#meaning to gideon and his character (like it or not he is a REALLY important character; he's the first main antagonist and gosh it's just

[tbob-enthusiast]

EEEEEEEEEEE

@illusioncanthurtme @bee-snail two for one zodiac special! something in the water today i guess lol

i don't have the start or end of my au fleshed out enough to really comment on the zodiac with confidence. while i know for certain they're not present at the start, i'm not sure how i want bill's defeat to go down. but no matter, because for at least most of the story they're wandering the wastelands.

when i was first coming up with this au, my idea had been that it would start when gideon is in jail. instead of making the deal that enabled bill to possess blendin, bill walks gideon through a ritual that will give bill a temporary physical form using gideon's blood and hair. he then uses this form to attack the pines family directly and with more of his typical abilities, allowing him to get the upper hand much more quickly and with a more serious threat.

what i liked about this idea was that it dragged gideon in from the start and really shifted more of the blame onto him. as funny as i find it for it to be "the pines family saves the world and gideon's there also," i think it brings him into the family dynamic more if ford is able to relate to him. the pines family can only be as mad at gideon as they are at ford, because both are guilty of bringing bill to gravity falls. it also allows gideon to have a clear path to redemption and gives him a role model in ford, which would be fun to have him and dipper have tension over.

what i don't like about this idea is that i feel like it'd be too complicated of a way to start, i think it introduces too many questions i don't know if i want to either answer or pretend not to see. i've toyed around with bill having the same show-down with the pines family, but it's after he shatters the rift and blendin fucks off, where instead of retreating, ford and dipper go after mabel, which prevents bills from taking her hostage. i've toyed around with it taking place right after bill captures the pines family post-failed zodiac. i don't know! i'm still leaning towards gideon and i'll just suck it up lol

but anyway, either way, the zodiac has not been assembled.

but like i said, i'm not sure how i want it to end yet! the first half of the au is horror, with everyone in bill's playpen, but the second half is scifi.

spoilers:

the pines + gideon are eventually able to escape the fearamid once time baby crashes the party. ford is able to use the distraction to lead the family away and find a space ship. because not everyone on earth is part of bill's main crew, and as much as they like to pretend at being demons, at the end of the day they're aliens and would have to travel across the nightmare realm to get to the rift.

so ford is able to find a ship he knows how to pilot manually, rips out the ai, and is able to get the family to one of the revolution base/refugee camps where he knows people from his portal days. from there the team are able to recover and regroup while ford hammers out his plan to return to alternate earth and beg fiddleford to help him build another huge fuck off gun, because HIS is back at the mystery shack and bill has that place on lock.

ive been toying for weeks with how i want the final show down to go down. do i want ford to kill him with the gun? do i want stan to pose as ford and kill him with the gun (because if he fails then at least ford has the knowledge and resources to keep the kids safe)? do i want it to fail like in the show and they HAVE to summon the zodiac? i don't know yet! work in progress!

[sofipitch]

One big theme in the locked tomb is the importance of community, and especially with the framework of those with a disability. Harrow in HTN has two different worlds she is interacting with, one in which the people around her don't give a shit to help her at all, and in that world she dies. Then in the river bubble most everyone refuses to leave her on her own, thye chose to help her, many despite not knowing her. Compare Ianthe's speech to Harrow in the prologue, the way she frames it is Harrow will not survive if she doesn't accept her help, and that Ianthe specifically is the only one who can. Her speech intentionally or not implied that she sees Harrow as weak. Of course Harrow rejects her help. Whereas when Harrow is asking the others to not help her defeat the sleeper, many frame it as helping her is just being part of something they already wanted to do or that they benefit from (the ones that come immediately to mind being Abigail, Dulcie, and Marta). They help her but don't make her feel like she owes them anything for doing it. Which is the opposite of Ianthe, when Harrow makes her the bone arm, Harrow doesn't want anything in return but Ianthe explicitly states she doesn't want to owe her.

The same is true in Nona, Camilla, Palamedes, and Pyrrha don't really owe it to Harrow to keep her/her body safe. It's obviously a lot of work, the equivalent to raising a child, but Nona is never treated as a burden. And I hate to imagine what it would have been like for Nona had she been alone, she said she couldn't even remember to walk at first. And this is all over the series, Dulcie lovingly saying Palamedes invented the breathing tube for her. Camilla and Coronabeth caring for Judith when they were captured. Even in places that aren't tied to disability, a necromancer and cavalier HAD to work together to complete the challenges. The way both of the Palamedes' detective short stories depend on the help another person lends him. It means so much for a story featuring characters with a disability to emphasize that it is okay to need other people, that we all do or will. That you don't need to push yourself to extremes to keep up (Harrow has this mindset in both books and in both she succeeds the most with the help of others, not alone).

To go even further, it isn't just about helping one another, but the importance of not keeping a score. Don't think you have to make up an equivalent amount of help to someone else. One of the things Gideon emphasizes as the most hurtful in Harrow's rejection is the rejection of her help. Palamedes says that he feels bad for using Camilla for his agenda and she answers that it was never his agenda. Him needing her body was something Camilla would never think twice about giving. They would do these things because they love them. This is just me repeating themes but I'm so used to the Western independent mindset, and disability porn of "if you just try hard enough" this series is a breath of fresh air

[ibuks]

❕ hi so i made grown-up/older designs of some. ig lesser talked about gravity falls characters LOL

oh yeah the two new cool rockers in the falls… toby has finally become who he was always destined to be: BODACIOUS T.! and gideon.. hes having fun. hes kinda growing out of the dyeing his hair white phase but he still cant fully let go

i think it was obvious mermando would turn out to be the buff merman rapunzel, meanwhile lazy susan rediscovered her love for cats!! the earrings are from the flashback of her and the pearl necklace from the stan date scene… also mabel gave her cute socks

i felt like these two were def important to show as well. although i also just really love fidds and wanted to draw him LOL<3 he often gets visits from friends and family in his new big mansion. hell yeah robot arm. and tate is having fun spreading his sea and ocean knowledge

the unspoken ship that nobody mentions but we all can see… your honour i love them and muscular tyler goes kinda hard. btw mind his shorts

i know theres sometimes discourse about whether their relationship is really healthy bc mabel highkey forced them yada yada but i think bc theyre so made for each other that they probably ended up actually falling in love. I mean tambry valentino sounds so cool hello??

i had to include them!!! 😭😭 theres not much i could think of because i think theyd just continue their lives like normal over the years and have lots of fun. they are already perfect

dude i made soos so cute. melody fully moved to gravity falls and abuelita lives with them of course. she has lots of fun with the two twins when the couple is at work. oh soos youre such a great……family guy

🍂 i really love all of GF’s characters and felt the need to give some of them their own little future designs because theres so many gorgeous ones of mabel and dipper etc and so little of the others!! (no shade there i just love these characters 🫰（╹◡╹）)

[ak-vintage]

Quarry - Chapter 23

Pairing: Din Djarin (The Mandalorian) x f!reader

Summary: Din Djarin is on what he expects to be his last bounty hunt for Greef Karga. After all, Nevarro is swiftly moving away from its previous reputation as a Guild member’s paradise, and Din has more important concerns now, like finding a Jedi to train his mysterious foundling. However, after capturing a wanted starship engineer who would rather go anywhere other than “home,” the Mandalorian is forced to reassess his priorities.

Your taste of freedom had been brief but glorious. Now you are a prisoner of the most infamous bounty hunter in the Outer Rim – it’s only a matter of time before he turns you in. There isn’t much you would not do to keep from being sent home, but as you find yourself growing closer to your captor and his strange little companion, you start to wonder whether escape is really what you want.

Set after Chapter 13: The Jedi but before Chapter 14: The Tragedy.

Chapter Tags & Warnings: 18+ MDNI! Reader is Mando's live-in starship engineer, dual POV, no use of Y/N, minimal descriptors of reader character, MAJOR ANGST, canon-typical violence and peril

Series Masterlist | Read on AO3

The tension on the bridge of Moff Gideon’s cruiser was palpable as you waited for Din’s rendezvous. At the conclusion of the firefight, both Bo-Katan and Koska had removed their helmets, and although she had never struck you as a particularly warm person, the fury on Bo-Katan’s face at being thwarted by Gideon once again had physical chills tripping down your spine. You watched her strong jaw twitch as she ground her teeth, working to rein in her anger as she paced. Fennec and Cara both seemed to be watching your Mandalorian companions warily, and you felt their concern match your own.  

If Moff Gideon wasn’t on the bridge, where had he gone? Had he escaped somehow without your party’s notice? Was he elsewhere on the ship, hiding?

If he truly was gone, and Bo-Katan had lost her opportunity to accept his surrender, what would that mean for your alliance with the princess and her vassal?

You tried not to allow that thought to take up too much space in your mind. For now, your concern was Din and the success of his mission. Once he had successfully retrieved Grogu from the brig and joined the rest of the boarding party, you could discuss more what to do about Gideon. Until then, there was little left for you to do but wait.

Thankfully, you didn’t have to remain idle for long. Just as you were getting to your feet, your breath once again steady and your nerves calm after the fight through the ship, the bridge’s blast doors slid open, and in strode Din.

The moment your eyes locked on his visor, you were closing the distance between you without another thought, cataloguing every detail of his appearance with every step you took. The first thing you noticed was that the bounty hunter appeared uninjured, his armor intact, his flight suit unmarred. That told you nothing about what his body might look like underneath his many layers, or how many bruises he might now be sporting, but for now, it was enough for you to know that he wasn’t bleeding anywhere.

Second, you noticed Grogu, his little body tucked securely into the crook of Din’s arm. He, too, looked well. A bit lethargic, perhaps, but otherwise unhurt, and the relief of that realization nearly had your knees buckling beneath you. Your boy was all right. You could have wept.

But then there was the other man Din had trailing along in front of him, limp and bloodied and looking very much the worse for wear. Wrists bound in a familiar pair of durasteel cuffs and dressed head-to-toe in a black armored uniform, the man stumbled through the door at Din’s none-too-gentle urging. His mouth was stained red with dried blood, like he had been hit there, and you could feel his dark eyes assessing you as you approached, taking the measure of you just as you were him.

“What happened?”

Bo-Katan’s sharp question shattered the silence, and you turned to see her staring down at Din from the platform at the front of the bridge. She looked utterly shaken, eyes wide and brow drawn with the first strong emotion you had seen on her face since you had met her. For someone who was normally so put together, so stoic and reserved, seeing such intensity of feeling broadcast plainly on her hawk-like features was jarring.

Anger. Betrayal. Devastation. All of them inexplicably directed at your bounty hunter.

You slid up next to Din as quickly as you could manage, giving his mysterious prisoner a wide berth. Opening your arms, you wordlessly gestured for him to pass Grogu to you. Whatever conflict was about to come to a head, you knew he would want to keep the boy out of the line of fire.

You assumed rightly. The Mandalorian kept his eyes on Bo-Katan but handed the child off to you without protest, and as he did so, you took note of the object that he held in his other hand for the first time. A sword, unlike any you had ever seen before. It had a thick hilt made of some dark metal, and its pitch-black blade was long – straight on one side, curved on the other. Even under the bright lights of the bridge, it glowed brightly around the edges, and you swore you could see little filaments of light tracking through the blade itself, creating intricate patterns of pure white against the contrasting darkness.

It looked like the kind of weapon that ought not to exist, like something out of a fairytale.

“He brought him in alive, that’s what happened,” Cara answered triumphantly. In a few long strides, she was clapping Din on the shoulder fraternally then dropping a gentle pat onto Grogu’s wispy-haired head. “And now the New Republic’s gonna have to double the payment.”

Him, she said.

Ah. The pieces were starting to come together for you now. The limping man in the black uniform with the bloody lips and the calculating eyes – that was the mysterious Moff Gideon.

“That’s not what she’s talking about,” Gideon remarked coolly. His voice was low and cultured, and though he sounded a bit swollen around the mouth, he spoke with the confidence of someone who was accustomed to others listening when he spoke. Flicking his dark gaze up to Bo-Katan, he addressed his next words to her. “Why don’t you kill him now and take it?”

Your hand was on the grip of your blaster before you could think, the weapon drawn from your holster and trained on him before you could take your next breath. You cupped the back of Grogu’s little head in your palm protectively and tucked him tight against your breast. You had just gotten the both of them back; like hell would this man take either one of them from you now.

Cara, too, seemed unamused by this comment. Gathering a fistful of his long, black cape in a rough grip, she threw Gideon to the ground at her feet. He let out a muffled grunt as his body slammed into the shallow step that led up to the front of the bridge, though this did little to deter his antagonistic attitude. With a satisfied, almost amused smirk, he turned to Din and quipped, “It’s yours now.”

“What is?” the bounty hunter deadpanned.

“The Darksaber. It belongs to you.”

You felt your brows raise and glanced between Din, Gideon, and Bo-Katan, mind spinning. The latter didn’t seem to be able to look the others in the eye, her gaze permanently angled away, her lips pressed into a thin line. Clearly, there was some significance to the strange sword in Din’s hand that you weren’t privy to.

Din shrugged then raised the sword, and you watched as the strange black blade seemed to retract back into the handle. You realized then that the sword hadn’t merely glowed – it was made of light.

Without preamble, the bounty hunter stretched out his hand and offered the sword’s handle, now inert, to Bo-Katan. “Now, it belongs to her.”

But the princess made no move to take the sword, and Gideon merely laughed from his slumped position on the floor. “She can’t take it. It must be won. In battle,” he said mockingly. “In order for her to wield the Darksaber again, she would need to defeat you in combat.”

You adjusted your grip on your blaster, and Grogu squirmed against your body with a whine. Shushing him softly, you kept your eyes trained on the tense scene before you. Bo-Katan wouldn’t attack Din over this sword, not after they had fought together, not when Din trusted her so completely.

Would she?

The bounty hunter didn’t seem to put much stock into anything Gideon was saying. Rather than getting defensive, or preparing for her to turn on him, he simply extended the sword handle to her once again. “I yield. It’s yours.”

“Ohhh, no.”

Moff Gideon’s sinister chuckle had the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end, and you were suddenly, viscerally reminded of Orron Halcard – your foreman, your jailer. The two men looked absolutely nothing alike, but something about the cold, slimy arrogance of their laughter was eerily similar, and you gritted your teeth against the wave of nausea the sound inspired in you. The man you feared – the man you hated – was on the other side of the galaxy, you reminded yourself. You needed to stay present.

“It doesn’t work that way,” the moff continued, staggering uneasily to his feet, bound wrists extended awkwardly out in front of him. You flipped the safety off on your blaster pistol with trembling fingers. “The Darksaber doesn’t have power – the story does. Without that blade, she’s a pretender to the throne.”

Defeat heavy on her strong, square shoulders, Bo-Katan cast a forlorn glance at the sword hilt, still held aloft in Din’s palm, offered freely. It was mere inches from her hand, and yet you knew from the way she tugged her gaze away from its allure, landing somewhere in the middle distance between him and Gideon, that she could not bring herself to reach out and take it.

“He’s right,” she admitted. Her voice was soft, resigned, and tinged with grief. A pang of empathy tightened in your chest at the sound, so foreign in her commanding voice.

Your Mandalorian, however, appeared undeterred. With a sigh that crackled through his helmet modulator, he repeated, “Come on, just take it.”

A muscle flinched in her jaw, but just as she was about to open her mouth and respond, a shrill alarm sounded from one of the consoles, and you all startled at the sound. A proximity alert, your memory supplied as Fennec darted over to the screeching security station. Something was approaching the ship, and it was coming in fast.

“Well, perhaps she’ll get another crack at it,” Gideon scoffed wryly, entirely unconcerned. No one paid him any heed.

