#trying a new format but also the costumes this season!!!!

[giveafike]

TLDR: Halloween with your boyfriend, Ben!

Word count + info: 4.8k. Dialogue (conversation and azzie commentary throughout).

Warnings + Content Ahead: SFW but also...lwky PG 13. Suggestive themes, but nothing too NSFW. Mention of a burn injury and gagging in between (in a SFW way) so if that's something to put you off, read cautiously!

Azzie Notes ✚: YAYY halloween post! I couldn't pick what kind of blurb to write so...I wrote a bunch of mini ones! I tried something new, idk if I fw this format or not, you guys lmk honestly how you feel about bulleted posts.

ALSO! Stay safe tonight guys! Idk about you guys but where I'm from, Halloween can get a bit crazy or out of control, so whatever you do tonight, be responsible and sensible for this weekend! And happy Diwali to anyone celebrating - diye jalein aur mithaiyan chalen 🤭 bas khushiyaan hi khushiyaan ho (someone send me ukadiche modak PUHLEASE) 🤍🪔

I'm literally writing this part on the train home from work lmao, I'm gonna get on my laptop and get the big story up too, idk why it didn't upload yday but it's not here in my drafts or scheduled anymore! I'll figure it out tho dw.

Socials + Updates: twitter ( @azziegivesafike)

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Halloween'ing - B.T.S.

It must've been the very first time Ben was home for a holiday that wasn't Christmas or New Year's and God, were you excited.

Sure, losing in Paris sucked but the amount of time you could spend and things you could do together was exhilarating. You were practically buzzing off of the walls with ideas.

Halloween wasn't something you had given much care or notice to since your childhood, but now there was a whole new rush of activities and warmth surrounding the beautiful season, something you welcomed warmly.

how many homemade treats you could make, pumpkin carving with Ben, maybe even dress up together as a couple...

Ben was more eager about the idea of candy (and you in a sexy Halloween costume)

You could drone on and on about how good those Trader Joe Pumpkin Spice cookies were, you never expected yourself to fall for the Pumpkin Spice craze but here you were, talking Ben's ear off.

He rolled his eyes pretending to be nonchalant

even though he'd be reaching for another cookie within a few minutes.

"Just need to check they're not poisoned...are these laced with sumn'?"

A couple of days later, when you and Ben got back from the pumpkin patch, you laid out your carving kit on the island, practically jumping to get stuck in.

Was far from picture-perfect though.

Ben's kryptonite was the damn pumpkin from the get-go.

His shoulders are up to his ears as he leans over his pumpkin, cautiously poking at the hollowed-out insides with a look of pure dread.

You’ve literally provided him with every scooper and tool imaginable, trying to make this as clean as possible, but he’s still staring into the pumpkin like it’s some kind of orange horror show.

He holds his breath, then takes a tentative scoop, immediately gagging at the smell.

“Oh my god…babe, it’s like-” he shudders, hand over his nose, “like mouldy socks and old food had a baby.”

His face scrunches up as he recoils, practically jumping back. “Nah, no way.”

The sight is so absurd you burst into laughter, doubling over as he waves his hands like he’s trying to shake off the memory. "It’s not that bad! See!” you say, holding up a slimy handful of seeds with a wicked grin.

He gags, shuddering and shuts his eyes.

You’re insane if you think this is normal. This pumpkin needs, like, a hazmat suit or something.”

He flinches again, rubbing his nose like he can’t get the smell out of it, even though he hasn’t touched it with his bare hands yet.

He's deadass wearing medical gloves for this.

“Ben,” you gasp between laughs, wiping a tear from your eye. “It’s just a pumpkin. You’re acting like it’s a dead possum or something!”

“Smells like one,” he mutters darkly, gingerly pushing the spoon back toward the orange insides, his hand shaking just enough to make you lose it all over again.

Took maybe like, an hour and a half for him to de-gut the pumpkin

each attempt is met with a new level of melodrama, and by the fourth scoop, you’re clutching your sides, actually having to pause because you can barely breathe from laughing so hard.

He manages to carve out some semblance of a face, albeit a lopsided one with stupid teeth and tiny eyes that look more befuddled than scary.

“See? Told you I could do it,” he says, though his voice is shaky as if he’s barely recovered from a traumatising experience.

Such a diva, oh my god bruh.

You take one look at the pumpkin’s wonky, wide-eyed expression and nearly snort.

It's giving that "dumb ahh pumpkin" TikTok trend.

It’s actually the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever seen.

“Ben, it’s adorable.”

“S’posed to be scary…”

You glance over at him, lips twitching as you pull out your phone, quietly queuing up that TikTok audio. You hold in your laughter as you film the pumpkin with the distorted “pumpkin!” sound blaring, then pan the camera up to Ben.

The look of stunned betrayal on his face as he realises what you’ve done is absolutely priceless, his jaw dropping before he tries to reach for the phone.

The video catches his reaction in perfect two-second glory, and you both watch it back, his stunned face paired with the ridiculous audio, unable to stop laughing.

As you clean up, (Ben finally taking off his surgical blue gloves and scrubbing his hands away like a surgeon) you set the pumpkins outside and place the tealight candles inside, smiling at your actually scary pumpkin and...

that dumb pumpkin Ben made.

