#or just watching the dub but with the sub's subs (less work but also annoying)

[amplexadversary]

Welp I have fallen for a plot twist because I'm used to no one in anime being willing to wear a fucking wig.

Not that I know voice actors in general well enough to have picked up who IBOs obligatory masked man was just by his voice after existing for two episodes.

Even though that blonde fucker was conspicuously absent.

[oifaaa]

As someone who is very passionate about translation and about to start an MA in Japanese translation this fall:

THANK YOU.

The subs vs dubs argument annoys the hell out of me. You’re completely right and you should say it

(Also, I love your art)

People seem to forget that dubbed animes aren't the same as they were 20/30 years ago when the people making them were less likely to have ever watched an anime before and just tried to treat it like any other western cartoon - the people making dubbed anime today are fans of anime, they're treating it more professionally as it's being taken more seriously they don't deserve to have their work dismissed just bc the people dubbing pokemon had to call a rice ball a donut back in the early 00s so they wouldn't confused the poor little white children who had never seen rice before

[dragontamer05]

Thoughts / sort of rating of the Yugioh dubs;

DM- Look for all it's flaws, weird edits and censorship over all it's fairly decent. Most of the voices are good, generally speaking the tone and story are still relatively in tact. No episodes were skipped or out right cut, although changes were made.

Are somethings handles better/ make more sense in the orignal form for sure but during a time among a sea of very mixed dubs (and even compared to some of the other series 4kids/4K tried) It's honestly pretty good.

GX- Look while I admit to having some nostalgia for it's just.. not great. The joke meter got turned farther up and while some areas they did manage to keep the tone/ emotion- particularly there's a few good lines of Jaden/Judai from the dub when desperately going after Jesse/Johan

BUt oh boy is it sure just a product of its time with just some of the dialogue feeling very peak 2000s energy. And also a lot more questionable voice choices for characters (some is decent tho)

I'll sooner recommend someone watch the sub first if genuinely interested in the series. But if you've got a bit of nostalgia or just want to have some fun riffing on something it can be a fun watch.

Other majour problem is due to the desire of wanting to get on the next series fast as possible it never got completed and never got s4

5Ds- A mess.

Once again for a lot of the main cast voices are okay but definitely getting worse/more extreme in their attempts to try and hide death / censor or alter things. Whole chunks of it simply was not dubbed at all which I'm sure made pacing weird.

Never actually watched it all but oof. Even if everything else was great just the fact that there is a good chunk that got cut / not translated makes it hard to recommend watching it.

Might be a fun curious watch I guess but probably the dub series with some of the most issues (maybe)

Zexal- Well at least it got completed, like DM did so that's something. Personally kind eh about some of the voices. Astral's is great love it, Yuma is okay but I can understand how it may get annoying for some.

Another one with pretty bad censorship problems that I think even some who's only watched dub could probably figure seem off.

Probably could have ended up a lot worse truth be told but even looking at how DM was handled probably could have been better in places.

Still suggest subs over dub generally but if knowing of the changes doesn't bother you / okay with the voices I mean there's worse out there.

Arc V-

Decent. A clear sign of things to change and improvements. Complete series, still some expected censorship and changes here and there but otherwise fairly faithful to the source. No egregious changes even any allusions to death if altered it's in away that still makes sense / doesn't totally negate it just perhaps stated less overtly or something.

Serious moments often able to be kept serious (compared to some from what I recall just the usage of jokes didn't feel as egregious / bad)

Voicing pretty good over all with only a few characters that make me question the voice direction.

Overall, for sure worth watching it's fun (also there are just some great very quotable lines that got me laughing)

Likely helped in part by being owned by Konami thus I'd assume giving them some control/input on how things go

Vrains-

So good. Voice acting great and just everything was handled well I think.

Once again Complete series, some of the typical changes that are just usual stuff at this point but for a series that can get as dark and serious as it does they handled it pretty well. I think honestly they even have a few lines that just wow.

Like as much as it would be great to have them do a dub where nothing gets changed (say for anything that is typically might happen for any localization- i.e like changing a joke that doesn't work in translation or whatever) I'd say it's pretty darn close and over solid job.

I know some people we kinda eh on that ending/scene in the last episode and I get it, wasn't what was expected or hoped for maybe but I thought it was fine. Far from the worst thing they could have done and it still felt at least fitting/ pretty in character. And if your someone watching only dub I think they still manage to hit and keep the emotion of that scene just doing it in a different way.

Sevens-

As it is, Sevens is a pretty goofy show with big Saturday morning cartoons energy. From the get go it had the makings of what would be a fun dub and they nailed.

Voice choices are so good, continuing on the track of completing series and whatever changes might have been made be it dialogue or what have was nothing that I ever noticed or affected the plot/story in anyway.

Like obviously the script can't/won't be word for word exact but I'm pretty sure more often then not whatever was used or said was pretty close to/equivalent there of whatever was in the original anyway.

It's good, it's fun and silly and I can promise that despite what you may think I'd argue the vast majority of jokes come straight from the Sub itself or at the very least it keeps within the general tone /feeling of something the character would say. Never came across any moment where a joke was used that did feel quite right.

As said as it is Sevens is a pretty silly and fun show even in its original form and the Dub does a great job of keeping the spirit alive and story intact

Sub or dub I strongly recommend watching it anyway. Yes it's animated by a different group- no longer done by Studio Gallop. But honestly it fits and works. I have no idea how much was already planned out before the switch was made or any of the behind the scenes but regardless the art/animation style really fits well the tone of the series - and you can still look at it and go 'that's a yugioh'

Plus after the plot of Vrains ngl kinda nice n fun to have what Sevens brought.

Also look it's time to accept that for as much as it is a series that anyone can enjoy the target demographic IS technically kids / a younger audience (and trying to use this as a means to attract more of that younger audience get them interested)

Go Rush doesn't have a dub yet but I'm hyped and am sure it'll be a blast to.

[otakween]

Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01 - Disc 5

This volume is called "The legendary power of the digimental," so I guess we'll be getting an armor evolve? Also...what the heck is Taichi wearing on the cover. Looks kinda silly...

Ch. 29

-We get a Taichi-free chapter where it's Leomon's turn to shine! Of course he dies, because Leomon always dies lol. I felt bad for the baby digimon who lost their mentor :'c

Ch. 30

-Oh oops, I guess Leomon wasn't dead. Coulda fooled me! This time it was HolyAngemon/Seraphimon's time to shine. I thought it was interesting how HolyAngemon digivolved by removing his "seal." That's a new one.

-The "Super Ultimate" digivolution is confusing since "Ultimate" means something different in dub vs. sub of the anime. I guess they're going for the Japanese version where ultimate is usually the final digivolution.

-Seraphimon unleashes his attack!

(Does anyone else remember that show? I never watched it but it used to be on all the time lol).

Ch. 31

-They did the whole "this is my REAL body" thing with Venom Vamdemon. Still one of my least favorite digimon designs. It felt a little anti-climactic that Zero ended the whole thing in one blow, especially after Leomon and Holy Angemon struggled. Kinda sus power-levels there.

-They reveal that Neo needs to find a digimental to get Arkadimon to "super ultimate," which threw me off. I thought Arkadimon was a special, artificially created digimon that was special BECAUSE it could reach super ultimate. Now they're saying that any digimon can reach super ultimate via a digimental? Okaaaay...

-Hideto enters the scene with his Omegamon. Another digimon that feels weird to be partnered with a tamer. It also feels weird to demote these boss-level digimon to mid-bosses. Kinda makes them feel less impressive.

-Never heard the name "Hideto" before, but a quick Google suggests it's normal...sounds kinda weird to me.

Ch. 32

-So I uh...literally got spoiled about the siblings twist right before I read this chapter because I looked something up in the wiki and saw Rei's last name. D'oh! I guess it's not that shocking when we know next to nothing about her anyways...

-I found it kind of interesting how the gang question if they're on the right side or not since Omegamon is supposed to be "a force for justice." It's a little annoying that this franchise keeps flip-flopping on whether some digimon are just innately good or not. They also kind of implied that Omegamon being a vaccine digimon means he's good too...I just want some consistency.

Ch. 33

-So we get Hideto's backstory in the chapter. The fact that the first 2 Alias characters were all quirky and he's just some normal, cool guy tells me he'll be a little more fleshed out.

-They really thought "Warg" and "Melga" were good names for Digimon (I get that it's from WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon but still...I guess everything sounds better in Japanese).

-So Neo's main motivation for taking over the digital world is to cure his sister's paraplegia? Uhhh...pretty sure wheelchair bound people still live very fulfilling lives, so that's weak.

Ch. 34

-A very interesting explanation of how digimons' lifespans work. Essentially, digimon express themselves by rapidly overwriting their data and digimon that process these overwrites at a faster rate have the downside of have a shorter lifespan. They used the analogy of how overwriting DVDs/CDs can degrade them. The part that threw me off is that Hideto was like "that's right, Zero has a short lifespan, meaning he can't digivolve any further." I thought they meant short lifespan as-in, he'll die soon, not a digivolution limitation? (Do digimon die of old age in this universe?)

-I like that Hideto seems to have some compassion while battling and tries to get Taichi to give up. He's a nice contrast to Neo who's always in crazy villain mode.

This volume felt really short and like not too much happened, just a bunch of battles with some backstory peppered in. It seems like the whole Neo Saiba thing won't go on for 4 more volumes, so I wonder where the story will go after his defeat? Maybe Demon would be next? I honestly keep forgetting about him because he never shows up lol.

P.S. I still don't know what Taichi's wearing on the cover lol

[strabius-berry]

Feel free to ignore but I just need to rant for a moment.

I'm really annoyed with the way English subtitles are being handled lately. This is gonna focus on the anime Komi Can't Communicate, licensed by Viz Media, but I've also noticed this with animes licensed by Funimation like Boku no Hero Academia. Lately, English subtitles for the Japanese versions are jumping right into adapting their jokes or sayings into something the English speaking audience would understand, and this is normally okay since it makes for less having to explain the joke to an audience that wasn't brought up on it. But the thing is this should only be done in the English dubs, which are already meant to adapt the language and ways of speaking to an English audience. The point of subtitles is so we can understand what they are saying in their own language, even if it involves having to explain the joke in translator notes. But many times I have found myself having to look up what the onscreen text was saying when it was clear to me from first glance that it wasn't what the subtitles were saying. Case in point: Komi's joke.

This reads "futon ga futton da" which translates directly as "the futon flew off". The joke doesn't translate into English but phonetically you can tell it's a Japanese pun.

In the English dub, they adapted this joke to one that fits in our language with "the bedbug bugged the bed", which hits just as well as the Japanese version. It would be fine if this was only in the dub, but when watching the Japanese version, the subtitles kept the dub's translation and not the accurate one. This creates misinformation for those who don't have a basic understanding of the Japanese language and could lead them to think "futon" means "bedbug" when it doesnt.

Second case in point: Ochako getting flustered.

The text surrounding her do not say what she is saying, and even she herself is not saying what the subtitles say. The joke in this scene is that Mina accused her of being in love, or

恋/koi, and her reaction is to question what her meaning is with "鯉/koi" "故意/koi" "濃い/koi". Every single word on screen is pronounced "koi", so it's like she's asking for clarification on what Mina means by saying "koi", even though she clearly knows what she meant.

Yes, the "love? shove? dove?" translates faster and is just as effectively into English, but it works better in the dub, it's not accurate to the meaning of the Japanese language in sub.

Look, I don't know if this is a result on dubbing/subbing companies wanting to spend less time/money into adapting or whatever, but I can remember watching a fansub of the original Digimon Adventure for the first time, and the translator notes took the time to explain the reason Koushiro performed stand up comedy to his parents after they asked him through his bedroom why he was speaking in a particular dialect, was because at the time his digimon Tentomon spoke in kansai dialect. As an English speaker, I would have never understood that, so the translator notes provided knowledge that would have gone over my head before.

Likewise, fansubs for the japanese version of the game Sonic Colors had lots of moments when explaining the joke to me came in handy with increasing my knowledge. For instance, when Tails tries using his device to translate what Yacker was saying, it first translated it's name to "soccer", and when he does get it right, Sonic jokes "are you sure his name isn't yakyuu?" Which is the japanese word for "baseball", while providing the motion of hitting a ball with a bat. The joke is how similar Yacker and yakyuu sound together, and the fact that soccer and baseball are both sports; it's punny. Sure, it doesn't translate into English, but that's not the point. We should be more eager to explain the jokes from other languages so that we can expand our knowledge. Most non-English languages dont know "no prob, Bob" is an English speaking pun. We take these things for granted since it comes so naturally to us, but I am always excited to learn and understand the puns and jokes in other languages, and I want to believe I'm not alone in that despite the shallow translations from big dubbing companies.

[no-droids]

The Sun on Both Sides

Summary: Cassian Andor is your very close companion.  He says best friend, you say pain in your ass—neither one of you are entirely wrong.  But then one night you smoke some unfamiliar spice with him, and everything you once thought you knew goes sideways.

Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Cassian Andor/fem!Reader

Word Count: 11.2K

Warnings: SMUT, sex pollen (therefore DUB-CON by default), recreational drug use, best friends to lovers, mutual pining, dirty talk, oral sex (both male and female receiving), penetrative sex, me just making so much shit up honestly

A/N: All phrases in Festan are taken from other Star Wars conlangs.  I don’t even know if that’s the name of the language people from Fest speak tbh.  Probably not.  None of this is real.  Anyways this is Cassian as a young rebel pilot long before the events of Rogue One.  This oneshot will likely be deemed obsolete by Cassian’s new Disney+ show but whoooooooops~

—knock knock knock knock knock—

You know that knock.  It’s too quick, too rapid and annoying to be anyone else.

“I’m sleeping,” you huff with your mouth full, sitting on top of your mattress in a hoodie and sweatpants, legs crossed.

“I have gifts,” Cassian’s muffled voice asserts from the other side of the door.

“I don’t care,” you return, swallowing and shoveling more slop together with your tiny little biodegradable spork.  “S’the middle of the night.”

—knock knock knock knock knock—

“Stop it.”

“Knock knock,” he beckons vocally, as if you didn’t hear it the first ten times.  “Come, open the door.  Please—I will get into trouble.”

It’s exhausting being Cassian’s friend.  Truly exhausting.  It doesn’t matter what Maker-forsaken time it is, as soon as he comes back to base from patrols, he’s at your door.  You don’t know why he chose you as his sole victim to personally inflict this torture upon, but regardless of reason, he’s called you his close friend ever since you first offered to help the lanky, dark-haired six year old with his Basic and his best friend ever since your junior year of flight training.  Apparently with the promotion came the lingering, severe misfortune of his present company, almost always.

“Can I put in for a transfer?”  He also technically outranks you.

“Open the door and we will talk,” Cassian bargains.  Bantha shit, you and him both know it.  He’ll rip the papers in half before you can even finish filling them out.

You let out a dramatic groan just loud enough for him to hear, dragging yourself off the bed and padding over to the door.  “If I accept your gift, will you leave?”

“Maybe.”  No.

“If I accept your gift and trade it for the rest of this, uh,” you look at the MRE packet in your hands, “rice and shredded tauntaun meat in glockaw sauce, will you leave?”

“Maybe.”  No.

“Good call, not as great as it sounds.  What if I—”

He says your name impatiently, accented and sharp.  You roll your eyes as his knuckles rap on the door once more.  “Quickly, quickly—before someone sees.”

“It’s the residential quarters and it’s two in the fucking morning, Cass, nobody’s going t—”

He cuts you off once more.  “Open the door and I will submit for your transfer work, yes?”

You throw your spork prong-down into the beige pouch in your hands and pop your hip, narrowing your eyebrows at the thick slab of metal separating the two of you skeptically.  “No, you won’t.”

“No, I will not,” the voice behind it concedes immediately.  “But for you, I will pretend.”

As soon as you the door slides open and disappears up into the ceiling with a quiet shhhft sound, his dark silhouette quickly slips past you and sneaks into your room, immediately bouncing his bony little butt down on top of your sizable but thin box-spring mattress without a word.  You press the button to close the door behind him with a long, drawn out sigh, turning around and resting your back against the wall panel.

Cassian meets your tired, expectant gaze head-on and wide awake, perched on your bed and huddled around something hidden in his thick jacket.  “First.  You cannot tell anyone.  Understand?”

You raise an eyebrow at him, unimpressed.  “Are we children, Cass?”

“Secondly.”  He blinks up at you.  Maker, his eyes are so… wide.  Dark and warm and bright, framed with thick, long lashes.  “If you do not want it, just say.  Okay?”

Your expression suddenly narrows.  This is new.  It’s… still bantha shit, but it’s… new.  New bantha shit.

“Because the word ‘no’ holds so much meaning for you,” you tilt your head to gesture at the door to your right, “clearly.”

“Come.  Sit here,” he ignores you, patting the space next to him as if that isn’t your own fucking bed he’s inviting you to join him on.  “We will look together.”

“I will literally murder you,” you tell him genuinely, though you push off the wall to move toward him all the same.  “If that’s not a cute little mini-lothcat in your arms you got me for my birthday, Andor, I will literally murder you.”

“Today is your birthday?”  He glances up at you in surprise just as you’re lowering yourself down onto the mattress next to him.

“Two weeks ago, but you were off-base.”  You dig around inside the pouch for your handy little spork, not looking at him.  “Quit avoiding the subject, my death threat still stands.  Where’s my cat, asshole?  Who do I have to tolerate in my bed this late at night to push that kind of paperwor—oof—”

The second you catch the hard little end piece of it between your fingers is the second he reaches around you and pulls you into a tight, one-armed hug.  You fumble with the packet of food as you’re abruptly jerked forward, trying not to let it get squished it between you.

Stars, he smells good.  His parka smells just like him, the fur lining its hood so warm and fluffy and soft as it tickles your nose.  It’s still slightly damp from the wet sleet outside, but it smells so good.  The smallest undercurrent of clove and spice hidden beneath the sharp, clean scent of fresh snow.

“Happy Year-Over, caraya,” Cassian says next to your ear, quiet and fond.  “I know it is late, but I have your gift now.”

“‘Caraya’ better be Festan for ‘here’s your cute little lothcat, birthday girl’,” you warn him, moving to rest your chin on top of his padded shoulder and trying not to sound as breathless or affected by his sweet talking as you feel.  He’s never called you that before.  Caraya.  What does it mean?

It’s… it’s bantha shit, you remind yourself, trying not to close your eyes or lean into his half-embrace.  It’s all bantha shit.

“No,” Cassian acknowledges with a small head tilt, pulling his shoulder back but still keeping his long arm wrapped tight around you.  “No.  Not a… a cat, but…”  He slowly opens his other hand between the two of you, finally showing you.

You blink down at the thing in his palm, cradled carefully in thick gloves from the sub-zero temperatures outside.  It’s.  No, he’s right, it’s not a cat.  It’s a… a stick.  Reddish-pink, ground up plant matter wrapped in a semi-transparent binding.  Rolled up in a nice, even cylinder, a filter secured around one of its ends.

Spice.  Hand-rolled.  Expensive.  Probably swiped off a supply raid, whether by Cassian himself or another rebel fighter he bought it off of.  Ludicrous he got his hands on it, much less brought it on base.  Here, to your fucking quarters.

“I was wrong,” you eventually say, taking the joint from his open palm and holding it up to examine its strange color in the dim light.  “You don’t think we’re children.  You think we’re teenagers.”

“I think we are adults,” he corrects, swiping the MRE from your other hand, “with a reason to celebrate.”  He releases you and takes his arm back, sitting on your bed and digging two fingers around in your half-finished packet for your spork.

“You’re a bold pilot, Cass,” you tell him, studying the spice.  You’ve never seen any strain even similar to this before.  “It was one thing to do this during flight training, but now?  What happens if we have a piss test tomorrow?  Or, well—today, actually?”

“Different kind from before.”  He doesn’t sound bothered by the thought, though his mouth is currently full of tauntaun and rice in glockaw sauce.  “Only five hours high, not detectable after.  Piss tests are expensive, the rebellion has no money.”

“X-wings are expensive, too,” you counter, turning to look at him.  “You crash one of ‘em ‘cause you smoked this shit and your ass will be dead before you can even survive.”

“You hurt me.”  He uses the utensil to dig around the bottom corners of the packet for more slop, not looking hurt in the least.  “Also—you were right.  This one is… horrible.”

