#the fic is about them even if this chapter largely isnt

[sesamestreep]

follow me like the moon (chapter 2)

When Bodhi turns it over to her with a thoughtful, “And how’s everything with you?”—well, Jyn rightfully panics. “Uh…there was a really hot guy at the diner the other day…well, night. The other morning. Whatever,” she offers, pathetically. After a year of working overnights, you’d think she'd know what to call it. “Really?” Bodhi asks, obviously intrigued. Because he’s the best, and even if her life is objectively less interesting than his, he still cares about how she’s doing. “Yep.” “And?” he presses. “What happened?” “Nothing happened,” Jyn says, trying not to scoff. “He was a customer. He came in, he ate, he left.” “Like the proverbial panda.” “What?” “The panda. From that joke? ‘Eats, shoots, and leaves?’” Bodhi explains. “Never mind. It’s just a dumb joke.”

(read the rest on AO3)

(start from the beginning)

[kuwajima]

If its not much trouble, I would love to hear abaut your pre jigoro zenitsu life that isnt a spolier from your lovely fic.

Fortunately, I can't exactly spoil the fic by talking about this because Zenitsu doesn't have the vocabulary or self awareness to explain himself in my fic. You might notice that in the fic I try to be pretty vague about things, and that's because can't explain himself and Tengen doesn't really allow himself to make the connections or dig deep into what Zenitsu is saying.

But even in my other fic, which is more like a pre-canon Zenitsu character study, I find that going into detail about the aftermath of things is pretty effective. The story is more or less from Jigoro's perspective, so he just sees Zenitsu as being skinny and bruised and insecure but doesn't ask any specifics because he already can guess that people were not kind to him. Kaigaku also recognizes these things but believes these are proof of Zenitsu's inferiority while Jigoro views them more as proof of his kindness and determination.

Anyway. I don't think Zenitsu ever had an adult to care for him. Obviously, babies cannot survive on their own so there may have been some kind of camaraderie on the streets very early on for him, but I do believe Zenitsu's canon dialogue that says Jigoro is the first person to really show him kindness. We really cannot underestimate how difficult a baby with super-human hearing would be. I personally believe his mother was someone who would not have kept her baby regardless of his temperament, but one could easily make the argument that a child like that would be too difficult to handle for some people. I do fully believe Zenitsu gave himself his own surname because it does sound exactly like the kind of surname Zenitsu would choose.

I think it's pretty obvious that Zenitsu comes from a world that is very transactional (i.e. doing something only because you gain something in return) but his lack of connection as a child means that Zenitsu is willing to give things up in exchange for praise or attention. This is why he was taken advantage of by so many girls (he would have also been a child for a lot of those interactions, and children are famously easy to trick.) We also know that Zenitsu is pretty lazy and unmotivated, so I don't think he was able to stay at one job for very long before he would be forced to leave. For that reason, I don't think he lived in one location for very long and that would have affected his ability to make friends as well.

Circling back to Jigoro, I know we technically have a timeline for Zenitsu's training but in my bones I don't think that is the time he actually spent living with Jigoro. I think the training itself may have taken a year, but between getting well enough to begin training and then recovering from an actual lightning strike, Zenitsu may have been there for at least two years, if not more. That does make the ex-girlfriends thing more concerning from a modern perspective. But also...who lends a tween boy a large sum of money?! Someone who knows he is gullible.

I don't really know where I'm going with this now, so hopefully this answered you question somewhat! I have a lot of thoughts but they're hard to get out without writing actual prose about it. Like I said, I don't really go into specifics with my other fic but it is two whole chapters of Zenitsu being sort of wet and pathetic.

[i-sveikata]

For the next chapter. For the sentence that you put of Vegas saying to Pete ‘I can’t lose you’. Is that after Pete goes to the stranger or before? Because it will make Vegas even more paranoid about Pete leaving him for someone else. What will be the worst thing Vegas will do in order not to lose Pete. Kill his competition? I know Vegas is afraid of losing him, he is terrified, will he ever let Pete know about it?

I know it’s a lot of questions but I am really intrigued about Vegas and his toxic behavior. Because it is obviously a very toxic relationship but they nevertheless can live without each other.

hey anon, it's before!!!!!! it's on the drive after they leave nong kwai- vegas is assuming that pete is asleep already otherwise im not sure he would have been so honest about this specific insecurity (pete doesnt know/hasnt figured out that one of Vegas' biggest fears is hes going to ruin things and push pete away for good/ lose him eventually)

since its an insecurity, its actually a lot more unfounded than vegas thinks. like pete is very much matching his freak4freak and they've drawn pretty clear lines around what they want from each other. which is why theyre at this stage where they seem extremely committed without actually admitting they're committed to one another (at least on petes end). pete hooking up with a stranger and- not sure that ive actually spoiled this yet, but not actually enjoying the encounter- is the final push pete needs to actually admit that what he feels for vegas is not going away and isnt transferable. its also the last bit of evidence/ proof? idk how to phrase it but like a final indication to vegas that pete is in this with him- when hes topping pete it finally gives him the confidence to push in the way he's largely been afraid of pushing before-challenging pete on his attraction to vegas and what that means for their relationship in terms of exclusivity. particularly when they both seem to firmly decide on choosing each other and keeping any third parties out.

like obvs its going to be a HUGE step forward for them but its pete hes not going to roll over and give everything up at once. hes still going to be holding onto actually admitting he's in love- because he still hasnt yet admitted that to himself. which is what he needs to do first.

its actually a lot harder for vegas to push pete away at this point- like were at the stage in the fic where pete is aware enough of his feelings but still afraid to admit that hes in love. and vegas is trying to get them over that threshold but hes kind of at a loss of how to do it without outright forcing pete in a way that hes not ready for. the circumstances in the bathroom, make it a little too much of a satisfying conclusion for vegas to actually spare a thought for killing the stranger- its very obvious to vegas that the man isnt doing anything for pete when he interrupts them so hes actually not viewing him as competition in that moment. idk how he would react but if im being honest when weve seen vegas' jealous side i dont think even he particularly believes in them being a real tangible threat? like hes being petulant and immature about it sure but pete isnt giving him an actual reason to feel truly threatened if that makes sense? vegas is just letting his own insecurity run wild/combined with the fear of losing pete. i dont think hes actually viewing anyone else as a true threat to his connection to pete in the end. maybe later down the track when he feels more secure in the relationship (and petes feelings) vegas might actually admit to the fear of losing pete but as of right now hes too afraid to talk about it- less he make it a reality.

no nothing wrong with questions honestly!!! lol tbh im kind of at the stage now where 'toxic relationship' has become such a catch all term for a lot of things and has been so overused to the point where its kind of lost all meaning to me. ppl are so quick to jump to that conclusion for any kind of negative behaviour or mistake and its been misapplied so often that its not generally a phrase i take seriously anymore. but yes 100% they are a messed up relationship (but also not real so who cares lol) and they seem to be muddling their way through that as best they can!

[ty-bayonet-betteridge]

Gimme directors commentary for Two Liars Lying To Eachother please!

its been a while since ive thought about this fic in any capacity lksajdaskdfld lets see if it still holds up! directors commentary for chapter 1, i'll be doing the others separately later :D

Each of his hands was cuffed to one of the table's legs, somewhat restraining his motion. He hated it; he preferred being able to fidget.

autism edgar but this also isnt the sort of autism i tend to see him as having? idk the idea of edgar stimming is very weird to me

That was a somewhat good sign. He took another glance at the large, mirrored wall of the room, which he had no illusions was reflective on the other side. The only question was whether anyone was in the viewing room to catch his knowing glances.

theres an XKCD about how fun it is to occasionally announce "i know you're listening" to an empty room, because if you're wrong nobody will ever know and if you're right it will freak the HELL out of them. thats basically what Mustardseed is doing here.

According to Michael, he had traded himself in to the compound in exchange for catching Mustardseed - for catching me, Edgar thought, smiling faintly.

seamless exposition, me. i had to establish that this Edgar was Mustardseed, but the narration is roughly tied to his view of things, and Mustardseed doesn't think of himself as Mustardseed, just as Edgar, so the narration couldn't call him Mustardseed.

The door swung open and in came Ty Betteridge. He was a few years older than the last time Edgar had seen him, back when he'd killed him inside of Tier Two on the night Base was formed,

...wasn't that Hunter? or did it become Edgar that killed young!Ty in the post-72 timeline? i am confuse

Well, I appreciate making me feel like a criminal after you plucked me out of the middle of my normal day.

hes so bitchy and for what?

If you're worried about unpredictability, why does the cowboy get to roam free? He's been rather hard to keep under control, in my experience.

i wanted to make it clear just how bitter Edgar is towards all members of Base, so of course five seconds into this conversation he tries to fuck Michael over

Ty's grin was somewhat predatory.

this fic is 90% me looking for different ways to describe smiles. Ty and Mustardseed are both very smiley.

They called you OVEdgaR,

i think im the only person who capitalizes ovedgar that way

"With my husband, yeah." Edgar smiled and raised his left hand to show off the simple wedding band. "Mm. Congrats. Mike told me he wasn't married to you, how odd."

I FORGOT HOW DISMISSIVE TY SOUNDED HERE. he cares of course but

Base Mike and Edgar aren't married.

i try to be very precise about the names characters use for each other, because i think its a very quick way to characterize relationships. Mustardseed always refers to them as "Base Mike" and "Base Edgar", while Ty refers to them as just Mike and Edgar, or possibly Mikey and Edgar, depending on context.

"Hm. You're much less trouble than the Mikes; each one of them ties so much into their name. It's a little exhausting keeping track of them, to be honest." "Well, I never really had trouble with it, but I suppose it is easier if you care about him." Edgar smiled like he hadn't just thrown out the barb. Ty laughed. "I care about Mike Walters more than you can imagine, Panther." Ty grinned, waiting to see if Edgar would respond to the pet name. Edgar kept his face neutral and pleasant.

Edgar definitely won that exchange :P its important to me that Edgar feels like he's in control of the conversation even though he very clearly isnt in control of the situation, because that's the vibe he gave off in ep 84.