“The ray shields have been breached,” Fennec reported, her gloved hands flying rapidly over the console before her. “We’re being boarded.”

Bo-Katan cursed softly under her breath. “How many lifeforms?”

Looking up from her readings, the dark-haired assassin’s face was grave as she replied, “None.”

None. The word echoed between your ears for a beat, and you felt your steady grip on your blaster falter as your mind caught up with what that meant. No lifeform readings meant the assailants weren’t organic, weren’t alive. Droids, most likely. And if they were droids…

You glanced anxiously at Din, and you could feel the matching distress radiating off of him even from the other side of the bridge. He had come to the same conclusion as you. These were –

“You’re about to face off with the Dark Troopers,” Moff Gideon boasted. Your stomach sank in your abdomen as he put words to the thing you had most feared, the thing you had just come to realize was coming for all of you. With a smirk in Din’s direction, he continued, “You had your hands full with one. Let’s see how you do against a platoon.”

Holstering your blaster for now, you took up one of the many available bridge stations and thumbed through the controls, scrolling through the many live security camera feeds the ship’s crew had left queued up for monitoring. It didn’t take you long to find them – a long line of sleek, black machines clearly designed to emulate humanoid soldiers, covered head to toe in reflective armor plating and carrying blaster rifles the size of your thigh. Their helmets were reminiscent of Storm Trooper gear, though smaller, sharper, somehow more vicious, and their narrow eyes glowed even through the lens of the fuzzy, black-and-white security footage.

“They’re headed this way,” you called out, watching them march in flawless, mechanical formation as they drew ever closer to the bridge. Based on your readings, it looked like they had boarded the ship near the catwalk where you and the rest of your boarding party had been cornered by those two parties of troopers earlier. These droids had a way to go before they reached you, but with most of the ship’s crew dead or unconscious and the internal security systems disabled, nothing would stand in their way.

They would make the journey through the ship far faster than you had.

With a grunt, Cara gripped Gideon by his cape and shoved him back down onto the deck, and you felt the corner of your mouth curl in a smirk at the sound of his collapse. You had heard quite enough out of him for the foreseeable future.

As you continued to track the Dark Trooper’s movements through the ship, you felt more than saw Din approach you from behind. His hand closed around your shoulder, a soft breath of relief barely reaching your ears through his vocoder, and for the briefest moment, you felt your muscles relax beneath his touch. Glancing over your shoulder, you met his gaze through his dark visor and offered him a small, tight smile.

“Okay?” you asked him, voice a mere whisper, keeping your words close, concealed from the ears of those around you.

“Better, now that I know you are,” he replied just as quietly. His helmet might not have even picked it up had he been any softer.

You shrugged, your smile taking on a sardonic tinge. “For now anyway.”

“Cyare.” Din tucked his big, broad palm against your jaw, cupping the side of your face gently. For the span of a breath, the two of you just stood there, taking each other in, and you could feel the fear that you had been so desperately trying to pack away from the moment you stepped off of the Lambda shuttle begin to simmer in your gut. Gideon said that Din had struggled to subdue a single Dark Trooper, and now dozens were well on their way to reaching you. This room was full of skilled fighters – the best you had ever seen – but the fact remained that there were only so many of you. How could you stand against them?

“Cyare,” Din repeated, his voice increasing in urgency, and you let your eyes fall closed, wishing for all the galaxy that you collapse into him, that you could feel his warmth and his solidity against you and know that he would make everything right. He could see you starting to fall apart, and you had never wanted to let yourself more than you did in this moment.

For the first time in months, you heard your name spoken in that low, rasping voice, warped and staticky and familiar. The sound pulled your eyes open, and you looked up at him with a watery gaze.

“Don’t worry. I’m gonna get you both out of here,” he said solemnly. Dropping his hand from your face, he reached out and stroked Grogu’s head lovingly, trailing his fingertips along the top of one the boy’s ears, just like he liked. “Take shelter behind these consoles. Keep him close. Don’t come out unless I say so, understood?”

Swallowing audibly, you nodded.

“Go,” he urged, and you obeyed, rounding the edge of the console bank and dropping to the floor. You pressed your back up against its base and drew your knees up to your chest, tucking Grogu snugly between your body and your thighs. Resting one arm along the tops of your knees, you surrounded him with a cage made from your own body. Your other hand drew your blaster and held it at the ready, safety off, barrel pointed up.

In your lap, the little boy cooed with concern, but you simply shushed him gently and dropped a quick kiss onto his brow. “Keep quiet now,” you whispered. Your voice shook. “Don’t be afraid.”

---

Din took a moment to gather himself, a moment to attempt to slow his thundering heart and ease his breathing. In all of the years he had spent training for battle – as a foundling, as an apprentice, with his squad-mates in the Fighting Corps, with his mentor in the depths of space (nu kyr’adyc, shi taab’echaaj’la) – nothing had ever truly prepared him for a situation like this one. Trapped with nowhere to run, against an enemy that both outnumbered and out-gunned him, his friends at his back, the two beings dearest in the world to him huddled behind layers of circuitry and flimsy plastisteel in a futile attempt to protect themselves. It was enough to have him clenching his fists down at his sides, trying not to tremble.

There wasn’t a Mandalorian alive who feared kyr’am. He had stared death in the eye more than once and doing so again did not frighten him. But Grogu, his ad, and you, his riduur… His aliit in everything but name, in all the ways that mattered. He could not bear the thought of your lives ending here, in this cold, unfamiliar place surrounded by enemies and steeped in dread. He could not – would not – allow that to happen.

“Seal the blast doors!” Fennec ordered, and Koska scrambled to comply. She was young, Din knew. Tough, a little vicious, a fine fighter, and someone that Bo-Katan clearly trusted, but how many battles could she have seen, truly?

On the other side of the layers of durasteel now blocking the way onto the bridge, the loud, synchronous echo of heavy metal footsteps approached.

“They’re here,” Koska warned, slipping her helmet back over her head, and around her, everyone began to ready themselves for combat. Adjusting armor, donning helmets, priming weapons, aiming them at the doors. Din couldn’t quite see all of you where you hid, but he could see the blaster pistol in your hand, your finger resting along the side of the trigger. You had covered Grogu’s body almost entirely with your own, the boy only visible by the delicate tip of one of his green ears poking out near your cheek, and the Mandalorian’s heart squeezed tightly in his chest at the sight.

He managed not to startle when steady, rhythmic banging began to echo through the closed blast doors. Even with their impressive heft, they rattled in their frames, the power behind the Dark Trooper’s incessant pounding overwhelming. If left alone for long enough, they would bend and break the doors through sheer, brute strength.

Behind him, still crumpled and bleeding on the deck, Moff Gideon chuckled lowly. “You have an impressive fire team protecting you. But I think we all know after a valiant stand, everyone in this room will be dead but me and the child.”

Haar’chak. The man was right, of course. Should the rest of you perish in the fight against the Dark Troopers, Grogu would likely be spared. Was that better, he wondered? To live a life of imprisonment at the hands of Gideon and his men, always under a microscope, always the subject of some new experiment, forced to give his blood to the moff’s scientists who had no regard for his well-being? He had no wish to find out.

Before him, the blast doors had begun to bulge in the center, stretching and warping and curving inward, the gap between the two halves of the door widening with every impact. The strained metal creaked and groaned, the sound deafeningly loud even through his helmet. The droids were making quick work of them; it wouldn’t be much longer before they would burst through, and then the true fight would begin.

With a deep, steadying breath, Din adjusted his grip on his blaster and squared his shoulders toward the oncoming enemy.

However, just as the ever-widening space at the center of the door grew large enough for a hand to squeeze through, the same shrill, chirping alarm sounded from the security terminal.

All eyes on the bridge swiveled to stare at the console screen, recognizing the proximity sensor immediately. A streak of movement caught his eye then, and he watched as a small, familiar vessel sped past the forward viewport.

“An X-wing?” you murmured, a question in your voice. You couldn’t see well from where you huddled, but you could hear, the roar of the X-wing’s four symmetrical engines audible even through the transparisteel, and a fleeting flash of pride surged through Din at the realization that you had identified it by sound alone.

“One X-wing?” Cara quipped. Sarcasm dripped from her words as she scoffed. “Great. We’re saved.”

Tucking her twin blaster pistols back into her thigh holsters, Bo-Katan crossed to the communications terminal and opened a channel. “Incoming craft, identify yourself,” she demanded.

But the connection remained silent, the mysterious ship ignoring the hail. It proceeded to dock in the launch bay, and for the third time in the last hour, Moff Gideon’s light cruiser was being boarded.

---

You would know the sound of an X-wing anywhere – you had built more of them than you could count, could likely do so with your eyes closed even after all of the months you had spent away from the shipyards. The rumble of their engines was comforting in the way that familiar things were comforting, and in spite of your desire to keep your memories from all of the years you had spent in service on Chardaan locked away, you couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. The others might have been dubious, but X-wings – even if there was only one – meant protection. Allies. Safety. For the first time since the Dark Troopers came aboard, you felt the faintest surge of hope.

It seemed that the feeling was contagious. Tucked away in your lap, Grogu began to fuss, and you glanced down to find his ears perked and wriggling, his eyes wide and blinking. Every ounce of lethargy in his little body had been replaced with keen interest, and before long, you couldn’t keep him contained; he squirmed fully out of your arms and dropped to the floor, his tiny legs carrying him urgently to the closest console with a security camera viewscreen.

“Grogu – ” you hissed, holstering your blaster, scrambling to your feet. You made it to him just as he was starting to crawl up into the chair, little three-fingered hands skittering across the leather seat. With a sigh, you scooped him into your arms and took a step back toward where you had been hiding, but before you could abscond with him once again, the viewscreen he had been so intent on reaching caught your eye.

There, in black and white, a double line of Dark Troopers stood stock still on the other side of the bridge blast doors. As you watched, the two at the front – who moments ago had been pounding so persistently on the durasteel before them, caving it in bit by bit – paused, dropped their arms, and retrieved their blasters from their mounts on the sides of their legs.

And then, as a single unit, the entire platoon did an about-face and turned to stare down the corridor in the opposite direction of the bridge.

“Why did they stop?” Fennec asked warily, putting voice to the question you were sure all of you were now asking.

Grogu let out a series of babbles and coos, wiggling in your arms, reaching his hand out toward the viewscreen as though trying to touch it, and you looked down at him with a puzzled frown. Clearly there was something he was trying to see. Reluctantly, you sat him down on the surface of the console, and like the rest of the boarding party had done for you, you drew up behind him as close as you could manage, putting your body between him and the now-silent bridge entrance.

With tentative hands, the boy pressed a button on the console, and the view of the security footage shifted on the screen. Rather than watching just outside the bridge, you now were watching a faceless figure in a long, black cloak sweep menacingly down the corridors of the cruiser, tracing the same path you and your team had taken from the launch bay to the bridge. In his right hand, a long sword glowed, this one not entirely unlike the one Din now had tucked into his utility belt. It appeared a bit more even in shape, a bit more solid in color, but that almost supernatural glow of light that surrounded it was unmistakable even through the dodgy security cameras.

Still stationed at her own terminal, Bo-Katan let out an audible breath of surprise. “A Jedi?” she murmured questioningly. You glanced over at the princess to find her transfixed, staring at the same feed as Grogu on her own viewscreen. Had you been able to see her face through her helmet, you were certain that she would look like she had just seen a ghost.

A Jedi, she had said. Like the woman that had sent Din to Tython, like the people that Grogu had been attempting to contact using the seeing stone.

He had succeeded, you realized, emotion welling up in your throat so thick it nearly choked you. Your boy had done it. A Jedi had found him.

All together, the remaining boarding party turned to watch the screens, their weapons lowering as they took in the spectacle playing out before them. This mysterious figure, this Jedi, was a calm, efficient, and deadly swordsman, and with great economy of movement, you watched as they dispatched each and every Dark Trooper they came across with seemingly minimal effort. With a smooth parry of their glowing sword, they blocked every blaster bolt and every swinging blow. What Troopers did not meet their end at the edge of his blade instead were flung across the ship with an invisible Force, crashing into cargo containers, careening off of catwalks, colliding into other Troopers, and falling in a tangle of wires and durasteel.

It was incredible, the way this stranger moved with such steady confidence, such complete and utter control. They were like the quiet stillness at the center of a whirlpool, raining quick and proficient destruction upon the cruiser’s last line of defense – these savage war machines that had been designed for death and yet could not stand before this hooded figure. With a start, you realized that this…this was what Grogu had the potential to become. This was a Jedi at their full power, a master of their abilities. All this time, this was what Din had been striving to give him.

You hadn’t understood. Now, you thought you might be starting to.

It was then that several things happened in quick succession, and you were yanked from your awed reverie so sharply your head spun.

Behind you, Moff Gideon surged to his feet, produced a blaster pistol from the folds of his cape, and – in the same motion – opened fire on Bo-Katan. The princess grunted at the impact, several rounds bouncing harmlessly off of her beskar armor. But then a single shot made contact with the unprotected meat of her thigh, and she crumpled to the deck with a groan.

The rest of the boarding party sprang into action around her, whirling around with brandished weapons, expressions of shock and anger on their lips, but Gideon was faster than all of them. In the span of a heartbeat, he spun, adjusted his aim, and loosed another volley of rounds, this time directly at Grogu.

You had no time to think, no time to second guess, but even if you had, you were certain you would have taken the same action. Truly, it was the easiest decision you had ever made in your life.

You stepped in front of him.

Blaster holstered on your hip, no time to raise it in your own defense, you put your body between the little boy and the moff, shut your eyes, and held your breath.

…

But the searing pain never came. Instead, the loud, echoing sound of several blaster bolts pinging off of beskar filled your ears, and your eyes shot back open to find Din angled in front of you, arms spread wide, shoulders heaving.

All of the breath leaving your lungs at once, you leaned heavily back against the console behind you, hands gripping the edge fiercely to keep you upright. He was unharmed, as were you and Grogu. All three of you were still alive.

Thankfully, by this time, everyone seemed to have caught up from Gideon’s surprise attack. The man had at least four blasters trained on him now, and from the wide-eyed, desperate expression on his face, he knew as well as you did that he would not be able to pull off a maneuver like that again.

“Drop it!” Fennec shouted, gesturing with the barrel of her blaster rifle to the pistol in the moff’s bound hands.

For a moment, he appeared to weigh his options, glancing from Fennec to Cara to Din to the still-bulging blast doors on the other side of the bridge, and then he was angling the pistol’s muzzle upward and pressing it firmly against the underside of his own chin.

You gasped, lunging futilely for him, hand outstretched and eyes wide. “No – !”

The butt of the marshal’s blaster rifle made contact with his pistol before it could fire, sending it flying through the air to slide across the deck plating. Another blow, and the rifle cracked across Moff Gideon’s jaw with a sickening thud. The man buckled to the floor in a graceless heap, instantly unconscious and dripping blood onto his pitch-black uniform.

Everyone seemed to take a collective breath of relief then, and Din turned to face you, immediately cupping your shoulders in his palms with an urgent grip.

“Cyare – ”

“I’m fine,” you were quick to assure him. Your hands landed on this chest of their own accord, running across the surface of his breastplate then his pauldrons with searching fingers. “Are you – ?”

“I’m okay – he just hit the armor. The kid, is he – ?”

You both turned to find Grogu precisely where you had left him, perfectly happy and well, perched on the surface of the security terminal, his face still angled toward the black-and-white camera feed playing out on the viewscreen. The mysterious cloaked figure was still approaching, appearing to be just outside now. They stared down the two long lines of Dark Troopers that clogged the corridor, and without a moment’s hesitation, they drew their glowing, thrumming sword and began to systematically slice their way through the impenetrable wall of durasteel and electrical wiring.