“Not to mention I have a oh-nine-hundred call.”  You both watch each other with matching looks of distaste as he continues to eat your food, clearly neither one of you enjoying it.  “You’re giving me barely two hours to come down before I got orange jumpsuits crawling all over me.”

“You did not hear?”  Cassian swallows.  “Reassigned Dreis during debriefing.  I will be leading red squadron tomorrow.  Or, today.”

You blink at him.  “You’re kidding.”

“No,” he shakes his head exactly once, throwing the spork into the empty packet and flattening it.  “No, I would not do that to you.”

“Course not,” you agree diplomatically.  “You’d just barge into my room at two in the morning, eat my food, offer me drugs, and then tell me I’ll be taking orders from you tomorrow.”

”Today,” he corrects.  “But I could not get our call changed, and for that I am sorry.”  He lifts an eyebrow at you, quirking the side of his mouth up and pushing the empty MRE pouch into your hands to throw away.  “But only for that.  Happy birthday?”

“We’re going to lose this war,” you tell him honestly, sliding off your mattress with a sigh to trash it.  “We’re all going to die horribly, and painfully.  The Rebellion is fucking doomed.  You and I will be but a mere footnote in the Empire’s endless reign of terror, you realize.  A footnote.  Our names at the very, very bottom of the page, in tiny little six point font, and it’ll link to a one sentence obituary for the both of us.  Died horribly and in pain.  Did you bring a lighter?”

“Here,” Cassian shifts to one buttcheek and pulls an arc lighter from his back pocket, offering it to you when you come back.  “Okay?  You will start it then?  Birthday girl.”

“You said five hours for one person, right?  So that’s two and a half each if we split it,” you reason with a shrug, putting the filter to your lips and talking through the side of your mouth.  “Two o’clock right now, nine-hundred call.  At least four hours to come down, and thirty minutes to shower if we’re both lucky.”

“We will be fine.”  He waves your careful calculations away with his hand as you flick the lighter.  “Because we are lucky feetnotes, yes?”

***

You’re not fine.

It’s fucking boiling in here.  Maker, you’re on fucking Hoth; why the fuck are you boiling?  It’s never even been warm in your quarters before, much less this hot.  You feel like you’re sweating buckets through your hoodie, your hair sticking to your neck in thin little curls.

And… and Cassian.

He’s sitting so unbelievably straight on the bed across from you, parka and gloves long abandoned on the floor.  His dark eyes flick over to you occasionally, though it looks like he’s trying really hard not to move a single muscle other than that.  His hands are clamped tightly between his thighs and he just… holds there.  A compact, rigid statue perched upright on the mattress, looking far too still and tense to fit the comfort of his surroundings.

“Are you okay?”  You ask him, blinking at how hoarse your voice comes out sounding.  Holy fuck, your mouth feels like a desert.  

Cassian stares at you, and for some reason, his large, expressive eyes seem even wider now.  They’re glassy and a bit red, but also so big and lovely and framed with long, dark lashes.

“This is not.”  His accent sounds thicker, words coming out deeper in his throat.  It settles down inside you just right and you feel a spark of heat at the base of your spine.  He blinks twice.  “This is not how it usually feels.”

“Should we stop?”  You look down at the half-finished joint in your hand, tilting your head thoughtfully as you consider the drug pulsing through your veins.  “It’s… it’s different, but I think it feels good.”

“Yes—I…”  He closes his eyes.  “Th-that is the problem, I think.”

He shifts a bit on the mattress and bites down on his bottom lip, and you must look so fucking dumb as you stare at him with your jaw slack, watching his lithe body stretch and handle the spice.  He’s fucking gorgeous.  Stars, you always thought he was gorgeous, but this is something else.  He flutters his eyes open to look at you through his lashes, and—

—oh.  Oh.  You see now.  You see what he meant.  Warmth pools deep down in your tummy as he looks at you with impossibly dark eyes, slowly drags his glassy gaze down your body.  Fuck, you’re getting turned on.  You go red and blink softly at him while he stares at you, trying to control your breathing.

“You need to—” your voice jumps, trying to remember the right cadence.  How do you speak to him normally?  “You can… take—take my pillow, if you want.  Lay down.  You’re too tall, your eyes are too big.  Look like a… like a Kaminoan.  Heal any—heal any clones recently?”

Bad joke.  Maker, he’s so beautiful.  Rich, dark features taking you in, blinking slowly at you and clearly not hearing a single word you said.

You shift your weight and throw him the cushion you’re partially sitting on without waiting for an answer.  You both need to calm the fuck down.  Hopefully the pillow will help.  Even if it’s squished and warm from your butt.  “It’s warm ‘cause I was sitting on it, m’sorry.  Fuck, it’s warm in here.  Do you think it’s warm in here?”

It’s like he still doesn’t hear you.  Cassian just takes your flattened pillow in his lap and looks at it for way too long, slowly rubs the fabric on the corner between his fingers and examines it, like if he tries hard enough he’ll be able to see through it.

“Cass,” you eventually call his name in reminder.  “Lay down, put that under your head—”

“Do you feel turned on?”  He asks quite suddenly, whipping his head to the side to look at you.  You almost drop the spice.

“No,” you say immediately, acting on impulse alone and trying to rearrange your face into something… something negative.  Something just generally negative, because you can’t even think of a negative emotion specific enough with the way your heart is pounding at the thought of something like this actually happening right now.  Holy fuck, you’re sweating.  What the fuck is in this shit?  “No, of course not.”

“Of course not,” he nods, turning back to look at your pillow.  “Me too.  Not.”  He shakes his head.  “Neither.  Either?”

“Lay down,” you tell him once more, desperately needing something else to do now, something to distract yourself from the way your lower muscles are starting to cramp up with heat and arousal.  “I’ll get us some water.  We need water.”

You’re off the bed and setting the smoldering spice on the small metal counter without another word, grabbing two empty cups and beginning to fill them up in the tiny little sink with your back to him. 

Stars, he was right.  It’s not supposed to feel like this.  It feels… it feels like everything is burning inside you, but such a good burn.  Like your mind is being seduced by your own body right now instead of the other way around, and the paradoxical sensation is manifesting itself in an unprecedentedly strong urge to jump your best friend’s bones.  The urge has always been there, granted, but it’s never been this shameless before.  Never arced and pulsed so brilliantly in your veins before, never been steadily fed by such a tempting outside source.  Not the drugs—but him.  The tangible fuck-me vibes Cassian is radiating towards you right now, staring at your back with those big, gorgeous brown eyes of his, silent and unmoving behind you as he watches you from your bed.  He’s never done anything to encourage your desire for him like this before.  He’s never wanted anything more than just platonic companionship and playful banter in the midst of war zones from you, and yet you can feel the heat burning from him too, feel it start to intensify your own high.

It’s bantha shit, you have to realize.  This whole Maker-forsaken situation—it’s forced; none of it’s real.  Cassian is your best friend, and he’s only looking at you like this because spice is chemically altering his hormones right now.  You can feel it doing the same to you, just steadily stirring deep in your floor muscles and amplifying your baser desires, but you need to snap yourself the fuck out of it and be the levelheaded one here.  Despite the arousal burning hot in your tummy, at least you know your thoughts are still fundamentally sound—in contrast, you have no fucking clue what’s going on in that hard head of his right now.  At least one of you needs to buck up, handle your drugs, and be the adult before things get out of hand.  If it falls to you, then so be it.

You focus on your breathing and do as much as you can to mentally will the tingling sensation down deep.  Taking a second to put a comfortable expression on, you finally turn around and start walking back to him.

When you raise your head and make eye contact with Cassian again though, the look in his eyes almost immediately threatens to undo everything you just decided.  Fuck, he looks like he just had an internal pep talk of his own, but in the entirely wrong direction you went.  He’s a bit more relaxed now, same as you, but his gaze is now searing hot on your body, tangible enough to stop you dead in your tracks in front of him.  It burns through you, and you literally feel the sweat drip down your back as a shiver rolls down your spine.

No.  Hold strong.  Maker, irresponsibility has always been appealing but never so fucking seductive as this is, has it?  Taking such a gorgeous fucking form.  You take a few more steps forward, quickly trying to gather composure.

“Should we stop?”  You ask him once more and stars, you were aiming for calmer and gentler and with more lung support—not this breathless scrape of a sound that feels like sandpaper in your throat.  He hasn’t said a fucking word and your resolve is already wavering.  You try not to make eye contact as you carefully hand him one of the cups.  “We’re only twenty minutes in, barely halfway through it.  We can stop and coast, it’s not a big deal.”

Cassian takes the water from your outstretched hand, letting the tips of his fingers brush lightly across yours in the process.  Your heart skips in your chest.  “Do you want to stop?”

You absolutely should fucking stop.  Just standing here and handing him water without ripping your clothes off is a challenge; you’ve still got half a joint left and you’re not even sure you’ve reached the come-up yet.  What if this is just the beginning?  What if this is just laying the foundation?  What happens when you actually peak on this shit?

“It’s not a big deal,” you repeat instead, keeping your answer as ambiguous as possible and taking a sip of the blessedly cold liquid.  At least the water is responding correctly to the frigid environment on this horrible fucking planet.  You feel ready to burn up.  “Just wanna make sure you’re cool.”

Cassian flicks his eyes over to the joint still cherried and smoking on the metal counter behind you.  “We can keep going.”

Your breathing picks up slightly.  Does he know what he’s really asking right now?  He has to have figured out what that spice does by now, right?  But no, he’s so steadfast in the way he looks at you, blinking up at you confidently.  Fuck, you should stop.  You should stop.

You should… compromise?

“If we keep going, no more of this,” you tell him, gesturing to the way he still hasn’t moved or drank any of the water in his cup.  “You need to.  Chill out, alright.  Act normal.”

Fuck, you’re normally so blunt and outspoken with him, so why is it that everything happening here is so fucking unsaid?  Everything is transpiring right below the surface, a conversation taking place within another conversation.  You’re telling him to cut the heart eyes, lay back on the bed and spend some rare quality time with his best friend.  Regardless of the weird side effects, this spice is still giving you an incredibly strong body high.  If he could just stop looking at you like that so you can stop rhythmically clenching and pulsing between your legs, you’d probably be incredibly relaxed right now.

“I will lay down,” he finally agrees, breaking eye contact with you and grabbing the pillow from his lap so he can throw it down next to him.  “Go, get the rest of it.”

“Drink.”  You stay rooted to your spot.

He gulps down the entire cup of water right in front of you, and something about how sassy and exaggerated it is makes you unwind just a bit and head back for the spice.

This is better, you think.  Butting heads with your strong personalities is better than whatever mind games you two were playing before, more familiar and grounding.  Cassian sets down his empty cup on the floor as you pick up the joint, and then you sit on the edge of the mattress across from him when you come back.

“So how were patrols?”  You ask him, taking another hit of it and studying the strange color it burns as you hold the smoke in your lungs, almost a light pink.

“Not bad,” he says, scooting back to lay lengthwise across the back of the bed.  His long legs stick off the end but he looks way more comfortable now, settling back into the pillow and watching you with a calmer, more easy-going look in his eyes.

“Where’d you get sent this time?”  You have to lean forward quite a bit to hand him the spice.

“The Lothal Sector,” Cassian responds casually, taking it from you.

“Oh, fuck off,” you snap, already unamused before he’s even started to mess with you.  “I will shoot down red leader tomorrow, Cass, don’t you dare fucking test m—”

“A local was trying to sell kittens to the pilots,” he goes on, completely ignoring you and relaxing back down into the mattress with the joint between his fingers.  “They were very cute.  But then I tell him no, because I did not know of anyone who could care for one.”

“That’s not fucking funny.” Cassian smiles slowly at you as you glare back at him very, very sternly.  “This is a no lothcat joking zone, I’m sensitive about this.”

He keeps smiling even as he takes his hit, gentle and fond and lovely on his face, but his eyes eventually go softer and a bit melancholy on the exhale.  

“I am sorry I missed your birthday, caraya,” he says to you truthfully, something sincere and tender in the way he looks at you.  “But I will get you something better than a cat.”

“What does that mean?”  You lean forward and grab the spice from him when he holds it out for you.

“No idea,” he admits during the careful exchange.  “Maybe something with less claws and teeth, I think.”

“No,” you shake your head, settling back on your butt once more.  “Caraya.  What does that mean?”

Cassian quickly opens his mouth to reply, but then pauses and takes a second.  As if he’s debating on what exactly he wants to tell you.  You inhale from the spice held between your fingers and wait patiently for him.  Probably something to do with birthdays, right?  Since he only started calling you that after you told him he missed yours.

You end up waiting for his answer so long, you actually feel like you should take another hit.  But when Cassian does eventually speak, it’s incredibly calculated and slow, like he’s actively trying to find the correct words to translate its exact meaning into Basic.

“Fest is part of a binary star system,” he finally tells you, breaking the silence.  “It is… it is what my people call the times when… when one of the stars sets while the other is rising on the opposite horizon.”

You pause with the joint halfway to your mouth, staring dumbly at him.

“It is rare.  I have seen it only twice.  Each time, for less than a minute.  It is very rare for them to match up perfectly, but when they do.”  His eyes go a bit softer, losing himself in his memories instead of concentrating so much on the words.  “The sky shines with every color.  Reds, yellows, and pinks to the west; blues, indigos, and violets to the east.  It is… it is also… something we call the ones close to us,” he continues, blinking his gaze slowly back to you.  “Caraya na cotâ vi zas iz’búsdari.  To care and be cared for is to feel the sun on both sides.”

You… you just keep staring at him.  Blank, unmoving, not really even breathing.  Your chest suddenly feels incredibly tight.  He looks back at you and stars, he looks so fucking gorgeous; long lashes dusting over his cheekbones at this angle, one hand resting lazily over his abdomen as he relaxes on your bed.

“It sounds…”  You sound winded.  “Lovely.”

“Yes,” Cassian returns softly, tilting his head on your pillow and blinking at you.  “It is.”

You don’t know why the fuck you thought this would be okay, honestly.  This whole thing was such a horrendous fucking idea right from the start.  You’re surprised you haven’t set the both of you on fire by dropping the lit spice between your fingers.  You were a fucking idiot to think you could resist him.  You were overconfident, underestimating him the way you did.  It’s like… like he’s approaching this in surges, almost.  Lulling you into a false sense of security for a bit, and then carefully pushes forward, toeing the line between best friend and person he wants to fuck and seeing how much you’ll let him get away with.

You’re… you’re a weak, spineless little thing.

“Is it—is it your turn?” You eventually ask him, looking down at the joint in your hands.  It’s barely above a whisper and it’s vaguely squeaky and it’s probably one of the dumbest fucking things you’ve ever asked in your life.  Of course it’s his turn, who the fuck else’s turn would it be?  

Cassian would normally rip into you for being such an idiot, but he doesn’t.  He just blinks softly at you, pupils dilated and glassy as they take you in.

“Would you like to…”  He sounds equally breathless now, swallowing thickly before he speaks again.  “You can… come closer, if you want.  Here.  With me.”  He pats his belly.  “No more reaching.”

What is… what is happening right now?  Is Cassian Andor actually, like—for real making a move on you?  His best friend?  The one he’s never looked twice at?

“You want me to…?”  Your cunt clenches.  Stars, you’re so wet already.  You can feel it, dampening your underwear as his eyes flutter slightly at the rasp in your voice.

“Come,” he pats his stomach once more.  “Lay down with me.”

You slowly begin to shuffle over to him on shaky knees, trying to move normally as he watches you.  He stretches out across the back of the bed, giving you a perfect spot along his open torso to relax into.  Your heart pounds as you carefully hand the spice to him before settling yourself on your back with your head on his tummy, making a little perpendicular t-shape with him on the mattress, vision slightly blurry but pulsing at the same time.

Maker, he smells so fucking good.  He smells like fresh snow and something warm at the same time, so lean and long above you.  You’re almost panting now, burning up in your thick layers as you try to get comfortable.

“Maker, it’s so fucking hot in here,” you whisper, using your sleeve to wipe the sweat gathering at your temples.  “Fuck.”

“Take off your shirt,” Cassian suggests quietly, and your mouth instantly goes bone dry, your chest forgetting to rise again after it collapses with a quick whoosh of breath.  “You have something on underneath, yes?”  He adds quickly before you can completely ignite in flames.  “Take off the top one.”

You… you have a thin undershirt on, but nothing underneath that.  It’s nearing three in the morning, of course you don’t have a bra on right now.  And the undershirt is white, and you’re sweating buckets, which means—

“It… it might show some…”  You have no clue how to phrase this, but Cassian quickly responds.

“It is just me,” he reassures, carefully reaching his arm around your head to hold the joint up to your lips for you.  You inhale the drug deeply, watching the pink light illuminate the tips of his fingers.  “We are best friends, and this is your room.  You should relax.”

Maker, this is… this is dangerous.  He’s dangerous.  He’s smart, choosing to go at it from this angle.  He’s not toeing the line anymore, he’s just… blurring it until it doesn’t exist anymore.  Or better yet, just walking over it and pretending it doesn’t exist at all.  Pretending nothing at all is happening between you right now.  Trying to see whether you’ll be more willing to give in if he comes at you from the side like this, not necessarily catching you off guard but refusing to outright confront you about it either.

Apparently precedent rules.  You’re a weak, spineless little thing, especially when presented with such a compelling out.  He’s… he’s totally right.  You are best friends, this is your room, and you should relax.  Nothing sexual about it at all, right?  Furthermore, relaxing trumps overheating any fucking day of the week, so… so that’s why you tell yourself it’s okay to sit up and immediately reach behind your head, grabbing the hoodie and beginning to pull the thick fabric off.  

Only, it’s damp and clings to your thin undershirt, dragging both of them up the length of your back as it goes.  You stop when the lower hem pulls up just below your breasts, trying to reach back behind your head even further and separate the two materials but struggling with the angle.

“Cass,” you eventually prompt, trying not to flush.  Not like he’d be able to tell, though; you’ve been unbearably warm and fidgety this entire time, your embarrassment conceals itself without your assistance.  “You wanna help me?  Or you just wanna keep watching?”

“Do not ask me such stupid questions,” he tells you plainly, unmoving.  “What did I say?  We are best friends.  Of course I am not going to help you.  You are…” he trails off when you lift your shoulders upright just a bit to see if the angle will work better that way.  It does, but the fabric drags further up your ribcage from the shift, “…You are nice to watch.”

Your heart pounds, and you’re even clumsier knowing he’s staring at your exposed tummy right now.  Maker, this should not be as difficult as it is.  You swing your arms back around behind you, arching outwards and trying to separate them from the bottom this time, but gravity doesn’t appear to work in your favor.  

Maybe you can do like, some sort of weird, half-and-half thing to get them apart?  Maybe?  Where you hold the undershirt from the bottom with one hand and pull the hoodie from the top with the other?

Yes, okay—that could possibly work.  Cassian inhales more spice as he lazes behind you, getting a front row seat to watch this subsequent genius unfold.

You get into your monkey-like position, beginning to pry the two materials apart from behind like you planned.  But then—oh, your undershirt still sticks to your hoodie at the front, pulling up a few inches with it and flashing the lower curve of your breasts to the room before you immediately halt and switch tactics, reaching back down and trying to pull them apart from the front withou—

A large, warm palm comes up to settle on your bare spine, right in the middle of your shoulder blades.

You freeze.  But Cassian doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything more than that.  He just holds his hand there, steady and solid against your upper back.

Neither one of you move.  It’s like… it’s like you’re both trying so hard to get a read on each other that your reactions are equally stunted.  Is he doing this to bring you to a still so he can help you?  Is he simply as blazed as you are right now and not thinking about things before he does them?  Is he—

But then Cassian starts slowly dragging his hand down your spine, carefully riding the gentle curve of it downwards as your breathing subtly picks up.  Your arms are halfway caught in the fabric, not able to stop him unless you untangle them and reach behind you.  So you just hold there statuesquely as his palm inches down the sweat-slick muscles of your lower back, thumb just barely brushing the hemline of your sweatpants.  

Fuck, you feel like you’re about to vibrate out of your skin.  Heat pools deep in your tummy, spidering outwards and sending pulsing shocks down your legs when he keeps his hand there for just a second.

Until… until he traces all the way back up and carefully hooks a finger around your undershirt.  

Your heart pounds as Cassian gradually pulls it over the top of your head with your hoodie, guiding you to bring both of them around your arms.  He pushes against your shoulder wordlessly, urging you to lie back down with your head on his stomach once more, the fabric stretched tight over your upper-body and the entire length of your spine now fully exposed as it touches the mattress.