It's cute though, side by side, in its own way.

But you can't spend forever admiring them, it's time to make the snacks for your movie marathon tonight!

It was Ben's idea, he had a list of candy to buy and was on popcorn duty but the real star of the show was gonna be the Halloween classic; candy apples.

You both set up in the kitchen, bowls and ingredients spread out, ready to take on the challenge together.

Ben eyes the setup, grinning and rolling up his sleeves like he’s ready to make a masterpiece, even if you’re still suspicious of his pumpkin-carving skills.

The air is still sweet from the pumpkin guts, but with the sugar and cinnamon in the mix now, the atmosphere feels a bit warmer and cozier.

"Just you watch,” he says, giving you a confident wink. “I can make these apples look better than anything you’d find at a fair.”

It's adorable seeing Ben so confident and yet so easy by your side, almost competitive in his ways but not actually challenging or pushing you.

As you dip the apples one by one into the pot of Ben's hot sugar syrup, the colours come out glossy and bright red.

He might be onto something, these are looking pretty good!

As you both move onto the 4th one, you hear a small sizzle, then a loud, sharp hiss.

“Oh—ow, ow! Damn, that’s hot as fuck!”

You grab his hand immediately, your fingers gently running over the reddening spot on his palm.

“Ben! I told you to be careful! Sugar burns like crazy.”

“I knowwwww, I know,” he whines, wincing.

You lead him over to the sink and run cool water over his hand. You can’t help but smile softly as you fuss over him, pressing a soft kiss to his knuckles while the cold water soothes his burn, holding his fingers in your hand as you focus on the pained spot.

“You’re such a disaster in the kitchen, you know that?”

“Hey, I was just…testing the temperature, tha's all.”

You roll your eyes and wrap his hand in a small ice pack for a bit, lingering there in the quiet, the coolness of the ice melting away any sting, until his hand feels better and you’re ready to tackle the apples again.

But no sooner than you start, he picks one up-

idiot

eyeing it as if he’s about to bite down without a second thought.

“BEN, ITS STILL SCALDING PUT IT DOW-”

You grab his wrist moving the semi-hardened apple away before he injures himself more.

"Just testin' your reflexes" he mumbles, laughing a bit.

"Sure."

Ben stepped out to light your pumpkins on the porch doorstep as the sun set, smiling and taking a quick photo, admiring the silly tradition spent together.

The house filled with the scent of caramel, you and Ben settle under a pile of blankets over you both, a bowl of popcorn wedged between your legs, and an assortment of snacks within easy reach for a spooky movie marathon.

He went out for a bit to "go grab something"

only to come back with some stupid clown mask, hiding behind the sofa to startle you.

After you screamed and he apologised with kisses and cuddles (after minutes of laughing and mocking you), you dimmed the lights and settled in, starting with a classic slasher that sets the spooky mood right from the start.

It doesn’t take long for the jump scares to start, and though you brace yourself, there’s one moment that catches you off guard, making you gasp and clutch his arm tightly. Ben laughs, his hand sliding around your shoulders, pulling you closer.

“Spooked already?”

“No! Not scared, just…caught off guard.”

Ben nestles his head against yours, finding himself kissing the top of your head, his arm around you as he rubs soothing circles on your arm.

He's doing all that to distract himself from the jumpscares btw.

Bc he's getting just as startled as you, if not more.

He completely zones out while watching and the jumpscares jolt through him, snapping him back to the movie plot, which then scares him even more - like, wdym there's a killer on the loose and he's literally right beside the main character?!?

But comforting you, in its odd way makes him feel comforted and safe too.

He can't help but find himself enthralled in all the silly traditions and festivities around Halloween just because it's by your side.

As the next one rolls in, he glances down at you and peppers kisses along your hairline, his lips warm and gentle.

Though you’re locked in and wrapped up in the tension of the movie, you feel safe and completely at ease in his arms.

Doesn't last long though.

As the hours creep into the deep of night it seems like the movies get spookier, creepier, and more disturbing, and his thumb rubs soft circles on your shoulder whenever a scene begins, almost instinctively comforting you as he whispers soft reassurances.

You can't even listen to what he's saying, your clammy hands gripping his arm as you squeal, failing to tear your eyes away.

"Oh my god, Be- BEN!! OH MY GOD!"

He just covers your eyes with his hand

"Ben, I can't see"

"Good, it's awful, don't watch this scene"

He feels super cool and smart for pulling that move out btw. “Just another day of protecting my girl”

By the time the credits roll on the last film, you’re tucked against him, drowsy, exhausted and a sugar crash hitting you as the remains of the candied apples and popcorn are strewn over the table.

He glances down, his fingers brushing your cheek, and tilts your chin up for a sweet, lingering kiss.

“Still scared?” he asks in a soft voice.

“Maybe a little,"

“Good,” he murmurs, his smile warm. “Means I get to hold you all night."

What an opportunist.

It's the night before Halloween before you know it, the excitement of pumpkin carving, candied apples, and scary movies behind you.

Ben suggests a late-night drive!

"Let's see the decorations, it's a trip down my memory lane"

He's got that :D face going on, how could you even resist?