Moving on… you established a campaign of terror against Mike's base in an attempt to free yourself and your… husband… from their control. Is that right?

Ty is reading these questions off his clipboard and the prompt on it didnt say "husband," it said "OVER Mike." HOWEVER the pause before saying it was something Ty probably did deliberately to keep up his veneer of indifference.

"I'd rather not put Michael through any more undue stress. He's had a hard couple of days, especially with all the strain you've been putting on him."

this is so funny to me, because it IS another barb, but its also sort of Ty trying to guilt-trip Edgar like thats gonna work??? :P

I have a lot of sympathy for Michael too, but as far as I know, he's never had anyone threaten him at gunpoint to stay in Base.

i'll be honest, he probably has. Michael's seen some shit

"I am sorry for your situation, Edgar, I really am. But you do keep pulling me away from the questions, and the sooner we get these done, the sooner we can get you out of those cuffs and moved to your quarters."

this is a very Ty Betteridge thing to say. like yeah, im sorry that YOU keep delaying me from getting you comfortable. hes so...

So he was listening when Michael and I were talking.

reading it back, i feel like i didnt give the audience enough credit. they probably could have picked up on these little jabs and maneuvering tactics without me having to point them out. anyway yes, ty is doing this interview only half for actual information gathering reasons, the other half is just to waste edgars time as a form of basic psychological warfare

Your Base may be rudimentary, but I believe that you are a smart man, Edgar.

i keep pointing out the little jabs and not having much to say about them, but theyre still so good to me. "i know all your friends are stupid but i didnt think you were too"

"Sometimes smart people do dumb things in the heat of passion." "And is that the only reason you made those thirty-two duplicates?" "It's the only reason I'm going to be telling you."

i'll be honest, i have no idea what i was hinting at here. i think canon at one point suggested there might have been an ulterior motive to the Mustardseed escapees, but i didn't make any sort of plan for what that might be. if i had to retroactively justify it, i'd say Mustardseed's future scouting told him that the escapees would be consolidated into MW, and that MW's existence was important to his plans somehow.

"I've got all day, Ty." Edgar smiled across the table, a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

i just ctrl+f'ed and the word "smile" appears 7 times in this 1k word chapter.

[elephant-in-the-pride-parade]

Fic Author Questions

@curator-on-ao3 thank you for tagging me in this new set of fic author questions! I had a lot of fun answering. ❤️

1. Why do you write fanfic?

I guess I stuck with it and stayed inspired largely because ive found really wonderful communities in fanfiction, whether its coming together to share in one beautiful AU story or different iterations of canon or just experiencing the joy of writing together. and having those communities has sustained me through some very isolated years and have been overall a positive experience in my life. ive made really wonderful friends through fanfic.

But I can't deny that I got into fanfic because my brain just fixated on one story and i had the overwhelming urge to put it on paper and so a smaller motivation is that there continue to be stories like that that motivate me to keep writing fic.

2. Which of your posted stories do you think about the most, even though the story is “finished”?

I guess just by virtue of planning the sequel at the moment, I think about and reread Unbroken alot

I have also had the Universe to Mend in my mind since last year and keep coming back to the two versions of Janeway i explored in that and where I left the two of them. and thinking about the other characters too: Mortal Q and Captain Chakotay and Stadi/Tuvok and where they might wind up next.  I have a few ideas for what might come next so I suspect there's at least one sequel on the horizon somewhere.

3. If you could give yourself fic advice from when you first started writing fic, what would that advice be?

Deadlines help you set goals and motivate yourself, but you don't owe them to your readers.

4. What’s your relationship to fic stats?

So, and this has been a very good thing for my self esteem and general mental health, working with data all day has made me really ambivalent about my story stats. They're interesting and useful when I have a specific question I want to answer with them but the rest of the time I no longer pay much attention to them.

The stats that I do focus on are all things I measure - timeframe to chapter/story completion, average words per chapter, total word count. Those help me set realistic expectations for myself and help me work on my goals of having healthy writing habits and writing more concise stories.

5. Is there a pairing or scenario or friendship you miss writing? If so, why? If not, why not?

I miss writing Threshold AU!!!!

I want to again and will again, but having had like... negative amounts of writing time this summer and being fixated on a new long story, lots of others have taken a backseat. i really miss the cameraderie of writing threshold au stories and the freedom and joy I get from working with that really original fresh premise - it frees me to experiment and be a bit more imaginative. im sad i havent had time for it in a while.

6. What motivates you to write?

A story takes up residence in my head and its beautiful and tempting and I cannot rest until I have delved in and explored it. Thoroughly.

7. Why do you write for the fandom(s) that you write for?

communities and friendships do a lot to help keep me inspired, both while continuing old longstanding stories and developing new ideas. and ive found this with Sailor Moon and Star Trek. I doubt i would be as prolific in either fandom without those communities.

8. If you’re stuck writing a WIP, what do you do?

I shove it in the back somewhere and work on other things until ive figured out what I dont like about it thats got me stuck. sometimes it works out that I just need a better idea of where the story is going. and then the story gets finished. and sometimes i find myself realizing the premise is a good one but the execution isnt.  and then if ive already started posting it, i put it in my "Under Review" collection (an unrevealed AO3 collection only I can see) and figure out if i can rework the story from the ground up or if it isnt going to get finished. I've got 3 in there right now.

9. What do you wish people knew about comments?

That it is actually a huge boost in inspiration to get a nice one. and that it's okay to leave short ones.

10. Maybe there’s a question you wish had been on here. What’s that question (and answer)?

My write in question: Do you create or want to try other types of fanworks?

Just for me i make playlists for characters to help inspire me for fics. sometimes i dabble in fanart. drawing is always really relaxing.

im also facinated by bookbinding. it looks like a really fun physical craft to build even if it looks complicated. i'd love to learn more about how it works.

A lot of my people i usually tag are tagged already so If you want to respond with your own please do!

[ofthenoseclan]

hey. talk abt reimari. unless you already have then any other specific combo of charas u find interesting or particularly like

REIMARI... oh it would be my honour to,, sorry for not getting to this sooner im not very eloquent when it comes to ships but i wanted to do this ask justice

funny enough both characters took a lot of time to grow on me. i didnt dislike either of them when i began the series, but they didnt quite click for me until i got to the latter half of the franchise, and after reaching that point i had a newfound appreciation for what came before it as well

a huge strength of both reimu and marisa is how dynamic and malleable their personalities are over the course of the series, and despite the large changes in outlook as time passes they still continue to act as two halves of the same whole, complementing each other by evolving to fit the roles that the other grows out of.

as a child, marisa is extremely brash and impulsive, marching to the beat of her own drum. in contrast, reimu is a lot more mature— comparatively, at least; at the end of the day she can be as much of a kid as marisa at times (see many early chapters of touhou kourindou ~ curiosities of lotus asia.). she is carefree, but still pragmatic when need be. she often fills the tsukkomi role whenever the two interact with each other in the early era of the franchise.

over time, though, reimus worldview changes from a generally optimistic one to a rather jaded one when it comes to her role in gensoukyou. as she starts to become disillusioned with her identity and her lifestyle, marisa begins to take up the more responsible role in many instances. while still staying true to her laissez-faire, free-spirited self, she is also more down to earth, considerate of others, and able to see the big picture.

you can see this big shift on display most distinctly in touhou ibarakasen ~ wild and horned hermit. the manga is framed from kasens unreliable point of view, so the duos behaviour should be taken with a grain of salt, but not so much as to doubt it entirely. at many points of the manga you can see reimu at her most irresponsible and vulnerable, and marisa very often acts as a straight man in those situations. one persons attitude is fitted to complement the other at their lowest point, and to match them as equals at their finest.

theres also a LOT of parts in ibarakasen where marisa is visibly affectionate with or worried for reimu. chapter 37 is iconic in the fanbase for showing them being blatantly flirty with each other, but theres many other points too. chapter 47 is an honest-to-goodness official sick fic, and during it marisa is noticeably way more worried for reimus health than everyone else, feeling annoyed when no one can nurse her back to health fast enough.

its also telling in the first place that marisa frequently makes visits to reimus shrine at all, seeing as shes very often a loner, living secluded in the forest of magic and studying danmaku techniques in her spare time. aside from leaving to find more to research, visiting reimu seems to be the primary reason she ever leaves the forest. likewise, reimu is characteristically rude and annoyed at anyone who visits the shrine if they arent donating patrons, wanting nothing more than to be left alone. the sole exception to her surly attitude toward uninvited guests is marisa, whom she expects to show up on a whim rather often, and casually and unconditionally welcomes her if she does.

i know this isnt even close to the amount i can say about them (i havent even MENTIONED their date at the end of 4, for example) but im gonna leave it here at least for now. theres so much to their dynamic even if you ignore the romance side of things. they have been perfected and chiseled down into a beautiful intricate sculpture of a protagonist duo over the years. reimari nation represent

[wholemleko]

updates ig???