“C-Cassian,” you breathe, fluttering your eyes up at the ceiling.

“Yes, caraya?”  He murmurs, and you completely forget what you’re going to say when he continues to pull the hoodie and undershirt down over your arms, exposing your naked breasts to the open air.

Your cunt pulses between your legs and you hear him throw the thick bulk of fabric carelessly on the floor.  “I—I-I don’t—”

“You will stay like this?”  Cassian tells you softly, brushing your damp hair back from your shoulder so that your bare chest is completely unobstructed as it faces the ceiling.  Your nipples are hard, a thin sheen of sweat covering your entire body, and you can feel his gaze drag down your naked skin, even if he doesn’t actually touch you.  No, he just takes another slow drag from the spice in his hand and tilts his head back to rest on your pillow, relaxing into the mattress with a gentle shuffle of his shoulder blades.  “If you are too warm, you will stay like this, okay?  Be comfortable.”

Is it possible to die from arousal?  Your clit is fucking pounding; everything from the waist down is unbearably tight and cramped.  Stars, you feel like you’ll cum if you even move wrong right now.  He told you to be comfortable, but you’re not—you’re boiling from the sensation, topless on your bed, trying not to close your eyes or squeeze your legs together.  It’s too fucking casual and unacknowledged, how he’s going about this.  You feel like you’re going to explode.

Cassian gently taps your bare shoulder to get your attention and shifts his head slightly to look down at you.  You bite your bottom lip and flutter your gaze sideways to meet his after a second, hoping you don’t look as flushed and tight with burning arousal as you feel.  Deep brown eyes look back at you, hazy and dilated.  He takes a second to slowly drag his gaze down the length of your half-naked body once more, now that he knows you’re watching him.  Your breath comes audibly now, quicker and shallower than it should be after laying flat on a bed for this long.

“Here,” Cassian prompts, holding the smoldering joint out for you to take.  His voice sounds raspier now, but still so… casual.  Like he’s out here talking about the weather with a mildly sore throat, not because your tits are out while you stare at each other and neither one of you is saying a damn thing about it.  It’s like he’s determined to hold onto the splitting tension, drag it out between you as long as he can.  “Want more?”

You know what he’s really asking, and it cramps your lower muscles up even harder.  He’s asking if you want more of this spice that’s currently getting you naked in front of him.  More of this madness, twisting up your insides with need and jumbling your thoughts.  More of him treating you like this, like there’s not a damn thing out of place in the universe right now, like you’re still just best friends so that’s why it’s okay you’re both doing this together.

Stars, do you want more?  Do you want him to keep winding you up like this?  More of this torture, this agonizing foreplay, wondering when he’ll finally give in and touch you?  Pretending like this is still completely platonic, like what’s happening here isn’t wildly unprecedented, insanely inappropriate, and so fucking hot?

You can feel your eyebrows pull up in the middle as you look at him, almost pleading with him to… something.  To stop, maybe?  Stop altogether, or just stop… fuck, stop ignoring the way your cunt feels clamped around itself tighter than a vice between your legs?  Stop neglecting your burning desire for him, even when it’s right in front of his face.  Stop refusing to acknowledge the way you’re just letting him look at you right now, how you haven’t once stopped playing along with this fever dream just in case you aren’t imagining it?  Fuck, but Cassian just looks back at you, his expression completely blank except for the smallest little glimmer in his eyes.  A silent, heated glint as he just barely quirks an eyebrow at you.

So you make the decision all at once.  You carefully reach over for the spice with your far hand, feeling your breasts shift towards him slightly with the slow movement.  Cassian doesn’t even feel like he’s breathing as you gently take it from him.  He just stares down at your naked chest and swallows thickly, eyelids dipping slightly as he moves to meet you halfway.

You let your nipple brush up against his knuckles just slightly with the exchange.

When you face back towards the ceiling again and readjust your shoulders flat on the bed, he lets out a slow, shaky breath under your head as it rests on his tummy.  The tension rockets up to eleven, weighing heavy and unspoken and ready to snap.  

But then like that, the moment passes—it’s just another invisible spark igniting between the two of you, just another thing buried beneath the silence and yet ringing so unbelievably loud because of it.  You’re both emitting and absorbing the same buzzing energy, amplifying it back to one another in a slow, endless feedback loop of rising pressure.

The spice comes up to your lips, and Cassian’s fingertips carefully trail along your other arm as it rests by your side.

“This is better, no?”  He asks you quietly, the rough tips of his fingers just barely gliding across your skin in small, mindless patterns.  They dance down your skin like feathers, tracing a small arch over the ridge of your elbow so lightly you almost feel like you might be imagining it.  Your eyes flutter when he gradually skims down the length of your forearm and brushes his thumb in a smooth circle around the bone in your wrist.  “Or you are still too warm?”

You bite your bottom lip when one of his fingers carefully stretches all the way up to your hip, running along the hem of your sweatpants.  

“Yeah, m’still a little—” you gasp, trying not to stutter when Cassian starts to draw up the length of your waistline, pausing right when his fingers reach your drawstrings.  “Little w-warm,” you finish hoarsely, painfully aware of how fucking wet you are, how your nipples are peaked and glistening with sweat as they move with your soft, shallow breathing.

He slowly dips one finger below the elastic wrapping across your hips, dragging it back and forth under the damp waistband.

“This fabric is heavy,” Cassian remarks, just the slightest husk in his voice.  “You… you will take this off, too?”

“I-I don’t—”  You’re about to say have anything on underneath except you immediately go quiet, because he’s suddenly slithering his entire hand down into your sweatpants and brushing his knuckles along the gentle slope of you.

He pauses once more when his longest finger reaches the very top of your slit.

But then he just holds it there for a second, tracing small arches back and forth along gentle give of it, the slight dip that separates your soft curls from your soaking heat.  You tighten up and wait in breathless anticipation for it, before the tip of Cassian’s finger finally comes to a rest over the soft split of flesh.

And then he’s suddenly pushing in, and down—

—fuckfuckfuckfuck—don’tcumdon’tcum—don’t—

You make a soft, vulnerable sound in bliss as he slowly slides his finger through the hot, slick cleft of your pussy.

“You are warm down here, too,” Cassian murmurs quietly.  Your eyes roll back when he drags the entire length of it up against your clit, letting you feel each individual ridge and joint and crevice across the swollen bit of flesh.  “Is it the spice?”  He asks, sinking his finger back down into you once more.  “Or are you always this wet between your legs?”

Neither.  Both, maybe?  Mostly it’s just him.  Cassian, whispering softly to you through the hazy darkness, lazily dipping his fingers into your cunt and letting it drench and engulf his skin in its heat.

“Tell me,” he prompts when you don’t say a word.  His finger pulls up and begins tracing slow, gentle circles around your clit.

“No,” you breathe haggardly, arching your hips up just slightly as he touches you.  “N-No, this is…”

“This is different,” Cassian confirms when you don’t finish your sentence.  He keeps circling your clit, and it’s like he’s just casually, carelessly stirring a pot that’s about to boil over and set everything on fucking fire.  You pulse threateningly under the tip of his finger, swollen and tight and just trying your best to control your breathing.  “So it is the spice.  Why you are this hot, this… this soaking.”

“It’s…”  Don’t you say it.  Don’t you fucking say it.  Don’t you turn this into something it isn’t.  “Yeah.  It’s—it’s the sp-spice.”

His finger follows the hard curve of you down to where you give, where you’re leaking wetness and heat from the source, before he’s suddenly shifting his wrist and pushing the entire thing into you down to his knuckle.

Now you do arch your hips, spreading your legs and helping him go deeper even as Cassian hums, stretching his finger and feeling you clench hot and tight around him.  He says something softly, something in a language you don’t understand.

And then he’s pulling out and rubbing circles around your clit again, the tip of his finger steady and firm as he steadily drags the pleasure out of you.

“We need to finish it soon,” he eventually reminds you, and it takes a remarkable delay for you to realize he’s talking about the lingering quarter of the joint still clenched tightly between your fingers.  “Take your hit.  We have a nine-hundred call, remember.”

Fuck, you bring the spice up to your lips with a shaky hand, trying to remember whether you should inhale or exhale first.  Cassian’s finger just keeps circling your clit, winding you up tighter and tighter.  His motions are so repetitive and predictable, but they’re somehow still lighting you on fire from the inside, slowing you down spectacularly as you try to take a steady breath in through the filter.

“Stars, you are so wet,” he remarks after a moment.  “Are you going to cum soon?  You feel like you are so close already.”

You are close.  Everything is swollen and slippery and tight, and hearing him say it out loud like that makes the pleasure rocket up even tighter inside you.  You don’t even feel him reach around with his other hand and take the spice from you.  You just lose yourself in the mindless sensation of Cassian’s finger on your clit, rolling your eyes back and reaching your hands down to fisting the sheets at your sides as he touches you.

“Does this feel good, caraya?”  He whispers quietly to you, inhaling deeply from the spice.  “You are usually so… mouthy with me.  Is this helping?  Do I need to rub your clit like this more often?”

“Fuck—Cassian, I’m gonna cum,” you tell the ceiling raggedly, chest beginning to arch up and hips bearing down.

“Do it,” he murmurs, reaching his thumb through your slick lips to pinch and roll the pulsing bud between his fingers.  “Right here.  All you can.”

And then wild, painful bliss stabs through you, launching you headfirst into a blinding orgasm.  A desperate sound tears from your throat as you cum hard all over your best friend’s hand, agonizing pleasure shredding mindless rapture through your veins.  It rings white noise through your ears and rips you apart from the inside out, arcing lightning down your spine more bright and explosive than ever before.  Fuck, it’s unprecedentedly powerful.  You’re drenched but your clit is hard and pulsing and swollen, and he’s able to keep it between his fingers the entire time your hips writhe desperately on the mattress.

Cassian inhales from the spice once more and massages your clit through the torturous, blazing hot aftershocks.  He drags the pleasure out of you until you’re a trembling mess, exhausted from the spasms wreaking havoc on your body.

But then… but then you’re still so hot.  It’s like your limbs have no energy left but your cunt is still pulsing and wanting more from him.  You feel your wetness coating his hand, your inner thighs, probably soaking through your sweatpants, but fuck, you want him to keep touching you like this—you want him to keep doing this.

It’s the spice, something tells you in the very back of your mind.  It almost made you black out with a wild orgasm and now it’s quickly preparing your overheated body for another one.  Your feet come up to brace against the mattress and your eyes close, jaw going slack as you grind feverishly against Cassian’s hand.

“Again?”  He whispers to you, fingers continuing to pinch and roll your clit and then��and then another debilitating wave of euphoria is suddenly slamming through you, pulling your chest up and flooding his hand with another series of wet, powerful contractions.  Cassian rasps something in his native tongue and rides you through the second one just as steady as the first, your pussy spasming uncontrollably as he slowly wrings the pleasure from you.

Fuck, it feels so good.  You’re worked up and trembling and trying not to whimper for him, desperately wanting him to keep his hand right here forever, buried right between your legs like this.  But you also—you also want Cassian to feel it too, feel the way the unrestrained hedonism practically burns you alive when you cum.

So you carefully turn over on your side and shuffle forwards a bit, resting your head on his lower stomach, right in front of the mouthwatering bulge in his trousers.  His fingers can’t fully reach your cunt from this angle, but Cassian is resilient.  He just drags his hand over your hip and slithers his fingers into your pussy from behind while you start unbuckling his pants with shaky fingers.

He’s unbelievably hard and throbbing and leaking when you pull his cock out of his underwear, the pulsing urgency of his erection not lining up with the way he’s still relaxing on your mattress, still hasn’t moved under you.  So you just hold his length up to your lips and open them, slowly sliding your tongue around the tip of him three times before taking his curved head into the hot cavern of your mouth.

Cassian takes a deep, shaky breath as you suck softly on the head of his cock, fluttering your tongue along a bead of precum he leaks from the slit.  He drags his fingers through your drenched pussy lips from behind as you carefully move your head down his tummy, opening your jaw wider and letting him fill your mouth deeper.

“Fuck,” he breathes, and you hum softly and lift your back palate slightly, sliding your tongue drift down his shaft and taking him a bit deeper still.  He shudders under you and pushes the tip of his finger up against your clit.

And then you shudder because Cassian completely bypasses your hood at this angle, bumping into the swollen bit of flesh without any resistance or protection and just… holding it there.  Barely moving an inch while you begin to slowly bob up and down just slightly around his cock, just keeping his fingertip right up against your clit and sparking heat down through your legs.

You move your hand down to cup his balls and start to roll your hips against his fingers.  Cassian’s breathing stutters as you lazily suck his cock, rubbing a tight little circle on your clit in silent encouragement.

“We should—��� his voice is hoarse now, now that you’ve got his dick in your mouth and you’re gently swirling your tongue around it, almost as unhurried and casual about the act as he was bringing you to your first orgasm.  “We should do this.  More.”

You slowly pull off him, kissing the tip of his cock and mouthing at the way he’s steadily releasing thick drops of precum for you.  Cassian’s finger rolls firmly against your clit in response.

“You just want your dick sucked every time you come back to base,” you counter breathlessly, brushing your lips against him while talking with his cockhead resting on the edge of your tongue.

His hand shifts, and then he’s suddenly pushing two thick fingers deep inside you.  You moan around his tip and prop one leg up on the mattress so he can fill you easier, going back to sucking and swiping your tongue over his frenulum.

“I would not mind it,” he admits with a shaky exhale.  “You are.  Very g-good.  Fuck.  And wa—” he gasps, feeling you clench tight around his fingers, “—warm.  Fuck, every… everywhere.”

Fuck, it feels so good like this.  Laying here, topless and being penetrated two different ways by Cassian, feeling him throb in your mouth while you rest your head on his tummy, feeling him stretch your cunt walls with his fingers while you hold your legs open for him.

You pull off him to drag your slick tongue over your palm, coating your fingers in saliva.  Cassian groans when you wrap your hand around the thick base of him, and then he lifts his hips slightly as you start to slowly jerk him off into you mouth.

“Fuck—caraya, if you keep doing that, I will—” he whispers after a moment, curling his fingers inside you in warning.  You just tighten your grip and add just the slightest twist to your wrist and “Wait—wait—” Cassian grunts, starting to pull his fingers out of you—

You pull off him just enough to murmur the words against his throbbing head.  “You’ll want more than one, okay.  Trust me.  Cum like this, okay?  Cum just like this, right in my mouth.”

You wrap your lips around his cock once more and keep jerking him off slow and tight into the heat of your mouth, and Cassian’s abdominal muscles go incredibly tense under your head.  And then you squeeeeze your lower muscles around his fingers, and all the tension suddenly snaps.

His cock goes rock hard on your tongue and starts pulsing steadily as he groans out your name like it hurts, fingers stuffed deep in your cunt.  You swallow around him and moan, clenching rhymically around his fingers and letting him slowly empty himself into your mouth.  Fuck, he takes forever with it, shuddering and gasping and pumping cum down your throat, his orgasm clearly as powerful as yours was.  The spice drags it out, makes you both lose yourself in the raw heaven of release for far longer than normal.

The spice also prevents him from softening when Cassian finally stops spurting hot cum in your mouth.  You suspected as much—which is why you keep sucking his cock even as he stops throbbing, you keep him in your hot mouth even when he’s laying trembling and exhausted under you.  And he still stays rock solid on your tongue, swollen and needing more.

Cassian’s voice sounds shredded when he finally speaks.  “I—I am going to crash my x-wing tomorrow,” he tells you hoarsely, fingers finally slipping out of your channel with a vulgar, slick sound.  “You were right.”

You pull off him and kiss the tip of his cock one final time, making sure you’ve cleaned up the mess completely.  “Today.”

“Fuck.  Today,” he acknowledges tightly, adjusting his hips when you lift your head off his stomach.  “Fuck.  In a few hours.  You will make me crash, just thinking about this.”

“Why is it,” you turn around and blink at him, “that after literal decades of my friendship, you only acknowledge my perpetual rightness after I make you cum for the first time?”

Cassian just smiles softly at you, and his fingers are drenched as they rest lazily against your thigh.  “Caraya.  Two suns.  Twice the illumination, no?”

You bite your lip and try not to smile back at him, wanting to blush and roll your eyes in equal parts.  Stars, why is he so… so lovely?  Speaking to you so sweetly, looking back up at you from your pillow like you’re every single color in his sky.  Your heart seizes in your chest, staring at him with the same kind of fondness and admiration his beautiful eyes are shining with.  Fuck, you want… you want to…

“Can we… can we have sex now?”  You whisper.  Not really shy, but… but it almost sounds shy in its quiet, breathless hope.  

“You do not want me to taste you?”  Cassian immediately asks, reaching out with one hand to offer you what’s left of the spice while the other stays firmly wedged between your legs.  “I want to.  I have…”

You bite down on your bottom lip and take the nearly finished joint from him, feeling his fingers curl against your pussy lips at the same time and knowing you’re going to regret letting him finish his sentence.  He swallows thickly.

“I have thought about it,” Cassian eventually tells you, carefully admitting the words like he never expected he’d ever say them aloud and is completely unprepared.  “Sometimes.  Sometimes when… when I am about to sleep.  I think of… of you.  What you taste like.  Right here.”  He barely slips the tip of his finger back between your folds, fluttering his eyelashes at the way you’re still dripping in his hand.  “I bet you are so sweet.  Will you let me find out?”

Except.  Except you’re suddenly blanking.

He’s… he’s thought about you before?  Like this?  Fuck, he isn’t just… just saying that, right?  Just telling you what you want to hear?  Because fuck, it’s almost too good to be true; like everything out of his mouth since you first put his cock in yours has somehow sounded even better than the last.  You feel like you’re dreaming, and it.  It makes you almost frantic with need, overcome with the desire to solidify your connection with him before it can be ripped away like it always is.

You don’t respond to him.  You just quickly wiggle out of your sweatpants and get on top of him, swinging one of your legs around Cassian’s hips.  The spice is held in one hand while the other reaches down and aligns his cock right up against your opening.

Cassian grabs your thighs tightly and takes a long, shuddery breath under you.  Fuck, he really is a dream, isn’t he?  Long and lithe and beautiful, still throbbing and pulsing and ready for you after you already swallowed his first load.  You straighten your back and slowly sit down on his cock, letting the thick, hard length of it break you open slowly.

His hands trace up to your hips and then slide along the gentle curves of your sides, measuring the size of your ribcage before eventually grasping both of your tits in his palms.  You breathe through the pleasure and the stretch, letting Cassian pinch and roll your nipples between his fingers as you gradually slide down him and come to a rest flush against his pelvis.

Fuck he feels spectacular.  You can feel him pulsing inside of you, fitting and stretching the contours of your slick cunt perfectly.  You shiver and clench around him, finishing off the last hit of spice as you roll your hips slightly to adjust to the tight fit of his cock.

You twist your shoulders to carefully toss the smoldering roach into the sink when it’s done, really taking your time with aiming it to make sure you don’t miss.  The second it lands in the metal basin is the second Cassian grinds his hips up into yours while giving both of your nipples a gentle tug, and a jolt of pleasure rocks its way down your spine.

“Im-impatient,” you whisper, trying to scold him but it comes out sounding all wrong, far more needy and breathy than you wanted.

“I wanted my tongue in your pussy,” he whispers back in reminder, squeezing your tits as you start to circle and grind against him, letting you both enjoy the sensation of each other without any solid aim at the moment.  “You could not wait.”

“Later,” you gasp, tipping your head back and just—fuck, just enjoying his cock.  Enjoying how it feels, pressing up deliciously tight against something inside you that just absolutely loves the pressure.  You scoot yourself back just a bit, just so he is really shoved up hard against that spot as you grind and roll your body.  It ignites sparks deep in your floor muscles, makes you clamp tighter around him as you slowly ride your best friend’s cock.

And stars, Cassian just watches you.  He drags his hands over your naked body as it swells and rocks back over his hips like waves in the ocean.  He’s still completely clothed, and while something inside you wants you to get him as naked as your are, rub your exposed skin against his and make sure he never forgets how you feel against him, most of you is just fucking burning at the eroticism of being so bare and tall above him while he looks at you.

“Later,” he eventually repeats after you, definitively confirming what you said.  Cassian’s voice is somehow soft and rough at the same time, quiet but tight and hoarse in his throat.  “I will taste you later.”

