing but slumped over, wanting nothing more than to just say fuck gravity and pass out right here.  The walls are too cold to lean against now that you’re all toasty from the heat and steam, so you’re just unconsciously swaying on your feet, trying to balance the precedence of sleeping versus not falling over.  You don’t even comprehend the sudden flip of the light switch overhead beyond the fact that it makes it easier to snooze without being so bright behind your eyelids.

The door eventually opens at the very same time you realize you never answered him, but you just commit to the silence at this point.  It’s easy, you like it.  Soon you feel warm hands touch your shoulders, slowly spinning you around while you follow and hang your head, your neck not wanting to support it any longer, and then suddenly a bare chest is pressing up against you and powerful arms are wrapping around your body, and you can just lean all of your weight into him while your head rests right here on his shoulder.

He holds you without moving for a long time, keeping you just like this—your ear pressed against his skin while water rains hot and comfortable down your back.  Knowing you’re facing one of the walls, you crack your heavy lids just the slightest bit and finally notice the tiny compartment is dim and shrouded—the only light source is a single one coming from somewhere in the hull beyond the partially closed doorway.  It’s dark and quiet and you can barely see anything besides the metallic fresher walls and unfocused droplets chasing each other down Din’s naked skin.  Just you and him, flowing water with a sheet metal backdrop.

You think you spend an eternity like that and yet you still find yourself wanting another when he finally shifts, reaching over you to grab a bar of his generic soap but making sure to use the arm whose shoulder you’re not currently resting against.

It glides slow and hypnotic down your back, dragging up over your sides and then back down the curve of your spine.  He���s so sturdy and he doesn’t say a word while he does it, lathering it along your body and rubbing it into your skin.  His bar of soap, not yours.  They started out almost the same since you picked them up at the same vendor, but there’s just a slightly bolder and sharper scent to his that you recognize.  How the bar is far larger than yours because of how often he’s gone away.

Your eyes droop and you feel the water trail over your lips, dripping down your chin and pooling the dip of his collarbone.  The only other time you two shared this fresher was terrifying and he’s rewriting the memories right now, whether consciously or not.  Hot water, not freezing cold.  Standing upright and supporting you.  Heart beating strong under your ear, taking care of you this time until you can care for yourself.

You… you just worry so much more now, it’s becoming an issue.  You didn’t realize how much until you nearly lost him, and you know in your heart that he’s just going to go away again.  Throw himself into more danger, tempt death as always, risk his life for mere credits while all you can provide in return is this.  Skin to skin contact.  Someone to hold.  Someone who knows him, who knows the way he struggles between reaching out for a softness that life has always denied him and clinging to what is rough and familiar.  Someone to remind him that there’s still gentle and forgiving things in this galaxy that won’t disappear when he’s gone, and that he can always come home to them, as long as he can manage to find his way back.

Something sad tugs hard at your chest.  You want to tell him not to leave.  Again, again—you want nothing more than to beg him to stay.  You don’t have anything better to offer instead; if he asked you how it would work, how you imagine your lives would go if he wasn’t hunting quarry on a constant timetable, you’d be hard-pressed.  You don’t know.  But you know what you want to say, because it’s two words you shouldn’t say but always find yourself needing to say regardless.  

Don’t go.

But, instead of two words, you give him three.

Instead of asking him not to leave you again… in the haze and comfort of his arms, you think you just tell him that you love him.

And… you also don’t think the water falling down on the two of you is loud enough to cover it up this time.

It’s not ideal, you know.  You know.  From his point of view, he just got finished releasing all sorts of pent up tension on you, overwhelming your body with the strength and power of his in a way that normal people wouldn’t take as an expression of affection.  But you know him.  You know that he finds it much easier to express the things he feels in a physical way, which is why there’s a bar of soap against your back right now instead of his voice in your ear, telling you all the things you’ve always wanted to hear from him in return.  You know that sex is how this all began and it’s likely just the closest link between roughness and sweetness that he can really put his hands on, something that can fit him equally as well as it fits you.  Love is different, it’s thrilling and scary.  Even to someone like him, who lives everyday of his life surrounded by thrilling and scary things, who’s seen more bloodshed and suffering and pain than you can ever even imagine, you know that it’s scary.