The air is cool and crisp as you both pile into his car, wrapped in hoodies and each other’s warmth.

Ben reaches over, like he always does, lacing his fingers with yours as he pulls out of the driveway, his thumb brushing soft, slow circles over your hand.

The neighbourhood is dressed for the season, with yards filled with skeletons, giant spiders, and strings of orange and purple lights that flicker in the dark.

Some houses go all out, with life-size ghost projections, speakers, massive jumpscare decorations and fog machines casting an eerie glow across the lawns, while others keep it simple with a row of glowing pumpkins along the steps.

It’s like Halloween magic has taken over, and the streets are a soft blend of shadows and a warm, festive glow amidst the golden leaves scattered all over.

“See that one? That’s where the Johnsons live. They’ve been doin’ that witch since I was like, I dunno, 10? Never changes. Every year, same decorations.”

Ben points out more houses, telling you which ones hand out full-size candy bars, which houses skimped out and which ones used to scare him when he and Emma were kids.

“You’d be one of those kids who scoped out the best houses before Halloween, wouldn’t you?”

“Absolutely. Me, Emma and my buddies’d race for the full-sized bars, but if we made it to Mr. O’Malley’s house last? He’d run outta candy and give us IOU's for his store instead. That was the jackpot right there,” He laughs, squeezing your hand as he reminisces.

You nod, listening as he goes on, getting lost in the stories, the way his eyes sparkle a bit more with each memory. He talks about the high school haunted houses, how his friends would sneak around, trying to out-scare the actors, and the endless piles of candy that took him weeks to finish.

How Emma wouldn't let him tag along with her and her friends because he was embarrassing her.

His voice softens as he describes the little thrills and mischievous moments, almost as if Halloween itself has this permanent spot in his heart.

He drives slower, letting the headlights illuminate the way as you soak in the charm of it all and the softness of being alone together.

You rest your head against the window, his hand warm in yours, the night stretching on in the glow of the lights and the quiet roads.

“Hard to believe I get to spend it with the love of my life this year,” he says after a while, glancing over with a soft smile, his voice is barely above a whisper.

It's almost like he was saying it to himself, more than to you.

You kiss the back of his hand, holding it there, feeling the warmth of the moment entirely.

As you drive past another house, one with an elaborate ghost setup and an old-fashioned lamp swinging like a haunted porch light, he points, chuckling. “Man, they’d have the best haunted houses. I’d be scared stiff. Now? Not so much.”

"Uh-huh, sure, Ben. I reckon you'd still get scared."

"We can pretend like I’m the brave one.”

“Oh, so you’re brave now?” you tease, raising an eyebrow.

“Only when you’re here,” he says, brushing a soft kiss over your knuckles.

"So cheesy, Shelton"

"And you eat it up every time" he quips back, smiling.

The drive back is peaceful, almost like you’re kids again, wrapped in an innocent kind of wonder and admiration that the holiday brings.

When he finally pulls into his driveway, he parks but doesn’t make a move to get out.

Instead, he rests his head on the seat, just watching you, studying you.

The moonlight catches in his eyes, and he gives you that sweet, sleepy look that’s filled with all the warmth and happiness you could ask for, both of you bathed in the moonlight together.

The next day is Halloween, and no surprise, Ben forgot to mention something:

there's a party...

and he said you're going....

"Ben, what the FUCK are we gonna wear? I don't even have anything remotely close to a costume and-"

"Victoria's Secret model?"

He gets a punch to the arm for that quip. He had that ready and blurted it out wayyyy too quickly.

Once again, he's an opportunist!

Can't fault him! Don't hate the player, hate the game or whatever those finance bros say.

You both end up going to a costume warehouse, which, to no surprise (except Ben's), is practically ransacked and has just a small selection left.

"Wow! These racks and shelves are almost empty!"

"Yeah Ben, it's quite literally Halloween day..."

"Oh, yeah..."

"yep."

By the time you make your way to the ladies' section, Ben’s excitement is borderline overwhelming.

He's tossing costumes in your direction, with each pick, his grin only grows, that voice of his thickening with each comment.

Bet you can't guess what kind of costumes he's looking at!

“Alright, babe, here’s what I’m thinkin’.”

He hands you a bag with a red devil outfit...

...which is basically a glorified bodysuit.

“This, or-wait, wait, wait…”

He reaches back and pulls out a barely-there nurse outfit.

“Maybe this? C’mon, tell me you wouldn’t look hot as hell in it.”

"Oh my god, Catwoman?! Baby...Catwoman! You'd look so fuckin' good as...wait what's this one? Oh! Or, how about a cop? It comes with handcuffs!!!"

He's practically blushing with several skimpy costumes in his arms, a gummy smile wide, and eyes massive like a teenager looking at a Playboy magazine for the first time.

“I was actually thinking… Fiona, from Shrek. The green body paint, prosthetic nose and all.”

His face falls in sheer horror.

He just stands there, slackjawed, like you’ve crushed his biggest dreams.

“Fiona…as in an ogre? He says the word like it’s filthy like he’s never even wanted to say it out loud.

“Yep! I could even add some fake dirt on my body, really make it realistic…”

Ben’s just staring at you, his face still frozen in disbelief. “Naw…nah, you didn’t just say that.”