You jerk a nod in agreement, starting to gain just a little bit of a rhythm on top of him.  Your eyes flutter closed as you lean your weight back slightly and begin to pull up when your hips twist in towards him, and then sinking back down on his cock when your hips circle back around again.

“Fuck,” you hear Cassian grit as you keep doing that, relaxing your lower muscles as he’s thrusted into you and then clamping down on his length as it’s slowly dragged out.  “Fuck, you are—a-amazing, caraya.  You are.  You are—fuck—”

A sinful heat starts simmering deep inside you as Cassian cuts himself off with a gasp and squeezes his eyes shut, starts rocking his pelvis up in time with your slow, sensual rotations.  Both of his hands clamp down hard over your hips as they continue to undulate in slow circles around his cock.

“Maker,” you whisper, trying to focus on your rhythm instead of the terrifying, building sensation inside of you.  Fuck, you can literally feel the threat of your orgasm start to carefully wind itself around the base of your spine, simmering and sparking with dark pleasure as it gradually spreads its electric claws outwards.  It’s huge.  You can already feel it gathering together inside you, culminating into something monstrous and fierce.

Cassian says your name, and you suddenly blink your eyes open at the unexpected urgency and tightness in his voice.  Your vision takes a second to focus on his gorgeous face, and when you immediately see the same exact storm of swirling desperation in his eyes, your jaw goes slack as you speed up, trying to chase him as Cassian all but hurtles towards the blinding explosion nearing its detonation.

“Fuck, I—” he gasps, and then he’s suddenly going rigid under you and cumming deep in your slick heat with a desperate sound, shuddering and gasping for you as his thumbs dig into your thighs.  Fuck, you grind harder, trying to find and focus on your favorite angle now as Cassian whimpers through the bliss and writhes under you, throbbing and pumping in steady, helpless jolts.

You whimper, too—fuck, you’re almost there, you’re gasping and trying to surrender to the swelling sensation, but it’s so intense and overwhelming and you’re close to tears because you’re fighting it just as much as you’re seeking it out, and—

And then the breath is suddenly knocked out of you when Cassian reaches up to grab you and flip the both of you over, your back coming down hard against the mattress.  He kneels between your legs, hooks both of your calves over his shoulders, props his arms next to your head, and then he starts thrusting.

You sob brokenly, slapping an open palm against his chest.  Fuck, his cock is still so hard and it shreds up achingly deep against that blinding spot so perfectly, you can’t focus on anything anymore.  The dark, evasive build immediately twists up sharp and impending as Cassian fucks you steady and deep, and you start to muffle your cries and gasps into the back of your hand.

But then, oh—words are coming, too.  Oh Maker, you can feel the urge to say them rise up along with the ferocious stirrings of your orgasm, clawing its way out of your throat before you can do anything to stop it.

“Fuck—” you tear your hand away to sob brokenly, not being able to stop yourself as the tsunami begins to peak, “oh, fuck—I love you.  Oh, fuck, I—I love you, Cassian—I love you, I—IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou—”

His cock splinters up against sheer euphoria inside you as you cum with a desperate wail of his name, pussy clamping down hard as it erupts into searing hot ecstasy around him.

—and then suddenly Cassian is lurching against you and bringing his lips down to yours, licking into your mouth and cumming deep inside you once more.  Maker, you nearly scream at the sensation, your tight cunt milking the throbbing length of him with endlessly wet, hot contractions as he grinds you both through the aching bliss.  He kisses you like he’s wanted to do it for years, bites your bottom lip as you whimper and spasm wildly around him.

Fuck, you can hear the mess you’re both making.  It’s obscene, filling the room with the slick sound of your desperate coupling.  Cassian eventually pulls his mouth away to look down at where he’s rocking into your drenched cunt, the evidence of his own pleasure slicking up hard lines of his erection.

Your eyes roll back when he doesn’t stop thrusting.

***

You lose track of everything.

Time, direction, responsibility—nothing matters, because Cassian goes on like that.  For hours, taking you apart every single way you can imagine.  You fuck the effects of the spice out of your body until nothing exists but him—Cassian’s cock stretching you, his tongue gliding along your skin, his whispered words of broken praise murmured against your neck.

Strangely, your body feels absolutely amazing when you finally manage to gain the slightest bit of awareness of your obligations again.  You feel like you’re floating above everything, almost dreamlike in how unbelievably satisfied you feel.  

You slowly blink up at the ceiling, and then suddenly remember the nine-hundred call you have to make.  You’re both naked, sprawled out on top of your mattress, and Cassian—

“Cass—” you rasp, pulling on the thick waves of hair tangled between your fingers and feeling his hot tongue slip out of your pussy.  It’s still slightly dark in your room, but that could just be the horrendous weather blocking the sun.  “What—what time is it?  Did we miss—?”

“Almost eight,” Cassian rumbles low against your thigh.  “We still have some time before we need to get up.”

You lurch into startled awareness, getting go of him to prop yourself you on your elbows.  “But that’s—no, we have to shower, and—”

“A ten minute walk to the hangar from here, yes?”  Cassian reasons, pressing a lazy kiss to your thigh and not sounding bothered in the slightest.  “Twenty minutes to shower together, ten minutes to get dressed.  We have at least ten more minutes before we need to think about getting up.”

You shudder and blink down at him, naked and relaxed as he mouths over your skin.  Maker, how can everything change and yet still be so familiar at the same time?

“I think I might crash my x-wing today,” you finally breathe out, dropping your shoulders back down to the mattress once again.

“No,” he returns, turning his head to kiss your other thigh.  “You will not.  Because I checked my holopad earlier, and they sent the coordinates for red squadron’s patrols.”

You narrow your eyebrows at the ceiling.  What does that have to do with anyth—?

And then you suddenly go shock-still under him, trying not to let the blind, overwhelming hope surge up inside you.

“Bring extra credits, caraya,” Cassian murmurs, lowering his head back down between your legs.  “We are going to Lothal.”

[hollenka99]

Unus Annus - November

354. Accepting the Truth, 6:11, 2.8M (Nov 1st) - While sitting by the pool, Mark and Ethan announce that a livestream will happen on the 13th so that the audience can join them in reminiscing over the past year and watching the channel be deleted live.

355. The Unus Annus Last Supper, 26:58, 2.6M (Nov 2nd) - Amy creates a 7 course meal for Mark and Ethan based on various past videos. This includes eggnog with bug biscuits, them having 3 minutes to eat a raw onion and edible items of a mature nature.

356. Being Brutally Honest with Each Other, 26:14, 2.2M (Nov 3rd) - Mark and Ethan reflect on how well they have worked together during the course of the channel’s run. Some things that were revealed consisted of them having to re-evaluate their communication after the wall punch, Mark committing to bits even if they start going a little far and how Ethan could build his acting skills. There is a heartfelt moment where Ethan expresses how grateful he is to have Mark as a friend and someone to learn off of, which ends in tears.

357. Recreating Every Single Unus Annus Video, 45:11, 3.2M (Nov 4th) - Amy reads out the title of videos in chronological order while Mark and Ethan do something quick to re-enact that video. Alexa misinterprets a command, some episode segments are just them wondering who came up with the titles and Amy gets confused by a few titles that state she shouldn’t know about them.

358. All Our Video Ideas That Never Happened, 25:13, 1.8M (Nov 5th) - They discuss the videos that never were, including potential collabs, things the pandemic prevented from happening and ideas that were best left not attempted. 

359. Who’s Cutting Onions In Here???, 22:24, 2M (Nov 6th) - The two of them spend the entire video cutting onions and talking about the channel. They discuss their expectations when they started the channel, how they were affected by the deaths of family members and how they would like to die.

360. The 1st Annual Unus Annus Roast, 16:41, 1.7M (Nov 7th) - On Twitter, they invited the viewers to send in their roasts. They just laugh at most of them but a few they roast the poster back. One of the cameras produced corrupted footage so they had to lipsync at times. 

361. God’s Fitness Test, 22:58, 1.9M (Nov 8th) - Along with their personal trainers, they form two teams which consist of Mark and Alex vs Ethan and Andre. They do push ups where you have to have all four limbs airborne during part of it, a burpee hybrid, a race where Mark and Ethan carry their trainers on their backs, weightlifting with squats and a sprinting challenge. 

362. Saying Goodbye to All Our Guests, 39:44, 2.2M (Nov 9th) - Mark and Ethan call up some of the people they’ve worked with in videos over the past year to thank them. Upon learning The Basement LA (where they did the escape room in December) was in financial trouble due to the pandemic, they offer to donate the ad revenue from the escape room video to help them out.

363. Everything’s Legal If You’re Dead, 24:50, 2.2M (Nov 10th) - Mark and Ethan attempt to make breakfast with sex toys again. However, this time they steal the products they got from the shop and Mark’s lawyer Ryan tries to discourage them from their plans of insurance fraud.

364. 7 Minutes in Heaven | 7 Minutes in Hell, 12:41, 1.9M (Nov 11th) - In new inflatable saunas, they are sent to Heaven and Hell with items previously featured in past videos. Ethan goes to Heaven where he receives the scent of essential oils, kiwis, a cupping session using a mouth instead of the cups and wax on his face. Mark, meanwhile, is subjected to Hell where the aromatherapy is of the onion variety, his mouth is filled with hot dogs and the straw his dogs may have used as a toilet is laid at his feet.

365. The Unus Annus Annual Sleepover, 17:17, 2.3M (Nov 12th) - Ethan goes to Mark’s home to spend the night. They shoot cans while the other hides behind the targets, make popcorn as well as friendship bracelets and play truth or dare. Ethan decorates his bracelet for Mark with 'My Pal Annus' while Mark puts 'EEF' inbetween Takis that had been in his mouth. Towards the end, the two of them share a glass of champagne before settling down for the night. At various points, the signature ticking sound is heard.

366. Goodbye., 12:00:00, 1M (Nov 13th - Nov 14th) - This is the farewell livestream. The two of them sit with a television that displays the timer inbetween them. Throughout the 12 hours, they show the editors’ highlight reels, watch and comment on a few videos, look through fanart and memes as well as welcome guests. When there’s around 3 hours to go, Ethan gets 00:00:00 tattooed on his left arm by DanielleSkyeee. They promise that if the stream receives 1 million likes, they will reveal the inside of their coffin and possibly get inside. With less than an hour to go, this does indeed happen, with the fake eulogies making them emotional and the coffin is dubbed the ‘Cry Box’. As the hours become not only minutes but seconds, Mark, Ethan and Amy gather around the laptop so they can press the delete button together. The clock finally reaches 00:00:00, leaving the audience with a black screen as well as a channel that no longer exists.

1. Unus Annus, 1:52, 10M (Nov 15th) - Introductory video explaining the premise of the channel.

2. Cooking with Sex Toys, 12:42, 4.6M (Nov 15th) - The guys buy a bunch of sex toys and use them to make some bacon, eggs and pancakes. Towards the end, someone spots Mark being fed while wearing a gag.

3. Purging Our Sins with a Neti Pot, 11:18, 4.8M (Nov 16th) - They clear their noses with Neti Pots, essentially flooding it and triggering a drowning sensation. Towards the end, the spiral screen appears where Mark and Ethan thank the audience for their initial reaction to the channel, which lead to the intro video becoming #1 on trending. They announce that if the channel reaches 1 million subscribers within a week, a viewer who helped spread the word will be hand delivered the button. Otherwise, Mark will have his nipples pierced.

4. Hot Dog'd To Death, 11:18, 3.3M (Nov 17th) - They attempt to eat 60 hot dogs in 10 minutes. Ethan struggles to work out how long 360 seconds is. The are certain Chica could beat Joey Chestnut's record of 71 any day.

5. Making Our Own Sensory Deprivation Tank, 13:44, 2.7M (Nov 18th) - They filled a pool with salts, blindfold themselves and put headphones on. To mess around, they pretend to try drown each other.

6. The Good Kind of Cupping, 11:59, 2.7M (Nov 19th) - They attempt cup stacking. Mark is better at it than Ethan. The two of them end up trying to walk on all fours while wearing the cups like some sort of cryptid. This is also where they announce the winner of the 1M play button (Kingkasuma 2.0). The next challenge is also announced, get it to 2M subs within a week so a viewer has the chance to meet Mark and Ethan while appearing in a video or Ethan will destroy the Barrel with a bat.

7. The Bad Kind of Cupping, 13:36, 8.8M (Nov 20th) - Mark and Ethan place suction cups on each other. At one point, Ethan is unable to detach a cup and gets very stressed about it.

8. The Worst Kind of Cupping, 10:17, 3.1M (Nov 21st) - They react to Two Girls, One Cup before trying to see if they can find out where the girls are now. This is Mark’s first time watching it and he does not have a good time.

9. Ethan Will Be Kicked in the Balls, 7:30, 4.2M (Nov 22nd) - They plan to use those inflatable balls that you can run around in. Ethan struggles to inflate his so he goes to a shop to ask they can help him with a pump. The staff are nice and chuck it to him via a window. He reaches his car, only to realise he can't fit it in without deflating it a little. Ethan does indeed get kicked in the balls at the end.

10. Doing Each Other's Makeup in the Dark, 12:08, 2.2M (Nov 23rd) - Mark and Ethan blindly apply makeup to one another. There is a risk of blackface when Mark gets into the bronzer but Amy is able to warn him to be careful. Ethan uses blush for its intended purpose and as lipstick. When they look at themselves in a mirror, he compares himself to the little girl wearing makeup while in a carseat. You can tell Amy is the one editing due to her written comments.

11. Baby Hands Operation, 8:29, 2.7M (Nov 24th) - Mark and Ethan assemble and then play Operation while wearing baby hands. When Calamity Pete's buzzing annoys them, they begin waterboarding him and are only able to remove the foreign object after hitting him hard enough to accidentally project the piece. This is where the 'Oh My Fucking God' meme originates.

12. Mark and Ethan Summon a Ghost, 18:02, 4M (Nov 25th) - This is framed as a kind of found footage documentary. While at Ethan’s home, they form a pentagram out of candles before playing Bloody Mary and Charlie Charlie. It ends with them getting attacked by a ghost.

13. 2 Truths and 1 Lie -- Waxing Edition, 16:49, 4.5M (Nov 26th) - They play 2 truths and a lie where getting it wrong means a body part gets waxed. The body part is determined by a spinning randomiser wheel. Korea is mentioned during both times the spinner lands on pubic hair.

14. Poopsie Sparkly Critters (a slime surprise...), 12:24, 4.3M (Nov 27th) - Mark and Ethan buy Poopsie Sparkly Critters, a toy that will eject slime from either their butt (poop) or mouth (spit). They play around with the toys, adding glitter to the slime as instructed. This is the first time ‘Martha Maywho’ (Martha May Whovier from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas) is mentioned.

15. Play-Doh Thanksgiving, 10:35, 2.2M (Nov 28th) - They create a thanksgiving meal with only Play-Doh. A tray full of ‘food’ that are the appropriate colours is created, including a tiny live turkey made by Ethan. A mega turkey is also made using a conglomerate of the remaining Play-Doh. Mark and Ethan then sample their creation.

16. Helium Therapy, 14:55, 3.3M (Nov 29th) - The two of them inhale helium then discuss various topics, including how they’d kill each other, childhood misadventures and their romantic pursuits involving an abundance of Abigails (plus a Sarah).

17. Drawing Memes from Memory, 10:53, 2.6M (Nov 30th) - With drawing pads and scented coloured markers, Mark and Ethan attempt to draw old memes with Amy telling them their prompts.The ‘This is fine’ dog, dat boi, Rebecca Black, dancing baby, the Numa Numa guy, dikbutt, condescending Willy Wonka and trollface all make an appearence. They spend nearly as much time sniffing the markers as they do drawing.

[jeonjeonggukenergy]

Anti-Hero

summary ~ in search of wine at a party that’s so not your scene, you run into jungkook, the weeb from your film class, and become determined to learn just how much he lives up to his big reputation.

pairing ~ jungkook x reader

genre ~ fluff, smut (coming in ch3!) - college!au

wordcount ~ 2.3k

warnings ~ pretty much n/a, mentions of drinking and light smut

a/n ~ v excited for these lil dorks! i thought about combining this with the upcoming chapter but it felt right on its own and i wanted to go ahead and post an update for yall haha. ch 3 will most definitely have some serious smut to look forward to 👀 thank yall for reading, i love and appreciate any form of support or feedback so so much, so feel free to msg me or send me an ask abt whatever you want! 🥰 hope u enjoy this chapter!!!

previous: chapter 1 ~ next: chapter 3 | chapter 4 (coming soon!)

~ read on ao3 ~

CHAPTER 2 ~ cowboy bebop & chill

You couldn't stop thinking about Jungkook. Every time you brought the enamel of your favorite mug to your lips, teeth knocking the rim as you exhaled to cool off your tea, it called back the click of his earrings in your mouth. Whenever you reached behind your ear to tuck away the hair you'd impulsively cropped to your chin this year, it hit the same spot you'd sucked into a bruise on his neck and you shivered. Even your slight headache thanks to the shitty vodka from the pregame reminded you of the wine you'd sought out from him in the first place and never fucking got to drink. 

You found yourself reading over your responses to each other's discussion posts from your film class, trying to find any more justification for this sudden crush than the drunken flirtation that mortified you as soon as you remembered it sober. He did seem to like your directness...but you could easily ascribe that to his similarly loosened-up state. Scanning through your reflections on The Shawshank Redemption and Casablanca, you painstakingly overanalyzed every smiley face and "I loved that part too!" Could he have been into you at all before this? Or had he just eyed you for another quick fuck at a party? Shit, what if he hated you for working him up and then leaving? If he wanted to, you knew he would have easily found someone else to finish the night with. But what if he still held it against you? The image of him bitterly turning aside to find another girl in the crowd, with your hickey still fresh on his jaw, turned your stomach more than you wanted to admit.

Shaking your head with a grounding exhale, you reminded yourself that whoever else he did or didn't hook up with was none of your business. Plus, he seemed like a genuinely nice guy and probably didn't hate you in the first place. Wow, the bar really was so fucking low. Maybe that was part of the reason you were never that bold with boys. Every classmate you'd fallen for so far at college had remained innocently unaware of your feelings, likely because you never worked up the courage to clearly express them. You hadn't even been trying this time, though—this semester had been so busy you'd barely had time for your friends, much less crushes. And now your one blowoff class had become your biggest distraction.

Jungkook, a communications & media major, couldn't afford to lose as much focus in this class as you. Normally near front-and-center, he sat all the way in the corner of the last row, wary of imaginary stares burning through the hopefully-opaque-enough curtain of his hair. Even the risk of zoning out staring at the back of your head stressed him out less than the thought of you doing the same to him.

You walked into class through the back right entrance today so you'd pass Jungkook in the front row, though you could have gone straight to your usual left-side seat from the main door. Knowing you'd never summon the courage to talk to him, you still couldn't help wanting to see his face. You didn't know just what you were looking for—some kind of confirmation or dismissal that would let you just move on with your dry-ass life—but any reason to catch a glimpse of Jungkook was a good one. Today, though, he sat far closer to the entrance than you'd expected, and his proximity stopped you in your tracks a few feet behind him. Eyes dragging down the sculpted form under his soft black sweatsuit, your stare traced the veins in his forearms to reach the hands in his lap. Catching a half-page cartoon ass in your view of the manga he gazed at intently, a snort-laugh escaped you, the sound setting him on high alert. He snapped the book shut, spinning around with eyes wide and still-long hair an understandable mess for a Monday.

"I'm so—"

"I'm so sorry!"

You both shoved out the words at the same time.

A pause swelled between you, eye contact maintained as your mouths fluttered open and shut like fish. Even awkward and off-guard like this, he was just so damn pretty. It felt unreasonable for him to seem as flustered around you as you were around him. Finally, you spoke again, solely to force the conversation forward and put you both out of your misery.

"W-what do you have to be sorry for? I'm the one who, like—ugh, I was drunk, I'm so sorry, I never would have been so, yknow, if I was sober, like that's not me I promise, I really didn't mean to make you uncomfortable or—"

"No-no-no-no-no!" Jungkook cut you off, dismissing your barely intelligible apology. Before you could cut him off in return and continue, he held up both hands between you, his eyebrows knit together in a pleading expression. "Are you kidding me? Seriously, I feel so bad, I was kind of drunk too, I hope I didn't make you uncomfortable! Please, you have nothing to worry about, it was, uh...I was...good...if...you were." He grew shyer as he continued, drifting off as a hand reached back to rub his neck. A light laugh. "You did make me have to keep my hair long for another few days, though. It's gotten so annoying to take care of, I was planning on cutting it right after the costume."