Like all the others, these Dark Troopers didn’t stand a chance. They fell before that sword like wheat to a scythe, and you and Din both watched as Grogu stared on, completely enraptured, the palm of his little hand pressed fervently against the viewscreen as though trying to touch the hooded swordsman through it.

With a heavy, knowing sigh, the bounty hunter glanced down at you, meeting your gaze through his impassive visor. A moment of understanding passed between you, silent yet poignant, and you swallowed thickly as you realized the same thing that he did – that you were all standing on the edge of a precipice and that the moment that you had been dreading was upon you sooner than you had ever considered.

Din’s quest had been to deliver Grogu to a Jedi to be trained in the ways of the Force, and now, a Jedi had delivered themself directly to him.

Turning to face the rest of the party, the Mandalorian commanded, “Open the doors.”

No one moved immediately to comply, all of them too absorbed with the fact that this bizarre figure who was clearly capable of so much destruction with so little effort was now mere feet away, decimating the forces outside the blast doors with deadly precision. It seemed as though everyone had grown a bit wary of this supposed savior, and there didn’t seem to be anyone eager to make it easier for them.

“I said open the doors,” Din repeated.

“Are you crazy?” Fennec snapped, exasperated.

He glanced back at you then, and with a somber nod, you thumbed through a few controls on the nearest terminal. The three-layered durasteel doors shook and shuddered in their frames, heavily damaged from the Dark Trooper’s assault, but after a few groans of protest, they eventually peeled back, trembling to a stop as the bulging metal ran into the edges of the doorframe. From the corridor beyond, a mix of smoke and steam spilled in, filling the air with the acrid scent of ozone. Hot metal and burning electrical wiring, you knew, from the felled Dark Troopers. The hallway was thick with it, so many of them destroyed in such a small space, and it did nothing to ease the anxious pounding of your heart as Din gestured for you to bring Grogu forward.

Scooping the boy into your arms, you followed close behind the bounty hunter and tentatively approached the open doorway. It did not take long for the hooded figure to appear, emerging from the fog clad in billowing black robes like a dark specter. Silent and still, the Jedi retracted their glowing sword, which was apparently bright green, and for the first time, you noticed that they were wearing a single leather glove on their right hand. Their left hand was bare, and it was with both hands that they reached up and pulled back the obscuring fabric of their hood.

A young human man, no more than 30, with dark blonde hair and piercing blue eyes stared back at you. You were struck at once by his placid expression, by the way he carried himself with an almost profound, steady calmness that exuded both confidence and humility. Now unarmed, hands clasped formally in front of him, he oozed a kind of gentle competence that called to mind the same image from earlier – the serenity at the center of a whirlpool, the peace in the eye of a storm.

“Are you a Jedi?” Din asked, wariness coloring his words even through his vocoder.

The strange man nodded once. “I am.” His gaze flicked over the bounty hunter’s shoulder then, making solemn eye contact directly with you and then with Grogu. Extending his bare hand, he beckoned to the child, palm up. “Come, little one.”

Your grip tightened on the boy unconsciously, and with a quiet, concerned whine, Grogu looked up at you and then Din. His eyes were wide, his wrinkly brow pulled up in the center, his ears turned down.

“He doesn’t want to go with you,” the Mandalorian said, angling his body protectively between the Jedi and you.

“He wants your permission,” the man countered. Din was visibly taken aback by this, as were you, your eyebrows raising to meet your hairline as you stared at the Jedi incredulously. “He is strong with the Force, but talent without training is nothing. I will give my life to protect the child, but he will not be safe until he masters his abilities.”

Silently, your bounty hunter stared at the strange man for a beat, contemplating his words. Tension stretched between them, Din taking the measure of him behind the anonymity of his helmet, and to his credit, the younger man did not flinch or fidget. He simply stood and waited until the Mandalorian gave him a subtle nod.

Closing the distance between the two of you, Din met your gaze wordlessly and opened his arms, reaching for Grogu. Your stomach dropped like a lead weight in your abdomen, your throat swelling with choked-back emotion as you understood what was about to happen. You recalled suddenly the day Din had taken you to Nevarro for the first time, the day he had attempted to turn you in for your bounty and hand you over to Orron. Parting from the little boy in your arms had broken your heart even then, the idea of never seeing him again moving you to tears.

What would it do to your heart to say goodbye to him now, all these months later? What would it do to Din’s?

Still, you knew you could not refuse him. You had no right to override Din’s wishes like that, and you had no right to hold Grogu back from achieving all of the incredible things you knew he was capable of. So rather than hanging on tight, the way you wished so desperately that you could, you instead tucked the boy’s soft little head against your neck for a brief moment, pressed a kiss to his forehead, and then passed him into Din’s waiting arms.

Grogu squirmed for the briefest moment, uncertainty shining in his wide, dark eyes, but the bounty hunter was quick to soothe him. Voice low, tender, and husky with emotion, he murmured, “Hey, go on. That’s who you belong with – he’s one of your kind.” Din brought the child up close to his face, holding him so gently mere inches from his helmet. “I’ll see you again, I promise.”

Batwing ears twitching, Grogu extended one little, three-clawed hand, tracing his fingertips and then flattening his palm against the cool, beskar cheek of Din’s helmet. You watched with tear-stung eyes as the two – father and son, in all the ways that mattered – simply gazed at each other for a moment as though memorizing each other’s faces, burning the image of the other into their memory forevermore.

Except…

Except Grogu could not see Din’s face. Not really.

The same thought seemed to occur to him then. That this would be the image of him that this child would carry with him throughout his life – the impassive, anonymous, expressionless face of the helmet he had worn since he was a child himself. And so he did the thing that you never would have expected, the thing for which you never would have asked but had secretly yearned. With slow, trembling movements, the Mandalorian Din Djarin reached up, tucked his thumb under the chin of his helmet, released the pneumatic seal keeping it in place, and lifted the thing up and over his head.

For a wild moment, you consider turning around. Or covering your eyes. Something – anything – to keep from seeing the face of the man who had hunted you, captured you, then saved you; the man who had given you a home and a family for the first time since you were a child; the man who had encouraged you to make choices for yourself, to speak your mind, to exercise your creativity, to flex your expertise; the man you had fallen in love with long before you had ever admitted it to yourself or to him.

He had had so many opportunities to show you his face before now, so many chances to share himself with you in that way, and he had not taken them. This moment was between father and son, a moment of connection and comfort for the boy who would be leaving this ship with a stranger, perhaps never to return. Was it right for you to look, to see him like this?

All of these thoughts rushed through your mind as the helmet receded, as he lifted it and sat it off to the side atop a nearby terminal. And yet, they were not enough. Because Din…

Maker, Din was beautiful. Tanned skin kissed with sweat, dark brown hair cropped close on the sides but longer on the top, a strong brow, a prominent nose, and full, soft-looking lips that turned down ever so slightly in the corners. His big, dark brown eyes were red around the edges and shone with unshed tears, and short, patchy stubble graced his upper lip and cheeks. His black cowl covered his neck all the way up to the underside of his jaw and cupped about a quarter of the way up the back of his skull.

He was everything you had thought he would be, everything you had known he would be from the stolen moment caressing this face in the dark. And he was also so much more.

The tears stinging your eyes spilled over then, streaming softly, silently down your face as Grogu took Din in. So much gentleness and love shone in those dark, mirror-like eyes, it made your heart ache. And then, without a moment’s hesitation, the boy pressed his hand to the bounty hunter’s cheek, right where it had been on the helmet, and Din’s watery eyes fell shut at the sensation.

“All right, pal. It’s time to go,” he rasped, voice thick and soft and so unfamiliar without his vocoder. You could count on one hand the number of times you had heard it, and it never failed to make your heart squeeze in your chest. “Don’t be afraid.” He offered the boy a small, encouraging smile then bent down, setting him on the ground.

Grogu protested for a moment, clearly uncertain, clinging closely to Din’s boot and staring up at him pleadingly, but the Mandalorian did not give in. He simply gave him an encouraging gesture and a gentle little push with is foot, urging him in the direction of the Jedi still waiting patiently in the doorway.

Just as you began to question whether the child would ever willingly approach the other man, a gentle whirring sound reached your ears, and a blue and white R2 series astromech droid came rolling onto the bridge, stopping beside the cloaked man with a jaunty whistle. The sound immediately got Grogu’s attention; he released Din’s leg and turned to face it, taking a few hesitant steps in its direction with bright, fascinated eyes. The boy looked small even next to the squat little droid, the former only about a third of the latter’s height, and you watched as the astromech leaned down almost as if to meet his gaze. The two watched each other for a moment, Grogu cooing softly while the R2 unit beeped and babbled at him. Before long, the droid let out another joyful whistle and began rocking back and forth on its leg stabilizers with enthusiasm.

Without being able to understand binary, it seemed to you that the two had come to some sort of understanding. The astromech even seemed…happy to see him?

This was enough for Din, it seemed. Glancing up to the Jedi in the doorway, he gave the other man a small nod of approval, which the Jedi returned. The cloaked man looked down at the child, and then the boy was extending both of his arms up into the air, the universal gesture of all little children asking to be held.

So that was it then, you realized. Grogu was agreeing to go. Grogu was asking to go.

Bending at the waist, the Jedi stooped down to Grogu’s level, tucked his hands under the boy’s arms, and lifted him effortlessly into the air, cradling him against his body.

“May the Force be with you,” he said solemnly, and before you could respond, before you could stop to think about how wrong it looked for Grogu to be in this strange man’s arms, before you could reach for him, pull him back where he belonged – with Din, with you – the Jedi turned on his heel and retreated back toward the lift at the end of the corridor, the little astromech trailing along behind him.

Grogu peered up over his new guardian’s shoulder the entire way, his dark eyes fixed on Din. You drew your lips between your teeth and bit down hard to stifle your sobs as you took in the Mandalorian’s expression – dark eyes wet and shining but cheeks dry, the tip of his nose red, the little encouraging smile that flashed across his mouth for the briefest of moments before disappearing, unable to sustain itself in the face of his grief. His fingers twitched ineffectually down at his sides, as though fighting the urge to reach out his hands to the boy, and the muscles in his jaw feathered as he clenched his teeth.

He would not let his son see him cry.

He was so strong, your sweet bounty hunter.

When the Jedi reached the lift, he turned back around to face the bridge, rotating Grogu in his grip so he could do the same. A subtle nod and a barely-there smile of reassurance from Din, and then the lift door slid closed with painful finality, and they were gone.

---

You weren’t certain how long you and the other members of the boarding party stood there after that, silent and more than a little off-kilter from the emotional and physical whiplash of the last 15 minutes. The sickening, all-consuming threat of the Dark Trooper platoon. The threat on Bo-Katan’s life and her subsequent injury. The threat on Grogu’s life and the near-death experiences of both you and Din attempting to keep him safe. The arrival of a Jedi. The departure of the child that each and every one of you had fought and killed to save, to bring home to the man who loved him like a son.

With the boy gone, the mission was over. Not a failure, but it also didn’t feel quite like a success because you knew he would not be leaving with you when you departed the light cruiser. And Moff Gideon had been captured and subdued, which was certainly a victory, but Bo-Katan still did not have possession of the Darksaber and thus was no closer to her goal of ascending the Mandalorian throne.

So many weeks of preparation, so many favors called in, so much blood spilled, and you could not help but feel as though you were not much better off than you had been after departing Tython. You needed to remind yourself that at the very least, Grogu was no longer in the hands of an enemy but rather under the care of a powerful man who was the closest you had ever seen to a sorcerer outside of a holovid. If nothing else, you were confident that someone with those sorts of abilities at his disposal would be able to protect the boy from any who would do him harm, and that was substantially better than remaining in the custody of the Empire.

And, of course, there was the matter of Din’s helmet, left abandoned on the surface of a terminal a few feet away as the man continued to stare wordlessly down the corridor.

Approaching carefully, cautiously, you picked up the helmet and came to stand in front of him, looking at him head-on for the first time.

If it was possible, your bounty hunter was even more beautiful up close. From this distance, you could see the faintest strands of silver in his hair and in his stubble, and his impossibly dark eyes shone with a depth of emotion that had more of your own tears spilling down your cheeks. He was achingly handsome, but in your core, you knew that you were never meant to see him like this. This face was never meant for you.

“Din,” you murmured wetly, voice breaking as you brought his helmet up to hover over his head. “C’mon, let’s get this back on you, yeah?”

But before you could pull it down over his forehead, the Mandalorian met your gaze and placed his gloved hands gently, tenderly over yours, stopping you in mid-air. Wordlessly, his plush lower lip trembling, he shook his head and guided you to bring the helmet back down. Taking it from your grasp, he instead chose to tuck it under his arm.

“Din?” you echoed, uncertain.

Subtly, the bounty hunter shook his head and, with his free hand, cupped your jaw and drew you to him. He pressed a soft kiss to your forehead, the gesture painfully tender, and let out a soft sigh against your skin.

“It’s all right, cyare,” he breathed into your hairline, voice gravelly and coarse with grief. “Everything is as it should be.”

You felt warm wetness bloom on your skin as he gathered you close, and after a time, you could no longer tell which tears on your cheeks were yours and which were his.

---

Notes: Thank you all so much for your patience on the long wait between updates. Life got busy, and I overcommitted on Tumblr prompts, and here we are.

As I'm sure you can tell, we are coming to a close on this story in the next couple chapters. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you coming on this journey with me. I adore you all. <3

Mando'a Translations:

nu kyr’adyc, shi taab’echaaj’la - "Not gone, merely marching far away." A Mandalorian saying of remembrance roughly equivalent to "rest in peace." kyr’am - death ad - child, gender neutral riduur - spouse, gender neutral aliit - family or clan haar'chak - damn it

[ozfi]

mabel and stanley are very entrenched in reality. they have no choice. mabel uses her imagination and stanley straight up lies to people. and this is how mabel copes with the bad parts of reality "shes 12" AND YET PEOPLE ARE MEAN TO HER FOR THIS. and this is how stanley has lived her whole life since she was abandoned by her family. stanford and dipper have been bullied for being "weird" openly, as in having Physical Differences, and in this they turn away from reality and look to cryptozoology and other occult things to look away from the humans they dont feel comfortable with. and dipper wants to be cool with the older teens and people not his own age, stanford believes hes meant for Better at nerd college, and in their own ways mabel trying to live a normal life as a 12 yr old girl and have fun in the real life with her brother and twin (didnt have normal friends before grenda and candy, but now does!), stanley wanting to spend time with her brother (who was her only friend at school because she was a problem child), and both of them just wanting to be with their family/friend/twin cause rifts in dipper and stanfords desires to go Beyond to see More to be Better Than This because of how isolated they feel from the people around them (those meant to be their "Equals"). dipper never gets a friend his own age but ends up being actually friends w wendy, fiddleford abandoned stanford when things got dangerous because he didnt want to be involved with the end of the world.