(reposted from my deviantart)

so i guess this is like. my plans for the future or at least where i feel like im at when it comes to comics and such.

tl;dr - bird of death is my main project now and everything else is in uncertain limbo

details under the cut:

first thing is just, the state of my projects. bird of death, which im posting now, has completely taken over my brain and its something i enjoy working on much more because its part of a bigger project that im working on with a group of 6 other people and ultimately i think art is a social thing for me. at this point ive also got a 115+ page buffer which ive never even come close to before, so i feel very much at ease about being able to put it out into the world without the months long hiatuses ive gone on with my other comics. plus, it has elements in it that are largely influenced by ideas from my previous projects which i guess leads me to my next point...

which is that im growing burnt out of my older comics. i had for a long time. i occasionally experience moments where i really love my old stories again and give myself the impression that im ready to get back into them, but then it always ends up being temporary and fizzling out again just a week or so later. like venturing. i spent years working on it and theres so much left of the story for me to tell, things that i am still excited to show. but at the same time, its a story i started when i was 16 and i guess this happens to a lot of creators, but my writing style is so different now and when i look back at it i cringe. theres also the factor that felix is almost like an undercooked version of my protagonist in bird of death (for reasons that have only vaguely been revealed). so when i think about writing his story it just feels like. he's the same guy but more poorly put together by a younger me.

this same thing goes for another comic project that ive never shared publicly but which ive been working on for just as long as ive been working on venturing. its actually the story im using for my final project for my degree lmao. the characters in it that im most invested in feel like early drafts for characters from bird of death... the catharsis of writing them has moved to this new story. my old projects just feel like early drafts of this new one but wearing different clothes. they are all born of the same train of thought.

then theres the matter of my fancomics. children of decay is so early on and undercooked that i barely have anything to say about it except that i still love the idea of having a warriors comic, but man i am just not invested in it the way i am with bird of death. (also the fact their titles are so similar... feels silly lol).

my moomin fancomics are a whole other matter... im not the writer for them, and theres still a ton of content that i wanted to cover. im still only in the first chapter of blackthorn tree, and i wanted to adapt 4 more fics afterwards. they are stories that i love, and which continue to be very dear to me, but the inspiration that gave me is, again, now being channeled into my newest project. i guess that makes sense, given that my protagonist was originally made to be a moomin oc. ive also felt increasingly disconnected from the moomin fandom, not because i like the series itself any less, but the fandom landscape is just very different from what it was. another factor is that i did actually have the rest of chapter 1 almost finished, but i lost all those files when my old ipad got fried and this really bummed me out, just a further discouragement.

putting all these things on the backburner feels bad. i dont like saying that i dont know when or even if i will come back to certain projects. i know lots of people enjoyed what i was making, especially venturing and the moomin comics. but i just cant find it in myself to commit to them again now that this new project has pretty much overtaken me, and i dont know if that commitment will ever come back. this isnt to say that i am putting an end to any of them or that im quitting them. just that they are not the thing i am committed to, and i am putting them into uncertain limbo. it feels smarter to concentrate my energy on a project i am much more devoted to now, which is very developed, and which i am making alongside other people who are also very devoted to the greater project.

if u got this far thanks for reading, and thanks to all those who've supported me over the years in my creative endeavors

[antique-forvalaka]

For mdzs i can also definitely rec the @wangxianficfinder blog, they have well sorted rec lists for all kinds of moods, though obviously mainly focused on wangxian.

But some of my favourites are:

We're starting at the end: MDZS (has some show influence, but that's negligable – i say this never having watched the show either.) Wwx travels back in time without realising, at the moment of his expected death. He goes a bit more insane and splits off from the main war effort pretty early. It's a non-typical time travel fic as well since it deviates very quickly and signifcantly and doesnt rehash a lot of canon plot points. Has some amazingly intense twists and wwx has to live with the consequences of them for the rest of his life.

What Is Inevitable: MDZS, WIP, again a very well done non-typical timetravel premise: Nie Huaisang finds a way to send himself back in time to before the death of his brother, before the start of the war even, and spends a lot of time trying to figure out how to kill Jin Guangyao/Meng Yao, and yet is left unsatisfied again and again. Really fucked up tbh but i love it. (The author is also really good about finishing their WIPs, and just finished the 3rd part of a very very good Word Of Honor fic series. I havent read the last chapter of that one yet, so i'm unsure if they're taking a brief break atm. They'd honestly deserve it)

A Corpse Called By Name: MDZS, modern AU, during a zombie apocalypse Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng find the walking corpse of WWX, he appears to somewhat recognize them.

decay: MDZS, short, gusu lan agrees to take in the Wen Remnants under the condition that wwx submits himself to a cleansing ritual and eschew his new cultivation - a death sentence for wwx because of the severe damage his body sustained in the burial mounds, and which could only be temporarily mitigated with resentful energy

You are what you eat: MDZS, this one isnt angsty per se, i'd rate it as a comedy mostly, but WWX comes back wrong from the burial mounds and appears largely unaware of human customs, all the while casually admitting to ie eating Wen Chao and having seemingly developed a hunger for flesh. 17k words; but since it's fast paced and humorous it feels shorter

An Easy Lie: SVSSS, WIP, Shen Jiu – older brother to Shen Yuan – gets transmigrated into PIDW and Shen Qingqiu instead; there is some delicious angst about past and future lives, remembering cruelties you inflicted etc. It's pretty long but also still getting updates on a semi regular basis

Heart + Bone: TGCF, this one is again not all that angsty, however i still decided to include it because Hua Cheng is kind of conflicted throughout – HC is unable to remember Xie Lian, and thus more aimless and callous, as he nonetheless grows to be fascinatrd by a strange cultivator in white.

Anyways. It's basically the middle of the night for me, i might think of some more recs when i'm properly awake

MXTX fic rec request

hey so MXTX fandoms are really big and i cannot find what i want. the problem is basically:

these books are all really gleefully fucked up

most of the fic i find is fluff, possibly bc ppl are getting the fucked up content they need from canon, or possibly bc i'm bad at finding things

do you have suggestions for non-fluff fic? I've read SVSSS, MDZS, and I'm reading TGCF as the official translation so I'm not all the way thru but I know all the big reveals. SVSSS is my favorite of the 3 but i'm desperate for MDZS and TGCF fic also. i haven't watched the Untamed bc i'm under the impression that it's less fucky than the book and also i'm allergic to long tv shows.

i like the canon pairings, but also original Shen Qinqiu/Yue Qingyuan, Zhuzhi Lang/SQQ, anything with Jin Guangyao (my beloved), and please i need messy Jun Wu/Xie Lian/Hua Cheng to live. i am also v easily persuaded on other characters and pairings. thank you!

[pillowspace]

Ooo isnt there a soulmate au fic on ao3 as well?

I haven't read it, but two people mentioned Star Crossed Souls. I didn't even know about it until it got brought up, so I'll have to read it later. Hold on, lemme write it down fic rec style

--

Star Crossed Souls by Klefiki

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Moon/Sun/Reader, Daycare Attendant/Reader, Eclipse/Reader

Soulmates, A fun thing that everyone with. you know. A SOUL has. From the moment a child opens their eyes they get a mark on their skin that tells them of their other half.... or halves. its not too uncommon to have multiple nowadays.

Are a large majority romantic? Yes. Are some platonic? Also yes. Did the guys up in fazbear corporate expect robots to get soulmate marks that would move to new pieces or even on to the endoskeleton or personality chips if they tried to hide or remove them when they turned on their fancy new bots? Nope! but its sure as hell what they got. Don't ask them how the robots got a soul, or if that even what you actually need for a soulmate, they just don't want to deal with the legal disaster.

Until the new electrician y/n comes in with stars on their cheeks that match up with some very specific robots in the daycare.

Hi I don't know how to do summaries i wrote this bc like 5 people wanted to see this idea really really bad when i was like "haha wouldnt it be funny if soulmates?"

I have a whole plot-line in my head but I aint the fastest and if my brain goes "ok but what if-" im gonna do it. if anyone knows how many chapters this will have please clue me in.

T | Words: 13,944 | Chapters: 4/?

[cainightfics]

hii! excited for new chapter of trotw soon, i know you update slower than most but the wait is always so worth it with how long your chapters are! im curious: how do you find motivation to write so much? youre well known in 2 fandoms that are very small/inactive, so i imagine it might be hard to find motivation sometimes. i also write fic, but i get discouraged easily when i dont get many hits

thanks for the ask! im sorry i update slowly—i wish i could update more frequently, but i have 2 jobs and am also currently a student, so i dont always have a lot of time. i like doing longer chapters because, like you said, it makes the long wait easier to bear for anyone reading, but also because i feel like i plan the plot more carefully this way, if you know what i mean? with longer chapters, i can sort of think of them as episodes, so 1) each chapter progresses the plot, and isn't just fluff and 2) some new milestone is reached relationship wise. like in the last chapter, for instance, it starts with tyrell and elliot in bed, and tyrell internally complaining about how un-affectionate elliot is. then tyrell does a crazy stunt to get elliot to admit he cares about tyrell (ie, threatening to shoot himself in the head, lol), so that the chapter ends with tyrell and elliot in bed, again, but this time, elliot is rattled by what has occurred over the course of the chapter, and actually physically responds when tyrell makes a move on him.

as for motivation... idk, i actually just like writing a lot i guess, lol. i feel like i mentioned this once before on here, so im sorry if im repeating myself, but fanfic gives me something to think about during the boring parts of my day, when im on the bus or washing dishes or whatever. actually, significantly large portions of trotw have been written in my phones notes app during my morning commute.

i dont really care about getting lots of hits and attention for my fics. as long as a few people enjoy reading them, im happy. im very grateful that people take the time to comment and send me asks—seriously, it does make my day sometimes. but just knowing someone is out there reading my fics, maybe before bed after a long day, or during their lunch break at their job they hate, is good enough for me. i grew up on fan culture (ive been on this site since i was 11!) so fanfic has always been really special to me as a reader.

i know its easier said than done, but once you move past worrying about how many kudos/hits/comments you get, writing is way more enjoyable. i think capitalism often demands that we either monetize or quantify our hobbies. part of this has to do with the current climate of entertainment, which i see people often refer to as the "attention economy." getting lots of hits/kudos = success, because enough people cared about your fic to invest their attention into it, when so many other entertainment options are available. to me, this isnt the point of fanfic. i feel like fic is about community. being passionate enough about something that you're inspired to create a derivative work, then share it with others, with no attempts to earn profit or fame involved, is a very special thing these days, when we're made to believe all activities should have the end goal of making money. i think everyone who wants to should write fanfic, even if they think theyre bad at it, or worry that nobody will read it. being creative is always good for you.

anyways, thanks as always for reading my fics! im happy youre enjoying them. and good luck in your own writing, too!