He waves a hand up and down in front of you like he’s trying to wipe the thought from his mind.

“Babe, we’re supposed to look good, not…swampy.”

With a grin, you roll your eyes and you eventually head toward the dressing room, pulling on the first costume in his pile that he gave you to throw on.

Of course, it's a flirty Snow White costume; a corset with puff sleeves and tiny skirt, knee-high socks and a headband. When you step out, Ben’s mouth drops again, but this time with a grin that spreads across his face.

“See now that is what I’m talkin’ about,” he drawls, sliding a hand around your waist, fingers tracing the fabric. “Got me forgettin’ my own name…”

You roll your eyes, swatting his hand away. “Ben, it’s just Snow White!”

“Just Snow White?” he repeats, shaking his head. “Nah, I’m thinkin’ you’re the finest Snow White.” His fingers drift just a bit too low, making you laugh as you smack his hand away again.

Back in the dressing room, you slip into the next one, a green Tinkerbell dress that’s even shorter and lined with sparkles.

You don’t even have to walk out fully before Ben’s already there, grinning like he’s been waiting for hours.

“Look at you, my lil’ pixie…” He wraps his arm around your waist and pulls you close, lips brushing your ear. “Darlin’, I don’t think I’m gonna let you wear this one outta my sight.”

“Are you even paying attention to the costumes or are you just looking for excuses?” you tease.

You're trying to ignore the butterflies in your stomach as his eyes practically undress you on the spot.

“Alright, alright.” He laughs, backing off as you return to the dressing room one more time to pull on the cop outfit.

His eyes roam over every inch, pausing at the handcuffs dangling from your fingers and the baton tucked into your belt, wrapped around your hips.

“Oh, hell yeah,” he mutters, his gaze darkening. He steps up, his hands back on your waist, fingers digging in a little tighter.

“You’re arrestin’ me, right? Pleaseeee say you’re here to arrest me.”

“You need to behave if we're gonna get out of this store with a costume for us,” you say, laughing as he tugs you closer, his eyes glued to the baton you’re tapping on his shoulder.

“Not a chance, babe.” He grins, leaning in. “Now, why don’t I go grab that badge of yours so I can behave just a lil worse…”

You shove him off with a scoff and an eye roll but that smile on your face deceived your annoyed expression.

You had a little plan schemed, all look you’d picked, your surprise masterpiece:

a head-to-toe roach costume with long, wiry legs, little antennae, and bug eyes on top.

You wriggle into the thick styrofoam costume, taking a deep breath before stepping out in all your creepy-crawly glory.

“Benny?” you call in a sing song voice, trying to keep a straight face. “Got the perfect costume.”

He turns, expecting another flirty outfit, and instead just stands there, blinking.

He’s completely silent.

A whole ten seconds pass before he finally clears his throat, rubbing the back of his neck.

“…Nah, babe,” he says, voice almost pitying. “Nah, this…this just ain’t right. Not right at all.”

You hold up your arms and wiggle the little roach legs at him, the same way you wiggled in the Snow White costume.

“What, it’s not cute?”

“I- baby, look- you know I love you…” he starts, trying and failing to keep from laughing as he waves at you. “But I just can’t- I can’t even look at you right now. That’s straight-up trauma in a costume.” He finally lets out a snort, covering his face with his hands.

Finally, after giving him a good laugh, you change into the last one, the one you’ve both been waiting for.

It’s an angel costume with a touch of elegance: a top made of shimmering gold metal feathers that shine under the store lights, a golden headpiece that makes you look almost ethereal, and long, graceful wings. The skirt flares out in layers of white and gold, making you look like you’ve stepped straight out of a dream.

When you step out, Ben’s quiet, the devilish grin on his face replaced by something a little softer, his breath hitching a bit, his gaze a little more serious as he takes you in.

“Now this,” he says, moving closer, reaching for your hand. “This is somethin’ else, darlin’. You look exactly what you are, an angel.”

“Good enough for Halloween?” you ask, giving a little twirl as the golden wings glint in the light.

“Oh, way better.” He nods, a wicked glint in his eyes. “Cause I’ll be right there as your devil.”

He hands you the bag for his costume, a black shirt, unbuttoned pretty low, black pants, and, of course, dark wings and horns.

“We’re gonna make one hell of a pair.” His gaze drifts over you again, taking in every detail.

“Angel like you with a devil like me might just be our best look yet.”

From the look in his eyes, you know this Halloween party is going to be a night to remember.

He paid for the costumes of course, btw.

Only after making a million innuendos about you being an angel.

"Y'know I thought angels were pure, you can get pretty nasty when you-"

"Shut it."

"Yes, m'darlin' ".

As you approach the house party, the bass thumps in your chest, seeing all sorts of costumes around you, some faces familiar to Ben, childhood friends and college peers alike.

After a few shots, a couple of drinking games and slurred conversations, you and Ben melt into each other in the cramped living room, his arm wrapped tight around your waist, fingers dipping dangerously low.

His other hand slips along the curve of your hip, thumb grazing your bare skin, sending a thrill up your spine.