theres the instance of stanley saying dipper reminds him of herself in the earlier mind episodes which is a red herring because shes projecting in a trans way . which im getting into. the happiest character in this show is consistently mabel. and shes very entrenched in reality. shes imagination. shes real. she finds a way to be happy no matter what. and she is happy despite being a pre/teenage girl. that takes POWER. but you contrast that with stanley whose entire sense of masculinity is a facade and uses it to scam and manipulate people, and has been doing that the majority of his life as a defense mechanism and to survive, but ... in comparison to dipper, who she does say some pretty charged stuff to, and dipper, who uses almost the majority of the first season getting offended about his masculinity being insulted and then making that everyones problem and ruining everyones day. dippers masculinity is a cage, his thoughts of being better than others are #coping, his "more feminine" traits are what make him happy, the name Dipper was not his choice but a cruel nickname used by his bullies about his birthmark (his difference, his weirdness). which - thats what stan is relating to dipper about! "people think hes a good for nothing and that he'll never go anywhere" while dipper is chopping wood . Physical Strength. where dipper is trying to be cool. and masculine. i could put this better but i was saying it the whole time. dippers attempts at hypermasculinity hurt him. stans hypermasculinity hurts her. neither of them are happy like that. they are both Transfem as fuck

and also let me talk about the antisemitism cuz HOO-EE this is the reversal of good christians going to a small town and being accosted by the occult and ambiguous jews and weird pagans. this is a show about a jewish family in a small conservative town that treats them very oddly and theres the inherent distrust of them even outside the huckster shack (and stan being a conman is important to ME OKAY). all open human enemies are christian as fuck like gideon (+his dad. his poor mom needs to get out of there i really hope she does) is the reason bill gets out at all, and the general unease and overall malaise of the town with a background church that is never used or addressed reminds me of, say, the small-town hometown deltarune analysis, where Christianity is never mentioned but everyone acts like socially conservative christians who harass people for being different. and the pines ARE different! each and every one of them. dipper and stanford are physically so, mabel is a glowing star that also lets grenda and candy feel comfortable, and stan is a CONMAN!!! WHICH MATTERS TO ME!!! shes weird and odd and strange and people dont like her very much but shes an irreplacable part of the community that keeps people dreaming and looking forward and having a place for abnormality even in a town that was looking away from that weirdness for so long (soos in weirdmageddon III points this out of course) and also symbolises how shes alienated from the world around her. nobody accepts her nobody has ever liked her shes always been half of a duo and nothing more so she lied her way in and presents a false front because people dont like her for who she really is.. .. its an interesting spin on Jewish Shyster where the jew has no choice but is sympathetic for this and with everything that goes into it. she would be dead without lies. but she could LIVE with her family. when she finally gets to be with them. fuck theres this shot in weirdmageddon II where bill is graffitied on a cop car and the other triangle is drawn underneath and it looks like a magen david and thats when i thought for sure on some level it was absolutely intentional that this town is christians who consciously and unconsciously shun their local jews and treats them poorly, something that could absolutely be taken as a really questionable symbol just feels natural for people used to demonising the jews in their lives... there were lots of little things that spoke to me. maybe some of it was S&P not letting alex use certain things, but little phrases and actions that made the pines feel like secular jews living a secularly jewish life in a small christian town where neither of those words are allowed to be uttered. but this is a town where the abnormal is shunned and kept away from the public eye by force, where weirdness and difference is consciously and subconsciously denied and rallied against. and that narrative alone being the entire main plot of the show is, to me, the most important part.

theres so much i said out loud ill not be able to remember without fully rewatching the show and i resent that but this is a big dump of words from someone who just finished the show like an hour or so ago and now wants to think about it forever and the stan twins reuniting and getting to forgive each other for their mistakes and finally having their first friend back and being able to live a life that makes them both happy and can have a positive impact and dipper and mabel having a fun future together and getting through high school together and talking through arguments and getting to live their own lives but always having each other and not repeating the mistakes of their grunkles (who they do love so much)

[baalzebufo]

HIII. can i just say. absolutely ADORE your gravity falls stuff!! i'd love to hear more of your headcanons (especially abt gideon) (that's my SON)

yes yeeees i was part of the Original Wave of Gideon Enjoyers back when like, episode 4 aired and it was about ten blogs who didnt hate his guts. i mean, i still want to throw him out a window, but I also think he has really interesting character stuff going on that some people just didnt wanna look at bc they hated him! which like, fair, he's a villain, but that freaky little dude will always be one of MY faves, haha

this post got. very long im sorry I had to put a readmore here haha but I haven't had an excuse to infodump about this for ages so here's a couple Things I like Thinking About... also a doodle I did the other night to break up the wall of text below

ok ok to start i LOVE him so much as a foil to dipper (and to an extent ford too) as examples of what the journals/that kind of power and information can do to people. its why im so adamant that he does actually have albinism, even if its not Technically Canon. dipper and ford both have a like, 'physical oddity' about them (birthmark, sixth finger) i think it makes sense for gideons to be his albinism as something that set him apart. all three are 'weirdos', were ostracised to an extent by the world, had that longing for something special or important, and then found it. and its what they DO with that which sets them apart

especially as a foil to dipper like... from time to time in the show, he gets a bit gung-ho about abusing the journals power for his own gain. but he has friends and family to reign him back in. he has more of a moral compass about not wanting to hurt people, generally. dipper never became like gideon did

this is getting into headcanon territory here but, my general summary of gideons childhood is an isolated one. only child, fairly sheltered, had some medical complications early in life which led to a lot of time on his own in hospital, attended school briefly and was subjected to significant bullying. and without a real support network outside of his parents who were very doting to the point of spoiling him because hes their Little Miracle he wasnt exactly well-adjusted even as a kid

but basically, that kid ends up finding this journal and learns about spells and evil artifacts and suddenly he has the power to make people like him. not only that but Fear him. he goes from feeling powerless to an absolute ego-trip. and his only close relatives would never tell their little boy 'no' about something, so they're not disciplining him in any way. its a perfect storm for a disaster to happen

it stems from this childish desire to go 'look at me im important and special and everyone likes me' and hes become so embittered already by people being dicks that he doesnt care if he hurts people on the way

that only really changes when mabel shows up and is the first person in town to approach him from a like... normal level. shes nice to him but not in the overly-saccharine and doting way his fans are, just in the way a girl who wants to be friends is. she treats him normally and is nice and he thinks she's pretty and that ALSO becomes a perfect storm of 'well shes nice to me and i like her so i must be in love with her and she is with me!' and, of course. kid who has never heard the word No before. so the later rejection becomes a HUGE sticking point and grudge to the point of being flat-out murderous

later in life with a little Introspection i think he'd realize it was less love and more just. basically imprinting on the first person to be normal and kind at him in years

UM. I should wrap this up i have so much in my brain. gideon was one of my earliest roleplay muses i'd write and draw with my pals, so I subjected him to a LOT of personal characterization stuff and also making a thousand AUs for fun. (aus always come in two flavours either its 'im going to make you marginally more well-adjusted' or 'im going to make you so, SO much worse')

ive got a soft spot for con-men and fake psychics and generally shitty little weasels and gideon just stormed into the show being a jerk with an aesthetic i adore and i was like ahhh. i want to punt him. hes my favourite.

ok im going to shut up now. last minute headcanon. gideon got into wood carving in prison art therapy because using a knife to stab something in a non-murder way helps soothe his urges. he whittles little people figurines

✨

[whatcha-reading-today]

Great reads of 2024

Bye 2024, while you were a long and grueling year but at least there were some great reads to pass the time. In total, I read 333 books according to goodreads. I read a ton of horror, sci-fi, romance, and horror romances and will list some of my favorites and surprises by genre.

Favorite horror stories:

For being creeped and disgusted. Most of these stories deal with some real world nastiness like homophobia, transphobia, and racism.

Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle: Misha is a screenwriter being forced to kill his popular gay characters but what's that? His monsters are coming to life? Such a fucking blast.

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due: our MC is sent to a 'reformatory' where boys behaviors are 'corrected'. This is pretty horrific and forces the reader to confront the horrors of racism.

Compound Fracture & The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White: I recommend all three of AJW's books, CF is more thriller while TSBIT is full on body horror and violence.

Fluids by May Leitz: The most disgusting book I've read this year! Want to read about lesbians doing absolutely awful things to themselves and others due to desperation? This is for you!

The Library on Mount Char by Scott Hawkins: God has a bunch of children stuck in a library and bad shit is happening. Think a speedrun of Gideon and Harrow. Wild and fun.

The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo: This novella focuses on our nurse MC forced to help an Appalachian town in the 1920's. There's racism, transphobia, and some horrific transformation sequences. This has one of the most memorable sex scenes I've read this year.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters: A classic haunted house story. The creeping and building dread is so wonderful.

Favorite Romances:

These are sweet and fun romances. I enjoyed the audiobooks for each of these stories.

The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch: this is such a cute story that involves the princes of Christmas and Halloween. I'm not over that every time our Halloween prince curses silly plastic decorations appear.

Swift and Swaddled by Lyla Sage: Super sweet western romance with our golden retriever MMC and black cat FMC. Cute!

Favorite Horror Romances:

Come for the gorgeous covers, stay for the body horror, the rot, and violence that may end in romance.

Tenderly, I am Devoured by Lyndall Clipstone (ARC-TBR July 2025): gothic romance that I found so engrossingly written. Highly recommend if you're looking for an incredible gothic romance.

My Throat an Open Grave by Tori Bovalino: Leah wishes her brother away, at which point he's kidnapped by the Lord of the Wood and has to reclaim her brother. Beautiful and sad, more horror than romance.

Together We Rot by Skyla Arndt: This is cult horror, our MMC is a sacrifice slated for his father's cult and our FMC just wants to help.

Favorite Romantasies:

More fantasy than romance, these fantastical stories are both book 1 in a series and do a great job of setting the stage for some elaborate fantasy and eventual romances.

Spark of the Everflame by Penn Cole: super fun, our FMC is a healer and the MMC is the prince and also a sort of demigod.

Nightstrider by Sophia Slade: This is a great start to a fantasy with two worlds--ours and a dream world. Little romance here but a really fantastical set up.

Favorite General Fiction:

Foster by Claire Keegan: this book is like 80 pages and is so good. We follow a girl sent to live with some older foster parents because her family are about to have another kid (I believe they already have like 9?). This was just so beautiful.

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg: An exploration of queerness, gender, and power in the 1990s. This is a tough read but such an important part of queer history.

Blackouts by Justin Torres: A conversation between an old and a young man who explore and examine what it means to be queer interspersed with blackout poetry.

Horse by Geraldine Brooks: This explores the life of a horse through multiple perspectives. I'm not a horse girlie and I can't stop thinking about this freaking horse.

Favorite Nonfiction:

Truman by David McCullough: this behemoth covers ALL of Truman's life from birth to death and between. I found it enlightening especially before visiting Hiroshima.

Who Would Believe a Prisoner?: Indiana's Women's Carceral Institutions, 1848-1920 by The Indiana Women's Prison History Project: This is a collection of published articles by inmates at Indiana Women's Prison on the history of Indiana's Women Prison. The abuse and the ugliness surrounding the history of the prison is well explored.

Who's Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler: I loved that Butler isn't fucking around this book. They postulate and describe where hatred and fear of gender come from and smashes every logical fallacy you can think of.

American Predator by Maureen Callahan: A detailed account of the murders and manhunt of Israel Keyes. Fast paced and quick true crime read.

Favorite Surprises:

These are all new authors for me. For all of these, I picked these up on a whim and was blown away.

The Theseus Duology by Mary Renault: a lovingly memoir-esque story of Theseus.

Death in the Spires by KJ Charles: this is a dark academia murder mystery. Think 'I know what you did last summer' but in old timely London. I've only read Charles' romances and oh boy was this a delight!

The Borrowed Hills by Scott Preston: this is about sheep farmers who plan a heist and things just go horribly wrong. So artfully written, such wonderful creeping dread.

Miracle Creek by Angie Kim: this is a courtroom thriller told from the perspective of several characters. Sort of slow moving in parts but I found this to be a breathtaking read.

[they-stare-i-ship]

I finished reading the atlas paradox

and now you're subjected to my SPOILERY thoughts.

Parisa Kamali: I love Parisa, I have loved her since the first book. I LIKE HER SO MUCH she's funny she's mean she's cool she's kind. She's incredibly powerful. She's so interesting and I really enjoyed how she slowly became "her royal softness". Whenever we have her pov it's so fun. I love how she's not scared of Atlas and how she challenged him. I can't wait to see what she does in the next book. I'm actually excited to see how Dalton has changed and how she reacts to them in the next book. Her relationship with Nico makes me so feel so nice. I also need her to be kiss Reina sometime in the next book.

Nico de Varona: he's been my annoying lil baby since the first book. I loved how he became more fleshed out in this book. I loved how lonely he got, his relationship with Reina and Tristan really intrigues me. HE'S SUCH A CHILD sometimes and I love him for it. Obviously I have spent the two books insane bc I knew he was in love with Gideon, I just knew it and they're just *chef's kiss* also speaking of his relationship with people, I think him and Libby will be stunning as besties, I truly cannot perceive them as romantic. They act so sibling like or even just asshole bestie like.

Reina Mori: when we started with this series I actually had more hopes from her. I feel like she didn't do much (especially in book 2) and my girl really doesn't understand communication. If she just talked to people sigh. But honestly her God thing, I am down. Go off, I'm excited to see her go off the rails bc people didn't talk to her the way she could have understood. I am low-key in love with how funny the duo of Reina and Callum is, tbh. I also get major ace vibes from her.

Libby Rhodes: honestly she was my second least favourite amount the six when we started. She desperately needed the corruption arc we got in the later half of the book. I think I will like her a lot more now. Her crush on belen was stunning to read. I can't wait for Libby to fuck shit up, literally fuck everyone up. And I genuinely truly deeply want her relationship with Nico to just be friendship. Friendships are equally as important and the fact that the universe made them parallel to eachother is my favourite thing.

Callum Nova: honestly I didn't really like him much during the first book, he was fine but we had more interesting characters. BUT DAMN CALLUM NOVA POST HEARTBREAK?? ~~ exquisite ~~ he's so fucking funny and hopeless and sad and pathetic. he is so desperate for love and so upset that he was denied it. He's my pathetic lil meow meow. Also I would LOVE to see him use his powers more in the future. As we keep learning about it, I keep loving him. Also I need Tristan to beg Callum to take him back.

Tristan Caine: actually I didn't enjoy his povs at all in the first book, I couldn't wait for them to be over. He is still my least favourite among the six but in the second book he was more interesting and fun. I'm a lil anxious of how Atlas is gonna use him and his powers. I don't care much of him but I want him to beg Callum or regret it for the rest of his existence. Also I hate LibbyTristan as a romantic permanent thing, they can fuck around and have fun but pls end at that.

Gideon Drake: I have loved him since day 1. He was the softer kinder balance to Nico's aggressive and abrasiveness. He is so interesting, his origin and his powers. I spent both the book wishing we had more of him. Now that we are out of the library maybe he'll get to play a more active role in the book. I am obsessed with Gideon (bc Nico is obsessed with Gideon) I love the tidbits we learn about Gideon like how Libby always liked him more or how max travelled with him for the rescue of the "prince". I want Gideon to have everything he wants, that's all.

Atlas Blakeley: I have been thinking of Giancarlo Esposito as Atlas the entire time. There's no explanation it's just vibes

Ezra: I'm glad he's dead 💖

[youbutstupid]

The BAU ruined Reid’s life and he has every right to separate himself from them

He was a teenager when he met Gideon and he had hopes and dreams that had nothing to do with law enforcement. He had PHDs in engineering, maths and chemistry showing that he clearly wanted to go into something more scientific. He said that he wanted to cure schizophrenia by the time he was 25 so he clearly wanted to go into research and lab work

He went to Gideon’s lectures because he was interested and it was at that point that Gideon himself chose Reid to join the BAU when he was around 21/22 years old. I love Gideon, but this was one of the worst things he has ever done. This decision ruined Reid’s life and no one on the team seemed to question it

It’s important to establish that Reid went to Gideon’s lectures because he had an interest in profiling; that doesn’t mean being a profiler was his goal. He gained a BA in philosophy because he found it interesting but that doesn’t mean he wanted to be a philosopher, he’s intelligent, of course he will study things he is interested in because he can

So Reid joins the BAU, and it takes up all of his time. It takes over his entire life. He can’t meet people, and anyone he does meet is instantly in danger just by being associated with him. His only connections are with his older coworkers who all have lives and relationships away from him. He’s in his early 20s and he can’t have any life experiences, his childhood and teenage years were taken from him but now his early adulthood is being taken away too

@mindfullycriminal brought up a really good point on one of my posts which was a moment in season 2, where Reid says to Gideon ‘it’s all I was groomed for. I don’t know how to do anything else.’ He is 25 years old at this point, his life has been endangered multiple times, he’s been kidnapped and drugged and killed and brought back to life. He needs to escape but he can’t, because he’s trapped in this job. He’s done it from such a young age that he has forgotten how to do anything else

Do you know how tragic that is? This is a man who could learn anything he wanted in just a day, who could collect degrees like stamps yet this job has made it so that he has lost the ability to function unless he’s a profiler.