[bicyclepainting]

seeing everyones wip folders is so interesting to me, but i work on single things at a time usually, so i dont have a lot to share </3 but many thoughts head full abt the writing process in general so i wanted to share a bit abt mine and the things ive published so far

a marriage proposal; one of two works ive actually written an outline for lol, the process on this one was very straightforward tbh. the original outline was around 800 words. for this piece i also have a draft that i saved before i made some more heavy edits, which i havent done with the rest thus far

lattes and love; this actually started originally as a david/angel idea and was going in a very different direction than it ended up going, like i was going to include michael as a speaking character in it. then it changed to freelancer/damien and i actually wrote a large portion of the first chapter with those two characters but it wasnt fitting and i didnt like it so i went back and changed it to fit starlight/avior (this is actually the real reason why huxley is a character in it lol). i actually started writing in the middle of the first chapter and later went back to add the beginning. so i started after they first met and starlight was going to class and ran into avior in said class before i wrote them ever meeting (although i wrote it as FL/damien at the time). theres a line in there that describes avior as having “honey sweet eyes” and i actually wrote that line down Months ago as part of a phrase that got stuck in my head that i thought i could use one day.

this isnt goodbye; i was looking at the note in my phone that i have of lines to use one day and i saw “i think if a million different versions of me existed in a million different places, all of them would be destined to love you” and i thought of this as a way to use it. i also wanted to try my hand at writing angst and i think at least one person told me it made them cry so i would consider it a success. i also left this open ending, but in my head angel doesnt die or anything

morning; similarly to this isnt goodbye, this piece originally just started as i line i had written down, its the opening line actually (”sun filtered through the half-shut blinds, washing the whole room in a warm glow”) i wrote most of the first paragraph before i ever had an idea about where i wanted the piece to go or even the characters i wanted to make it about. i just had this picture in my head of this morning moment between two people and wrote about it. i wrote the rest of it in under 24 hours then published it

first meetings; i got the idea from a post i have since lost and wrote this in like three days. the only other piece ive written an outline for (originally around 600 words). in my head, david had seen angel in all of those places, but to make it canon compliant he only saw them overtly at the cafe and at the store, because in the audio he says something about that lunch being the third time hes seen them so oh well. the choice to make geordi the coworker/friend was not an easy one lol. my first thought was to make it babe because headcanon those two are best friends but like canonically speaking, theyre not coworkers and i didnt want to have the implication that angel and david met before babe and asher because thats also not canon compliant and i wanted that to be a factor in this fic (being canon compliant, that is). so i made it geordi, which i think was for the best and people seemed to like it!! (i also like it, to be fair).

[3mmafr0st]

Hard to Hate Chapter 14

Fred Weasley x Reader Word Count: 1.7k

Warnings: the usual, if you’ve seen the rest of the series you’ll know!

Taglist: @intpeach, @aria-dne, @allthebestmenarefictional, @i-should-be-writing-my-own-fic, @weasleytwinswheezes, @a-disappointing-teen-author, @amorist-3, @222moonss, @carmiml0v3, @lilypad-55449, @losers-club6, @hpbitch, @ohwelliguess​, More in the Reblog. Ask me if you want to be added to the tag list!

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 15,

Read the Russian translation Here

The next few weeks were tough on me, with the already intense stress of trying to remember all of the work we had been doing before the break, and the drama of what had happened. 

Draco was mad at me, upset for leaving, as well as whatever Pansy had been whispering in his ear throughout the month. He hadn’t talked to me since christmas and I hate to say it but I missed him. Even though he was quite brainwashed and could be a little shit, I loved him, he was like a little brother to me.

On top of that, Pansy and her gaggle of bitches were harrassing me whenever they could. Ever since they found my room, the fear that I struck in most of the Slytherin house had all but dwindled. At least before they moved out of my way, but now they just look down on me and I hated it. It felt worse than being feared.

Finally there was Fred. Funny, endearing, and absolutely beautiful Fred. Ever since he and the other Weasley’s returned to the school, he has been cold, distant. It was as if the last few months had never happened, that we had never become friends in the first place. George was still talking to me though. That was my only saving grace.

George and I had decided on the library to hang out that day. Melody didn’t want to study that day, instead opting to hang out with Lee by the lake on a date of sorts. 

“I honestly have no clue what’s going on with Fred, but I’m worried.” George told me, his voice nervous.

“Has he been the same with you, he won’t even speak to me.”

“He won’t talk to me about anything, but he’s definitely upset about something. This is the first time that he’s never not told me about what’s going on in his head and I don’t like it.”

“Do you think that he’s really upset with me, I don’t know what I could have done.” I was upset to say the least. I missed Fred so much and yet he wouldn’t even give me the time of day. It was agonizing. I liked him so much, maybe even loved, and yet he pushed me away.

George and I stayed and studied for a while, until the time came where we were to go to our next class, Potions, which we all had together. This was going to be difficult to say the least.

When George and I walked into the classroom, Fred was already there, sitting with Angelina Johnson. George was irritated to say the least, and since I knew Melody would be sitting with Lee, I offered him a seat next to me. I glanced at Fred, and he seemed to be even more grumpy than when we had first walked in. Snape began his lecture, his droaning and nasally voice going on and on. I should be paying attention to the work that we were supposed to be doing, on the lecture at hand. Instead, I was glancing at Fred out of the corner of my eye.

Angelina and Fred were sitting together, laughing and whispering together. I felt something, simmering in the pit of my stomach. I had no idea what the feeling was, but it made me want to tear Angelina apart. I didn’t even know why, I like Angelina! She’s nice and witty and good at quidditch, and well, basically everything I was but better. She was the perfect version of me, one with no baggage, no psychotic family members or racist family history. Who wouldn’t pick her? The burning feeling soon turned to sadness, this lump in my throat that only got worse and worse. George looked at me, and saw as tears began to well in my eyes, fighting to keep them from falling, I couldnt let the other students see me like this, it would push me even farther down the chain of respect and I couldnt have that. George raised his hand, and was called on.

“Professor, Y/N’s not feeling good, do you think I could walk her back to her common room.”

Snape thought for a moment, clearly trying to weigh his biases in his head, before allowing it. As quickly as he could, George walked me out of the classroom, trying to get me a good enough distance from the classroom before my legs gave out under me against the wall, tears falling down my face.

“Y/N, what’s wrong? Tell me.”

“I don’t know, just, Angelina, the two of them, ugh, I feel so pathetic.” I laughed at myself through my tears. “I mean, who would even think I have a chance next to her.” George looked me straight in the eyes, both of us on the floor now, putting his hand on my shoulder to try and reassure me.

“Y/N, if he can’t see that you’re the absolute perfect girl for him, then he’s either blind, or just plain stupid, knowing my brother, its probably a bit of both.” His joke made me laugh, and he handed me a tissue from his pocket. 

“Thanks, I just feel so hopeless, yknow? Like, the two of you, and Mel are the only good things right now, and even that's been ruined.”

“Believe me Y/N, I get it more than you know.” His eyes looked far away, kind of wistful and longing. 

“So who’s the girl?”

“If I say, it's only going to make it worse.” I thought through all of the different clues, before coming to the most logical explanation.

“Its Angelina, isnt it?” I folded my hands in front of my chest giving him a knowing look.

“Yeah,” He said. “Now I know that you think I’m just saying that because I want her all for myself, don’t you?” I silently nodded, tears starting to prick at my eyes again.

“Well, that’s not true, I’m being serious. If he’s not going to man up, then he must be an idiot.” I didn’t believe him in the slightest, but I pretended to. “Come on, let's head to lunch early, I dont think you want the others seeing you like this when they leave.”

The two of us headed to the cafeteria, simply working on homework at our respective tables, until the rest of the students began pouring into the large hall. I saw Melody walk in, sitting down next to me.

“You feeling better?”

“Honestly, Mels, it's not that kinda sick. It’s just, Fred, yknow?” She silently nodded. She knew all of the events that had happened, or lackthereof. Although she knew about it, she wasnt as involved as George, I mean, she had her own things to do and I understood. 

George was sitting close to me, in a way, our backs to eachother, so Mel and Lee could continue their conversation from Potions. I heard heavy, angry footsteps behind me, and I took a peek as to who it was. Fred was angry, but for what reason I couldnt understand. I could hear the conversation from behind me.

“George, can we talk outside for a moment.” His voice was trying to mask his rage.

“Fine” George responded, and Fred walked the two of them outside of the cafeteria. 

I tried to stay out of it, I tried to sit there, and eat and talk to Lee and Mel as if nothing had happened, but after 5 minutes, the curiosity got the better of me. What if Fred was finally saying something as to why he was so distant, ignoring me for so long. It was a miserable experience and I just had to know why. 

I told Melody that I was going to the bathroom, and then ran off, looking for the two boys.

I walked down the hall, searching around for them, when I heard yelling, two voices that I knew so well. I looked around for a moment, before finding a door that I had never seen in this hallway before. I put my ear up to the door. The voices were muffled, but I could sort of make out what the boys were saying.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Fred, am I not allowed to have friends?”

“You and I both know that it's not just friends.”

“I’m not lying, it’s not my fault that you’ve been being an asshole and pushing us away!” The yells were immediately silenced, replaced with the sounds of skin coming in contact with skin, yelps of pain and growls of anger.  

“Alohamora” The lock quickly undid, and I pushed the door open as fast as I could. Fred had wrestled George on the ground, punching him into the floor, as George was trying as hard as possible to gain the upper hand. I quickly wracked my brain for something to separate the two without putting myself at risk before finding the perfect incantation “Relashio!”

The two looked at me, then looked at each other, trying to go at it again, but I quickly cast the Colloshoo hex, sticking both boys’ feet firmly on the ground. 

“You too are unbelievable, you know that? You are brothers for Merlin’s sake, what the hell has gotten into you?” George began to speak but I cut him off, I was too angry to listen. “Fred, you need to check yourself this instant, your behavior in the last month has not been that of a friend. Friends are supposed to be kind to each other, supposed to support each other, talk to each other at the very least! Once you’re ready to explain yourself, I'll be in the astronomy tower. George, if he tries anything like that again, you sure as hell better tell me.” 

“Can you at least let us go?” George asked, as I opened the door of the mystery room.

“It’ll wear off in an hour, you two need to talk through some things.” I shut the door behind me. I was angry, confused, and upset, all of those emotions culminating in the only way that my body could understand, once again tears began to run down my face. Luckily classes had ended early today, because if not, I would have had to go to a History of Magic looking like this mess.  The only thing that I could do was go to the astronomy tower, and hope that Fred had gotten over himself enough to come and talk to me, explain why all of a sudden he was acting like this.