The dim lights reflect off your golden feathers, casting a halo around you, but Ben’s dark eyes are glued to yours, unrepentant, that devilish grin driving you insane.

How in character!

His lips brush your ear, his breath warm and his words slurred and heavy with a bit too much vodka.

“You’re… somethin' else tonight, y’know that?” he murmurs, words melting into the bass line, his drawl thicker, slow and dragging as he pulls you even closer.

“Got every guy in here starin' at my angel…”

You laugh, tipsy, rolling your eyes. “Pretty sure they’re all lookin’ at you, devil boy.”

He just smiles, his hands sliding lower, pressing you tight against him as he lets out a low laugh. “Naw, they’re jealous,” he mumbles, lips grazing your neck as he speaks. “Cause I’m the only one you’re gettin’ all worked up over…”

You feel the heat rising between you two, the music, the drinks, the dim lights casting everything in a hazy blur.

He pulls you in, tilting your face up, his lips finding yours, messy and rough as if he’s been waiting all night to feel your mouth on his.

His hand cradles your face, fingers slipping into your hair, holding your jaw, tugging you close as he kisses you like he’s been starving for it.

He tastes like dark liquor and something a little sweeter, and when you pull away, you can’t tell if it’s his lips that are wet or yours.

He’s breathing heavily, eyes locked on you, that stupid, sinful grin spreading wider.

“Wanna get outta here?” he whispers, voice barely louder than the music.

You don’t even hesitate, nodding as he takes your hand and tugs you through the crowd, your pulse racing.

His grip is tight, his eyes glinting with that familiar, heated look, and you can’t help but laugh as he leads you out of the house and into the warm Floridian night.

You barely make it to outside, stumbling onto the lawn, before his hands are on you again, pressing you against the trunk of a tree, his mouth crashing into yours. You moan into him, hands running over his chest, feeling the heat radiating off him even through his shirt.

“Oh, Ben…” you breathe, leaning back as he drags his mouth along your neck, nipping and teasing, his laughter low and husky against your skin.

“God, you’re perfect,” he slurs, mouth brushing up the line of your jaw as his hand slides around your waist.

You’re ready for him to take you right then and there, leaves crunching underfoot, your fingers slipping under his shirt, tugging it open just a little further when-

“Wait, wait, wait,” he mutters, pulling back suddenly.

His eyes are wide and hazy, his head perks up as he looks over his shoulder for a moment and blinks, his mouth twisting into a grin as he takes your hand again.

“Hold up. Got an even better idea.”

You blink, trying to catch your breath, utterly dazed. “Wha-…what are you talking about?”

He’s already leading you down the sidewalk, back towards the rows of decorated houses, each porch lit up with Halloween lights and pumpkins.

You stop dead in your tracks, your lips still swollen from his kisses, realising he’s actually serious.

“Ben, you’re not-no way, no shot.” You laugh, almost disbelieving as he walks up the first driveway, holding your hand and looking back with that same goofy smile.

No way.

“Trick or treatin'!” he says, completely earnest, already reaching for the doorbell.

He's looking at you all innocent, like he wasn't being handsy with you just 2 minutes ago.

You stare at him, utterly floored. “Ben, you’re seriously…you’re just gonna go trick-or-treating? Right now? Like this?”

“Hell yeah!” he says, as if this is the most normal thing in the world, shrugging.

“I’m in costume, you’re in costume…what’s stoppin’ us?”

Before you can even answer, the door swings open, revealing an elderly woman with a massive bowl of candy. She takes one look at Ben in his black wings, the gold feathers shining around you, and lets out a cackle of laughter.

“Now, I didn’t expect trick-or-treaters this age tonight!” she says, eyes bright with amusement as she holds the candy out. “You two are just adorable. D'ya need a bag, hun?”

Ben grins, holding his hand out. “Thank you, ma’am. I mean…Halloween’s all about free candy, right?”

His boyish cheeky charm works like a treat, even on the old ones. smh.

With a warm chuckle, she drops a couple of candy bars into his hands before handing him a bag before she waves goodbye.

Ben shoves the candy in, already heading down to the next house, practically skipping with that same childish grin.

“C’mon, m'angel, let’s go score some more!”

You can’t help but laugh, shaking your head as you trail along beside him.

The night takes on a new light, the alcohol still buzzing through you both as you hit every house on the block, each one adding more candy to Ben’s rapidly filling bag.

He grabs an empty trick-or-treat bag left on a stoop, offering it to you with a dramatic flourish, and before long, you’re both stumbling from house to house, holding hands and giggling like you’re kids again.

Ben feeds you chocolate in between houses, his eyes soft and a little drowsy, that irresistible grin plastered on his face.

The two of you wander holding hands, his devil horns slightly askew, his shirt still messily half-buttoned as you both talk in low, slurred voices.

Somewhere along the way, you both end up sitting on the curb since your feet hurt.

You both go digging through the bags like kids, surrounded by a mix of Reese’s, Milky Ways, and Twix bars.

“Still thinkin’ you’re too old for trick-or-treatin’?” he teases, popping a Snickers in his mouth.

“Fine,” you admit, laughing, leaning into his side. “Guess I can kinda see the appeal.”