The word ‘groomed’ is really interesting because it gives insight into the fact that the FBI took advantage of him and his interest from a young age; they took him for his intelligence and didn’t once consider the effects this would have on someone so young. They put him into a job that would take over his entire life to the point where he couldn’t leave the job even if he wanted to, because he has become reliant on it

Later, when he’s 30, we see him talking to Emily and he has so many regrets. He talks about how he wanted to do more with his life, about how he wanted to cure schizophrenia by 25 but he’s not even been able to touch that research because he’s given his life to the BAU. He of course doesn’t leave after this, because he doesn’t know how. He has no identity anymore. His entire life since he was barely into adulthood has been this job to the point where he’s SSA Dr Spencer Reid and nothing else. He’s no one’s boyfriend or husband, no one’s father, he can only be his mother’s son when his cases take him to Vegas. The only thing he knows how to be is an agent and without it he’s nothing

Then by season 15, he has been poisoned, shot twice, kidnapped twice, held hostage multiple times, his girlfriend, his one chance of being normal, was killed in front of him and he’s been imprisoned. His character becomes a shell of itself. He’s done, when he gets kidnapped by the cult he doesn’t even try to fight them anymore, he doesn’t even seem scared. He’s spent almost half of his life in a job which has slowly killed him when he could have been following his dreams and having normal life experiences. Everyone saw this happening to him and no one questioned it, they just expected more and more from him and then got standoffish when he would act out because of it

The BAU were a family and they did their best to protect him, but he was a child who should have been finding his own family, he spent 40 years of his life having his life planned out for him and he deserved to get away and make his own path for once

[planetaryaether]

Initial Thoughts/Theories on Dawnlight Rythian's Tattoos

Although most of the message is/feels pretty straight forward, with how the possibility of mistranslations is treated, there is certainly some things that we don’t know right now (but just how many important mistranslations is unknown). Thoughts under the cut:

“Styx wash” and “up the Styx again” - both sentences feel like idioms (and therefore don’t immediately stick out to me as important on their own) but both of them using “styx” is really interesting both because the river Styx is obviously from real world mythology and because the repetition draws attention to this choice. Because of this, it is a strong candidate for an important mistranslation but without more information as to if it is possibly a name or a real location (or a reference that Rythian would understand with his memories like a code word) will stay unknown until we get more information. Also the phrase “Styx again” is really interesting and likely refers to something that happened between Blackrock and dawnlight (if dawnlight is canon which it probably isn’t). Regardless, the usage of “again” almost certainly refers to something specific.

The ‘Journal’ - As far as can be seen with Rythian’s inventory/the books available through the akashic tome, Rythian does not have a physical journal (although with the retcon inclusion of enderbade/a still standing prequel house in Blackrock and the secrecy of Rythian about the flame in dawnlight chapter 2, that doesn’t rule out a physical book). A journal is a record of knowledge which could be referring to his other (untranslated) tattoos. Although you can obviously be given someone else’s journal, the use of that word specifically could also imply that whatever form it takes, it was written by Rythian before losing his memories. With the importance of journals in Blackrock (the canon gametee journals, Rythian’s season 3 journal, and Zoey keeping a journal in season 2) also feels relevant here. Either if dawnlight is canon/canon adjacent or if the journal was written by Rythian/Zoey and it is a continuation of their character habit of keeping journals. 

“The chant” - This was the first thing that I felt confident about assuming there is any meaningful crossover with canon lore (not that dawnlight is canon, but if knowledge from canon magic can be applied). The chant instantly reminded me of the “healing Word” (capitalization in the original) that Rythian wrote about using to save Zoey after the end of Blackrock season 2. Spoken magic/spells of that kind is a system that wasn’t really elaborated on with the series being cut short, so this could be a chance to use interesting lore elements that never got their time to shine. Alternatively (and more likely if no canon knowledge can be used) is that ‘the chant’ is referring to the rest of Rythian’s tattoos or possibly the plan in general.

“Dead-book” - This immediately reminded me of Saint Peter’s book of names and the sentence being a way to say “if he hasn’t died already”, but 1) I don’t think they are trying to make Christianity canon, and 2) it feels like a weird sentiment to use in the limited space of *tattooing something on someone*. The exception to this is if the text was written by Zoey, and then a less-than-efficient message is to be expected. My second thought is that it has something to do with the necronomicon (or equivalent book). This tracks with Zoey’s Gideon the 9th/skeleton inspired skin, so it fits thematically with future elements of the series. It is unclear if “going to” the book would still mean dying, being jumanji-d, some sort of backup plan, some side project/distraction, or something else entirely. (unless we are going full evangelion and the dead book is the dead sea scrolls in this cristian minecraft server lmao)

“The scholar” - perhaps the most discussed bit since chapter 2 dropped, I am not confident in any prediction ideas that I have had so far. It initially surprised me that ’scholar’ wasn’t capitalized with how it is used which indicates that it is more likely ‘someone involved in the plan’ than someone with cosmic/political/innately magical importance. Most of the characters most heavily associated with death (and therefore most likely to be involved with whatever the ‘dead-book’) are women. So unless one of the translation errors is “he” instead of “she”, that really limits the options as far as theorizing with 0 information goes (and although I would usually call this kind of mistranslation in a series without prominent gender themes (and it would be too early to tell on that front anyways) somewhat of a cop out, because there aren’t a lot of pre-existing female characters in the canon, I could understand wanting to keep it from being too obvious from the jump). ANYWAYS my crack theory idea is that it is Lalnable. Is it likely? Hell no, but ‘doctor’ being mistranslated to ‘scholar’ makes sense, and a connection with the ‘dead-book’ would also track. I am NOT up to date on my Lalnable lore so that makes this idea additionally cursed (istg if ‘scholar’ is a mistranslation of ‘doctor’ but referencing the doctor who themed episode of blackrock /lh)

“What happens” - it is way too early to know for sure but this could mean ‘what happens if they figure out who you are’ or ‘what happens if they figure out the plan’ or ‘what happens when you achieve x goal or use magic or die etc etc etc’. But there is definitely some information being hidden in the missing/mistranslated words there.

“Pilgrimage to the crematorium” - what at first seems to be an idiom for ‘they will kill you’ draws attention to itself with Briony using “pilgrimage” to describe what she is doing. With scripted lore chapters, and especially with both uses being in the same chapter, this is almost certainly intentional. It doesn’t mean they have to refer to the same thing, and I bet they don’t, but the double usage of the word makes me thing that this is more than just a warning. The crematorium could be a reference to the nether (with both of them being a place of fire/burning), and especially with the Styx references, the nether as an underworld would make sense. Again if dawnlight is canon/canon adjacent, I am unsure what the nether has to do with the pla, but since the plan seems to have some cross-realm shenanigans going on, it doesn’t feel like a stretch to include it. 

“The dark of the matter” - feels unnecessarily wordy in a way that feels like there is concealed meaning. With the saying usually being “shed light on the situation” there is no word to be mistranslated as “dark”, implying an additional word/phrase in the original. My instinct is to think it has something to do with the End, shadows, etc, I do not immediately have any specific ideas as to what this could be - especially in a word or two. With that in mind, this is another candidate for the original word being some reference that Rythian would understand the broader meaning too rather than the answer being directly in the missing words. It seems that they knew Rythian would be going through it at this point, but maybe not that he would have lost his memory (either at all, this much, or that he wouldn’t have regained it by the time he read the tattoos), so having some things be implied instead of explicit makes sense even if it isn’t working out due to the amnesia right now.

[half-dead-writer]

(Matthew and Gideon are typically both red coded so I switched up Gideon's color to violet to avoid confusion.) I uh, kinda went off the rails with this one?? It was supposed to be a one-shot smut but it has some plot, with feelings, even Also we're just gonna ignore the cryogenic freezers in this one aight guys??

Movie Night (NSFW)

Gideon always pissed Matthew off, but dissing Matthew's favorite movie while he wanted to spend quality time with the both of you was low. Not being able to get Gideon to apologize through conventional methods, you try something different. Would it work? Only one way to find out.

characters: Matthew Patel, Gideon Graves (Scott Pilgrim Takes Off)

words: ~7,1k

reader: gender-neutral

warnings: sex, dom reader (kind of) no beta

𝔯𝔲𝔩𝔢𝔰 + 𝔪𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱 / 𝔖𝔠𝔬𝔱𝔱 𝔓𝔦𝔩𝔤𝔯𝔦𝔪 𝔗𝔞𝔨𝔢𝔰 𝔒𝔣𝔣 𝔪𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱

Tonight's movie fun was supposed to be fun. If only your boyfriends could get along and not get on each other nerves at least for one day...

To be honest, you didn't really know how you ended up dating those two. Matthew and Gideon were far from each other's type, or at least that's what someone would say after spending a few minutes in their presence. They liked to annoy each other (one more than the other), but deep down, you knew they did care for one another. You just had to be patient enough to break up their stupid bickering and keep the peace by reminding them what's important.

"That plot is so unrealistic," Gideon commented with his mouth full of popcorn, "I mean, really-"

Matthew's hush quickly cut him off. "Just shut up and watch."

"But it's boring." Gideon scoffed, stretching himself even further into the couch and lazily putting his arm around you. Matthew, sitting on the opposite side of you, gave him a side-glance, responding in a half-whisper. "Not any more boring than your 14 seasons anime!"

Gideon's offended, sharp stare bore into Matthew's skull, "You'd know it's not boring if you took the time to watch it, it's actually really nuanced," making Matthew's blood boil even more.

"Maybe if you watched the damn movie, you'd see it's not boring too." He muttered through his teeth, forcing a sigh out of you. You knew where this was going too well.

Gideon was ready to hit him with yet another clever comeback, but you quickly nipped it in the bud, sternly calling them both out. "Boys." They turned their attention to you, tuning out the already neglected movie. "Is this really necessary?"

"It's him who started!" Matthew pointed an accusatory finger at Gideon, who just did a "hmph" sound in return. "Gideon," he looked at you, eyes narrowed in an expression comparable to a teen that's been scolded by their parent, "and Matthew. Please."

"What?" They asked in unison, both adamant about not being in the wrong, making you exhale once again.

"You're both acting like children."

"It's Gideon who acts like a whiny child!" Matthew pouted, unhappy at you "taking Gideon's side". "I wanted to watch my favorite movie with my both, lovely partners, and he's not appreciating my efforts! Can you blame me for being annoyed?"

"You should have picked a better movie to be your favorite." Gideon nonchalantly commented, causing Matthew's nose to scrunch up in irritation.

"Gideon." You whipped your head to look at him, pulling out of his embrace to properly sit up. He just shrugged, feigning innocence.

"Alright. I see there's too much tension in the room." Your boyfriends watched as you got up from the couch, putting the movie on pause. They looked at you, having no idea what would be your next move. Were they gonna be scolded like misbehaving children? Not like it would accomplish anything, and you knew you had to think up of a better solution. You were all adults, after all. Very annoying ones at that, but still adults. "Let's take a break."

Matthew was not really keen on stopping the movie, but he knew that was probably the best course of action. Maybe you'd talk some sense into Gideon? He was really looking forward to just nicely spending time together, and even if he didn't say it, Gideon's quips lightly broke his heart. You knew that, which is why you needed to find a way how to get Gideon to cool down on his asshole persona. Well, it wasn't a persona, more-so his way of being, mostly caused by his job as a CEO, which made him more stone-cold than he needed to be while also navigating a relationship with two people.

"Are we gonna talk about our feelings now, or what?" Gideon put the emphasis on feelings, cringing at the mere word. He crossed his arms, well aware of how typically it should go when there's a problem, but getting him to be vulnerable was harder than eating a cactus. The man was so behind on being casually open with his true emotions it almost hurt. Matthew, on the other hand, knew his emotions well, but Gideon's actions were slowly making him more sour than he needed to be.

"Well, do you want to, Gideon?" You asked, still somewhat hopeful it'd be a yes, but much more prepared for a less enthusiastic answer. As expected, Gideon shifted his sight away from you, staring into the corner with an unreadable expression. "...I just don't see the point." He muttered out, not liking the sudden spotlight being thrown at him.

"...Typical." Matthew commented, now crossing his arms as well. They both began a staring contest, getting you to quickly speak up again.

"Alright, no talking about feelings unless everyone wants to, okay?" That sentence caused Gideon to briefly look at you, regaining some of his attention. Matthew just intently observed, trying to decode your next course of action. "So... how about fixing the situations through actions?"

Gideon, along with Matthew, raised their brow.

"So- What? Do we shake hands? Hug it out?" Gideon asked, now briefly amused, regaining some of his bite with the quip. His intention wasn't really want to annoy you, but in the current state, that's as far as you'd get with him cooperating.

"Shake hands? No. Hug... Maybe?" A small smile invaded your lips, you knew one certain way how to release the tension lingering in the air. Before they could ask you more details about your supposed plan, you directed your stare to the wooden doors.

"To the bedroom!" You announced dramatically, hoping to ease the atmosphere with a lighthearted remark. That did the trick, igniting a spark interest from both boys. They followed after you to the specified room, looking at you for further instructions. The comfort of your bed filled you with even more reassurance to your unconventional plan. You cleared your throat, "Since you both obviously can't express your love thru words, let's try something different."

Both boys now caught up with your way of thinking looked at each other with less venom, interested in how your evening is gonna proceed.

"Matthew," you started, making him look at you with curiosity, "sit beside me." He silently obliged, leaving the other man still standing near the bed, hopefully not too bitter about not being picked first. "Gideon, be a dear and rid Matthew of his pants."

The request made Matthew look at you with surprise, later replaced by a knowing smirk. Gideon rolled his eyes, yet approached closer. He kneeled before him, swiftly unbuckling Matthew's belt. Matthew, eager to listen to your orders, lifted his hips to help Gideon take off his pants.

"Underwear too." You heard Gideon's sigh, clearly an attempt to look as bothered by the command as he could to hide his true feelings. Matthew, still very intrigued about the process, looked at Gideon with a cheeky grin, hoping he figured out the ins and outs of your idea.

"Don't get too smug about it, Patel." Gideon huffed, staring back unamused.

"I'm not saying anything, Goose." Matthew's response made Gideon narrow his eyes at the nickname he didn't wanna hear.

"Matthew, please." You gently reminded him to be respectful, making the man quickly get in check, "Sorry, Y/N." Your sight directed Matthew to look at Gideon, "I mean- sorry, Gideon."

Gideon raised his brow with a poker face, not bothering to show his acknowledgement of the apology in any other way.

"Gideon, could you present your amazing skills to Matthew as a reciprocation to your mutual apologies?" You crossed your legs, politely waiting for your boyfriend to take the hint. Gideon mulled over your words for a second, seemingly finally deciding to stop being a nuisance. It was an occasion to finally show Matthew who's in charge here, even if the roles seemed to show the opposite. Gideon craved power and control, being able to turn any situation to his benefit was one of his most practical quirks. In no time, he'd have Matthew writhing under his touch, that'd surely remind him who's the boss.