[elephant-in-the-pride-parade]

Writing for a rarepair / rare fandom is such a healthy experience after writing for big ships.

I had the idea this year to write The Universe to Mend, a St:Prodigy/Star Trek Novels crossover featuring a minor character (Denzit Janeway) and Q as the leads. One of the reasons I picked it for the WIP Big Bang is that I knew I wouldn't have large reader interest to help motivate finishing it.

I am 1/3 of the way through the posting schedule now and I've got to say this has been a very different experience to what I am used to.

For context: I have gone from long fics with 163 kudos to one with just 9. On the one hand that is really shocking - those are all the individual readers! 9 total! 8 of them have been there since chapter one so I havent even picked up readers in subsequent updates. And thats with a regular update schedule!

Instead of being a disheartening experience I have actually found it to be really healthy.

Each comment is even more precious.

Theres not enough interest to worry about a facebook campaign being organized to harass me in a bid for faster updates.

That annoying worry in the back of my mind that people wont like what i've done to their favorite character is completely absent! Its one thing to say "write what you love / dont worry what other people think" but it's another to actually be able to put into practice. so this experience is actually extremely freeing. Theres next to no fanon about Voyager's book characters. I can do whatever I want!

It gets really hard, when youve been writing well-read fics for a while or when youve been reading well-read fics for a while to separate "popular" and "well written". Usually all my fics have a meaningful range of kudos/bookmarks/subscriptions and all from the same audience community - which makes any relative drop in readership feel like a major blow - "why did 130 people like Story A, but only 50 like Story B which i worked so much harder on. etc." - an audience of 9 isnt even graphable in comparison. its a major outlier. so rather than be depressing for me, it's actually been very nice! the readership isnt a meaningful measure of how good it is. And thats meant that I am able to really take pride in non-popularity based measures of "good writing" without having hits/kudos putting a damper on my mental ability to objectively consider the story's strengths.

[frogtanii]

HI BESTIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE

its 🔮 anon here!

it takes a lot of things for me to loathe a character, and even more to loathe a character i adore, so CONGRATULATIONS FROGGY ✨i now want to shove osamu's head against a brick wall✨

(of course i've been an atsumu ghorl this whole time, idk what you're talking about, osamu who? 🤨)

yachi already done with everyone's bs and its only been 4 chapters is funny to me HAHAHAHAHA

meiko shove your fake-ness up your ass, thank you.

osamu shut the f up please you embarrassing yourself-

ALSO PLEASE TELL ME WHAT OSAMU'S NICKNAME WOULD BE FOR Y/N AND TELL ME IT ISNT PRINCESS OR I WILL SLICE OFF HIS FAMILY JEWELS I DONT CARE ANYMORE.

i don't know what to tell you miss ma'am, cuz i've been getting more and more into stories where the mc or y/n is more raw and relatable, and THIS REALLY HITS THE SPOT. lowkey i get sad when people talk bad about self-insert stories or y/n stories and then the reason they do is because of some cliche element majority or a large chunk of writers already dropped.

self insert fanfics are a comfort to me? in a way? idk how to explain it, cuz it sounds weird when i try typing it out loud- but HEAR ME OUT FIRST OKIE? most fics ive read are oneshots or stories that dont require much assessing or reflecting of a situation because most have similar plots aknxjdbdj i know i sound awful akdnidjd and i kind of know what to expect.

on the other hand, the ones written more realistically, like this one, wherein y/n isnt a simp right off the bat of the guys asking for forgiveness, y/n has her great moments and not so pleasant moments, with her inner turmoil and a d e e p dive into theirs and the guys character and providing new insight is where i kinda insert myself kandhsnjs. though y/n doesnt always do what i would do, reading more realistic self inserts help put things into perspective to me. they help me actually think about what i would do in a situation like that and eventually apply what i decided on later in life. like toxic friendships and relationships-

LOWKEY THESE ALSO MAKE ME EVEN SCARED-ER OF MY FEELINGS BECAUSE I KNOW I WOULDNT BE ABLE TO DO WHAT THE BADASS Y/NS DO and i would let whatever toxicity in a relationship back into my life like the idiot i am.

a n y w a y s

im listening to melanie martinez at the moment, and i thought of some.... dark-ish? ideas.

t/w: mentions of blood, murder.

pre-poker face events.

meiko snapped, killed y/n in cold blood with a knife. the guys find her, they help her cover up the murder. they comfort her. kenma or bokuto give in first, they tell the police. the image of y/ns body in a pool of blood was too much, the nightmares got to them.

OR MEIKO AND Y/N WITH "PACIFY HER". like meiko lowkey wanting atsumu and hating that y/n had all his attention, so she sends osamu to get rid of y/n.

or y/n who is also a power hungry woman who wanted to dominate the hyper house and all she needed left was osamu, and he was very much blinded by meiko so y/n sends suga to get rid of meiko (under the pretense for him to get revenge for what she did to him, but really it was so she could get osamu alone.)

lastly-

YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS:

HAVE YOU HAD YOUR 8 GLASSES OF WATER YET? you gotta wash out those toxins and negativity outta your body!

HAVE YOU HAD A FULL MEAL? so you have energy to deal with the bs the world decides to ungeacefully drop on you-

SOME SLEEP? AT LEAST 8 HOURS OF IT? i know you didnt when i asked you in an ask a few days ago 🤨.

SENDS YOU 😤AGGRESSIVE😤AFFECTION😤 AND BADDIE ENERGY ➖👄➖🙏AND GOOD VIBES🙏➖👄➖

much love 💘

p.s. i tagged you in the masterlist of the series i told you about! idk if the notif got through? but have a great day bby!

HEY BESTIE <3333 oh n osamu’s nickname for yn would be cheeks or baby / doll??? don’t ask LMFAO alsoooo i entirely agree abt self inserts!!! m a big ol fan aksjks OHHOHH i love melanie n ur lil drabble ideas are so sick omggg (pps i didn’t see it!! maybe try it again?)

[twoforts]

notes for a longform mother daughter blu spy and blu scout angst fic that i wanted to write below the cut

its probably never going to get written lol

also sorry if theres anything cringe in there i havent looked at this in a long while

enemies to friends/found family snowed in BLU Scout + BLU Spy fanned fiction

OCT252020 at 245AM

BLU scout

inspiration:

- Allison Bechdel (in her novel Fun home)

- Carolina (from rvb)

ambitious, loud, secretive*, competitive

*scout knows how to distract from questions by answering questions that werent asked. she also is able to avoid seeming secretive by being open about too many other things. the queen of TMI, she talks too much, so it makes others eager to shut her up, and not pry.

BLU spy

inspiration:

- Allison Bechdel's Father (Fun Home novel)

- [ a teacher from my hs ]

- the Director (from RvB)

- Vespa (The Penumbra Podcast)

depressed, followed by dread, tragedy and death; know-it-all, unlucky (spy is the black cat), spy has issues with remembering faces due to brain damage, she has also convinced everyone that she is swedish

> followed by death, spy eventually realizes she doesnt want to kill anymore, even though death isnt permanent here, its stench follows her. she no longer wants any part in the violence.. she wants to heal, and for a while, she does. but she could only keep it up for so long.. recovery affected her performance for the worst, and the killings of her teammates and their pitiful stares snapped her into relapse. as her mental state continued to deteriorate, she only became more lethal, furthering her decline. the blood on her hands. the cold snow.

Chapter Title / Major event outline

Chapter 1

the meeting / the reunion

scout arrives to meet her mercenary team for the first time.

maybe looking over the dossiers again on the train just before arrival

put emphasis on meeting the spy?

maybe after each character is introduced, scout thinks something non-specific but referring, maybe at the end of the day when she finally gets to her room

Chapter 2-4?

working title

scout getting to know the team members. she tries to act natural, and succeeds. the mercenary shes most interested in is the spy, but no one knows. as scout gets to know the spy, the scout, who admires ambition, begins to hate what she sees. the spy, who is a depressed and broken shell of a woman (to the scout). Knowing what the scout knows, she hates this about the spy, and almost says things she shouldnt(things about spy being her mom), and actually says other things(harsh things about spy and her personality, as well as things she cant really control) and when scout returns to her room that night, she cries, both for herself and the spy.

Chapter 5-(X-1)

- events that happen between here:

the team doing very well with scout's arrival

- scout getting to know team members

spy making progress toward recovering from deep deep depression, but seeing less results from her work

- side stories involving other team members

- scout growing to hate the spy

- spy learning to hate scout as well

- spy growing more depressed and doing better at her job as a spy compared to when she was recovering, and the turmoil this brings

- the team doing very poorly due to multiple internal conflicts

- the team continuing to do poorly

- various chapters regarding the scout's past, each with holes to be filled both by the future scout, and finally the future spy

- ^ including scouts search for spy, and what scout knows about her

Chapter X-(X+2)THREE PARTS

THIS IS THE MIDPOINT OF THE FIC

the turning point / reconciliation

the chapters where scout and spy stop being so awful to each other for the sake of helping their team win a match for once.

PART ONE (X)

a major event or wake-up call happens and they decide they need to bury the hatchet

PART TWO (X+1)

they have trouble getting along still. they have bad synergy and while both are trying to make amends, they dont see eye to eye, which builds frustration in both of them.

PART THREE (X+2)

an epiphany, something clicks, and theyre both trying and succeeding at being decent to each other. baby steps... there are still incidents, but they begin working through it constructively

Y=X+3

Chapter Y-(End-1)

from here, scout and spy have their ups and downs. this is the friends part of the fic. where any remaining malice is squashed. where trust is built, broken down, and built again, until scout and spy become the two people who fundamentally understand and respect each other the most in this world. genuine care is built. by now we know that both spy and scout are lesbians, which they bond over. they go on a one-on-one mission together, that for once, works out really well. and spy. The Spy. First name "The" Last name "Spy", The "i am unknowable" spy, decides to confide in scout, which brings us to the last chapter(s).