He just grins, sliding his arm around your shoulders, pulling you in as the streetlights flicker above you, pressing soft kisses to your hair.

In the quiet night, surrounded by candy wrappers and the warm glow of Halloween night, you’re perfectly happy, just you, your devil, and a bag full of treats.

There was nothing sweeter than spending Halloween with Ben <33

[exactlymaximumgarden]

what i did for love (jschlatt x reader fic)

chapter 1: ...again!

summary: your broadway debut is finally here after years of working toward it. however, an unwelcome face is quick to crash the party. word count: ~1.3k warnings: fem!reader a/n: please don't yell at me if any of the details about the rehearsal process or whatever are factually incorrect. idgaf!!! all love ofc. also, this fic will (obviously) draw on a lot of material from a chorus line, so i’d suggest familiarizing yourself with the show while reading if you’re not already! not essential tho lol song: i hope i get it - a chorus line ensemble

The first thing you noticed was how, no matter where you performed or for how long, you would never get used to the way the stage lights quite nearly blinded you.

Opening night of your leg of A Chorus Line opened in less than two weeks, and you couldn’t be more elated. For years, this had been your dream. To perform, to be onstage, to be on Broadway. And now here you were. The show was undergoing another revival, a more modern take on the iconic musical. The casting directors had issued an open call to all aspiring stars in New York City to scout some fresh talent. They’d mentioned something about wanting to find unknowns, some unrecognizable faces since you couldn’t keep casting the same people over and over. That would be overkill, they said. That was a no-go. Not here. Not in the big leagues or whatever.

Hell, you were lucky that you even made it past the initial round of callbacks. But if you had told the version of you almost a year ago that was stepping into those auditions for the first time that you were going to be chosen to play Cassie, one of the most prominent roles in the show, you probably wouldn’t have believed it. A whole dance number and song to yourself, plus the most dialogue out of the rest of the female characters? It was surreal.

And now, after months of rehearsals, the opening was just around the corner.

It was no secret that everyone involved was growing increasingly antsy the closer opening night drew. Your castmates were collectively full of a newfound energy you hadn’t witnessed from them yet. It didn’t help that today was the first day of full costumes, plus more light and music cueing. Somehow, the show coming together brought everyone’s moods up by a thousand.

These more upbeat vibes were made evident as the cast stood in the primary assigned formation, one next to the other all in a line close to the edge of the stage. You stood, unable to stop yourself from fidgeting with the scarlet tulle of your costume’s skirt while, out in the audience, the production team buzzed amongst each other with directives, ideas on what to cue next, and how. And those stage lights, those damn lights, bore down upon you. You had to tilt your head down to keep the rays from blaring directly into your eyes.

“Okay!” You were no sooner snapped out of your daze at the booming sound of your director Vanja’s voice from out in the audience. Vanja was a middle-aged woman who’d been raised to become a ballet prodigy. She was not only a seasoned dancer but a strict, dedicated spirit, which was only natural considering her upbringing. She was functioning as both director and choreographer, so she was undoubtedly the most strung-up out of anyone involved in the show, but for obviously different reasons. You squinted, trying to search for her limber figure out in the house, but your vision was obscured from your point on the stage. Her eastern European accent (from exactly where, you couldn't recall) oozed through her words like a thick molasses as she continued, “We will be running ‘At The Ballet’ next. Victoria! Step up, please.”

From your left, your castmate Victoria stepped forward. The tall blonde had been cast as Sheila, the character who sung the first section of the aforementioned song. Since the two of you were sandwiched directly beside each other in the line formation, you’d become quite close during the rehearsal process. “Yes?” Victoria answered coolly, not at all intimidated by Vanja’s demanding tone. You couldn’t help but envy her a little bit for that.

“We will start a couple of lines before the beginning of the song,” Vanja instructed. “Isaiah will prompt you.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Isaiah!” Isaiah was another member of the cast, having been assigned the role of Zach, or the director of the chorus line the show centered around. Zach was primarily unseen throughout the show save for a few particular scenes, so Isaiah, the lucky bastard, got to sit out in the house for most of the rehearsals. You couldn’t see where he was located either, but Vanja seemed to have spotted him, as you could hear her advise, “Start from, ah… start from, ‘Better, go on.’ Just after she’s taken her ponytail down, yes?”

You heard a deeper voice clearing their throat, indicating Isaiah was beginning to speak his assigned dialogue. “Better. Go on.” 

Victoria, meanwhile, squared her shoulders in an attempt to rapidly lock into character before reciting her own lines. “Oh, how she did it. Well, first, she took me to see all the ballets. And then, she gave me her old toe shoes, which I used to run down the sidewalk in. On my toes. At five. And then-”

Suddenly, the typically fluorescent stage lights dimmed to a faded mix of blue and purple. It would have been a very serene color combo had it not been for Vanja’s deafening voice cutting Victoria’s dialogue off. “Hold!” she yelled. “That light cue is too early! That is not supposed to happen until the music starts! Who did that? Tech! Who did that?”

As Vanja spat out her rampaging words, Victoria turned her head just slightly enough to make eye contact with you. She sent you a discreet side-eye as if to nonverbally say, ‘She’s crazy!’