"Of course, darling." He spoke in a composed manner now, briefly adjusting his glasses before diving down Matthew's crotch. It didn't take long for a sharp gasp to embarrassingly fall out of his boyfriend's lips, caused by Gideon's tongue trailing down Matthew's slowly growing length. You'd feel a bit excluded from the boys play-time if not for the satisfaction you got by bossing them around - it was fun!

Matthew opened up his legs a bit more, letting Gideon rest his hand on his thigh while he was busy working his magic. Matthew's palm would be holding a fistful of your bed-covers if not for your hand which was lying nearby, being a better candidate for an output of his intense feelings. You felt his fingers wrap around yours, which you thought was absolutely adorable turn of events. Meanwhile, Gideon made sure Matthew kept the shameless noises coming, acting as a reward and reason for him to continue.

Matthew's breathing picked up as Gideon tauntingly sucked the tip, his stare focused on the bangs that fell on his face. You were kind enough to pull them away behind his ear, exposing his pretty features. The dark eyeliner was now highlighted with the crinkling of Matthew's eyes. It was hard for him not to just outright close them, but he wanted to observe the man sitting between his legs - it was a rare sight for Gideon to be on the giving end.

From the way Matthew's legs were trembling, it was obvious he was near his end. Gideon wrapped his lips around him and began to swiftly bob his head. His perspective of being in the center of attention changed, now basking in the status of being the main attraction. Or maybe it was Matthew? Either way, he was willing to put on a show for you, with Matthew as his co-star. You felt Matthew's fingers clench around yours as he began mumbling incoherently, signaling his soon-to-be peak.

"Gih- Gi-Gideon--"

Light reflected in Gideon's glasses as he pulled away with a cocky smirk, leaving Matthew's dick to twitch in disappointment.

"YOU DICK!" He shouted out of breath, not even trying to keep his composure. You looked at Gideon, who was smiling from ear to ear. You were about to say something, before Gideon started speaking before you.

"Do the polite thing and say please." He smugly requested, looking at Matthew's red face. He knew he was gonna say anything at this point.

"Fucking- Please! Please, pretty please, just let me-" Matthew sputtered, tired of Gideon's shitty mind-games. Gideon snickered before resuming his work, nearing Matthew's member again, sliding it into his mouth. He didn't expect Matthew to push his head deeper, to the point Gideon choked on the full length, while his throat got flooded with his release. You were quite surprised at the turn of events, but you couldn't deny you found it quite entertaining.

After Matthew loosened his grip, Gideon pushed himself off, coughing up the leftover cum and saliva that unflatteringly spilled on his chin. He wiped it with his sleeve, staring daggers at his boyfriend, who now had the same smug grin Gideon wore before.

"I'll fucking kill you," he growled, seething with anger and feeling absolutely humiliated.

Matthew chuckled while regaining his breath, pointing down at Gideon's pants. "Don't act like you didn't like it."

You noticed the uncomfortably stretched fabric covering Gideon's fully visible erection. Gideon glanced below, his anger even more visible with how red his face was. You guessed it wasn't only the anger. You spared him Matthew's further teasing by speaking up.

"Matthew, I think you should make it up to Gideon, it wasn't nice." You half-heartedly reprimanded him, gaining a cheeky grin in return.

"Of course, I'm sorry for acting so impulsively." Matthew leaned closer to Gideon. "You just drive me crazy sometimes, Gideon." Matthew purred, making Gideon's furrowed brows turn into a look of trying to discern how much of Matthew's words were a flirt or another way of getting under his skin. You gave the power to Matthew for the moment, sitting back to observe the boys.

Matthew patted the bed, "So please, come lay down here."

Matthew's smirk didn't betray any clues indicating what his next action would be, leaving Gideon to warily crawl to the spot he showed him. Thankfully, the king-sized bed was big enough for all 3 people to comfortably do anything they desired. Gideon glanced at you briefly, being met with the same lack of ideas. By no means was Gideon scared of the future, but it was obvious he wasn't used to not being in charge, which left him a bit on edge. Your caress on Gideon's hair ultimately added some reassurance during the situation, clouding his ego just a little.

The comfort of your touch melted away as Matthew began his plan, peppering Gideon's neck and collarbone in light kisses. Gideon was fully expecting for Matthew to pull some trick on him, act like an asshole just as he did on him. But that never came, instead, the shower of affection left him slightly dumbfounded and unprepared.

Matthew's soft pecks on his skin mixed with the lack of knowledge from Gideon's side left him unfit to contain the light sounds slipping out. Matthew continued, moving his hands around the shorter man's body, finally reaching their destination below the abdomen. He brushed the spot, making Gideon abruptly raise his hips, yearning for more. Surprisingly, Matthew provided, now properly palming him through his pants. Gideon closed his eyes, unable to hold eye-contact while Matthew had such a smug expression on his face. He lifted up his shirt, lowering his head to Gideon's chest, moving his kisses further down.

You shuffled to lay on your side, supporting yourself comfortably with your palm on your cheek. Gideon tried to calm down his ragged breath as he felt your gaze examining his face. You smiled, enjoying the sight of your boyfriend losing composure.

"Is something wrong, hon?"

"No. Nothing's wrong. Why would it be?" He responded, too absorbed in the sensations to show his annoyance.

"Just checking." You gently pet his hair again, getting him to lean into your touch just a bit. "It's nice to see you getting along with Matthew, you know?"

Gideon was ready to respond with a presumably some slightly defensive remark, before a hitched breath forced him to stop. You looked at the source of his reaction, seeing that Matthew already took off Gideon's bottom half of the clothes, planting his kisses in the most receptive spots of Gideon's body. He was comfortably laying down on his stomach, between Gideon's legs, lazily stroking his length with the added teasing of his lips.

His feather-light smooches slowly drove Gideon insane, why was he being so gentle with him? Was this his way of getting back at him? To tease him to death?

After a prolonged session of merely playing with him, Matthew finally granted him a bold lick, lapping affectionately at Gideon's sensitive nerves. An unauthorized whine got out of Gideon's lips, causing the corners of your lips raise upwards in a soft smile. You loved hearing Gideon turn vocal. Matthew made sure to cover each part of Gideon in his drool, yet still stuck only to outside licking - he would not risk putting his dick in his mouth just to get choked, he was smarter than Gideon's dirty tricks.

After some time, Gideon's guilty-pleasure sounds became even sharper, string of moans and labored breaths filled the otherwise quiet room. The grip in both of his hands abused the soft bed-cover, making it twist with each weak pull of his wrist. You knew he was close, and perhaps, you might have even guessed what Matthew was about to do pretty soon.

He teased the underside of his tip, which was now oozing with precum. Gideon leaked a lot at this point, but it was all quickly wiped off with a single brush of Matthew's tongue once in a while. You couldn't deny there was a light, uncomfortable feeling of your own underwear being damp due to the boys' show, but you held off from doing anything yet. You couldn't interfere with them making amends, right?

As expected, Matthew retracted his mouth away from Gideon being inches away from his orgasm. Gideon opened up his eyes, his piercing stare spoke more than thousand words.

"...Asshole." He huffed out, almost as if he predicted his action. Matthew only laughed in response, getting closer to Gideon, now straddling his lap. You tilted your head in interest, Gideon just squinted in confusion.

"You're not that sneaky, Gideon." Matthew hovered above him, holding Gideon's chest for support as he gently brushed against his still sensitive member. "You're begging for someone to fuck you with just a glimpse of your expression. Is that why you've been so moody? You wanna get laid so bad?"

Gideon had nothing to say in return, just listening to what he would describe as Matthew's rambling nonsense. "Did Y/N really have to push you to realize it? Because, Gideon, you seem much more desperate than the both of us combined." He slid right across his dick again, forcing a quiet whimper to fall out of Gideon.

"Yet, you still put up with the facade of the grand CEO, the one who has it all under control," Matthew continued moving, "one who wouldn't ask TWO available partners for sex, because he's gotta be the big man! People should come to you, not the other way around, right?" He took a minute to align himself just right, finally pushing his hips down, causing yet another moan to escape.

"Nff- S-stop pretending you're bored of the damn movie if you're just gonna pout like a stupid, horny teenager about it!" Matthew huffed out, slowly moving up as he adjusted to the feeling of being stretched.

You were honestly surprised at the events unraveling, finding Matthew pointing out Gideon's bullshit as... quite hot. Especially that Gideon did nothing to object his accusations.

Gideon grabbed Matthew's thighs, fighting the urge to just spill all of his thoughts at once, "T-The movie still did suck!" He bit back, trying to regain some of his previous grit. "But yes, Matthew, Y/N, if you both wanna hear it so bad, I-I'm fucking tired of you being so casual about your mutual affections! It's infuriating!" Matthew stopped his movements as he bottomed out on Gideon again, leaving him pant in frustration.

"What do you mean?" You tilted your head, now sitting up to carefully listen Gideon's weirdly chosen time to get vulnerable.

"How do you expect me to approach anything sincerely while NOT getting defensive, if all I get in return is a surprised reaction at Gideon showing an ounce of what he wants to do?" He went on, his cheeks getting redder from embarrassment and irritation. "Of course I'm gonna be fucking annoying, you're annoying!"

Both you and Matthew were truly shocked at the discovery. You waited a bit, making sure he didn't have anything else to say, but after a minute of silence, you concluded you weren't gonna force anything more.

Matthew could think of an array of quips or insults, pointing out how stupid his way of thinking was, but he was smarter, more mature with his feelings than Gideon ever was. You both knew your boyfriend's behavior could be better, but he never gave you a chance to change it, until now. How could you fix something if he didn't let you get to him?

Matthew sighed, leaning closer to Gideon's upset expression. "You are. So childish." Both you and Gideon had now surprise painted on your face, Gideon more so than you. He was appalled at Matthew response, but his significant other continued. "Of course it's gonna be surprising if you start acting like a normal boyfriend out of the blue. You're always so condescending! But have you ever considered, it's okay to be vulnerable once in a while?"

You didn't wanna preach, but you decided to join the discussion, "Yeah, Gideon- We're- We're not gonna laugh at you?? We would love nothing more than to finally hear your problems!"

"Ygh... That's why I don't like to talk about mushy-feelings stuff. You're always so- dramatic. It's not that deep." He tried to cover up his moment of weakness with a casual facade of "I don't care that much".

"Maybe it's not, even if it's not! We still care about you?"

"I- ugh, I know that you do." He muttered out, avoiding your intense stares.

"...So what's the problem?" You treaded carefully, treating Gideon like a wild animal who could be spooked if there was a sign of any wrong move.

"The problem is- I know I'm the asshole. And I know, I gotta change it." He sighed, trying to calm down his nerves, not even entirely sure why he bothered to disclose them in the first place, right now. Curse his temper getting out of control.

Matthew tilted his head, not entirely getting his point, but still choosing to remain patient with Gideon.

"I just-" The vulnerability in his words caused him to hesitate, feeling way too stupid about the topic to approach it with eloquence. "Hate not being in control." There. It was out.

He fully expected Matthew to just piss him off even further, with some smart-ass quip as they used to do on the daily, he would probably say something along the lines of, "too bad! get over it!"

To his astonishment, Matthew didn't say any of that. He just looked at Gideon with indiscernible expression, which later faded into a gentle, maybe even a bit amused smile.

"Really? That's it?"

Gideon tried to figure out what exactly Matthew meant by that.

"Gideon. Nobody likes being in the dark about what's gonna happen." He continued, convinced he saw through Gideon's simple words. He spend enough time with him to figure out it wasn't just his narcissism problem. I mean, Gideon wasn't totally an ass. If he was, there simply would be no relationship. But there were those treasured moments where he would actually show he still had a heart.

Your soft voice shook Gideon out of his thoughts, "Yeah. It's fine, even if it's scary, you know?"

He wanted to convince you he wasn't scared, opening up his mouth, yet closing it promptly after. You all knew that was a lie.

"But it's alright. We're all there for each other, right?" Gideon just rolled his eyes. "Yes, I know it sounds corny," you tried to lighten up the mood, smiling at your boyfriend's reaction.

"I'm all for corny," Matthew chimed in, loosening up as well. "And, Gideon. No, we're not gonna be making a big deal if you show us a little affection. Hell, even once a week normal get-together would be an improvement." He only lightly teased, testing the waters with how Gideon would respond.

Gideon felt- actually, he didn't know what he was feeling. Relief? Cringe? Something for sure, but his kitty-timer on discussing heart-to-heart matters had just ran out. He would deal with this later.

He sighed. "Okay, it's cute and all, but- can we continue this conversation later? When I'm maybe, not balls deep in Matthew? I know I kinda started it before, but, really. It went for longer than I expected it to go." He impatiently tapped his finger on Matthew's thigh, making the other man chuckle in the absurdity of the situation.

Even though you had the clear visual of your boyfriends mid-sex right before you, the importance of listening to Gideon finally voice out his worries occupied your mind more than the previous activity.

"Right," you grinned, seeing as Matthew was slowly resuming his movements. Gideon exhaled contently, finally getting to feel the sweet friction again. He still felt a bit embarrassed my spilling his guts like that, and he had a feeling he would feel dreadful starting the topic again, later. But for now, he had better things to focus on.

As you watched Matthew gently hump Gideon, after such a prolonged break, you decided it was finally a time for you to do something. You were patient enough before, giving the boys a chance to reconcile, but now, having much more info about Gideon's thought process, you thought it wouldn't hurt to reassure him of the sincerity of your words.

Gideon moved his head towards your way, feeling the mattress sink under him as your body inched towards him.

"Mind if I join?" You asked with a hint of playfulness in your voice, obviously knowing neither of them would mind.

"Not at all." Gideon smirked, feeling a bit better once the focus was redirected onto purely sexual matters - a more familiar territory for him.

"...You wanna trade places, Y/N?" He huffed out, slowly lowering and raising himself off Gideon once more.

"Maybe later," you politely declined, having other plans for now. Both boys watched you with interests, mostly Gideon, seeing you approach him first. "For now, I'm good just helping from the side."

Your cheekiness shined as you assaulted Gideon's neck with affection-filled kisses, you wanted to reward him for finally speaking up. Not like you wouldn't do that before, but now, it was especially a great occasion to do so.

Gideon couldn't help but squirm, being showered with overwhelming sensations by two people was more than enough for him to start making noises again. Matthew noticed that, quickening his moves with a content and smug smile, letting out labored pants once in a while as well. Your pecks went up all the way to his cheek, after which you pulled away to briefly looking at Gideon with the sweet expression he loved seeing on you. Stare filled with love and adoration. Gideon used to be salty about you showing that to Matthew more often than him, or at least that's what he tried to convince himself. In reality, you reserved them for both of your boyfriends, never choosing sides.

He smiled with half-lidded eyes, reciprocating back some of the love you still chose to show, even if Gideon wasn't perfect. It's true, his sincere moments of tenderness were rare, but you felt over the moon whenever you got to experience them for real.

Your lips pressed into his, pulling him into a passionate makeout session not too long after. The feeling of your tongues dancing together only increased upon closing your eyes. You could not let Matthew get neglected, though. Being good at multitasking, you reached out a hand, wrapping it around Matthew's length, working your wrist in a steady pace to the roll of his hips. Actually, you didn't even have to do much, given Matthew already moved his body in satisfying, rhythmic thrusts.

You didn't know how much time has passed ever since you resumed your actions from the previous conversation, but it was enough for both Matthew and Gideon's movements to turn uneven and erratic, being an obvious sign of their fun ending pretty soon.

Not wanting to muffle Gideon's approaching moan of satisfaction, you broke the kiss, turning your attention to Matthew now - you liked to take turns spoiling your boyfriends. Your thumb lightly massaged the sensitive spot on Matthew's tip, lightly smearing the quickly gathering effects of your touch on him. You leaned closer to his ear, happy to provide Matthew with some praise. You knew he loved it.