Chapter (End) (potentially multiple chapters)

The end / the spy with nine lives

as an ultimate mark of trust, spy tells the loudmouthed scout about what happened to her, something she isnt proud of, but isnt sure she regrets. a large step in healing for the spy, and pretty utterly unheard of. (flashback chapter in the life of the once young spy)

**** ABUSE, FAMILY DEATH, PERIOD BIGOTRY ETC. CW FOR THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH

the spy was abused at a young age, her elder brother was murdered when she was young as well. spy lived in russia as a lesbian. she knew at a young age, she would kiss women, offer propositions and the like. she got caught one day. to avoid being institutionalized, she married the first man she met, who then abused her, and tried to trap her in the marriage by getting her pregnant. Spy kills her husband shortly after recovering from childbirth, fakes her death, and leaves the child, and her old life behind. she flees to sweden, where she meets, and loses the love of her life. she leaves sweden. spy does a lot of misguided living... at first she does her best to check up on her daughter, but only 3 years in, spy loses track and feels like a failure. the first of many failures in her career in espionage. at one point she tried to get lobotomized herself, she gave herself brain damage and amnesia. she is the kind of person who, despite any kind of perseverance or optimism, dread and death and despair follows her... no matter how hard she tries. spy eventually finds herself where she is now, and no matter how many times she wants to forget all the lives before her, she never stops wondering what became of her offspring.

******** END CW

epilogue

upon hearing this, scout receives the definitive answers she was looking for. and for old competitions sake, relishes in knowing something the spy doesnt. then they cry on each other again or something (scout knows spy is her mother, but spy does not know scout is her daughter and thats the end of the fic or something)

[double-daredevil]

folklore ; chapter one

din djarin x reader (no y/n)

words: 6.2k

rating: T for swearing i guess. its a slow burn there isnt anything sexii yet lol

themes: slow burn (like y’all its so SLOW lol), eventual angst, no Y/N, eventual smut, eventual EVERYTHING this is like the establishing shot of a movie its gonna be a FIC lmfao. dont get attached the end is already planned.

notes: set before the tv series. canon doesn’t exist anymore. i make the rules here pals. yes it is named after the tswift album so that gives you some fuckin HINTS 

--

Accident.

Pretty much everything that happened to you happened by accident, but you weren't one to complain. Without much control over your life for your adolescent years, seeing as you were raised as an Imperial trooper and just followed orders, you happily let yourself float along in life whichever way the forces led you. 

That doesn't mean you don't have, say, a moral guideline.

It's difficult to explain to people once they get to know you better and eventually squeeze out of you that yes, you were trained Imperial. Details are not awarded to most people, in fact— you’re not sure anyone except one of your commanding officers in the rebellion knew that you were a clone. 

You have spent countless hours trying to transition from regret to simply shame. After all, how is it your fault you did what you were told? If you didn’t, you would have been executed. Tossed to the trash like a faulty toy. The greatest decision in your life was the first decision you, personally, got to make— to run. It took you a few years to plan the scheme, but you defected successfully. Your moral issues were simply too strong to subvert, and you had to leave. So you did. That's all. You don't like to talk about it much.

After you mustered up some vengeance by joining the rebellion, you had to find a living once the major fighting died down for a while. With your particular skills— too deadly to be a simple security guard, or any occupation that doesn't involve tactical warfare, you settled on hoarding money through bounties. Not quite professed in the field of bounty hunting, you would latch on to more experienced hunters and offer to split rewards 20-80 for your help. The meager money filled your pocket enough for food and lodging while you learned the ways of the trade and, subsequently, your new way of life.

That's how you met your first Mandalorian. 

A mutual acquaintance from the Guild had a heavy quarry, a difficult one that he had trouble passing off. Too complex and detailed for just you, your acquaintance told you that when he found a suitable hunter to take the lead, he'd hail you to tag along. A week after the quarry was first put on the table, a renowned bounty hunter— this Mandalorian, rolled into town to collect the tracking fob. Part of the agreement was to take you along. The Mandalorian agreed. A brief encounter mediated by your mutual acquaintance and you were following the beskar-clad hunter to his ship, which you’ve come to know as the Razor Crest. A dingy, huge hunk of metal that could use a good list of upgrades, but you quickly grew accustomed to the flying garbage can. 

And somehow, after that singular bounty hunt, where you actually got to assist in the capture and the shoving of the unruly quarry into the carbonite, Mando offered you constant refuge aboard his ship in return for some pay and help on his harder bounties. That conversation, so far, has been the longest exchange of words between you and him, and it only lasted maybe five minutes. That’s all. You’re not one that aches for human interaction, having been commanded all your life by others, so you almost welcome the silence.

Almost.

—

Officially, you have been a part of Mando’s crew for nearing six months.

You hear metal clanging against metal, and you glance over your shoulder to see him climbing down from the cockpit. “Are we headed to the next quarry?” You ask.

“Yes,” comes through the vocoder. “Carajam.”

“Oh lovely,” you say, voice dripping with sarcasm as you focus on polishing the trigger of the blaster in your hands. “Another desert planet in the Outer Rim.”

“Our favorite,” Mando deadpans as he walks over, sitting across from you at the janky table. 

Once you were an official employee of his, you spent your first few payday collections on your own blasters. In all honesty, weapons never made you nervous, as you grew up in a space station that was literally just a giant weapon, but owning your own seemed… different. Blasters are weapons made just to kill, and you are allowed to have that power again. But, anyway, most of your money goes to savings so you can buy a house to retire to one day. One day. 

The Mandalorian rolls his shoulders back to adjust his cape out of the way of his hands as he starts to dismantle the blaster that’s usually holstered at his hip. Piece by piece, he sets his blaster on the table like a new jigsaw puzzle, and you’ve just finished polishing the little blaster you’ve decided to keep stashed in your boot.

“How long until we arrive?” You ask.

His visor is focused downwards, at the metal pieces on the table, his right gloved hand hovering over the pieces like an excited child in a candy shop trying to pick his favorite one. “Not long,” he replies, picking up the barrel and beginning to wipe it clean with a cloth. “We will arrive once it becomes night on the planet. Cooler temps.”

You nod, letting out an appreciative sigh. That meant you had a night’s rest before the hunt began. As he finished up with the barrel of his blaster, you removed your longer, daily use blaster and began dismantling. You two stay like that, at a dimly lit table cleaning the blasters, until the ship notified that it was about to drop out of hyperdrive. 

Mando quickly reassembled his blaster, slipping the completed gun back into its holster as he stood and hustles over to the cockpit. Following suit, you dusted off any last specs of dirt on yours and planted your feet firmly against the floor, as the ship dropped out of its easy glide through the stars and into the gravity pull of Carajam. The Razor Crest isn’t the smoothest rig, but you’re still very appreciative. And, you like to think you have good balance, so it’s not a hard task to stay stable.

You want to say that Mando is a good pilot, and you really think he is, but you can’t help but miss the sheer amount of credits that the Empire was able to spend on simple luxuries to make their lives easier, like enhanced stabilization in and out of hyperdrive, cleaner hyperdrives, even, and— 

The Razor Crest lands and you shake those dark thoughts out of your head, reassembling your blaster but with clearly less finesse than Mando. Stars, are weapons actually part of his religion, or was that a joke as well? It’s quite the challenge to pick up on the subtleties of somebody who wears intense armor literally every waking moment, but you’ve grown accustomed (more or less) to the separate circles of things that Mando talks about. Those circles are: one, things he says and means, two, things he says as a joke, and three, the gray, shadowy area where those two circles meet and you’re still deciphering what brief conversations and quick remarks belong there. 

As the ship starts to rest, expelling various airs and sighs itself as the sheer weight settles on the landing gear, you clear off the table and slip your smaller blaster back into your boot, and your other into your holster that’s banded to your right thigh. The Mandalorian comes down the cockpit ladder soon enough and goes to stand at the main ship door. You hop up from your seat and stand next to him, as he punches something into the control pad on the archway and the large door hisses and starts to lower. The first glimpse of the planet you get is the peak of the spectacular night sky, and eventually the ramp meets the sand on the ground and you see it all. Mando struts down the ramp to go and meet the landing dock manager and pay for the spot here in this spaceport Danan Karr, but you wait aboard still, leaning against the open doorway and gazing out into the night. Planets are always easier for you at night, as they were calmer— at least, those that don’t have an avid nightlife. A few that you and Mando have stopped at have been busier in the dark hours than the light, but it was always fitting. 

The breeze of the desert planet comes sifting around you, caressing your cheeks with warm air and particles of sand, but you don’t mind. Raised in space, you have an affinity for the ground and real, non-recycled air. Although it’s never any trouble for you to stay inside a ship for however long, there is always something alluring about fresh air. Plus, this planet in the Outer Rim isn’t exactly prime vacationing, so there is nearly no light pollution. It was almost hard to wrench your eyes away from the bright stars speckling the dark blanket of the sky. 

You almost don’t notice when Mando comes walking back up the ramp, too busy basking in the breeze to notice the beskar-clad hunter. He stands at the top of the ramp, slightly in front of you, for a good few seconds as you look straight over his head.

“Hey,” he calls for your attention, and you look down at his face. Or, well, the specific area in the T of his visor where you’re pretty sure his eyes are. He tilts his helmet to the side and you know he’s begun to worry about you.

So you flash him a smile. “I just love the air here,” you say, and turn around to step back inside the ship. Mando walks the rest of the way up the ramp and inside, pressing a button to raise the ramp.

“Rest tonight,” he starts. “Tomorrow we go on the hunt.”

“Yes, sir,” you reply, going back to sit at the janky table to clean one more blaster before retreating to your bunk.

The Mandalorian sits at the table as well, after having taken his ambam rifle out of storage for a quick clean. In silence you two work on your respective blasters, caring for them as they are just as important to the job as the tracking fob. Perhaps an hour or so went by, and as you were putting your blaster back together piece by piece, the comfortable silence was broken. But this time— not by you.

“What did you say about the air?”

You look up from your blaster and see that Mando isn’t looking at you, but still at his rifle. The fact that he’s trying to start casual conversation accidentally makes a smile appear on your face. You quickly look back down at your blaster, but your smile still remains.

“I said that I loved it,” you reply. “Because the air here is very fresh. Even though there’s like, no trees, there’s almost no people. No pollution.”