This admission perked up all your earlier curiosities about him, and a cautious smile spread over your face as Jungkook unconsciously reminded you that he was, in fact, a total dork, rather than the fuckboy you'd irrationally feared him to be.

"Wait, hold up," you snorted again. Gently. "You're telling me you grew out your hair for three, maybe four, months...for a Cowboy Bebop costume?"

"Hey, it was free and way less lame than a wig," he defended himself. Crossing his arms over his chest, he fidgeted uncomfortably, face blushing into a grin as you continued to giggle at him.

"You are such a fucking weeb," you accused lightheartedly.

Jungkook furrowed his brows back together, an anxious hand grazing the spot where you'd marked him again. "Well, you recognized my Spike costume, at least," he pouted. "You're not all innocent."

"I watched one episode with my friend, and it was dubbed," you downplayed. "Isn't watching dubs instead of subs a crime for real anime fans?"

"Actually," his eyes lit up at your rhetorical question. "The dub of Cowboy Bebop is excellent. It's pretty universally considered better than watching the OG with subs. You're right though, that is the general rule."

"Oh man, who knew." Looking down, grinning, you tried to hide how endeared you were by his earnestness. "Well, it was pretty cool, not gonna lie. I guess I kind of get the appeal."

"Would you want to start watching the rest sometime? That's one I just never get tired of," he blurted, then blushed, closing his mouth and working his lips between his teeth as his eyes stayed wide and on you. Jungkook's heart accelerated in his chest, a fist opening and closing at his hip as he tried to decide whether he regretted taking a chance on the question.

You instantly diverted all your mental energy from hoping he couldn't sense your attraction to massively overthinking your response. This was a "Netflix and chill" kind of invite, right? If he wanted you, of course you wanted him, but you had to be sure before you did something else stupid and risked having to find another discussion board buddy.

"Um...yeah, sure," you accepted. "I have to ask, though, do you mean, like...Cowboy Bebop and chill?" You raised an eyebrow, trying to look bolder than you felt. "Or...Cowboy Bebop and just...Cowboy Bebop?"

"I..." Mirroring your playful grin, Jungkook shrugged, not wanting to look like a fuckboy if he answered with the first option but also wondering—were you actually interested in watching this anime with him? The possibility puzzled him, the same way it confused you how he could go bold and then back to his shy weeb-ass self within seconds. You shrugged too, with an anxious exhale of a laugh.

"That was...weird to just say like that, sorry. We can just see where it goes, whatever you want," you backtracked, full of faux-nonchalance. The Google Calendar schedule on your phone suddenly became very interesting. "We could do another day if that works for you, but I'm free after this class once I write my discussion post—I don't have any other homework or meetings today for once."

He nodded quickly, eyebrows up. Swallowing, Jungkook saw the opportunity to show a little more initiative and seized it. "We could do that together even, 'cause we usually jump off each other anyway. So you can come over right after class if you want." He glanced up and to the left for a quick mental inventory. "Oh shit, wait, but I seriously need to clean my apartment first, can we do more like dinner time tonight? You can just come over for ramen or takeout if you want, or eat first or whatever."

"Yeah, that's fine!" you agreed warmly. "Ramen and homework, two birds with one scone. I should probably, like...get your number? So you can send me your address when you're ready or something?" You didn't want to sound too desperate, especially since you knew he was used to it, but you found yourself weirdly excited to experience something he so obviously loved. If you got dicked down too, even better, but you were definitely willing to wait on that part, especially now that this first sober conversation had restored your inhibitions. He had this slightly shy sweetness about him that just made you want to make him happy somehow. You wanted to see more of his cheesy little smile. You wanted to hear the bright laugh that occasionally rang out at the most inappropriate times, during Citizen Kane or attendance. You wanted to watch his light pink lips fall open in bliss as you kissed down his sensitive neck to the trim of his worn-in hoodie...

"Yeah sure, here." The quick touch of his hand over yours snapped you out of your thoughts as he took your phone, ready to type in his number, and—

"Wait, did you say 'two birds with one scone'? Not 'one stone'?"

You blushed furiously. Somehow him calling you out on your quirks embarrassed you more than the indecent daydream he'd interrupted. "Okay, so I saw this tweet a while back where they said 'feed two birds with one scone' to replace 'kill two birds with one stone,' I think it was just some vegan troll being all like 'don't talk about killing birds!' but it stuck with me because I just really fucking love scones."

"You...really fucking love scones?" he repeated in slight sarcasm, eyes down on your phone. You grew even shyer, but continued.

"Yeah, I bake a lot and they're my favorite thing to make. The flavor possibilities are endless and they last for days so I just keep them on hand for breakfast and snacks and to give out to friends. And they go with tea, which is my other favorite thing." Ooh, was he a tea person? Should you bring some tonight? Something earthy, to go with your ramen. Your go-to green sencha, or maybe chrysanthemum? Chamomile?

Jungkook held your phone back out in front of you, but waited silently for you to notice, enjoying the view of wheels turning in your head as you pondered tea pairings. This was the you he was used to, daydreaming in class and going on tangents as dorky as his in discussions. Even from a distance, he'd noticed you consistently gave off a vibe somewhere between absentminded professor and grandma, and this confirmation made you even cuter to him. But the hair still falling over his ears wouldn't let him forget his new physical proof of another side to you.

You finally collected your phone with a mumbly "Oh right, yeah, cool, thanks," that you prayed sounded more chill to him than it did to you.

"I just texted myself, so I have your number too now, and I'll just send you my address when I'm ready, and, uh...yeah!" he rambled a bit in response.

You nodded, confirming. "I'll see you tonight!"

"Yeah, see you tonight."

Jungkook watched you walk to your desk, silently admiring your ass and allowing himself only a moment to savor the memory of half of it filling his hand. A strange nervousness tingled through him. He hadn't been able to stop thinking about you all weekend either, and now he had a chance to get closer to you than ever before. He hoped, more than he could remember hoping for anything else, that this would go well, one way or another. He had no idea what you wanted with him, but you had him questioning everything he'd thought he wanted. Easing open his laptop, he pulled up your last discussion board response to him, signed off with a smiley face but backwards.

I like the way you think. (:

He turned his head to read it right-side-up, letting his face scrunch into a smile you wouldn't see.

Meanwhile, though the film thrilled you, you struggled to stay facing forward for the duration of class. You suspected the plot of Rear Window was simply unsettling you, but you swore you could feel Jungkook's eyes on your back. No, he was probably actually watching the movie as usual, or reading his manga if not. You were definitely just being paranoid. Definitely. Probably. Right?

next chapter 

[mandadoration]

know your place

summary: Mando catches you with intentions to turn you in for your bounty, but you’ve been in the game long enough to know how to deal with someone like him. You’re determined to make the Mandalorian beg. 

word count: 5, 128

pairing: mandalorian x smuggler!reader

warnings: slight dub-con elements (aphrodisiac), non-consenual drug use, smut, handjob, sub!mando, use of bondage, mentions of drugs, praise kink, thigh riding, dirty talking, teeny tiny pain kink, explicit sex 

a/n: I guess I really have a thing for his cuffs? Also, don’t ask me where this fic is in terms of timeline- I have no idea. 

“She’s dangerous,” Greef Karga warns. “You aren’t the first bounty to have gone after her, but I trust you’ll be the last.” He slides a fob and puck over the table. 

“What is it that makes her so dangerous?” Mando asks. He views your puck. You aren’t particularly threatening. Hell, you’re even smiling brightly as the hologram of your face spins around. If he’s being honest, Mando wouldn’t have pegged you for a criminal. A farmgirl, maybe, or some handmaiden to some nobility in the Core Worlds. “She’s just a spice runner, right?”

“All spice variants. And death sticks, snuff, sweetblossom, rissle stick, slick,” Karga adds on. “That’s not even all of it. If you can smuggle it, she’s got it.” His tone is unusually serious. It’s no wonder why; this bounty is definitely one of the higher ones. The price tag on her head was lucrative. It’s enough for a month or two’s worth of rations, and then some. 

“Really? That many?” Mando asks. “Sounds dangerous.” Most smugglers only chose to smuggle one or two things at a time. It was much too risky to try and transport so much across the galaxy. And by the sounds of it, this bounty sounds like she’s practically supplying half the galaxy. Maker knows how many other criminals she knows. “How’d she survive this long?” Karga shrugs. 

“The other hunters refuse to talk,” he explains. “And those are the ones that have come back.” Mando watches your hologram bust rotate, your dazzling smile making you look deceptively innocent. He takes you puck and the tracking fob. 

“I’ll bring her back,” he says. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

--

Of course you knew that at some point, the infamous Mandalorian would be coming after you. Several people from the Bounty Hunter’s Guild had tried to cash you in, but you wouldn’t let them. So when you had caught word that he had your puck, you had been on guard immediately. You make far too good of a living to give it up. 

But the Mandalorian?

That’s going to be a challenge. 

You’ve heard about him in your little (well, not little) criminal circles, watching as some of your clients have been picked up by him. You’re always quick to leave at any sign of trouble. You didn’t become a major supplier of drugs by being careless, stars, no. That’s why when you’re supplying high quality spice to some big wig, you’re swathed in layers of servant’s robes as you stealth through the town, scarf over the lower half of your face. 

You make sure that as you go through the city, you keep an eye out for any shiny piece of armor, making sure you bat your eyelashes at vendors and practically sashay through town, keeping a hand under your clothes, where your package was disguised as a pregnant belly. An old trick, but more effective than people would think, especially if you were in a less-fortunate part of town. You’ve even gotten some credits from sympathetic nannies who coo about your faux-baby in the past. You aren’t going to complain. You guess it does look weird when you go to a club to meet your client though. 

The guard at the door recognizes you, of course, and you nod at him as you slip through the back door. “Slythmonger,” he grunts. Just because you knew each other doesn’t mean he thought that you were lowly, especially when he eyes your fake belly. 

The club is filled with barely-clothed aliens and humans alike, all sickly sweet smiles and big eyes. You stick out like a sore thumb even more, but your clothes blend in with the dark. As you walk through the club, sticking close to the walls, you slip deathsticks to familiar customers who slip you credits in return. You get to a closed off room, knock three times, and slide in, squeezing your belly as you do. 

And you stop.

Because your client is staring at you with wide eyes as the Mandalorian sits across from him. If you thought you were out of place, the Mando looks like it even more, shiny beskar stark against the velvet cushions. You immediately slide your expression into one of anger, narrowing your eyes.

“Honey,” you grit out, glaring at your client who gives you a look of confusion. You huff and put a hand on your belly, rubbing it as if you were really with child. “What did you do this time?” You motion to the Mandalorian. At this point, you can hope that your scarf covers your face well enough, and that your client will be smart enough to catch on. 

“What?” he asks stupidly. Apparently not. 

You slowly stick your hand into a side pouch containing magic powder as you advance to your client. 

“You obviously did something, sweetie,” you say, voice low, “if a Mandalorian is here.” You see the Mando tilt his head as he looks at you. You eye him from the side. “Are you with the guild?” you ask him, voice dripping with false fear, protectively covering the package. He gets up, and you tense, but he pulls out a puck and activates it, showing your face. And suddenly you’re glad for the loud, pulsing music because if it had been quiet, the tracking fob you’re sure he holds would be beeping loud and clear.

“I’m looking for her,” Mando says. “She delivers spice to your… husband here,” he says. “Have you seen her?” Either he’s a really good actor, or you’re a better one than him and have him fooled. You gasp and whirl to face your client.

“Spice?” you hiss at him, who honestly looks more scared at you than he did at the Mandalorian. “You’re doing spice?” 

“Um, yes?” he stammers out. You sob dramatically, turning away as you try to scan for more exits. Looks like the door you came in is the only one, unless you can somehow fly up and go through the vents before the bounty hunter can snag you. 

“I cannot believe this!” you cry out. “I’m due in a month! A month! And you’re out here doing drugs.” Your wailing makes Mando wince. “Where’s the money?” you demand. Your client scrambles to dump out the credits onto a nearby table and you scoop them out and count quickly. “So this is where it goes?” you screech. You tuck them away. The most he could do was pay you for the horrific acting you had to do, pretending that he was your husband. “I was reluctant for you to even start up this… this harem!” you say, motioning to the dark room and the door. “But I draw the line here!” You turn to slap your client, but in the middle of your theatrics, your fake belly drops down and out under your skirt, spilling carefully measured bags of spice all over the floor. The room falls silent as you stare, and turn back to look at the Mandalorian. 

“Oh dear,” you say weakly, “the baby.” And you blow a handful of powder into his face, ripping off your servant garb and dumping it over his helmet. Although it wouldn’t as potent with the helmet on, you can disorient him. You burst through the door and sprint out of the club and side door, ignoring a very disgruntled guard as you dash into the streets.

“Get back here!” you hear him shout. Shit, he got out that faster than you thought, but at least the powder worked somewhat. He ran straight into a cart as he left the alley. But you have no time to gloat.

You dart through the annoyed crowd, and you can track where the Mandalorian is from how fast the people part behind you. As you run, you dig in your pockets for anything you can use. You curse when you realize that your only syringe was empty, and you didn’t have a replacement medshot. And you really didn’t want to waste your last vial of love-wallop. That shit was expensive on the market right now. You skid into another alley way, but you go cold as you realize it’s a dead end. You don’t stop running, even as the wall gets closer. At the end, you can see a door on the left. If you got there in time, you did have--

You trip when something tangles around your legs. You yelp as you go down, palms scraping against the dirt. Scrambling back, it tugs on you, and the Mando drags you closer to him. 

“Nice acting,” he says, his voice rough behind the modulator. He’s out of breath and taking deep inhales. “Almost had me.” You scowl, and he throws cuffs at your feet, keeping his blaster trained on you. “Cuff yourself.”

Glaring at him, you untangle your legs from the wire he used and snatch the cuffs up. There’s no way you’re letting yourself get caught without a fight. He’s watching you carefully, but you’re fast, faster than him at least, and you chuck the cuffs at him and blow another handful of powder in his face. As he doubles over in pain and disoriented from another dose, you kick his blaster out of his hand and expertly dump your vial into the syringe, and tackle him, climbing on his back as you grit your teeth and try to find a patch of skin. He tries to buck you off, but you stab your needle into his neck before he can. Mando yells in alarm and does eventually manage to throw you off, but it’s working fast, and soon he’s swaying on his feet. 

“What... what did you--” he slurs, but he tips over before he can finish. You huff as you toss the empty vial and syringe aside. It shatters as it hits the wall and you crouch down next to him. Mando reaches up, but you simply push his hand back down. He’s too weak to fight back. “What’d you put in me?” You purse your lips. 

“Love-Wallop serum,” you answer. “That was expensive, Mando. That’s gonna cost you.” You admire his get-up. If that was really beskar he was wearing, you could afford to hide out for months while you gather more supplies and lie low. “It’s not usually meant to be injected,” you hum, grasping his helmet and tilting it as it glints in the sunlight. “Although, maybe I can change the formula a teensy bit.” You peer at the injection site. It’s a little irritated from the rough jab, but it fades away as a flush creeps up his neck. 

“I thought…” Maker, his mouth is dry, and he feels floaty as the serum works through his system. “I thought you were just a slythmonger.” You chuckle. 

“When you’re in this trade for as long as I have,” you say, leaning in close, “you learn a thing or two.” You watch as he moans and attempts to get up. A simple nudge discourages him as he plops back on the ground with a soft thud.“Now, how am I gonna get you out of here?” you murmur. 

The last thing he sees is your frowning face as you get up to pat the dust off of you. 

--

When Mando finally comes to, his head his aching, and he’s burning up, an ache deep and low in his gut. He’s sees you lounging casually across from him with a watchful eye. Mando jerks and tries to reach for his blaster, but his hands are tied above his head. With his own cuffs, magnetized and stuck to the wall. 

This is what they call irony, he supposes. 

A quick glance tells him that he’s in some kind of hideout, junk and trinkets lining the wall, and a pile of crates pushed up against another. It’s dim, the only source of light being a lamp next to a cot and what little sunlight that’s being mostly blocked by curtains. He shifts, and realizes all his gear has been stripped from him, including his vambraces and armor so that he’s left in his shirt and pants. Not even his boots are on him. He worries for a quick second in this moment of disorientation that his helmet’s been taken off when you speak up. 

“Your helmet is still on, don’t worry,” you say, shifting legs so that one is crossed over the other. You’re not stupid, after all. “What’s your name?” Mando doesn’t speak, but instead scans the room for anything that could help him get out of this situation. There’s a door or some kind of hatch in the far left corner, and another to what he thinks is the refresher, but everything surrounding him is moved far out of his reach in every direction. “Let me ask you again,” you say cooly. You get up, and run your boot up his leg, sending tingles up it and up his spine as he lets out a soft groan. “Tell me your name,” you say, sweetly.

“Din. Din Djarin,” he gasps out before he can stop himself. It’s hot. Much too hot in here even though he sees that you’re wearing a leather jacket to protect yourself from the slight chill. He’s aching, and he wants to dig his hands into your soft flesh. 

Where did that thought come from?

“Well, Din Djarin,” you say, and it should be illegal how sinful his name sounds coming from you. “You’re gonna be my little experiment. How about that?” you murmur. You crouch down next to his and rub your thumb on his upper thigh. He bucks up into the air, and you hum when you notice the bulge in his pants. 

“What did you put in me?” he grits out, straining against his cuffs. You remove your hand and get back up, and Mando has to bite back the whine that threatens to leave him at the loss of contact. You take off your jacket, sling it over a chair, and pick up a vial of shimmering pink liquid. 

“Love-Wallop,” you answer. “It’s usually in a pill form, but my customers complained it took too long to dissolve, so I made it into a serum.” You glance at it and then to him, rolling the vial in your fingers. “Although I am starting to wonder if I can safely make it for injection.”

“You roofied me?” he asks. You make a face. 

“No!” you protest. You huff and roll your eyes. “What it’s supposed to do is make you more… susceptible to suggestion and seduction,” you continue. You place the vial down on a table and squat down next to him, and run a warm hand up his shirt. “Enhance what’s already there,” you continue. “You’re burning up,” you note, and use your other hand to palm him through his pants. He lets out a low moan, grinding up against your hand. 

“Yeah?” he groans, “That’s what happens when-- stars -- you get drugged.” You laugh, and pull your hands away, laughing harder when he struggls against his bonds to follow you.

“I guess you’re right,” you say amusedly. You reach for your jacket. “Shall I leave you here?” you ask coquettishly. “Let you ride out this little drug trip? Mind you, I don’t know how long it lasts or what happens when you don’t deal with... this,” you warn. You dig the heel of your boot on his erection, just barely enough pressure, but enough to tease him, to make your point. But a moan drags itself from his mouth. His head rolls back, and you’re willing to bet your entire stash of alderaanian snuff that his eyes are rolling back as well. You kneel down to unbuckle his pants and slide them over his hips, grinning when he subconsciously lifts his hips to help you. Maker, you wish you could just snatch that helmet off of him, see who it was and stick your fingers in his mouth. You think that he must have the softest lips, judging from how sweet every sound he makes is. 

But you aren’t that cruel. 

You are, however, cruel enough to pull his cock from his underclothes and let it go, watching it as it bounces up and leans against his belly. The trail of hair that leads up his hair only fuels your desire to see if the curtain matches the drapes. You absentmindedly rub the tip of cock with a single finger, smearing precum around as it twitches under your touch. You sigh dramatically and wipe your finger on his stomach before getting up, knees cracking as you turn away. 

“But you’re right!” you say. “You’re drugged, and I shouldn’t help you anyways, Din Djarin.” You voice drops to a whisper. “Even though I would very much love to help you and your little problem.” 

“You can’t- You can’t leave me here,” Mando protests, voice raspy and thick with desire as he eyes your figure. He feels hotter than ever, and sweat is dripping down his neck. You swing your leather jacket back on and turn to face him with hands on your hips. 

“Of course I can,” you say. You lick your lips as you drink in how desperate he looks. If it were anyone else, you would leave them, but this Mandalorian intrigues you. Maybe you can… Just this once… “But I will reconsider,” you propose, “if you ask nicely.” 

“You expect me to beg?”