"You're doing so well, hun. Such a good boy, for me, for Gideon... Show how much you love us, hm?" You whispered into his ear, causing shivers to run down Matthew's spine, it was all too much for him. Spilling right into your hand, a high-pitched whimper hit both you and Gideon, who had troubles keeping quiet as well.

Matthew kept pushing his hips up and down, faintly haunted by overstimulation, yet still helping Gideon ride his orgasm until he totally bottomed out, letting Gideon lightly scratch his thighs while he filled him up.

You retreated your hand as soon as you noticed Matthew was ready to fall down right onto Gideon, too exhausted to do anything else. Not bothering to get up and get a napkin, your laziness pushed you towards less conventional methods of cleaning the mess - simply licking it off. Matthew was always flustered whenever you did that. They both had difficulty calming down their labored breathing, simply basking in the afterglow for a moment. You were kinda jealous.

Giving them a minute to regain their strength, you patiently waited for a good time to vocalize your need of being pampered as well. Not like it wasn't obvious at this point, though.

Matthew was the first to get off of Gideon, feeling a tad bit too sticky to keep laying down, not wanting to make more of a mess on the already dirty covers, he put one foot on the ground. He intended to take another step, but Gideon voice stopped him before he could do so.

"Wait." He spoke in a tone that seemed almost as if the words coming had to be manually forced out of him. "... I'll get you the towel."

Gideon stepped off the bed, heading towards the bathroom. He wasn't in a rush.

Both you and Matthew looked at each other with the expression that could only be described as "...aw. he cares."

Soon enough, Gideon called Matthew's name, making the other man's head turn his way, only to get the towel thrown at his face. Well, Gideon still being Gideon. You chuckled, seeing the way he smirked, it wasn't a rude gesture, just a playful banter (for real this time). He could have thrown the towel way harder if he intended to piss Mattie off. Matthew didn't seem to mind either, briefly rolling his eyes before making himself decent.

Both of the boys now sat down next to you, each on the opposite side. They exchanged knowing glances, getting a mischievous spark in their eyes as you came to realize their little plan.

"You didn't think we were gonna let you miss all the fun, did you?" Matthew started, showing you a mischievous and cheeky smile. You reciprocated, grinning like a fool.

"Of course not." You were waiting a lot for this moment.

Gideon was first to get you down on the bed with a light and push of his hand. You'd be offended by being treated like a piece of meat, but the eyes narrowed in a not fully smug expression let you know Gideon was just feeling particularly playful at the moment. You guessed the orgasm cleared out his mind enough for it to show up without it being a big deal, which you didn't mind one bit.

He climbed on top of you, his hands wandered all across your body, slowly lifting the shirt to expose your tummy. In the meantime, Matthew got off the bed, grabbing the fabric of your pants to remove them. Not bothering to leave anything out, he pulled them off along with your underwear, choosing not to comment on it's soaked state.

The difference between the two boys' actions was an overwhelming mix - Matthew's moves were slow and gentle, careful not to cause you any discomfort, while Gideon was getting straight to the point, covering your whole neck in hickeys and gliding his palm all over your torso.

You parted your legs, giving Matthew more access. He responded by softly brushing his fingers against your delicate nerves. You had to let the few quiet noises out of you, making both boys quite pleased. Gideon lowered himself down, reaching your collarbone to leave a trail of red spots leading up to it from your throat. Matthew continued, keeping a satisfying cycle of steady movements.

Gideon pulled away to look at your marked skin, pleased with the outcome. He turned his head to look at Matthew, giving him a silent signal to switch places with the nod of his head. He complied, picking himself up from the floor to shimmy over next to you. Gideon grabbed your legs so that they weren't hanging off the bed, positioning you to lay vertically on it. You had a grin throughout the whole ordeal, amused by how coordinated they could be under the right circumstances, working like a two cogs in a machine.

Gideon occupied himself by going in-between your legs, sparing no time to indulge you with his golden tongue. Matthew laid himself next to you, smirking at the reactions you showed.

"Enjoying yourself, love?" he commented playfully, gaining a tired smile in return.

"Very much so," you replied a bit out of breath, seeing him squint his eyes in amusement.

He leaned closer, softly putting his hand on your cheek to envelop you in a deep kiss. His other hand lightly massaged your uncovered chest. His touches were always so warm, it was a nice feeling, in comparison to Gideon's, which were commonly pretty cold. Maybe that's why he yearned for so much physical contact.

Your tongue almost slipped out of Matthew's mouth as Gideon began to intensely suck and twirl his tongue along your sweet spot, making you squirm. You were not an asshole, doing your best not to accidentally push him with the trembling legs caused by the overwhelming sensations he gave you. Knowing Gideon, though, he'd probably be into it.

Being the sneaky bitch he is, he followed his current way of pleasing you by suddenly inserting at first one, then two fingers into you, this time successfully getting you to pull away from Matthew for a gasp. The other man took a moment to glance at Gideon, who wore a smug smirk on his face. He was in his element, after all.

Short period of getting used to the act let you slowly melt into ecstasy, feeling your orgasm just around the corner. Your senses were slowly getting clouded, exhaling all sorts of labored breaths and whines. Matthew looked at you with affection, endeared at the display of your emotions. Gideon, too focused on his task, didn't register Matthew silently creeping up to him, waiting for just the right moment to strike.

Seeing your muscles tense up, Matthew, wanting to add fun for the both of you, pressed Gideon into your crotch, earning a shocked groan from the other man, now covered in your essence. You were too busy to even notice the commotion, only seeing the aftermath of Matthew's actions after you calmed down your uneven breaths.

Gideon got up to tackle now startled Matthew, pushing him on the bed next to you, holding him by the arms. A guilty smile appeared on Matthew's face, observing as Gideon's expression quickly changed from a threatening dismay with his poor choice to a devious smirk.

Matthew yelped, unprepared to feel Gideon's teeth sink into the crook of his neck, not too hard, but enough to leave a mark.

"What was that for??" Matthew huffed, a bit taken aback by the gesture, yet not too audacious, seeing as he didn't attempt to throw him off of him. He knew the answer to his question, making Gideon raise his brow in confusion.

"Play stupid games, win stupid prizes," he answered, too proud of himself for getting the upper hand.

"Don't act like you didn't like it," he added, referencing Matthew's previous words. Matthew rolled his eyes, being taken out of his faux irritation by hearing the sound of your chuckles.

"You're both worth each other," you joked, gathering yourself up to wrap your arms around them both, pulling them into a tight hug.

"We're all worth each other," Matthew responded, caught in a silly mood as well.

The three of you kept the embrace for a few more moments before retreating, the sweat covering your bodies was getting a bit too uncomfy. Gideon's glasses had visible stains on them, so he chose to safely put them on the bedside table. His eyes traced the intricate shapes carved onto the ceiling of the room, seemingly for no apparent reason.

Matthew was laying between you and Gideon, absentmindedly playing with your hair with one hand. It wasn't an uncommon occurrence, he knew you loved it, and he loved making you feel nice. He wouldn't mind giving this treatment to Gideon as well, but he never seemed to care for it.

While the both of you were occupied, Gideon took this time to think about your previous conversation, the one happening at the most inconvenient time due to him letting his nerves get ahold of him.

It wasn't fair. Gideon was supposed to be in control. He had to be in control. He wouldn't let the unknown overwhelm him. You and Matthew were people, ones that he let be close to him. Too close for his own comfort. He knew it was solely his problem, which is why he was so defeated by admitting it. Gideon didn't really like having his own problems pointed out. But if he wanted to keep you, he had to get his shit together.

Before, he loved Ramona. He really did, just like now, choosing to accept his love for you and Matthew. But with her, it was way easier. She showed him affection, Gideon was riding his high horse, not showing it back - he didn't have to, he had his wealth and status to do it for him, right? Well, in a 2 people relationship it didn't really go well. He could not be worse than Matthew, he could not be worse than you. Or else, the remaining people would realize what a shitty person he is, just like Ramona did. He couldn't get her back, and it stung not only his pride. Which is why he felt constantly threatened by your seemingly easy way of getting along with Matthew.

He hated admitting he was the problem, he hated that he knew the solution. Showing his true feelings would force him to confront that thought, which was a very unpleasant process. It's not like he never showed you affection, though.

It would usually happen when Gideon was too exhausted to be grumpy after work, simply needing to spend his next moments in the comfort of your arms. It would happen right before you were planning to go to sleep, sometimes a bit earlier, sometimes a bit later, depending how much work Gideon had for the day. He wouldn't speak, he would simply fall onto the same bed you were sitting on right now, clinging to any person who was available at the moment.

But what he loved most was when he had both of you at the same time, free to just wrap his arms around you or Matthew and feeling the reciprocation from both sides. He didn't have to clearly express his need to be hugged, or even why he wanted to do that. He was just sleepy, his acting excused by the obvious circumstances.

Then, he would wake up, usually way before any of you. His work forced him to develop a habit of waking up right around the time his alarm would go off. He could look at you with the affection he didn't dare to comfortably show whenever you were awake. He didn't want you to to get too used to it. It's not like he didn't want it to show it, it was just reserved for certain moments only. And if he showed it one time, then didn't feel like it the next day, he would surely come off as even bigger asshole. So, to avoid that, he was just an asshole all the time - he didn't have to explain himself then, you were used to it, right?

Even though he clearly saw the holes in his logic, he tried to navigate living this way, somehow. This, in turn, created the current problem. He felt neglected. And it was all caused by none other than himself, even if he tried to shift the blame on his partners to feel better -mostly Matthew, as he was the one to usually respond to his moodiness with a fight back.

Gideon grew tired of living this way. Seeing Matthew giving his affection to you so effortlessly still fired up some scraps of jealousy in him, but today, he felt motivated enough to finally take small steps towards his goal of having a better approach for this kind of stuff.

He silently scooted over closer to Matthew, gently throwing his arm across the man's waist, resting his chin on his chest. Matthew stopped mindlessly combing thru your hair, positively surprised at Gideon's initiative. He welcomed his warmth, reaching out his other hand to grant him the same gesture. Gideon appreciated it, exhaling contently while closing his eyes. Maybe it wasn't that bad if the reward so satisfying.

Seeing this development caused you to smile, mimicking Gideon's idea of wrapping your arm around Matthew. Well, there goes the no-sweaty-hugs notion.

"Good thing I have two hands," Matthew joked, his expression growing fonder with each second of the peace passing by.

"Even..." You silently took a moment to count, "six, or eight, if you really try," you pointed out Matthew's superpowers. He chuckled in response.

"Two is just fine." Gideon commented, lazily looking at both of you.

"So... do we take a bath?" Matthew asked, slowly stopping his movements.

"Your hands are getting tired, aren't they?" You smirked in amusement.

"Not saying they aren't... But we still do need a bath." He squinted his eyes in a calm smile.

Gideon sighed, not keen on pulling away, yet still took into consideration Matthew's point. You were all sticky, and probably smelled by now. He sluggishly got up, waiting for the duo to follow him to the bathroom.

. . .

Returning to the couch, now squeaky clean, the three of you sat themselves comfortably once more, all snuggled up under a soft blanket. Gideon didn't comment anything else about the movie, silently watching as the credits began to roll on the screen. Maybe he even enjoyed it, just a little bit?

Matthew was the one to break the silence, "...Well, Gideon," turning his boyfriend's attention onto him, "if watching my favorite movie was such a torture for you, perhaps I could give at least one season of your anime a try. To even things out."

It was hard for Gideon to contain the sparkles appearing in his eyes, he really didn't expect Matthew to care about it, at all. He calmed down the smile threatening to invade his face, clearing his throat a little to speak, "That would... make things fair, I suppose." He tried to cover his excitement with a layer of nonchalance, but it was pretty clear nonetheless.

Both you and Matthew didn't even attempt to hide your joy at seeing a glimpse of Gideon's silly side shining through.

[nonagesiiiimus]

eden's tlt reread: a sidebar on names- palamedes (and cytherea)

i cannot stop thinking about the names of these characters and their many, many, many different references and deeper meanings. i haven't even finished my chapter two analysis because I am thinking about names so much. i know i've talked about it before. I am going to talk about it again. sue me. i want to talk about Palamedes and Cytherea's names. i will eventually get to chapter two. but for now...

Palamedes Diomedes:

Palamedes was originally going to be named Diomedes, who is also a figure in the Trojan War. Diomedes was the King of Argos, a friend of Odysseus, and a man admired by Athena. in the Iliad, Diomedes charges into battle and ends up wounding Aphrodite. additionally, in the battle, as he heads in, he is blessed with the protection of Athena:

"She set the man ablaze, his shield and helmet flaming with tireless fire like the star that flames at harvest, bathed in the Ocean, rising up to outshine all other stars." (Iliad, 5.4-6)

here’s why i think the characterization of Palamedes and Diomedes is important, even though Palamedes was not actually named after him in the final book. there are some clear parallels. Diomedes was smart, brave, and blessed by the goddess of wisdom and tact on the battlefield. Palamedes is the first of the house of the scholarly Sixth librarians and the living legacy of the incredibly tactful and brilliant Cassiopeia. i can’t help but feel that Athena setting him ablaze with bravery as he charged into Troy is akin to Palamedes charging into Dulcinea/Cytherea’s room and, after completing his mission to ring the truth out of her, bursting into flames. user u/onlymodestdreams on reddit also pointed out that the bursting into flames aspect also calls back to the Paul transformation in NTN, something i totally missed but absolutely think is relevant here.

Cytherea:

why mention Aphrodite before? so glad you asked. Cytherea is another name for Aphrodite, as recorded in Homer’s Hymn 5 and 10 to Aphrodite:

"Muse, tell me the deeds of golden Aphrodite the Cyprian, who stirs up sweet passion in the gods and subdues the tribes of mortal men and birds that fly in air and all the many creatures that the dry land rears, and all that the sea: all these love the deeds of rich-crowned Cytherea." (Homer’s Hymn 5 to Aphrodite)

"Of Cytherea, born in Cyprus, I will sing. She gives kindly gifts to men: smiles are ever on her lovely face, and lovely is the brightness that plays over it." (Homer’s Hymn 10 to Aphrodite)

Kythira, or Cythera, is a Greek island where the Phoenicians brought the worship of Aphrodite—hence, her secondary name as Cytherea. Cytherea/Aphrodite is a goddess of love and beauty, but also of war and violence and, across many stories, revenge. it’s quite familiar to how we see Cytherea portrayed in GTN: a goddess, beautiful and charming and enchanting, but full of rage and pain and vengeful angst. and of course, she was injured by Palamedes, just like how she was injured by Diomedes during the Trojan War! some people argue that Palamedes’ sacrifice did nothing to hinder Cytherea, but it’s pretty clearly laid out at the end of GTN that him going dynamite mode really injures Cytherea and affects her ability to heal on her own without siphoning from Ianthe:

"As Gideon watched, somewhere between horror and fascination, the earlier wounds—the ones Palamedes had inflicted when he blew up the sick room—began to reopen… 'What in the hell?' objected Gideon, more to relieve her feelings than in hope of an answer. 'She hadn't healed,' said Camilla weakly… 'She'd just skinned over the damage—a surface fix, hides the cracks.'" (p. 420).

Palamedes:

Palamedes is another Greek hero from the Iliad, one who outsmarted Odysseus and was betrayed by those he saw as allies. when Odysseus pretended to be insane instead of going to serve in the Trojan War, Palamedes understood Odysseus was trying to trick them. to prove this, he threatened Odysseus’ son's, forcing Odysseus to reveal he was not insane. by ensuring Odysseus entered the war, Palamedes played a big part in the Achaeans winning the war. Odysseus, still feeling betrayed by Palamedes getting him to come to the front lines, later framed Palamedes as a traitor by forging a letter from Priam, resulting in Palamedes being stoned to death by his supposed allies (Apollodorus Epitome E.3.7-9).