Din doesn’t say anything back to your confession, and truthfully, not a single part of you was expecting him to.  It wasn’t said so he could say it back.  It just is.  Some things don’t need explanations, they just are.  You’re okay with that.

But, you eventually come to realize that he always waits until you’re just on the very edges of sleep, holding out until your blurry vision and fading consciousness can trick you into thinking you only imagined it.  You won’t ever figure out if it’s purposeful or if he just needs that long to find what he wants to say.

Another soft, lilting sentence in a language you wouldn’t be able to translate, even if you could pick out a single word.  It sounds so beautiful though, regardless of how mysterious and far away its meaning feels.  There’s something hidden underneath.  You ache to know what it is.

But you’re so tired.  You just whine softly against his shoulder, not being able to transform the thoughts into sentences anymore but hoping he understands regardless.  He can’t just resort to bearing his soul in Mando’a all the time now, especially when you’re always on the verge of sleep when he chooses to do so.

But at some point, his arms subtly tighten around you and the pressure is one of the only things that’s keeping you awake anymore.

“I won’t ever ask you to,” he says to you, the quietness of his baritone getting lost in the gentle spray and your looming slumber.  “I’m…  not allowed to ask.  I can’t.”

Your expression twitches just the slightest bit against his shoulder in confusion, wondering distantly what word or sentence you must’ve missed from before that would make him make sense.  Was that a translation?  Or a continuation?

But then your wet hair is slowly moved away from your nape and his head tilts down, face pressing into your neck and voice lowering until it’s nothing more than a breath against your skin, nothing more than a confession that he couldn’t ever say out loud with his full chest.  It’s a secret he only ever wants you to know, a truth he’s choosing to admit to even though you could ruin him with it.  You have no idea how much, you won’t know for a long time just how much power he’s giving you by telling you this one very simple thing.

“But whenever you want to look,” Din finally whispers, the only version of I love you too that a Mandalorian knows.  “You can.”

[buckyownsmylife]

Like the back of my hand - Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes smut

The one where Bucky and Steve explore your praise kink.

Warnings: smut, praise kink, poly!relationship, threesome

A/N: this is the beginning of my original plan for kinktober. Obviously, I wasn’t able to get it done in time, but I’ll keep working on it and sharing what I have written so far with you guys! The idea behind this story is that it can be read as the continuation of either somewhere only we know or put it all on me. Some will make more sense with one storyline than the other, but both can be considered the beginning of this one, if you’re willing to look over some minor sentences. I think it can also be read by itself? You’ll tell me. Either way, I’m compiling all of the stories that are a part of this shared universe in a single masterlist called ‘a shared future’, so that’s where this header come from. Let me know what you thought of it!

Bucky’s P.O.V.

I watched her sleep peacefully while I pondered over how lucky I was to have an incredible husband and now this incredible woman to shower with love.

A presence behind me cast a shadow over the dimly lit room and I looked over my shoulder to find Steve also looking at her, soft eyes denouncing just how he felt for our best friend.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” His hand ran up my arm until it could caress my cheek, and I turned my head a bit to the side to press a kiss on his palm.

“She really is.” We stood there admiring her quietly for a bit, just silently admiring her beauty until he decided to slowly unwrap her legs and take a position between them, licking his lips at the sight of her overflowing cunt.

“Look at how debauched she looks,” he commented, glancing at me with a smile. “So much cum covering her body… I don’t know about you, but my mouth’s watering. I’m damn hungry.”

“What are you waiting for? Go get some breakfast,” I whispered as I took a hold of his strands, burying his face in her cunt just as she woke up with a gasp.

“What?” She exclaimed, eyes wide as she met mine before following my line of sight and finding my husband between her thighs, licking at her pretty little pussy and the remnants of last night. “Oh, fuck,” she moaned, throwing herself back against the bed as Steve and I chuckled.