“I expect you to ask nicely,” you correct, but your face splits into a feral grin. “But begging would be nice.” Mando doesn’t speak. He’s mulling it over, considering the pros and cons of ‘asking you’ to help him. The need is bubbling in his belly, and his cock is painfully hard. And you know it. Even if you can’t feel what he’s going through, he’s telegraphing his thoughts as he’s clenching and unclenching his fists, squirming where he’s sitting on the ground of wherever he is and canting his hips towards you. “What do you say?” you ask, the smile on your face reminiscent of the one on the puck, bright, but with an edge that screams predatory. He wants to, Maker knows how much he feels like he needs you, but his pride--

“No.”

-- gets the better of him. 

As soon as he says it, as soon as he sees your face drop and harden, he regrets it, he wants so desperately to please you, but he bites his tongue and keep quiet, even as his breath comes in pants as he’s thrusting into the air. You tilt your head, frowning. You want to ruin him, make him come apart under your hands; you probably want this as much as he does, but instead you shrug. 

“Okay.” And you sit down back in your seat in front of him, legs spread as you watch him. 

“Aren’t you going to leave?” Mando asks. He burns with shame under your gaze, and his cock twitches again. You shake your head. 

“No,” you say. “I said that you were going to be my little experiment,” you remind him. “I make good on promises, Din Djarin” and give him a sly wink. Mando grits his teeth, and directs his gaze somewhere else, anywhere but your piercing eyes and searching gaze. You hum and lean back. You can wait this out. You’re patient. 

This will be interesting.

--

The sun has set far below the horizon, and Mando’s cock is still hard by the time he finally speaks up. 

“Can you…” He clears his throat. He’s absolutely parched, and swallows, his tongue darting out to lick his lips. “Can you let me go?” he asks. You look up from where you have been mindlessly scrolling through your data pad. 

“Hm?”

“Can you let me go?” he repeats. You furrow your eyebrows. 

“And why would I do that?” you ask. You put your data pad on the table next to you and get up to stand next to him, looking down. Mando scrambles for an excuse in his rattled brain. He’s pretty sure with the way his temperature is soaring his brain is fried by now. 

“I’m sure you’re busy,” he says, and cringes with how unconvincing it sounds, even to him. “And have other things to do.” He doesn’t think too long on that, though, because you take a seat next to him and he catches a whiff of your scent, and he’s yearning for your touch again. He wants you so bad, or your hand, at this point he’ll take anything. 

“I am doing something,” you say simply, and lean forward so that you’re leaning against your hand. “Watching you.” You trail a finger up his side. “Waiting. Thinking.”

“Waiting for what?” he breathes. 

“Something,” you say with a sigh. 

“Thinking about what?” 

“How much I would love to wrap my hands around your cock,” you say bluntly, and you scratch your nails down his side. “How I would make you beg for it,” you continue, leaning in close so that you’re right by where his ear would be. “How you would beg for me to fuck you, or beg for my mouth or anything to let you cum.” You slide your hands up his shirt again, palms smooth across his scarred torso, and you tweak a nipple before pulling them back out again, and give his cock one, two, three pumps before you let him go. The lust makes his head cloudy, and at this point, he would let you do anything to him. You lean away from him. 

You tease, he thinks. And he can’t take it anymore. His resolve breaks. 

“Please,” he whines, and you freeze. 

“What?”

“Don’t make me say it again,” he mutters, but your grin is hungry as you lean back in. 

“Say it again,” you command, and once again, he feels the inexplicable need to tell you everything as you scent fills his nose again. 

“Please.” 

“Again.”

“Please.”

“Again.”

“Please.”

“Oh Din Djarin,” you whisper, and the effect your voice has is devastating, “all you had to do was ask.”

Mando nearly cums right then and there when your unyielding grip wraps around his cock, stroking him in long, tight motions as you swing your leg over him to get a better angle. The pleasure is overwhelming. You reach over him, somewhere he can’t see, and you pull out a vibroblade and point it at the base of his throat. His pulse quickens, thinking that you’re about to slit his throat, but instead you catch the top of his shirt and slice it off. You throw the blade over your shoulder and you run your free hand all over his tanned skin. He growls when you twist your hand, and he bucks up. 

“You’re doing so good,” you moan, grinding against his muscled thigh as it flexes. “So good, Din Djarin,” and it’s true. Although you can’t see his face, you see how his chest is flushed and warm, the blush crawling up his neck, and the way he moans is beautiful. “I wish I could keep you,” you mutter, and hiss when you rub your clit just right against him. “Stars, you’d let me do anything to you, hm?” You kiss his chest and start peppering little nips and bites up his neck, sucking a particularly dark mark right on his pulse point. “Answer me.” You cup his balls and stare at him. 

“Yes,” Mando gasps. He’s nearly sobbing from the pleasure, the relief of finally having his cock touched overwhelmingly good, and preening under your murmured praises. “A-anything, fuck, just don’t-don’t stop please--!” His words are choked out as he suddenly cums all over your hand, thick, white ropes coating it and splashing onto your jacket. You don’t stop stroking him, grinding against him as he cums, and the sound he makes is pitiful. It’s only when you cum, white-hot pleasure making your ears ring as you finally stop moving against his thigh, and you’re both heaving in breaths. You pull away, and wipe your cum covered hands in the scraps of his ruined shirt, and you get up to leave, but then you stop when your eyes trail down. 

“Are you still hard?” you ask him incredulously. He came so much, but yes, there it is, his cock is still hard and nearly purple at the tip. As if you didn’t do anything at all. The little noise he makes only further confirms it. You gnaw at your bottom lip, staring at his marked chest and neck, and you think that you have another one in you. 

Definitely. 

And so now you’re shucking off your jacket and unbuckling your belt, slick with desire. Mando is watching you, following your movements and watching as your deft hands push down your pants and kicking off your boots. As you sink down, taking his cock in one fluid motion, and the scientist in you vaguely wonders if the dose of love-wallop you gave him could be transferred via bodily fluids. 

That thought is kicked out of your brain as he snaps his hips up and hits that spot inside of you, going deep and so wonderful and it feels like he’s punched the breath out of you. You gasp out a breathy moan. 

“Holy shit,” Mando hisses. He manages to get his feet under him, giving him better leverage to thrust into your pussy, watching as you bounce on top of him. 

“Yes, yes,” you moan. You hold onto his shoulder, all hard muscle and tensed with how he’s pulling at his cuffs to make sure he doesn’t slip. Mando wishes that he could wind his hand through your hair and pull your head back, to bare your neck and mark you, but his hands are still above his head, and he’s sure he’s rubbed his wrists raw. Your toes curl as he fucks you, eyes glazing over as you spy your reflection in his helmet, and your eyes widen when you see how debauched you look. “Din Djarin, I am never letting you leave,” you groan, rubbing your clit. “Stars, your- your cock,” you yelp at a particularly hard thrust, “fuck!” With your free hand, the one not preoccupied with playing with your clit, you dig your nails into his shoulder for leverage, and dig harder still when he moans in response. 

“Do you- Do you do this to all the hunters?” he manages to gasp out, and you shake your head. “Do you let them, let them do this to you? Fuck you?”

“Just you,” you say. “Only you.”

The squelching that fills the otherwise silent room is absolutely disgusting, his hips slapping up against yours, your shirt still covered in his cum. You’re beautiful like this, he thinks, or at least tries to, but all he can do is try and commit the image of you, flushed and hair messy, as you bounce up and down to meet his thrusts halfway, rolling your hips now and then, his mind too jumbled to form worthwhile thoughts. 

“I’m gonna cum,” he grunts. “Soon, shit, if you keep doing that I’m--” 

“Cum,” you breath out, face twisted up in pleasure. There’s coil deep in your core that’s been winding up, and you know you’re close to making it snap. “Cum in me.” And he’s consumed with the desire to listen and hang on to your every word, and he cums. That does it for you too, the feeling of him filling you up, and you grind against him as you nearly wail with pleasure as you orgasm, rubbing your clit in fast, small circles, pleasure rolling through you in waves. 

When you finally come down, Mando is gasping for breath as he slumps back down, and you pry your iron grip from him and get up, his soft cock slipping out of you, but you think you see it twitch again as cum drips out of you. As you pad to the refresher, Mando is overcome with sleepiness and exhaustion. He’s been wound up for hours, he sure, that when he finally got his release, his energy is spent. Mando nearly dozes off when you come back with a warm, wet rag, and wipe your cum and his from his body. You wipe the sweat around his neck, running it gently over the crescent-shaped marks from where you had dug your nails in, and he’s taken aback from how tender and gentle you are with him. There’s a soft look to your face as you’re focused on cleaning him up to the best of your abilities, and he thinks that you’re not even aware he’s looking at you. When you pull away, he yearns for your touch, but in a different way this time, and you give him a small smile. 

“Sleep,” you command him, and he tries to commit this image in his mind, not the one before, of you in the warm light of the lamp in the corner, glowing with the drips of moonlight filtering in, and once again he listens to what you say, and closes his eyes. 

--

Mando wakes up with a start, neck sore, and he scrambles up when he realizes he’s no longer cuffed, and remembers the events of the night before, dropping the blanket that had been placed over him.

The hot desire that had consumed him is gone now, and instead his legs and arms are aching, wrists raw and irritated like he knew it would be, and he looks around for you.

But any trace that you were there before are gone. 

The crates of drugs, your leather jacket and pants, hell, even the furniture and lamp that was in the corner are gone. All that’s left is his armor and a replacement shirt next to him. When he bends down to pick up the shirt, a little jar tumbles out. He reads the label. 

Salve, it reads, in what he presumes is your handwriting. For Din Djarin. Compensation for partaking in my experiment. He cracks a grin and puts it back on the floor, pulling the shirt over his head and starts the process of buckling his armor on again, trying to ignore how disappointment rises in him when the tracking fob linked to your chain code doesn’t even let out a single blip. Before he puts on his gloves and vambrace, he smears the salve over his wrists, and watches as the irritation almost immediately disappears. It works better than most commercial brands, he notes, and much better than the one in his medpack, so he tucks it away for future use, then freezes as he pats his pockets. He curses when he realizes. 

You had taken all his credits.

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’

Hey, it’s Ranma Rewatch, I’m on episode 7, and I don’t want to waste too much time with the preamble. I am super excited for this episode, my boi is here, I really hope it holds up, see you after I watch it again!

That wasn’t exactly how I remembered it, but not in a bad way. The episode starts with a short scene that has become pretty freaking iconic, and has been sampled in dozens, if not hundreds, of AMV’s: A man cloaked from head to toe, walking through a desert, his eyes barely visible under goggles. It is a really cool shot that catches the eye right away.

We cut from that to that same person approaching a small village, deciding to throw off his concealing clothes to reveal his typical yellow and green outfit, with a bandanna around his head and an umbrella on his back, which he takes out to slow down his descent when he jumps off a cliff. This village happens to be being attacked by a huge wild boar, wrecking everything in its way, but this fellow is able to stop the animal with little effort and send it flying. When the grateful villagers approach, he only has one question for them: where is Furinkan High School?

At first they don’t understand the question, until they look at what he has for a map and realize it’s of Tokyo. The problem is, this young man is on Shikoku, a completely different island in the archipelago. They point him in the right general direction, and he reveals before the scene ends that he is specifically trying to find Ranma Saotome.

Speaking of the show’s titular character, we get a small scene of him in his cursed form being blackmailed by Nabiki into wearing women’s clothes because all of his stuff is in the wash. After that, we get another scene of the mysterious umbrella-wielding stranger asking someone for directions to Furinkan High School, but this time he’s in Hokkaido. Once again a completely different island, only this time on the opposite end. Fun fact: Hokkaido was the inspiration for Sinnoh in Pokemon!

We get another small cut-away to Ranma in various outfits, then another of our new character somehow ending up back in that village he was in earlier. The point is being made clear to us: he is terrible at getting where he wants to go, but is also so inhumanly strong and resilient that he has no trouble surviving in the wilderness in the process.

What seems to be the next day, he finally gets to where he’s going, just as school is letting out for the day. Ranma is being chased by Akane for something, though we don’t know exactly what. (Of course, we know their dynamic well enough by now to know it’s almost certainly something Ranma did to annoy her.) The newcomer slams into the ground where Ranma is landing at the same time, leaving a crater in the cement from the force of his landing, all while screaming how Ranma has to die.

The problem is, Ranma has no clue who this guy is, which pisses him off to know end. Even after he brings up that his vendetta has something to do with Ranma never showing up for a duel, Ranma still struggles (and fails) to remember this guys name, but luckily he gives it to Ranma anyway: Ryoga Hibiki. They went to Junior High together, and they’d agreed upon a duel, but it never happened because Ranma wasn’t there when Ryoga arrived.

Now, Ranma protests that he waited in the agreed upon empty lot for three days before taking off for China with his dad, which is honestly more time than most people would have waited. As we already know though, Ryoga can’t seem to get anywhere quickly, so he got there on the fourth day. Oh, and the lot was right behind his house.

The crowd of students who only moments before considered him with awe over his fantastic martial arts abilities are now looking at him like a buffoon, and Ryoga is ready to get his revenge on Ranma already. But Ranma puts a pause on that, runs out, and comes back with a bunch of different kinds of bread. Why? Because bread was the reason for their duel in the first place. Their school was only for boys, and getting food at lunch was a nightmare. Ranma ended up snatching the last piece of bread just before Ryoga could get it time and time again, and all the bread he brought was one of each type he’d taken years before.

But Ryoga doesn’t care about that, making it clear that the bread isn’t something he cares about anymore, that Ranma has put him through hell, even if Ranma has no clue what he’s talking about. But before they can get a proper fight going, Ranma runs away, losing Ryoga enough that when he starts busting up the school looking for him, he ends up going the wrong way and out of the area entirely, leaving Ranma and Akane to wonder where he went. We do get to see where before the episode ends: once again back in that village that had the boar problem, where he gets a meal before running out into the evening to find Ranma once more.

Like I said before, this episode wasn’t entirely how I remembered it. Namely, there was a lot more humor than I remembered. For the most part, that’s not a bad thing, there was actually some really good comedy, and I don’t feel like it trampled over the more serious parts of the episode.

If it isn’t clear, I am going to say right now that I did still love this episode. The animation was really on-point, some of the visuals of Ranma darting around people or the brief combat he gets with Ryoga just looks beautiful. Also, even though we don’t get a fight between the two just yet, it’s already solidly communicated, through Ryoga easily beating the boar, barreling through steel barriers, and hitting the ground so hard it destroys concrete, that he is strong as hell.

As much as I love the opening desert shot, I actually think my favorite part of the episode is some of the conversation between Ranma, Akane, and Ryoga. Ranma straining his brain to remember who Ryoga is killed me. It was weirdly relatable too, I’m sure many of us have run into someone who obviously knows us, while we can’t even remember how we know them, let alone their name. The fact Ranma actually specifically bought one of each bread he’d taken from Ryoga before was kind of cute, more than I expected of the usually flippant martial artist.

There’s also an exchange I’ve seen on Tumblr a few times in screencaps and gifs, and there’s a reason people love to share it. When Ryoga says he’s going to destroy Ranma’s happiness, there’s this shot of him freaking out, only to turn to Akane and blankly ask if he is happy, to which Akane doesn’t understand why he’s asking her. They take such a trope-y line from a character seeking revenge and turn it around into a really good joke.

There was also a really interesting thing I noted in terms of translation. After hearing about the string of times Ranma stole bread from Ryoga, Akane makes an analogy to why it mattered so much, but it’s different from dub to sub. In the English Dub, she says the straws broke the camel’s back, a common phrase that seems to fit the situation. But in the English Sub, she says (loosely remembering) “enough dust can make a mountain”, and I think that actually fits much better. After all, we soon learned that the bread isn’t really why Ryoga is angry, but once you do know everything that happened that led to Ryoga’s rage, that analogy fits perfect: it isn’t so much one specific event, as a collection of small events that collected into an enormous vendetta.

All my compliments aside, I did have some issues with the episode. Some of the comedy didn’t really work for me, and that was most true with the early scenes of the Tendo girls trying to dress Ranma in Akane’s clothes. Some parts did make me chuckle, but on the whole the mini-plot made me uncomfortable. Primarily because, as I’ve said before, I feel like the best way to look at Ranma’s cursed form is as a trans man. Even though his body has changed, his gender hasn’t, he’s still a man. The scene has Ranma protesting again and again that he is a man, even as they try to dress him as a woman. The idea of some cisgender folks trying to force a trans man into women’s clothes just...isn’t very funny to me. It’s kind of terrible, at least from a more queer perspective. That complaint done, let’s do the character spotlight.

Oh come on, who else did you think I was going to do? If it isn’t clear yet, Ryoga Hibiki is my favorite character in the series, and he has been since I was a teenager. Who knows if that will remain true this entire watch-through, but so far I’m not liking him any less. I’ll get into why, but first let’s talk about his voice actors.

The voice actor I’m more familiar with, his English one, is Michael Donovan. Like most of the actors for this dub, he’s someone who worked with the Ocean Group for a lot of series around this time period. That said, if you’re a fan of the Fate franchise, he has done some voices in Ufotable’s recent anime adaptations, playing Risei Kotomine and Zouken Matou. In Japanese, his voice actor is one Kōichi Yamadera, and he continued the pattern of voice actors who are well-known in Japan for dubbing English works. He’s most well-known for dubbing over Jim Carrey in a lot of movies, but he’s done a ton of others as well. In anime, some of his notable roles include Spike Spiegel, Beerus in all the recent Dragon Ball movies and anime, and Gentle Criminal in My Hero Academia. Seriously, diving into this guy’s list of roles is like swimming in an ocean of great roles.

So, how do they do? Well, so far I’d say I like both of them a lot, but they do play Ryoga differently. At his core, Ryoga is actually kind of a perfect microcosm of the tone of the series itself. Ranma 1/2 is simultaneously a shonen battle anime, a romantic harem series, and a wacky comedy. Ryoga is someone who takes himself very, very seriously. His desire for vengeance against Ranma isn’t a joke, and neither is his ability as a martial artist. But he’s also a doofus who ends up crossing the length of Japan several times because he can’t follow directions properly and the reasons (so far) for his hatred of Ranma are completely laughable.

I wouldn’t say that Michael Donovan’s performance lacks seriousness, in fact when he wants Ryoga to sound menacing I think he does it well, but on the whole he leans more heavily towards the comedic parts of the character. Meanwhile, Yamadera’s Ryoga hasn’t really sounded silly once to me. He plays the character dead straight, and let’s the comedy come through in the contrast between that demeanor and the circumstances around him. We’ll have to see as we go, but I actually might be preferring the Japanese performance so far, a rarity for me.

Okay, so, why do I love Ryoga so much? There are SO many reasons, many of which I won’t go into just yet because I’ll save them for when they appear in-series. But there is still a lot shown in this episode that I feel I can discuss. To start with, I adore his design. I don’t mean the cloak and goggles, though those are absolutely awesome, I’m referring to his standard mode of dress. The yellow and green as a color scheme, with accents of black to top it off, is something really unique. I don’t know enough about art to really articulate why, but I just love every touch of his design. My favorite small touch has to be the yellow strands wrapping around his lower legs, clashing with his otherwise dark green lower half. I have no clue what they’re supposed to be for, but they just add something, almost making him look more rooted to the spot of wherever he’s standing, more solid.

That is a good word to use for Ryoga in general. Even though we haven’t gotten to see him in a proper fight just yet, we’ve seen quite a lot of evidence of his main attributes. In Dungeons & Dragons terms, Ryoga is making out his Strength and Constitution. He hits like a truck and he can be hit by a truck without slowing down. I love that because it contrasts so perfectly with Ranma’s strength: his speed and precision. I adore it when rival characters actually have qualities that make the fights between them more interesting from the contrast, and Ryoga fits the bill there quite well. He’s also a good foil in terms of personality: Ranma is easy going, likes screwing with people, and is quite quick-witted; Ryoga has a hot temper and a long memory for grudges, hates it when people trick him, and tends to let his emotions do the thinking for him.

I will say it feels like his character has some classic Early Installment Weirdness, as he uses his umbrella quite a bit in this episode. If I remember correctly, after his introductory arc, he doesn’t use his umbrella much at all for the rest of the show, preferring to rely on his fists. It definitely feels like they hadn’t quite nailed the character completely yet, if that makes any sense.