At that moment, one of the members of the tech crew stuck his head out from the wings of the stage. You recognized his face considering you’d seen him around so often, but you never caught his name. “Sorry, ma’am!” he apologized with a rueful grin. “That was an accident. I’m trying to show the new guy the ropes.”

New guy?

Judging by the tone of Vanja’s voice instantly calming down, she seemed to grasp the situation. “Ah, the new techie boy?” she queried. “I haven’t gotten to see him yet.”

“Oh, he’s right here.”

Almost as if on cue, everyone in the cast’s head turned towards the wing, where a second head popped out from behind the curtain. Your eyes widened. No way.

The new guy in question donned a polite smile, his oak brown curls cascading down the sides of his face into mutton chops you recognized all too well. His golden-rimmed aviator glasses shielded his glinting eyes. “How’s it goin’?” he greeted sheepishly, and to your right, you heard your castmate Ari suck in a quiet gasp. Nobody ever spoke to Vanja so casually.

No way.

“Hello.” Surprisingly, Vanja didn’t seem to mind so much. Or maybe she was just giving him the pass since he was new. “What’s your name? I apologize, I never caught it.”

“Oh, uh, Jay. Lotsa people call me Schlatt, though.”

No. Way.

“Ah. Pleasure to meet you, Jay.” You could practically hear the smile in Vanja’s words. “Come see me when we take a break so I can properly speak to you.”

“Will do. Sorry ‘bout the lights. I’ll be more careful.” 

Your stomach churned. Why the hell was he here? Him, of all people? Victoria, sweet Victoria, somehow seemed to catch on to your less than enthused reaction. In your periphery, you could see her quirking up a brow inquisitively at your expression. You couldn’t even make eye contact with her. You were too busy staring at Schlatt, fighting to keep your jaw from dropping.

And of course the prick had to notice you.

It happened in a split second. As he retreated back behind the curtain, your gazes met. A stupid grin crept onto his face as he saw you, clearly dumbfounded by his very presence in the theatre. If you weren’t onstage right now in front of all these people, you would’ve lunged at him.

You heard Vanja’s voice once more as the lights returned to their normal cue, preparing to resume the scene, but it all might as well have been a distant echo. Somehow, someway, Schlatt had made his way back into your life after fighting for so long to keep him out of it.

Why him?

next chapter

[controversial-blorbo-bracket]

Controversial Character Tournament Round 2: Blaine Anderson from Glee vs Barok Van Zieks from The Great Ace Attorney

(remember that these characters are fictional and your fellow tumblr users are real. i will block you if you harass others in the notes, please consider sending your unhinged harassment to my inbox instead)

Propaganda under the cut, may contain spoilers:

Blaine Anderson:

LOVE: - "you know that post that's like "fandom will call a character evil and immature and then the character is just 15 yo" because that's what happens with blaine. he's just a sweet but socially inept kid with a lot of insecurities who's trying his best. compared to most glee characters he hasn't done anything wrong in his life. and yes he cheated on his boyfriend that one time, but he was super depressed afterwards (also this is glee literally every character has cheated and none have suffered as most as blaine because of it). in conclusion he's just a silly goose. my little princess <3"

HATE: (tumblr will not let me format this one bc its too long)

"A lot of people say he's the male Rachel Berry, and while I think that is absolutely a true statement, I actually don't mind his personality all that much. Literally everyone in Glee has a personality that ranges from inconsistent to downright horrendeus, so instead of talking about what he's like, here's some things he canonically does (buckle up, this'll be long): In season 2, when we first meet him, he's the leader of his school's showchoir. (redflag no.1/j) This gives him the freedom and authoritity to do a lot of stuff- not all bad, but he does serenade a closeted guy he doesn't know all that well, who works in costumer service AT HIS WORKPLACE, with a song about sex toys. (The guy in question ends up getting fired of course). He also gives some pretty hypocritical advice to his love interest, Kurt, about how he should try to blend in (hypocritical, cuz Blaine does the opposite and he's thriving under the attention), and he asks some insesitive questions, but those are all pretty excusable, or at least standard for Glee. In s3, him and Kurt are boyfriends, and he transitions school for him, which we could absolutely count as a decent thing, however it all kinda sours when he gets the part of Tony in the school's production of West side story. Why is this important? Kurt is a senior, and the performing arts university he's applying for is really competitive, so he needs all the extra curriculars and theatre experiance he can get. He asks Blaine to not aidition for Tony- which he agrees to- than promptly goes against that by singing one of Tony's songs at audition. He then gets offfered the role, doesn't turn it down, tells Kurt he should be happy for him, and honestly, BY GLEE STANDARDS, this is also pretty chill. Meanwhile: enter Sebastian Smythe, another contraversial character, who's now the new captain of Blaine's former showchoir, and who decides that either 1. Blaine is hot 2. Gonna use Blaine as an informat (His reasons are unclear tbh) Either way, he starts flirting with Blaine, who does end up rejecting his advances and telling him he's taken (though much later than it's probably ethical, idk tho, I'm aro). He (Blaine) really enjoys the attention though, so they end up keeping in touch. (Important for later.) Back to our main plot though; Blaime doesn't have sexual chemistry with his co-star, so the director tells him to lose his virginity (yes, you heared that right, it is fucked up). So he tries to sleep with Kurt, who of course, doesn't know that his boyfriend's sudden interest in him is due to directoral instructions. And then probably the most contraversial Blaine scene happens- see, Blaine, Kurt, and Sebastian (who Kurt hates with passion) end up going to this gaybar. Blaime gets drunk (though he only drinks one beer on screen, so we don't exactly know how drunk), and tries to sleep with Kurt in the parking lot. Kurt is visibly upset, and tells him no multiple times. Blaime doesn't oblige, and Kurt ends up shouting at him, which Blaine...doesn't take well, and blames Kurt, then leaves by foot. (They end up having sex by the end of this episode btw. No, Kurt still doesn't know about the directoral instructions. Whether he does it out of love or fear that Blaine will leave him is unclear) So we already know these two are not very good at boundries and communication, but the writers say they're "soulmates" so apperantly it's okay? Anyway, this all culminates in cheating incident no.1, where Kurt meets a guy whom he shares similar interests with, and who gives him some very cheesy compliements. They exchange numbers, and text a lot. Blaine doesn't like this. He checks their texts in secret, and then sings a song in front of the entire Glee club about how he's being cheated on, to humiliate Kurt.