One arm covered her eyes as her thighs quivered under Steve’s hands that massaged her muscles, until she chanced a glance up at me, biting her lower lip in that way she did when she had something she wanted to say, but didn’t quite have the courage to do so just yet.

“What’s up, doll?” I asked, pulling the bottom lip from its prison so I could suck on it before parting to allow her to answer me. It took her a while to catch her breath, blinking a few times while her hips jutted up to drown Steve as he kept on lapping on her, but eventually she did voice what it was that had been concerning her.

“Y-you really are excited to keep this going.” The tone of her sentence left no place to mistake it: it was a realization, she truly didn’t believe that would be the case at all. Thankfully, me and Steve seemed to have the same reaction, as we each reached for one of her hands, him lacing their fingers together while I pressed a gentle kiss on the back of the one I held.

Y/N’s P.O.V.

“What do we have to do to make you realize we’re in this for the long run, baby girl?” His words were like balm, soothing and exciting as Steve kept licking on me, undoubtedly feasting on the spent of what they left in me during the night.

“We want to keep you forever,” the blond man assured me, only momentarily parting from my taste before his tongue was back inside of me, making me groan in the pleasurable frustration of being eaten out so early in the morning - and after so many late-night orgasms.

“W-why?” I couldn’t help but ask. I knew I was being insecure - a part of me only they really got to see, as my best friends in the entire world.

But this time it was different. This time I was bearing my soul, the most intimate and vulnerable parts of me - quite literally, I was reminded as Steve sucked on my clit.

And I was terrified.

But I knew they wouldn’t let me fall down that trap. If there was something I was sure of when it came to Bucky and Steve, it was that when they knew what they wanted, they would stop at nothing to get it.

“Oh, sweetheart, don’t you see?” Bucky asked, scooting further down the bed until he was eye-level with me, cradling my face between his hands. “You’re such a good girl for us, we wouldn’t want anybody else.”

With one last slurp between my thighs, Steve slowly climbed up my body, kissing my skin each step of the way until he was hovering above us.

“We want you to keep being our good girl,” he joined in, wet thumb brushing over my cheekbone until he grinned wickedly and leaned over me to lick the juices he’d rubbed off my skin.

“And we’ll reward you with plenty of orgasms,” Bucky assured me - as if I doubted that for even a second. “What do you say?” His hand had reached between my legs, occupying the space between my body and Steve’s to play with the same spot his husband had just left.

“Fuck, you’re so wet,” he groaned, distracting me even further as I chuckled, legs instinctively opening wider to accept his caresses as Steve captured my lips in his, giving me a taste of myself. “So perfect, doll. Why wouldn’t we want you?”

The compliment excited me in a way I didn’t expect. And Bucky felt it, in the way my pussy clenched around his digits, and Steve knew, by the way my chest heaved when our lips finally parted.

“Do you have a praise kink, pretty girl?” Steve’s smile was warm, almost burning against my overheated skin. I’d never realized it before, but as I laid there, getting ravished by my two best friends both through touches and words, I was pretty sure that I did.

Steve’s cock entered me when I least expected, his hands holding mine against the bed as Bucky kept playing with my clit. His lips found mine while Steve kept sucking bruises all over my skin, paying special attention to my breasts, and all the while they whispered tiny little words of praise that went straight to my head, adding to my arousal.

“Beautiful,” “Gorgeous,” “Sexy”, it all brought me to an earth-shattering release that was surely the result of a whole evening of being brought to bliss over and over again, but into this one last satisfying climax. When I was able to breathe again, I found them patiently staring down at me, waiting for my response.

And if I was being honest with myself, I didn’t have to think too much about it. No one had ever come close to satisfying me the way that they had, in the single night we shared. And I knew I’d never love and trust anyone the way that I already loved and trusted them.

“Yeah,” I whispered, looking from one man to the other. “Yeah, I’ll be your good girl forever.” Being with them felt like coming home after a long trip through the desert. I owed it to myself to give this relationship a try.