Ryoga is also doing that thing where he’s seeking revenge and really angry, but refuses to talk about why, drawing out the mystery as long as possible. While that trope can become annoying, I don’t really mind it in this case. This isn’t a situation like Godot from Ace Attorney, where Ryoga is purposefully hiding it for some grand plan or something, or to teach a lesson. Ryoga doesn’t go into specifics because A) he thinks Ranma should already know; B) Ryoga is very mad; and C) he doesn’t want anyone else to know his secret. I’m not saying it isn’t stupid that he doesn’t tell Ranma why he’s mad, but I am saying that it’s in-character.

Are you surprised that I adore this episode? You shouldn’t be, I’ve been gushing about it this whole time. Even with the parts I found more rough to watch, this is still my favorite episode of the series thus far, putting the rankings at:

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

The big question is: will the next episode of this four episode Ryoga arc be even better? We’ll find out next time with Episode 8: “School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga”. See you then!

[kca1516]

Summary:

Draco and Y/N are rivals...until they are most certainly not.

~~~~

This is a oneshot (with potential to be expanded on) where the reader and Draco are enemies through their years in Hogwarts. One day Draco's insult goes too far, and the reader starts avoiding him. Outraged and jealous, Draco tracks her down and forces her to tell him what's wrong.

She finds out not everything is as it seems.

(Gryffindor!reader)

Warnings: Smut, light dom/sub, dom!Draco, angst with a happy ending, slight dub-con (at one point the reader tries to escape from where draco has her pinned, this leads into the smut but the smut is consensual) also this was edited quickly so mistakes will pop up hear and there

This fic can also be found in full on ao3

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26475127

Hope you enjoy Part 1!

The gloss of his silver and emerald tie flashed in the sunlight streaming in through the arched stained glass windows. 

His sharp tongue peaked out from behind that cocky smirk that could always be found at home upon his lips. The boy tilted his head back in triumph, claiming victory before he had achieved it. The battle had only just begun, and you were nothing less than a formidable enemy. 

Then there were his eyes. His storm cloud gaze struck through you, parting your flesh and searing your insides with a brand you would never admit lay there.

Draco Malfoy.

The Slytherin Prince. 

“Where do you think you're going, Y/L/N,” he called from behind you, “I decide when I’m through with you.”

His voice was an ominous echo off the domed ceiling. You could feel his steps vibrated through the floor despite the other students in the hallway. It was a silent promise that he would catch up with you, and there was nowhere you could go that he wouldn’t find you.

It didn’t mean you were going to make it easy on him. 

You could hear Malfoy’s gangle of idiot friends snicker at something the blonde said. Smoke seemed to trail off of your frame as you burned with pure loathing. 

Not today, any other day but today...

You had met Draco Malfoy as a measly first year at the age of eleven. 

Your hair had been an unruly mop on top of your head, there had been dirt built up under your jagged fingernail edges, and you had been alight with hope and excitement for the years that would come. 

Even from such a young age, you had always been kind, and adventurous, and alive with an inhibited joy that burned through you. 

Never had you thought that while you were about to embark on a journey where you would meet the most amazing friends you could ever ask for, you would also meet a boy that would turn your world upside down.

The rivalry had started on the Hogwarts train platform. You had just stepped into your new adventure, the howling of the trains whistle fading into the distance.

You could distinctly remember obsessively adjusting the collar of your shirt. Your mother had ironed it for you this morning, but all your fidgeting had left it creased and wrinkled, destroying her hard work. 

You weren’t used to the stiffness of the uniform, having grown accustomed to wearing dresses when you played as it gave you more freedom. 

You had been plucking at one of the buttons when you heard something that would change your life forever.

“Watch it,” sneered a voice followed by a jarring thump as somebody collided with the ground, “don’t you know to get out of the way of those who are better than you? You're a pathetic excuse for a pureblood, Longbottom.”

As you would grow to expect, ridiculous, wild laughter followed his comment despite the lack of something funny. Uneasiness molded in your stomach; you couldn’t sit back and do nothing.

Ignoring the beckonings of the tall bearded man ushering the first years his way, you turned around. The crowd rushed over you. Despite the bodies knocking into you, you were able to spot your intended target easily enough.

Your gaze landed on a disheveled boy planted firmly on the ground. His chin was quivering, and you knew his hands must be cut up from where they had scraped the gravel. Then you trailed your eyes to the boy standing over him. His platinum hair was slicked back and his hands were bunched into fists. Two larger boys towered over his shoulders, as if they were guarding him. 

You couldn’t control the sudden anger that flushed through you. You didn’t like bullies. Rolling up your sleeves you stomped your way to the boys. 

“The only pathetic one here is you,” you’re eleven year old self seethed, marching up to the scene with a clear purpose. 

You made sure to get right up in the bullies faces so as to take his attention away from the boy on the ground who shot you a grateful look as he picked himself up from where he was frozen on the platform.

The blonde seemed to have lost his bearings at your sudden appearance for only a moment. He hadn’t expected there to be a third party in this interaction, but too quickly for your liking his self-satisfied smirk played along his lips once more. It would come to be one of your greatest irritants when dealing with him in the future. 

“And who might you be, flower?” the boy asks, a condescending tone to his voice you didn’t know was possible to achieve at the age of eleven. Nonetheless, you weren’t cowed.

“Someone you’re going to be having problems with if you don’t apologize for pushing my friend here,” you said firmly, then added as an afterthought, “And don’t call me flower.”

You could feel your nose scrunching angrily in the way that made your mother smile, and hoped it didn’t hinder the intimidation you're trying to embody. The blonde boy merely narrowed his eyes, as if unsure what to make of you.  

“How do you know I pushed him?” the boy asked.

That caught you off guard.

“Excuse me?” you said, knowing full well what the boy had done even if you hadn’t seen it with your own two eyes. 

“I asked,” the boy said, annoyed that he had to repeat himself, “did you see me push him? How do you know I wasn’t trying to help him off the ground?”

You huffed out a breath of disbelief. Of course that wasn’t the truth; it was ridiculous. The fear in the others boys face would be enough to prove what had truly happened.

“Just because I didn’t see what happened doesn’t mean I didn’t hear it. Also-”

Unknowingly, you had just made your fatal mistake.

“So you agree, that you didn’t actually see what happened?”

You felt the presence of the blondes’s two bodyguards stepping closer to you, and the boy from the ground had all but escaped into his cloak like a turtle to his shell. You didn’t foresee getting any help from him, though you couldn’t blame him. 

“Well I-”

You tried to hold your ground, but your opponent wasn’t going to let you gain leverage. 

“I don’t think you had any idea what was happening before you butted in.”

The boy took a step forward. You had no choice but to take a step back. The fire that had burned in you, and pushed you to step in was now nothing more than dying embers on a cold winter’s night. Embarrassment heated your cheeks. 

“I-”

“Maybe if you weren’t so nosy you would have come to find I was helping our friend Nevile here pick himself back up from where he had clumsily fallen over his fat feet- Ow!”

You had panicked. 

Despite being nothing more than a child at the time, Draco Malfoy was already able to spin words and create wild tales of half truths that had you second guessing the validity of reality. As a young girl you hadn’t been accustomed to that type of manipulation, and had only understood the basic instinct that told you you wanted it to stop. 

Before you had any chance to think things through, you had hastily flicked the boy's forehead. His focus had stuttered, cutting him off mid sentence. Momentarily, you had regained control.   Even, who you would come to recognize as, Crabbe and Goyle hadn’t known what to do as their leader was indisposed. 

You knew better than to waste the escape presented to you.

“Hey Nevile,” you had said before grabbing the boy’s hand and sprinting to the boats, “if we don’t want to start our year off with blackeyes I’d suggest we run.”

~~~~~~~~~~

From that point on you and Malfoy had had it out for each other. 

Your houses turning out to be natural enemies, Slytherin and Gryffindor, didn’t help matters. The age old feud only strengthened the hatred you had for each other, and when caught in a battle of words and whits neither of you were known to back down. Some of your fights had become legendary during your growing years at Hogwarts. 

There was the time in second year where Malfoy made one of your Hufflepuff friends cry so hard she could barely take in a breath. Naturally, you had tracked him down and hadn’t given him the chance to say your name before you had given him a bloody nose. 

Your third year together had only amped up your antics. It had found the two of you arguing over the true origin of the accio spell in the middle of Professor Flitwick’s Charms class. Your teacher had turned bright red as his voice was lost in the mayhem of the two of you screaming profanities at each other until rain clouds had formed above your heads. 

But maybe the most infamous argument the two of you had ever partaken in started when Draco thought it would be funny to dye your skin green and silver. He had conveniently forgotten the countercurse. 

You had chewed him out in front of the entire school in the Great Hall, including Professor Dumbledore. The teachers not only had to drag you from the room, but had to reschedule your classes so the two of you had as little contact with each other as possible. Of course, now the two of you knew how to keep your arguments underwraps so as not to get into any serious trouble with the school. 

Looking back, you had always been drawn to each other. The explosive energy between you was unbearable unless unleashed in a form of chaos. 

The two of you thrived off of weaponized words, aimed to kill like that of a well casted spell. You orbited each other; burning stars ready to erupt in a shower of blinding dust should they ever collide.

But maybe for the first time in your life you found yourself running away from a fight with Malfoy, despite his voice beckoning you from further down the hall. What you wanted to do was escape, despite being a Gryffindor.

This thing you shared with Malfoy had gone too far; you were freefalling without an end in sight.

 It had all started in Potions class. It was the only period you didn’t share with any friends which meant you were stuck listening to Malfoy without being able to snap back at him. Especially because he was one of Snape’s favorites, and you were very clearly not. 

Just as class had been coming to an end, and your patience was wearing thin, you heard something that turned the fire inside to an icy tundra.

“I’d hit that,” Blaise, one of Draco’s friends, said. 

You could tell by the way he whispered that you were not intended to hear it.

Something in your gut curdled. 

You never liked when Malfoy’s friends were around to witness the arguments between you two. They changed the rhythm of things, ruining the routine that you and Malfoy thrived off of.  

They warped Malfoy into something nasty and cruel where he’d once respected boundaries.

That was the thing, when it was just the two of you there were boundaries. As hard to believe as it might sound, you two were equals. You regarded each other with a certain amount of respect that could not be guaranteed when there was an audience.  

For one, Malfoy had never used your body against you. Sure, he used to pick on you for being a girl when you were younger, but as you had grown older he never made vulgar sexual innuendos about you. 

He had never made you feel disgusting. 

To hear this conversation taking place behind you, made your skin tight as if it were about to shred off your bones. 

“I mean yes, she’s annoying as all hell, but she has a nice body. I’d use her for a night,” Blaise continued.

You held your breath, waiting to hear Malfoy’s response. You couldn't help but hope that Malfoy wouldn’t cross that line. 

You didn’t know what you had asked for.

“You’re sick, Blaise,” Draco said, his voice as cool and smooth as always. 

The heaviness in your chest eased.

You should have known it was too good to be true. 

“Why the hell would you want to sully your name with the likes of her? It’d be like fucking an animal; we are not the same breed. Have some self respect.”

A knife had lodged its way in between your ribs. 

You couldn’t breathe. You had never had delusions of grandeur concerning Malfoy’s feelings towards you. He hated you, and the feeling was mutual despite the bond you shared. 

But to hear him say you were nothing more than an animal to him, something dirty and other and not worthy of him in any way? 

You couldn’t breathe. 

The rush of hurt was more than you ever could have anticipated, and you were forced to come to terms with something you had holed up inside of you for so long.

Along the way you had fallen hard for Draco Malfoy, and he had just broken your heart.

That was how you found yourself running from him in the hallway.

His words repeated over and over in your mind. 

We are not the same breed.

To him, you were nothing more then something he could torture in hopes that you would twitch and bare your teeth when you were hurt.

For a brief, beautiful moment, that anger you had felt back when you were a child rushed you. You tried to cling to it, though you knew it wouldn’t last. 

If he thought you were nothing but an animal, you would sprout claws and fangs and wings and tear him to pieces. 

It was with that thought that a hand came down on your shoulder. The touch seared your flesh through your robes; there was no escaping him. 

“Where do you think you’re going, flower?” Malfoy whispered in your ear, his breath warm and persuasive as it dewed on your skin.

Goosebumps pimpled along your arms.  

There might have been a time where you had longed to fall back into his hold, but in the span of fifteen minutes everything had changed. 

You could have sworn he started to rub minute circles into the tense part of your neck with his thumb, you ignored it.

A cackling came from behind the two of you, helping you strengthen your resolve. His posse had followed him out in hopes of catching a show, you hated to disappoint. 

Blaise would be with them.

You kept your tears firmly at bay, refusing to show a hint of weakness.

Quicker than Malfoy could have anticipated, you spun around to face him. Your wand pointed at his neck, the tip grazing his jugular.

You saw red. 

For the first time since you were younger you didn’t care if a teacher came out. You didn’t care if you got in trouble for threatening him. He deserved what he got.  

A visceral crack sounded in your ears as your heart fractured a little more. 

It was like you were truly seeing him for the first time. 

He had grown into his height, no longer a mess of gangly limbs. His face had lost all baby fat, now structured from marble, and his hair was no longer slicked back as strands hung delicately in his face.

The only thing that had not changed, and never would, were his storm cloud eyes. 

“What exactly do you think this will accomplish, flower?”

There was danger in his voice, but he was unafraid. You dug the tip of your wand deeper into his neck if only to get him to shut up. His ability to condescend you had always been the cold press of a blade slicing your nerves. You hated how he could turn your own argument against you.

“I will put you in your place if I have to,” he promised, as if to remind you of something you couldn’t possibly forget.

A warmth cradled the fierce cold within you, begging you to give into the heat. 

He saw it, too. His eyes almost softened, calling to you to give into him. 

We are a different breed.

You tensed your jaw, and your nose scrunched up. 

“Leave me alone,” you said, “I’m done.”

You hastened away from him before he could stop you.

Part Two Here

[macabretrees]

Some thoughts about Joey and his abuse: 

Joey craves validation from people who constantly beat him down because that’s what he’s used to. Mai is a straight-up bully when they first meet (and continues to be wishy-washy especially during the Oricalcos arch) and never officially apologies, Seto is an asshole who puts Joey’s life on the line for entertainment yet Joey still attempts to receive recognition from him. 

Joey, by no fault of his own, looks for validation in people who hurt him because that’s just what he’s used to. At least if they’re giving him attention, they’re staying in his life and not abandoning him, and he’s learned that negative attention is the one that attracts people. 

And to further elaborate, Joey’s involvement in a gang can also be an example of this. 

So I wonder how complex this makes his relationship with Yugi, and what it says about Joey’s outlandish (sometimes annoying and risk taking) behavior with Yugi. 

What I mean is Joey is used to doing the extreme to get people to like him, even if they hurt him. But with Yugi it’s just different. Yugi doesn’t require anything but Joey’s friendship, he’s not trying to hurt him, he’s not bullying him, he genuinely wants to be his friend, and I think this is incredibly hard for Joey to deal with. So he does the most for Yugi, because he’s secretly afraid that he'll just leave him.

that’s why he does the most even it means death, that’s why he’s so loud and rowdy around Yugi because anything less means that Yugi’s attention isn’t on him and that Yugi can end their friendship in a heartbeat. And it’s not a stretch to say that he tries to get Yugi annoyed with him, because he’s waiting for him to snap, he’s waiting for Yugi to fall into his perceived “norm”, because that’s safe for Joey. 

He’d rather get a reaction when he respects it than never.

And of course Yugi would never do that, but that’s just how Joey’s mind works. That’s why he considers himself his best friend, despite Tea being there for ages, Joey establishes himself closest to Yugi because he is so afraid of being abandoned by him. 

And I’m pretty sure it’s really hard for Joey to trust Yugi, initially. Just because Yugi challenges everything Joey is used to and the barries he’s created for himself. 

(anyway i’m elaborating on this in a larger meta where I do case studies for certain characters from shows i like. Seto and Mokuba are coming after the initial Joey one. )

(also please, please if you’re going to read this and find some instance that “only applies to the dub” just close out the window and leave my post alone. There’s this level of superiority amongst people who read the manga/watch the sub, and act like the dub doesn’t exist when in fact it does, it’s marketing choices affected an entire generation of children, and the content it communicated where very much real. at this point i don’t understnad what the point of trying to up people on the dub is unless it didn’t exist and unless it wasn’t impactful, because it was)

[ronnytherandom]

Accidental Animated Film Week, or Watch Me Continue To Know Nothing About Media Analysis While I Liberally Abuse The Semicolon In An Attempt To Sound Smart

18/1/2021: Hotel Transylvania Lots of fun but this is a weird one, varies drastically in some strange ways. The comedy takes hit and miss to extremes, simultaneously being laugh out loud hilarious and possessing moments of ungodly cringe. The pacing is unbalanced with the first half feeling awkward, taking a while to really get into; the latter much too fast and not taking the necessary time, some scenes seeming to serve their function as minimally as possible. This metronome of quality exists primarily in these respects and is quite noticeable, but doesn’t ruin the experience and I think that’s testament to just how good the rest of it can be, though there are still caveats. The animation is fantastic, incredibly expressive and creates truly hilarious physical comedy, and I feel this is to be expected of a Genndy Tartakovsky film, I grew up with and deeply appreciate his animated features. The emotional core of the story really begins to hit in the latter half and is very effective though the Zing concept I take issue with the name because it just sounds too silly without being humorous; its just a weird little gripe, the word zing annoys me. That said I was genuinely invested in this love story which is a feat, I’m not a romantic person at all. The acting is generally very good, I enjoy the expanded cast and Adam Sandler is excellent but Andy Samberg’s Johnny has an accent that gets on my nerves and feels like he’s being a bit too heavy handed with it. Again, just a little gripe. The message is clear and heartfelt, strange as it seems to make the message for the parents of the features target audience it still works and resembles in parts the “dadification” that’s been occurring in media (especially video games) over the past decade. Ultimately, it’s a good time so long as you can deal with a few groan inducing moments and a little strangeness.

19/1/2021: Princess Mononoke Holy shit, why haven’t I watched this sooner. Transcendentally good! My new favourite film, an absolutely incredible achievement. For fear of wading into sub v dub controversy the English dub is good though I’m definitely going to watch it subbed at some point. Its Studio Ghibli, everyone knows that Miyazaki runs a fantastic operation, thus the art and animation is faultless. There are moments where every single frame is a true work of art. Induces nostalgia though I’ve never seen it before, the art style and tone of the soundtrack are endemic to the late 90s and remind me of the animation from my childhood. The message is also wonderfully nuanced, focusing less on Humanity’s responsibility for the natural world but rather a reconciliation between the ambition of humanity and the life of our world through respect and veneration of that which we’re dependent on to survive. I love the world so much; I think one of this film’s pinnacle achievements is conveying the impression of a deep living world with relatively little worldbuilding. Just watch it aight, everyone needs to watch it. Fucking Incredible.

20/1/2021: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (rewatch)

Very Fun. Powerful nostalgia, I think I saw this literally hundreds of times as a child, may have had the whole thing memorised, and have always been a huge fan of the SpongeBob series. Even despite that I think there’s a lot of quality here. Pretty much every aspect of the film is enjoyable and well done, even if I think the moments featuring real people are kind of awkward. The gags and humour mostly hold up but I don’t think they have aged so well as the original run of the series, but there’s not much as can live up to that standard. Has a little to say about being a goofball, but ultimately its all about the gags for me with this one.

21/1/2021: Nausicaa: Valley of The Wind

Magnificent. Meaningfully very similar to Princess Mononoke, not quite as good, but still very worthwhile. I really like the mid-century sci fi vibe going on here and think the worldbuilding is excellent, though some of the expository dialogue is a little clumsy. I imagine there’s a little bit of nuance lost in the dub but cannot be certain as I don’t understand Japanese. That said, the voice acting is generally good. The art is magnificent, as it is wont to be in Studio Ghibli films; or in this case the proto-studio-Ghibli-film. That every culture has its distinct style is one of my favourite things, amongst which rank the Ohmu, Nausicaas glider and most of all Teto. Look at his little tongue! Most of all I love the ecosystem that arises from the polluted earth, how the earth cleans itself, it is a spectacular thought. I have an interesting thought about the soundtrack, specifically during actions sequences. The musical quality is good, especially the main theme, but there are issues with the editing of the action sequences’ music which intrigue me. Because the edit is always jarring and I don’t think the style of music necessarily fits the film; but I think it is a technical limitation, that contemporary audio systems were not necessarily able to apply the soundtrack in a less jarring manner. Just an interesting thought I had and I may look into the history of sound software etc. to see if that’s right. I think it is a beautiful work and well worth watching, I enjoyed it greatly.