Palamedes was described by Dares Phygrius in his History of the Fall of Troy as "tall and slender, wise, magnanimous, and charming" (reference). he is also credited with many academic inventions: "Palamedes had a reputation for sagacity, and the ancients attributed a number of inventions to him, including the alphabet, numbers, weights and measures, coinage, board games, and the practice of eating at regular intervals" (Britannica).

Palamedes was clearly a super brilliant man—from his dealing with Odysseus to his prowess on the battlefield to his scholarly inventions. his hand in pushing Odysseus into the Trojan War- his ability to see through Odysseus' lies and disguise of insanity- was what led to his death by his allies, but also to the victory of the Achaeans. for Locked Tomb Palamedes, the parallel is quite clear. his intelligence and his physical appearance sound quite similar to historical Greek Palamedes. without Palamedes' ingenious discovery of Cytherea and his subsequent death because of her, someone he once trusted, Harrow would likely have never triumphed. instead, they all might have been defeated one by one by Cytherea. Palamedes’ sacrifice provided Harrow with the crucial impetus to confront the enemy directly and ultimately secure victory.

Palamedes is also an Arthurian hero. Palemedes in Arthurian tales is a Middle-Eastern knight, known for a couple key things. first, he is in love with a woman named Iseult. He loses the fight for Iseult's hand against another knight, leaving his love unrequited (but still there). he remains in love with her, despite not being able to be with her. he is also one of the knights said to have fought the Questing Beast, a mythical monster that represents all the core issues of the Arthurian time that eventually tear the society apart. to me, this too sounds like our TLT Palamedes: unrequited love, questing to destroy something that he sees as the root of evil. whether that's Jod, the lyctor process, or the resurrection beasts is hard to tell, but to be honest my vote is for the former two.

there's so much buried in a single name, that sets up some of the most complex and incredible characters in the series. this is the kind of shit we live for, and honestly why this series is so addictive. everything unspools into something bigger.

please note that i am not a classics scholar by any means, so there are errors in here i'm sure. please correct as you see fit!

[forthegoob]

No react on the season 17 episode 9 because it was too intense and too much informations for my little brain who need to process.

Maybe I'll update it later tho.

I start to like the new dynamic between all the characters. Luke and Penelope being friendly. I nearly give up a bit on Garvez tbh. (Yeah, I change my mind A LOT.). And Tyler and Rebecca dynamic is gold.

I wish they put a TW on the SA allude. My heart can't handle it, I was close to throw up just with the idea...

Don't know why but... I feel like someone will be kill in the process. My bet on Tyler Green. (Because he is an important character but not enough to make fan too mad about it. But my shitty instinct is not to prove so. They'll all be very much alive at the end). It's a discussion I had with my best friend the other day. I mean they are all being kidnapped and tortured at some point but... We never had a violent loss. Gideon was killed years after he leaves. Walker's death, we had not enough time to really be attached to the character. Okay, Strauss's death was a shock, but no one really liked her. (And I don't talk about Haley or Phil because they wasn't part of the BAU.)

I forgot about Prentiss death but... It wasn't a real one and we knew by the end of the episode.

Oh ! And Jill who kiss Rossi AGAIN. Just before he goes on the field. It wasn't the right time to mess up with his emotion girl. And stop give Rossi love interest! He had enough. We want Tara and Rebecca, with want a new love interest for Luke or Penelope, or them together.

I had HOPE when Luke start with "when I was ranger". Remember when we was hopeful about maybe we could finally have Luke's background... Yeah me neither.

It's official, Luke and Tyler are bro now.

[v0rd1g4n]

The Thundermans Return - Review

All right, as I already stated in Part 1, I really liked the movie. It was great how fast it got released, after they officially announced it back in 2023, less than a year later. I could even enjoy it with the mexican spanish dub (with the same voice actors and everything), as soon as it was available on Paramount+, which by the way was awesome.

However, I think they had a few problems to work with all these characters in the same story, and this is what I think...

The art of nerfing

From time to time, they seem to be forced to nerf their powers for the story to go on and putting about 15 characters with superpowers in a movie like this, quite frankly, is not an easy task. We would expect to see the twins stronger and experienced than ever and probably they are, but its more likely that they tried to balance things up.

I think this is like creating a Superman game, which by the way, is something people have been discussing for a while. You could try to make it perfectly accurate to how powerful he can get to be, which is practically a god, but this is just a lot to work with and that's why they need to nerf, either his superpowers or the city. Otherwise, the game would be boring.

All right, let's get to it. These are my thoughts...

Losing a lost battle

First of all, when the family go to stop Blue Flame, the Thundertwins didn't even use telekinesis against him. Only close range atacks like heat breath from a long distance, which has no sense. Especially for someone like Phoebe.

What about Max's gadgets? All we saw was the jetpack but none of his new inventions, maybe a repulsor gauntlet or something like that. I know the Thundermans were meant to fail on this save, but I just think it could've been better executed.

A lost opportunity

Also, when Max and Phoebe get caught by the V-Team, I would've liked to see an intense fight between them, maybe not as good as the one they have, later in the movie and then get defeated by a bad decision from one of the twins, for example.

Besides, they could've left a huge mess all around the headquarters, for President Kickbutt and her team to find and start to investigate the V-Team.

A missing fight

During the Thundermans house break in, again, it would have been cool to see a small fight before they show how Max and Phoebe were being tortured. Maybe even turning Dr. Colosso back into a human, to help them out or something.

The amount of destruction inside of the house with all those powers, would've been amazing. By the way, did you notice how Chloe walks out of the scene, right before the V-Team get in the house?

Prison break

Near the end of the movie, we learn that the V-Team had broken their parents out of prison, and again, a security camera shot of them taking a few guards down and breaking out of prison together, would've been enough for me.

We've only seen Metroburg Super Jail from the outside and the cells area, but that building looks massive. Also, did you see they forgot to add the Metrobug Superjail sign at the top of the building? This screenshot is from "Tunder In Paradise".

The band and the mothers hunter

Other things I would've liked to see, is Max and his band playing a song at Splatburger again and not only talking about rejoining the band. Maybe even having Gideon still dating Sarah, instead of trying to become the next Paul Finch, still obsessed with his friend's mother, I mean... come on dude, chill out! 🤣

Weird relationship

And of course, how could this be a Nickelodeon show/movie, without the mandatory awkward scene? Dr. Colosso, a grown ass man turned into a rabbit, had been using Max's old suit as a sooting blanket. It was funny though.

I think sometimes the writers jut forgot that Dr. Colosso was not a talking rabbit. Oh, and by the way... what happened to his son, Balfour? They didn't even mention him.

Interesting origin but bad executed

And last but not least important, I'd like to talk about the reason I said in Part 1, that the Power Plant was a terrible idea.

But don't get me wrong. The origin of superpowers was interesting, but if Hank and Barb had this source of powers at home all along, then why didn't they use the blue seeds to go stop Dark Mayhem after Max took their powers away with the power-sapping orb?

Obviously, this was years before the movie came out, but still, it kind of ruins the moment, now that I look back and know what was really there.

Budget and filming

Now, I don't know if the budget was pretty low for the movie to last only 1 hour and 10 minutes or if it was filmed in a short span, but maybe that's what happened, because I remember people saying the filming was over in less than a month, so that may be the reason we didn't get to see more cool stuff, but I don't know.

I'm just speculating.

Music

As for the music, I gotta say I really liked it, except for the V-Team's song. It was funny, but not my thing. The new version of the theme song played during the closing credits, was so cool and I don't know if you're gonna be with me on this, but the song we could hear during the final battle against Dark Mayhem, was great.

I even turned on the subtitles while writing this and look what it says in the background. Damn! I thought the movie was for kids 🤣

VFX

And finally the VFX. I did have in mind that the movie was family friendly, so the special effects we see during the entire movie, are practically an improved version of the ones we've previously seen on the TV Show, which is cool most of the time, but sometimes... it doesn't.

Thundercest

Did you really think I wasn't gonna talk about Thundercest here? Well, guess again. It would've been awesome to have another big hug between Max and Phoebe, just like the one we saw in "Thunder in Paradise", but we can't have everything, right?

It's weird, because Max and Phoebe share a lot of screen time together, but something feels different than the tv show vibes. Don't you think? Anyway, here's a couple pics of them together.

Errors

I wasn't sure if I should share these two errors I found while writing Part 1 and Part 2 because this is not a movie rant, but it's kind of funny now that I think about it. So here they are:

Did you notice how they changed She-Crab's claw from one arm to the other?

Or how Phoebe's footage was duplicated while blowing freeze breath at Dark Mayhem Jr.?

And as Forrest Gump would say: “That's all I have to say about that”.

Colosso, the skater

Oh, wait. I almost forgot... All of the promos and posters had a small picture of Dr. Colosso on a skateboard. Is a deleted scene or something? I guess we'll never know.

Look at that. I wanna see Dr. Colosso performing a few tricks on a skateboard.

#SpingarnCut

Ranking

All right, I rank this movie 8/10.

And this is it, guys. I hope I'm not forgetting something important. I've been writing Part 2 and this post for the last three days, so please tell me what you think about the movie, about my review and if you'd like to see more of The Thundermans soon.

How would you rank the movie?

Let me know all your comments.

[random-meme-bot]

My sister and I just finished binging the entirety of "Scott Pilgrim Takes Off" and I need to ramble about it.

SPOILER WARNING

It was REALLY good!!!

The show lowers your guard with this fake sense of familiarity, the first chapter is basically an adaptation of the first comic (just really condensed so it could fit mostly everything important in a bit over 25 minutes) up until the show removes the carpet from under you and decides to kill Scott during his first battle with the league of evil exes.

From there on out the show reveals that it's not actually an adaptation, it's actually an entirely original story that's just based on the same world and characters.

And Oooh Boy was it good, having Ramona be the main character of the show was a very welcome surprise, and the show instead of being about Scott growing as a person and facing his past as well as Ramona's it's about her being forced to face her past and grow, and the show pulls this off really well, we found ourselves actually investmed on the exes and their stories, a group of characters that before were mostly just generic bad guy.

Not all of them are great though, I found Todd's & Wallace's romance plot to work a lot worse than the plot he had in the comics with Envy, his entire thing in the comics was that he let power get on his head and because he thought he was better than everyone else he cheated on Envy and broke Vegan code, 2 things that in the end lead to his downfall.

In the show he's actually a nice dude who gets a crush on Wallace, cheats on Envy not because of ego but love, and only breaks Vegan code after Wallace dumps him, he's way too nice of a guy, and on the other side of the spectrum during this whole plot they decided to turn Wallace into a villain for some reason, he's the one who is actually taking advantage of Todd and when Envy confronts him about it he pulls the "fight my stun double's" thing from the second evil ex(movie only) and forces Ramona to fight them for no real reason since she had nothing to do with this love triangle.

The other Evil Ex who I didn't like as much was Gideon, who they tried to make a sympathetic villain but it just doesn't work, like you cannot tell me this is the same guy who made a weapon that traps you in your head with your own problems as a means to keep Ramona captive in an abusive relationship. (The Glow also doesn't get referenced even once in the show which I thought it was a bit weird)

But apart from those two and Wallace for a bit, I loved every character in the show and their portrait.

One thing to note is that I feel the show basically requires that you to be a fan of the franchise to get the most out of it.

There are a ton of twist that only work if you already know the story, a bunch of jokes and references to the comics/movie/game get lost, and the main twist villain is basically a metareference to the whole discourse about how movie Scott didn't grow as a person and how awful he is yet still got the girl.

Also the twist that it was future Scott doesn't work without previous context because before that twist we only got one episode to get to know Scott.

To wrap up this very messy rambling about a new story based on one of my favorite comic series, my least favorite movies, and a game that was OK (beat em ups aren't my thing but that's not really the games fault).

Amazing show and definitely worth a watch if you're a fan of the original story 8.5/10

Would recommend waiting until you've read the comics and watched the movie before checking the show if you aren't that familiar with Scott Pilgrim 6.5/10

[im-out-of-it]

part 3A of throwback to season one and special edition of season 2, episode 10 “by the light of dawn” and then I’ll return to part 3 starting tomorrow (I’m sorry I’m so tired 😭)

season one has so many moments of Alec’s development and it’s very important to point out because Alec gets left behind in the books. I can count so many moments where I’ve read or watched any person in the lgbtq+ community who gets left behind, has ridiculous tiring tropes pushed on them, and who gets every single problem put on them. and while there are things I disagree what the show did, we should hand it to them for what they gave us.

Alec doesn’t matter in the books because CC made it that way. she wanted to kill Alec off after the first book, alec continuously gets mistreated by jace, and their parabatai bond doesn’t mean shit until jace needs something, and CC did not care about Malec until it made her money. I’m sorry but I don’t believe her excuses of “we were afraid we couldn’t print this material” like if you’re going to treat the gay couple like utter shit, I would rather (and this is just me) leave them out. it breaks my heart and makes me sad when I see the gay man constantly being treated like shit and being treated as if he doesn’t matter. book Alec deserves better and I’m sorry, but I don’t like book Alec, Malec, or Magnus. no our Alec isn’t biphobic and no our magnus communicates healthy and they aren’t full of drama because one is a bisexual and the other is gay. whoever wrote show Malec alec and Magnus, that’s who I would want to write those books. because book Malec didn’t deserve the treatment they got

this moment in episode 12 of season one “Malec” is so important because it’s the final time Magnus pushes Alec and Alec is stuck between not knowing what he wants and not thinking he can have what he wants. I shared in part 2A from season 2, episode 6 where Alec says he didn’t think he could have what he wanted until he met Magnus. and I think those feelings are extremely real in the episode above. and I love love love that the show decided to give Alec more opportunities and screen time. you know, instead of shoving him to the side and ignoring him

and here’s the other ones I missed

I always find the gifs when I don’t necessarily need them. I want to point this one out because Alec did ask Izzy how she was and noticed something was off: (and I get why Izzy said what she did but come on, if anyone cares about Isabelle the most, it’s Alexander Gideon Lightwood, her brother)

(but it’s also important to remember that Izzy is far into her addiction. she’s not thinking rationally but thinking of when she can have blood again because that’s how her addiction started. the yin fein which I believe makes her feel alive, great, how she can accomplish anything. it makes Izzy feel like she’s on top of the world- or that’s what I would imagine. so as much as it’s easy to be like what the actual fuck Izzy, she’s not thinking clearly at the moment.)

I’ll never get over how Alec thinks for a few seconds that Magnus could be dead AND HE DIDNT TELL MAGNUS HOW HE FELT

these gifs are so beautiful (HARRY IS SO BLOODY FUCKING TALENTED like he’s just good at expressing subtle emotions and not always saying a lot but you can see his pain, sadness, love, fearlessness, just every emotion you can imagine)

anyone: I love you

Alexander Gideon Lightwood:

I love how this scene itself is so beautiful but can pull at your heartstrings at the same time

THE GENUINE FEAR IN ALECS EYES

that is it for the three main special edition parts. I really didn’t think it would be this long but to be fair, I never do. I have so much love for show Malec, show Magnus, show Alec, show Izzy, show Raphael, show Maia, show Simon because the actors and actresses took the shitty parts of their characters that were put into the books and made them twenty times better. like you can hate on the show all you want and say it’s so cringe, it didn’t follow the books- LOOK I DONT GIVE A BLOODY FUCK!!!!!!! it’s so much better than the books and all of the people listed gave us so much more. so yeah I’ll always post my love for show Malec because they gave us EVERYTHING

I’ll return for part 3 tomorrow. I wanted to do more tonight but I’m feeling more sick and weak and need some time to recover but I’ll see y’all soon (IM SORRY)