He hums in understanding and continues cleaning. 

Back to the comfortable silence. 

—

The Razor Crest looks large from the outside, but it’s pretty cramped inside. The majority of its bulk is for it’s engines and practical components— hyperdrive, fuel tanks, cooling systems and whatnot. It was once a gunship, and that fact does put you on edge. Ships like this used to transport troops and drop them in combat. So, there is a large portion of the ship’s cargo bay that remains unused, as Mando doesn’t usually transport large quarries. The living space, or at least that’s what you’ve called it in your head, consists of an open area with a small but sturdy table, a few stools to sit on, and various crates that contain meal rations and tools and various trinkets. You’re almost one hundred percent sure that this ship was never meant to be lived in. You estimate that maybe four or five people could stay on the ship before everyone felt claustrophobic. 

There used to be only one cot hidden in the walls, you’d knocked against one of the panels and the door would swoosh away, revealing a simple bed and just enough room to roll around to attempt to be comfortable. The night after the first bounty you helped Mando with, he let you sleep some in the hidden nook as he piloted you two back to Nevarro. While you were standing outside the ramp and helping unload bounties, the Mandalorian inquired whether or not you would want to join him on future bounties. With an assurance that you would get your own cot, you obliged. 

—

The bounty that you two are hunting on Carajam, the lovely desert planet, is hiding somewhere in the caves and cliffs a few klicks east of the space port that you are staying in. From the info you’ve picked up talking with a few locals, the quarry likes to hide in the sand caves because he has no friends. Well, actually it’s because he’s murdered about a person per household out of everyone who still lives on the desert planet. You thank the locals for their information with a few credits and a jug of desirable water.

You make your way to the only cantina on the planet, and by cantina you mean what is quite literally a bar top and six stools outside the shop of a local mechanic. The Mandalorian is sitting, waiting, on the last stool, facing the expanse of the desert that is a mere fifty feet from the edge of the little star port. You swiftly occupy the stool next to him.

“So,” you start, and he swivels in his stool to face you. You brace your elbows on the table. “About seven klicks east towards the main expanse of cliffs, and then about two more klicks north to the caves. One of the caves will look obviously occupied, trash and debris and whatnot. That’s what I’ve gathered.”

“Good work,” comes through the vocoder. “Are you ready to head out?”

“Yes, sir,” you smile, adjusting the straps of the small backpack you have. “After your lead.”

He swivels again and hops off his stool, and waits a moment until he hears you following him before beelining to the edge of town. You follow, obedient, as he weaves through the sparse crowd to another shop, lined with speederbikes and a few larger landcrafts. The Mandalorian walks up to the shop owner and exchanges a few words, and a few credits, and then moves to two of the speederbikes. 

“You know how to ride?” He asks you, as you stand beside one and he the other. 

“Yes, actually,” you say, always having a soft spot for fast land vehicles. You briefly wonder that, if you had said no, would he have made you sit behind him on one bike? The thought makes you smile, bashful, and you wait until he mounts his bike before climbing onto yours.

“Seven klicks east,” Mando says, repeating your earlier words and firing up his bike.

You turn yours on as well, and grab a pair of goggles from your backpack. You pull up the bandana you keep around your neck to cover your mouth, and then put on the goggles. You give a thumbs up to Mando, who was glancing over his shoulder to wait for your cue.

And then he zooms off. And you diligently follow.

— 

You two reach the caves in a quick hour, specifically saving some hours of daylight just in case this job takes a turn. The two of you park your speederbikes about half a klick downwind of the cave, just in case. You keep your goggles on and bandana over your mouth, as the wind out here doesn’t seem to want to settle. Dust and sand weave around your feet like a clingy pet as you scale the short cliffside after your Mandalorian, following him quickly toward the cave. 

You hover around the mouth of the cave as Mando stalks in, somehow still quiet despite his sturdy boots against the rock. To see down inside was near impossible, even as you took off your goggles. You hear some sort of scuffle, a few clatters, and then Mando is shoving a handcuffed quarry your direction. You reach up and steady the quarry, your hands on the man’s shoulders. Stars, he was a large man, so you assume that Mando only managed to shackle him due to surprise. 

“Let go of me, you kriffing bitch,” the quarry seethes at you and aggressively shrugs his shoulders to loosen your grip. Mando takes a step towards him, you imagine he’s reacting to the derogatory term thrown your way, but you beat him to it— 

You release your grip on the quarry, and while he’s stunned for a moment from it, you kick his foot out from underneath him. He falls hard on his ass and plops to the side, unable to stifle his fall due to being cuffed. With a slight smile, you watch him struggle on the ground.

“F-fuckin’ bitch,” he groans out, trying to roll over to a kneeling position. Once he manages that, Mando comes and grips the man’s shirt— lifting him inches off of the ground towards his helmet. 

“Watch your mouth.”

And then Mando drops him. 

The quarry gasps at the contact back on the ground and groans, almost falling over again. You go up behind him and grab the cuffs, wrenching him upwards and forcing him to stand. You grip the cuffs tightly in your left hand, and hold your blaster to the quarry’s back with your right.

“Let’s go, then,” you say. 

The Mandalorian leads the way back towards the speeders.

—

After tying up the quarry to transport him on the back of Mando’s speederbike, you settle nicely back inside the Razor Crest. Mando already froze the quarry after he wouldn’t stop blubbering about how sorry he was for mindlessly murdering the people in port— he couldn’t help himself, apparently. 

“Nobody is born a killer,” the Mandalorian tells the quarry before freezing him.

You avert your gaze away from him once the carbonite process is finished, allowing him to believe he had privacy with the quarry during their discussion. You had tucked yourself around a corner to avoid letting him know you like listening to the Mandalorian’s stern and assertive remarks to unruly quarries. You take mental notes on the way he talks, mostly to figure out what he believes in. A Mandalorian follows a creed, and your Mandalorian hasn’t mentioned a single thing about it since you’ve met him. By now, after half a cycle, you’ve figured out the basics. And the bottom line is that Mando is generally a good guy— a moral guy, you guess. Kind of like a vigilante who upholds his own justice, but a good guy nonetheless. If Mandalorians picked sides besides their own people, you think he would’ve joined the rebellion. 

“I’ve set us on course back to Nevarro,” you offer as Mando walks back through to the main area of the ship and raises the ramp. You lean against the metal wall in one corner, watching him fulfil his routine.

“Good,” he says, appreciative in his own way that you know that he likes to be constantly on the move. “What’s the ETA?”

“Only a few hours,” you say, pushing yourself off of the wall and going to the ladder to the cockpit. The ramp closes as you grab the rungs, looking back to Mando as he shadows you at the ladder. “You should get some rest before we arrive,” you offer.

He’s silent a moment while you face back to the ladder and start ascending. You hear him mutter a ‘okay, thank you,’ through his helmet before you climb your way fully into the cockpit. Once you’ve ascended, you don’t hesitate to go and sit in the pilot’s chair. Although you’re not the best pilot, favoring studying combat and languages instead of flight and mechanics, you manage. 

You settle in the seat and grab the flight controls, and hear Mando stepping onto the floor of the cockpit. You flick up a few switches and start the ship, letting her rumble to life while you look back over your shoulder at your Mandalorian.

“Sleep well,” you say with a hint of a smile.

He gives you a nod, hesitates, and then opens the door on the wall behind the cockpit, leading to the captain’s quarters. Once you hear his door swoosh close after his retreating footsteps, you let out a breath and encourage yourself, grabbing tightly onto the handles. 

Just get it into the sky, and the autopilot gets you there, you tell yourself, forcing the Razor Crest into the air. She succeeds in ascending, and you raise the landing gear and disarm any land security protocols. Following a mental list, you do exactly as you’ve seen Mando, and get the ship into space in no time. A little shaky, sure, but you don’t think it was enough to stir the captain out of bed.

—

One cycle.

You two take a brief break. There aren’t any bounties worthy of your time, anyway.

The smoke crawls up your wrist, wrapping around your forearm before dissipating into the air. You hold the ornate stem of the smoking pipe to your lips, inhaling shallowly, and let your arm drop as you try to breathe the smoke in deeper. A heavy sigh and the smoke passes back out of your lungs, past your lips, forming a cloud in front of your face. You wait, still holding the pipe, and look expectantly at your hosts.

Upon landing on this planet, at what seems to be the only one semi-decent town, the Razor Crest was surrounded by the inhabitants. Seemingly human-esque, you and the Mandalorian walked out of the ship with no weapons in your hands, ready to barter for some fuel and lodging for the night. The people of the planet, through an interpreter, were more than happy to allow you to stay.

Under one condition; uphold their welcoming traditions and take a huge hit off of the pipe the dude who seemed to be the chief was eagerly thrusting towards you two. 

Startled at the proposition, and more so by the growing ruckus of the onlooking crowd the longer Mando tried to deny the offer, you grabbed the pipe. The chief smiled widely and the crowd calmed, but Mando whipped his head towards you.

“Don’t smoke that,” he said. “You have no idea what it is.”

The interpreter tried to reassure you that it was safe, it was fine, a common plant that everyone on the planet enjoys. The longer you held the pipe without smoking it, the smaller the smile of the chief was and the more and more the rest of the people stirred. Eventually, it did devolve into a shouting match between Mando, the interpreter, the chief, and a few people in the crowd who were brandishing weapons. 

So you smoked it.

You’ve smoked a few things before in your experience, not a lot. Drinking was always more your thing, knowing that once the liquid passes through you it will be gone from your system. Inhalants? You could never be sure. But you would be a bad sidekick to the Mandalorian if you didn’t sacrifice your lungs for ease of service.

After the first inhale, the chief smiled again, and gestured for you to smoke some more. Ignoring the verbal protest of Mando, you brought the pipe back up to your mouth and puffed again. A bit bigger of a hit this time.

Well, much bigger, judging by the size of the cloud you just breathed out. Surprised, you let out a chuckle, but the irritation in your throat causes your laugh to turn into a hearty cough.

And the crowd cheered.