23/1/2021: Howl’s Moving Castle

Good. Far and away less impactful than Mononoke and Nausicaa but still very good. Standard Ghibli points: Its beautiful, well animated and full of character. I find all the lead characters quite charming and well performed; it is set in a very interesting world with lots of interesting quirks and cool magic. Further it is powerfully meaningful, with a clear statement on confidence and empowerment. There’s just something about this one where the vibe is slightly off and I could not fully explain why. It feels disjointed, as though all the parts of the world are not fully connected. I feel like if you were to list the plot points in order some would be labelled “??????? Make it happen” as some events and conclusions are reached without purpose or motivation. Only some though and I’m not trying to seriously say it doesn’t make sense that’s just how I feel in post. I enjoyed it but I feel like I don’t fully understand this one.

24/1/2021: Spirited Away

Beautiful. This one I think is the best showcase of Ghibli’s style: the art is beautiful; the water is viscous and the spirits are fantastically grotesque. There’s a vibrant world shown here with a lot of charming characters and expressive animation which I think creates the most visually stunning of the Ghibli films that I’ve seen so far, though I fear I’m a bit basic and unsophisticated as I still prefer what I recognise as more traditional fantasy and sci-fi worlds like Mononoke and Nausicaa. I feel the story is also a well nuanced coming of age tale as it balances between relying on your friends and standing up for yourself. I also really like Yubaba or more generally how antagonism is handled throughout this movie; and to an extent in the broader Ghibli canon. Rather than create comically evil villains who exist purely to do bad these features all showcase antagonists with genuine sensible motivations driving their action and the only thing defining them as antagonists is the framing and perspective. On that point you could argue that Yubaba is the closest to a genuine villain but I think the materialist-critical aspects are more of an aside than a genuine statement, as appreciable as they are.

[piercebaron]

episode 22 and adaptations

Actually, I do want to talk about it! I feel like episode 22 encapsulates my “weird” feelings towards the anime adaptation and how it has cut and reframed certain things. It’s not bad? Just weird. 

Spoilers for the Plunderer anime and for the manga, up to chapter 36. 

prefacing all of this with a general note: if you’ve only seen the anime, please read the manga. You’re valid, I’m so glad you’ve been enjoying the anime, but please read the manga because as horny as Minazuki is (and the man is . . . very, very much so), his art is also amazing and some of his panels deserve a second, third, or even a fourth look. The little details here and there actually crop up later and become important, and it’s just great. Chapters 46 - 53 are some of my favorite in media in a long, long time and I absolutely cannot wait until they’re released in an official capacity so I can fork over my money for them.

(seriously, you guys don’t know how hard I’ve tried to legally purchase volume 13. I want to give my money to this series so bad.)

This will also be a little scattershot and bounce around between other episodes, so apologies in advance. I’m trying to double-check chapters and whatnot as I go but if I get something wrong or miss something, please don’t hesitate to correct me in the replies! I’ve been watching the anime through Funimation’s site -- dubbed up through episode 11 and then subs from then on. 

Adaptations! Adaptations. By their very nature, they are not a 1:1 sort of thing. A lot of times, you’ll hear people say “read the book” when a movie adaptation of said book comes out. This is because by its very nature, a movie adaptation simply can’t capture everything in the book -- nor should it. Little things will slip through the cracks. This doesn’t make the movie adaptation bad, necessarily, just that it loses something. 

By the same token, if someone tried to do a direct 1:1 adaptation of a book where, say, the book is used as a script (which is an extremely bad idea for so many reasons, please have a script oh my goodness), chances are it’s not going to be a very good movie. There are musicals, for example, where when filmmakers try to make them into films, they flop because they’re not “cinematic.” The directors didn’t take into account the shift in mediums or, more likely, they sorely underestimated it. Understandable, since it’s two visual mediums, but still.

This is all leading up to me talking about Plunderer, I swear.

Manga to anime is a tricky, tricky thing. A manga has [X] amount of pages to work with, depending on if it’s a weekly or monthly series (or even some different increment!). The author, then, has to structure their chapters accordingly, moving things along to keep the reader interested while also controlling the ebb and flow of the story. Note how when the chapters end, they’re engineered to keep you wanting to read more!

Anime is similar in that respect, except the crew has 20-22 minutes to fill over the course of 12 to 24 episodes depending on the series order. Plunderer, ftr, had a 2 “cour” order from the get-go. They have to plan out the series as a whole, figuring out certain things like, where will the season end? What are the big beats, when will we hit them? Etc. It’s no coincidence that the “school” arc started right around episode 12, which is the halfway point of the series; note how there was that filler episode with Hina and Lynne cooking, after all. 

When I started watching the anime after reading the manga, I assumed they’d end the season with, roughly, the end of chapter 36. It’s a nice “resolution” to a lot of things that had been building up over the series. Hina and Licht are finally together, Licht has resolved to keep his mask off and face the future, Jail has a new direction, Lynne -> Licht is basically resolved, and Pele’s layers finally get peeled back just a bit. 

I saw some predictions online that they’d leave off at the cliffhanger in chapter 39 and while that’s a good guess, in terms of narrative ebb and flow for an anime, it doesn’t really line up. They’d really have to rush some stuff (Charles!! i love you, charles) to get there and in terms of a product that they want to be able to market in several territories, it makes more sense to give it some feeling of resolution. That said, what’s more likely along that vein is us potentially getting some sort of stinger at the end of episode 24 with one character talking to That Certain Character, and us getting a brief, shadowy shot of said character to make people go “ohhhhh shit, dude.” 

but idk this anime has made some strange choices.

Going into that! I’ve mentioned this here and there and talked about it with a friend, but the choices the anime has made in terms of adaptation is, uh, pretty strange at times. When changes get made, my instinct is to try and think through why they were changed and, ultimately, if it really affects the story in any way. If I went through the entire anime, it would be an extremely dull read; please know, however, that I am forever sad we missed Jail’s computer antics and Pele being the ultimate shit when it comes to Nana’s video, even if I understand why they were cut. 

That said, episode 22 is a perfect example of this, so uh. Let’s dive in, shall we?

The chapters that episode 22 covers are chapters 33 and 34. The events leading up to it are pretty much the same, but episode 22 contains some divergences. Going through them quickly:

We see more of Pele and Hina trying to stop Douan from going after Lynn.

Sonohara doesn’t show up during this confrontation. Hina gets her “the body was too clean” line instead.

Because Sonohara doesn’t show up, it’s Douan who attacks Lynn instead, causing her injuries with rocks. In the manga, Sonohara shows up, is drugged by Douan, and shoots a couple of bullets at Lynn.

Nana is just randomly lurking around?? In the manga, it’s clear she got caught at the same time. I’m really not sure what was up in the anime. Douan just yanks her out from behind a wall.

Douan sits with Nana, Hina, and Pele until morning, telling them he’ll kill them at dawn if Licht doesn’t show up. In the manga, he sits back and lets Sonohara terrorize them with a game of Russian Roulette, and Hina promptly (without words) calls Sonohara’s bluff.

Jail doesn’t show up in this episode at all. Instead, Hina gets his “did you check?” line.

We actually see Nana leave with Pele when he takes Lynn off. It looks like we’re going to actually see Doctor Pele in action, maybe? Hina is later sent off to help them.

Sonohara shows up towards the end, already drugged. Based on Douan’s line, it’s assumed that she was drugged off screen by the Secret Service. In the manga, he forcefully injects her.

The end of the episode sets up episode 23 to be Licht vs. Douan and Sonohara, with the preview showing Jail jumping into the fray.

whew, that’s a lot. 

I actually get why most of these changes were made! Setting up the penultimate episode of the series to be this big battle is a necessary change for an anime. And narratively speaking, this is much cleaner than it was in the manga, where Sonohara shows up briefly at the beginning of chapter 33, is drugged, and then basically exists to be crazy and antagonize people. It’s less balls in the air for the staff to have to juggle and for the audience to follow.

Douan’s character also gets some more depth. It’s funny because I feel like in the anime, he’s much more cruel than he was in the manga originally -- which is a feat, let me tell you. The anime flipped that in this episode, though, by not having Douan force the drugs onto Sonohara. 

The manga frames it as him doing it because he believes he knows what’s best for her, he’s trying to protect her in his own awful way, but it’s also, you know . . . nonconsensual as hell and gross on so many levels. This takes that off his shoulders which is a good change, honestly. 

But we lose some little character moments for the others in terms of streamlining. I think the thing that bums me out the most is Jail’s stuff. In the manga, after the confrontation with Alan, Jail steps in, calls Sonohara out and snaps her out of her drugged stupor without much of a fight (”without conviction, your bullets can’t pierce me”) and then slaps down the iron throne, telling Douan to shut up because Licht is coming. Chapter 34 ends with him just dead-eye staring at Douan like yeah, it’s annoying, but look. You’re the one who calls him a cockroach. Jail saying “did you check?” is a major mic drop moment and it’s basically when, from then on, Jail does not give a single flying fuck about the barons / aces. 

It definitely should be noted that some of these Jail moments will probably pop up in other ways in the next episode. I fully expect the bit about Sonohara’s bullets to come up, at least.

We lose out on Sonohara stuff too, though. She willingly throws herself into the lion’s den, shooting at Douan to distract him for long enough to allow Lynne to get away. It’s Sonohara who points out that Licht’s body was too clean -- something that makes more sense as someone who’s known him for 300+ years, knows what it means to be a baron / ace, and wasn’t immediately dragged off by the Secret Service. Her then terrorizing them while drugged is also a moment because when she forces Nana to play Russian Roulette, Hina immediately grabs the gun and points it at her head, firing all the “shots.” It’s empty, showing that despite the drugs, Sonohara didn’t want to kill them and Hina knew that all too well.

with all that said, I should note here that it’s entirely possible this scene will show up in some form next episode. Sonohara is still drugged and Hina, Nana, and Pele are all together in the bunker that is right nearby. I kind of doubt it given how the episode is framed and because narratively, it makes more sense to focus on the Licht vs. Douan and Sonohara -> Licht and Jail vs. Douan and Sonohara fight than to have Sonohara split off to randomly terrorize them, but. Like I said, this anime has made some strange choices.

Of course, character moments we get instead are Hina and even Pele being metal as hell. As much as I’m flapping my hands about losing the little character moments for Jail and Sonohara, it’s clear that they thought about how to utilize those moments while streamlining things, and they do work for Hina. And honestly, it’s really nice to see more stuff with her and Lynn? They get some cute panels later on in the manga (think chapter 55), but I like ladies and I like some lady solidarity. And Hina getting those little moments is on the same level as her straight up pointing a gun at her head all “you won’t kill me.”

and on a selfish note, I am actually really excited to see Pele tend to Lynn. The anime has been good about fleshing them out more and giving them little moments. My little shipper heart is delighted.

In the end, does it change much? Not really. These are small things, ultimately, just like how we didn’t lose much with the added filler and cut moments during the school arc. It’s all ultimately in the name of adaptation and while it’s weird, it’s not necessarily “bad.” It’s jarring for me as someone familiar with the manga (and having stared at some of these panels for so long, I’ve gotten really familiar with it), but thinking on it critically, yeah, I can see why. 

they better damn well do the “how did you know I could do surgery?” scene in the last episode though or I will be super bummed, okay. 

[just-absolutely-super]

Trying to keep this up, mostly because I love writing down my thoughts on things that I can’t talk to anyone else about. Doesn’t matter that nobody is reading this, I just really like talking about Soul Eater.

Soul Eater Episode 37 or “This is Pure Filler and Ultimately Nothing Happened”

I don’t mind filler episodes that serve as a breather. I embrace it sometimes because in a manga like Soul Eater it was always quick to get onto the next arc and not leave enough room for character growth.

Too bad this episode was boring.

It was mostly just everyone being bummed that the Brew mission tanked. It doesn’t get the least bit interesting until BJ comes at the very last second.

Which also kinda pisses me off because they completely left out Shinigami and Spirit talking about the possibility of a mole being at the academy and the call to BJ.

I guess they did it in a way to set it up for a reveal, but it just didn’t work for me.

I’d have included the scene of Shinigami and Spirit discussing the possibility of a mole at the beginning and then transition our way to BJ’s reveal with all the other filler stuff thrown in but WHAT DO I KNOW?!

But back to the actual episode content: nothing was ultimately achieved. Kid tried to learn more about Eibon which ended up with more cryptic shit and less answers. And the rest of the time was given to Maka and Soul figuring out how to call upon the Demon Hunter (NO, WE ARE NOT CALLING IT GENIE HUNTER) technique.

So I’m gonna use this moment to make my segue into what will be the start of a running theme in this review series of mine: Maka’s Mother Is Not That Great™ And Here’s Why

Maka’s mom being hyped up by the anime just...really gets to me tbh

Like, I don’t hate her. It’s hard to hate a character who essentially does NOTHING and contributes absolutely NOTHING to the story. But because Maka looks up to her mom I guess that means we have to talk her up??? And make her important I guess??? It just BUGS me.

Like Maka’s talking to Shinigami about Demon Hunter and he’s all like, “Oh I’ve only seen one other meister perform this technique and it was your MOTHER!”

Fuck that noise, Mosquito even said in the previous episode that it was an old move. Meaning it has been done before.

Demon Hunter has been around for literal AGES and it’s just REALLY FUCKING HARD TO MASTER!

Fuck, the manga doesn’t even mention Maka’s mom after Maka performs the technique. It’s just a quick, down and dirty, “Hey! New technique! ....moving on!”

Also I was...really upset that when Soul’s griping about extra training he said it was for straight A students.

In the sub I watched back in ‘08/‘09 he said it wasn’t cool because it was something that only happening in shounen manga

YES I LOOKED THIS UP JUST TO MAKE SURE THAT WASN’T A FANDUB HE REALLY SAID THAT! THAT WAS A FUNNY ASS LINE AND NOW I’M UPSET THAT WASN’T A PART OF THE DUB!

Anyways, this episode was just kinda pointless except for the last 5 minutes, which is meant to set up the next episode, and I will use this as an example for why Bones could have easily adapted the Clown Arc

Positives of the Episode:

Because I’m hopeless, Maka and Soul’s interactions are always a highlight for me. I just enjoy their banter so much. I especially loved how after their first attempt to create Demon Hunter failed, Soul (who was annoyed that he had to train) was all like, “Hey Maka, don’t be bummed let’s just keep practicing!” That boy loves her so much I cry.

[randomarcanatingz]

the arcana characters as youtubers

nadia

always has her hair and makeup impeccably done for her videos and when she meets fans,,,no one has ever seen her look like less than an 11/10

makes videos on fashion trends and fashion history (think a less experimental safiya nygaard), ones where she gives advice to viewers who send in questions, and unboxing/review videos for beauty items and clothes

people always comment calling her “queen” which she thinks is sort of cute and “mom” which just confuses her (“for the last time--i appreciate all the kind words but i DO NOT HAVE ANY CHILDREN”) 

has never been demonetized once and doesn’t plan on it

whenever her videos are sponsored, she manages to sneak the sponsorship in smoothly, in a clever way

goes to vidcon but typically is too busy to stay the whole weekend 

wrote a book on self care and how to be independent and successful that became one of the best-selling youtuber books ever 

 isn’t a huge fan of collabs on her own channel, but appears occasionally on portia’s or asra’s 

does a yearly giveaway of high end jewelry and makeup for her subscribers, and holds a charity donation event for her birthday (like colleen ballinger’s childhood cancer one)   

seems to avoid scandals effortlessly, but actually works hard to stay out of drama 

asra

has absolutely no theme to his channel and just rolls with whatever video idea he can think of at the time

some examples include an instructional tarot reading video, a docuseries on the stigma against reptiles (featuring faust in every episode), a collab with nadia where they just drink tea and talk about current events, and him playing the weirdest children’s games he can find online

LOVES meeting fans and spends the whole weekend at vidcon, has like 7 meet and greets, and appears in every panel that will let him participate

his videos are low on editing and mostly just edited for length, but any special effects he does add in are not subtle at all (aka random sparkles and dramatic jump cuts) 

has been dubbed a “cinnamon roll” by his fans but he isn’t afraid to call out other creators if they say something problematic

 is very expressive and there are many reaction images and videos of him all over instagram and twitter

doesn’t usually make travel blogs but he does travel a lot, so most of his videos don’t have the same background

 all his merch is tye-dye and the best seller is a mug with a faust-shaped handle 

 follows a bunch of fan accounts for him on instagram

 tons of fans ship him with julian and while he’s not super into it, he finds the shitty instagram edits hilarious 

julian

the KING of clickbait titles but his fans don’t mind that much because it just parallels his dramatic personality 

“Staying in a Haunted Hotel???” (it’s not haunted, he just heard the people in the room beside him talking at midnight and thought it was ghosts), “I Solved the Jon-Benet Ramsey Case” (he didn’t, it’s just him discussing theories on it), “Proof the Government is Plotting Against Us” (no solid proof, just off the wall conspiracies that he explains confidently)

makes videos of him exploring supposedly haunted places, ones where he discusses unsolved crime cases and what he thinks really happened, and conspiracy theory videos

very active in the comments section; likes every nice comment he sees and replies to them with a winky face

 also very active on twitter and instagram, especially past midnight, and replies to tweets and dms from fans

sometimes collabs with asra for conspiracy videos which immediately leads to 20 fanmade compilations titled “julian annoying asra for 5 minutes straight”

is always sponsored by the weirdest, most random companies that have no relation to the kind of videos he makes at all

does 6 hour live streams where all he does is look at cursed images on reddit 

is determined to not let any of his subscriber’s discover that his birth name is ilya 

random haters have tried to cancel him multiple times but it Never Works he is literally immune to being cancelled 

portia

vlog QUEEN !!! her videos are mostly vlogs of her daily life, with a few scripted videos scattered here and there, usually involving pepi

contrary to her brother, her titles are very blunt and true to the content and are in all lowercase (“a day in my life”, “getting frustrated in my garden”, “buying my cat clothes online”)

 she tries to make her videos appeal to everyone, but 90% of her demographic is still teenage wannabe aesthetic vsco girls

 has never done a proper collab, but her vlogs always end up featuring nadia, julian, and some of the palace guards 

has a popular merch line that sells unique items like flower seeds, pet food bowls, and baking tools 

her favorite thing is seeing her fans’ reactions when she picks up one much taller and heavier than her for a picture at vidcon

fans all agree that she has bde 

sometimes makes so-called “family vlogs” where she hangs out with julian and mazelinka and calls them “the maz squad”

for april fool’s day, she posted a fake giveaway announcement video where she claimed she was giving pepi away to a fan

her twitter is mostly retweets of fanart and sweet messages from fans (and pictures of pepi, obviously)

muriel 

has the smallest subscriber count of the group but it's surprisingly high for someone who never wanted to be popular in the first place

his videos are very niche and are usually on topics like how to survive in the wilderness and how to raise chickens

many of his subscribers think his quiet personality and unique videos are all an act or persona and muriel does not understand why

he's only ever been to one (1) fan event/meet and greet and it was when he tagged along with asra to vidcon

despite his protests, asra always plugs muriel’s videos on his twitter, so they share many subscribers 

he doesn't really have any haters because those who actually watch his videos think he's super sweet and those who don't are too scared of his huge stature 

didn't want to include inanna in his videos initially, but caved after fans saw her in the background of one and demanded she make an appearance more often

fans (and asra) keep insisting he change his username to “the mountain man” but he heartily refuses 

does his own editing but also isn't great with technology so sometimes his videos are strangely edited and include parts he meant to edit out (but it's kinda endearing)

has never sold merch, never plans to, and ignores any requests to do so

lucio

listen i'm not comparing him to the paul brothers but you know …..

makes prank videos, makeup tutorials (but it's the same look just varied SLIGHTLY every time), and vlogs where he not so subtly flexes how rich he is

his merch is supposedly “the highest quality and extremely stylish” but that just means the prices are sky high and the quality is not that great 

goes to every convention he can and holds random meet ups because he craves attention 

isn't mean to his fans because he couldn't bear seeing his sub count go down, but will absolutely TEAR his haters to shreds and get their channel taken down somehow 

gets demonetized all the time and complains about it (as if he needs more money)

people are either a huge fan or they HATE him there is no in between

uses clickbait just as much as julian but people are less forgiving about it 

none of the other people in the gang really want to collab with him but julian did once, got tricked into eating a beetle, and refused to do it ever again 

king of scandals, tweets random controversial stuff and then deletes it