The chief took the pipe from you and draped his arm over your shoulders, guiding you and Mando behind you into the town. It’s a little town tucked into a small clearing beside a freshwater river and a thick grove of forest, tall and green trees that seem to tower over everything— perhaps the tallest trees you think you have ever seen. On this planet, there are three suns, and they are constantly setting in succession. So, it’s never really nighttime. 

And it seems like these people take advantage of that.

As the chief leads you and your Mandalorian through the stone streets lined with dark, muddy brick houses, your head starts to get light. Like, the tension in your neck loosens and your shoulders go slack. It’s nice— well, it would be, if you didn’t quickly associate it with whatever the chief insisted you smoke. The chief’s arm was still draped over your shoulders and he excitedly explained, in his native tongue, what you assume to be a detailed history of the town. All you could do was feign a smile, probably looking a bit dumb considered you don’t know if your cheeks are numb or just used to your wide grin by now, and nod in fake understanding. The Mandalorian is exactly three and a half paces behind you.

The interpreter is walking beside Mando, re-explaining everything the chief is saying. You aren’t able to listen to both the chief and the interpreter, somehow lacking the mental capacity to focus back and forth between the two, now. The crowd of people disappeared once you smoked from the fancy pipe, save for a handful that you assume are the chief’s servants, so the little troop led by you and the chief eventually hits the end of the main street. 

The chief removes his arm from your shoulders and gives you a nice, hard slap on the back. He says something, while gesturing to a small cottage that bookends the houses lining the road. You’re too busy staring off in the distance, past the green grass that traces the treeline and river. One of the suns is setting, casting a mesmerizing red haze over the tips of the trees, painting the freshwater of the river golden. 

You hear the Mandalorian call your name, and turn to face him.

And he’s standing there, at the door of the cottage the chief is letting you two use for the night, practically glowing with how the setting sun is glinting off of his beskar. 

“Are you okay?” He asks, a second time, but you didn’t hear the first.

You cannot help the unabashed grin that swallows your face, and stumble over to the door. “Never better. Everything is great. You should’ve smoked that shit, too.”

You hear him sigh and he opens the door for you, stepping back so you can walk in first. So you meander in, hand lightly following the wall because you’re suddenly doubting your balance. You find a seat at the small table that’s placed in the middle of the room, and you still can’t stop yourself from smiling. 

The Mandalorian drops a bag at the foot of one of the cots that he must’ve gone back to the Crest to get, but you don’t remember him doing that. And then he drops your night bag at the foot of the other cot, and you wonder when he went and got your bag.

“Thanks,” you croak out, still smiley, and brace your elbows on the table. “D’you have any idea what I smoked?”

“No,” he admits, voice monotone as usual through the vocoder. He pulls out the second chair and sits across from you. The cottage, small but spacious enough for two people to not knock elbows, was alight with soft sunshine filtering in through the numerous windows. Who needs light on a planet that is constantly day?

“How do you feel?” He asks, visor intent on staring you down. 

“Spectacular,” you reply, staring back at the visor. You used to wear a gaudy helmet when you were a trooper, so you’re pretty damn sure you know exactly where his eyes are behind that mask. 

“You look drunk.”

Your smile, instead of faltering, is drawn a little wider and your elbows slip forward on the table until your chest is pressed up against the wood, your chin almost touching the tabletop but your cheeks are squished by your hands, keeping your head up. “I feel like it, too. But, different at the same time, y’know?” 

“No, I don’t know,” the Mandalorian says as he leans back in his chair. His hands are flat against his thighs, and you’re 99% sure he is simply watching you. Out of worry or annoyance, of course you can’t tell, but you’re leaning towards annoyance.

So you tilt your head to the side, staring back, trying your fucking hardest to stifle the stupid smile on your face but you just can’t. “Want me to tell you what you’re missin’?”

Surprisingly, the Mandalorian tilts his head as well, mimicking you. “Enlighten me.”

“Have y’ever got so drunk that you just had to sit there and wait ‘til the booze gets filtered out of your system?” You start, letting your head— so heavy— fall further to the side and land on the table, a nice foundation to ground you. You’re so slumped in your chair your legs are straight, sticking out of the sides underneath the table as you stretch your arms to dangle off of the table. “And yet it’s like, the best part of bein’ sloshed is comin’ up so you don’t want to sober up and y’just— just— sit there, stewing.” 

He lets out a hum, letting you know he’s still politely listening to your ramblings.

Any thoughts in your head blur, images and words swishing around behind your eyes as you try to focus on what you were saying. “And nothin’ hurts or aches and you get to forget ‘bout everything bad you did that day and just look at the stars. Y’get to look at them, and for the first time you see them, see the life they hold and foster and you feel special knowin’ you’re a part of it all.”

There is a moment of silence, or— you think so, but your breathing is a little heavier than usual. The moment draws out, longer, and you’re beginning to wonder if you actually said that stuff out loud or if you simply thought it.

You bolt upright in your chair, cheeks red with embarrassment— but the fucking smile is still on your stupid face. 

“I don’t know what’s up with me right now,” you admit, eyes focused on one of the windowsills off near the door, so you don’t have to look at that helmet and feel the stare behind it. “The chief said that they smoke this stuff all the time and don’t sleep a wink, but I feel super tired.”

In your peripheral vision you see the dreaded helmet glint in the sunlight. He’s looking at you, quizzically. “What do you mean?” He asks. “The interpreter didn’t say that.”

“No,” you agree, looking back at him. You try to focus where you know a face is behind the helmet, but you can’t get the image to clear in your head. It’s all a little blurry at the edges, and your Mandalorian is all edges. “I said the chief said that.” 

“He didn’t speak any Galactic Basic. When did you hear him say that?”

The edges blur some more. “He said it when we were all walking, I dunno. He just said it.”

The Mandalorian looks toward the door, thinking. 

“It must be the ganja,” you offer.

He looks back. “The what?”

“The offering. That’s what the chief called it. But, well, I dunno if that’s what it’s actually named or what they call it,” you say, unable to look at the sharpness and crisp lines that make up the beskar armor. What’s going on with you? You weren’t concerned until now, reaching a hand up to trace your bottom lip and finding that you have control over your face again. No more creepy smiling. “I feel fine, though. From smoking.”

You steal a glance at him and find that he is still, predictably, staring at you. Your cheeks grow hot again, suddenly feeling like a burden to your employer. He is not a babysitter, and you don’t want him to feel like he has to watch over you as you ride this high.

“Really,” you add. “I feel fine. Things look weird, right now, and my head is fuzzy, but it feels good.”

He stares, and you bitterly wonder if that’s all he’s good for.

So you stand up, eyes scanning the room and you notice the heavy curtains tied neatly above each window. “Guess we should sleep,” you say, stepping towards one of the windows to let the curtains down to block out the never-ending sunlight.

But, your ankles feel a little weak, and your balance falters. 

Before your hazy head even registers that you’ve lost your footing, the Mandalorian is at your side, his right arm tucked behind your back, his right hand firmly on your right hip. His left hand is grasping your left upper arm tight enough to bruise, but without his strong grip, you would have crumbled to the floor like a tossed blanket. 

“Are you okay?” He asks immediately, and holds you tighter and hauls you up back onto your unsteady feet. Once the words finally registered in your brain, you briefly thought that he really did sound concerned— masked voice a little higher in pitch than usual.

Your fuzzy head decides the best thing to do in response is laugh as you stood up back on your own. “I’m okay,” you assure, a hint of laughter still in your voice, and you raise your hand to lightly shove him away, not needing his support anymore.

But, since he’s solid as a fucking rock, your hand just brushes against the beskar chestplate uselessly. That causes you to laugh a little more, and he lets go of you once he’s sure you can stand solidly on your own.

“Are you sure?” He asks, still with that higher pitch that the vocoder almost hides. He’s hovering close to your side, ready to catch you again if he has to. 

Curious, you raise your hand and tap your knuckles against his chestplate, and the resounding thud thud makes you smile. “Fuckin’ hardcore, Mando. I’m so jealous of your armor.”

“Yeah, you’re not okay,” he says, but you swear you hear a lilt in his voice, as though he finds you amusing. “You should try to sleep it off.”

He gestures towards one of the beds but you don’t look over to it. Instead, you tap your knuckles against one of his pauldrons. Tink tink. 

“Really,” he insists, and you for sure hear the smile on his face in that one word. “You need some sleep.” He grabs your shoulders and turns you around, slowly, so that you’re facing the bed. 

“Would you close the blinds?” You ask, stumbling forward to the bed. You flounce on top of the blanket, as this planet is quite comfortably warm— or are you just warm? — and let out a heavy sigh. A real bed.

“Of course,” Mando replies, strutting to each of the five windows in this small, quaint cottage and letting down each of the curtains. In the back of your hazy mind, you know he can see in the dark with the HUD in his helmet. The thought makes you slightly jealous, and you wonder if, as you turn to lay on your back in the blackness, if he may be looking at you. You blame the ganja for the fuzziness that overtakes you at the thought.

“Thank you,” you call into the darkness.

You hear his friendly hum somewhere in the room, and hear him sit down at the table again. Truly, the inhabitants of this planet know how to utilize the sun, and how to hide from it, as you open your eyes to stare at the ceiling and see nothing. It is completely pitch black, and you’re impressed.

The feeling of the mattress underneath you is almost too soft. You can’t remember the last time you were able to sleep on a real bed— if you ever had the pleasure. It reminds you of floating in deep salt water, the effort of staying afloat taken away from you as you just let it happen. Currently, you’re not sure if your eyes are open or closed, as it makes no difference. Your breathing is stable, and the haze in your head is tolerable. You must be coming down from the peak, and it’s making you tired.

Quietly, you hear the Mandalorian’s gloved hands grasp metal, but you’re not sure what. You hear something slightly heavy placed on the table.

He calls your name, softly, and unfiltered. 

“Yes?” You reply, breathless. Did he take his helmet off?

“Go to sleep,” he says. His usually gruff voice sounds gentle without the vocoder.

“Okay,” you say, and you do indeed need to close your eyes. The blackness behind your eyelids seems almost darker than the darkness of the room. Unbeknownst to you, you must’ve been extremely tired, because you pass out almost immediately.