Kurt insists it's not cheating, giving the example that Blaine's doing the same/used ro do the same with Sebastian. Blaine says "that's different" and they leave it at that. Kurt apologises via song. S4- Kurt moves to New York. Has to work a lot, since rebt is high, and also gets an internship at vague, so he's quite busy. Blaine feels ignored, so he cheats on him with some guy we only see the facebook profile of. They break up. S5- Blaine has a crush in this other guy, Sam. (He's been trying to get Kurt back, so him moving on is a big deal). Except gay marrige gets legalized, and Blaine decides to propose to Kurt. So he gets back together with him, then bot a week later he arranges a huge public proposal where it'd honestly just be plain emberassing to say no, but dontcha worry, because Kurt accepts. They move to New York together. Blaine becomes insecure, because Kurt gets ripped thanks to his fencing lessons, meanwhile he lrts go of himself a bit, enjoying all the fine food New York has to offer. His reaction to this is to try manipulating/tricking Kurt into eating copious amounts of food too. (To be fair, Kurt's reaction to the situation isn't perfect either, but this is not about him, their actions can co-exist without one of them necessarily having to be "the right one") S6- Kurt breaks up with Blaine. Blaine ends up going back to Ohio, and dating the guy who bullied, non-consensually kissed, than threatened to kill Kurt. (The guy did have a redemption arc, but I still dunno how to feel) You might be wondering- "wow, this was so lpng and extensive", and you'd be right but also this was mostly romantic relationship centric. There's also a lot of stuff Blaine says to his friends that make me question my sanity, but this is Glee, so that's every character in basically every episode. What makes me hate Blaine isn't even JUST all this- it's the fact that in universe, he almost never gets called-out, people take his side, it's as if the writers are condoning his actions, and I Don't Like That. I'm all for liking morally grey, or even morally dispicable characters, as long as their actions don't get excused. Hell, I started out just mildly disliking Blaine, but a lot of people paint him as innocent and pure, and that didn't feel right. Then I was ready to like him BECUASE of his questionable morality- but turns out, the guy doean't have much else going on besides this. His personality is almost the same as Rachel, except Rachel's more...full? If that makes sense? Blaine is just...bland. And inconsistent, and boring, and I just Do Not Like Him At All."

Baron Van Zieks:

LOVE: - "man's 6'4", british, looks like a vampire, took a mental health break for 5 years thanks to the dead bodies that cropped up after he lost in court, and is uhhhhhh kinda racist which is a key part of his character. the explanation for it is divisive but he does grow as a character eventually?? i think he's fun. there's a bonus case exclusive to the 3DS version of the games where he mentions he was almost poisoned in one of the first cases he ever handled. he objects with his leg. he brings wine into court but rarely drinks it. he has bats in his office. we have no idea where the scar on his face came from. his voice actor did a subway commercial. i think he wants to believe he is the sane one in the courtroom but that title belongs to the 16 year old judicial assistant for the defense." - "I love to hate him tbh!!! He's a complex interesting character tied up in things outside of his control and being used by the antagonist to hurt people, isolated due to his grief and rumors from the public. He also sucks SO fucking bad and I want to punch him. Lovingly. But I love him I promise."

[guardianbingo]

October Bonus Prompt

October is here, which means spooky season is upon us.

This month's bonus prompt is Costume/Disguise. You are free to interpret this prompt as literally or figuratively as you like. (Full details about bonus prompts are below the cut.) Have fun and happy creating!

P.S. – There's still time left to signup for Guardian Bingo. We’d love to have you join us!

What Is A Bonus Prompt?

An extra prompt issued at the beginning of each month, starting in February. You can fill it in addition to the prompts on your card or swap it out with a square that you don’t like or is giving you trouble.

How Much Time Do I Have To Complete The Bonus Prompt?

Through the end of the month in which it’s issued. February’s prompt has to be filled in February, March’s prompt in March, etc.

Additionally, January 2024 is reserved as a month for turning in bonus prompts you weren’t able to complete during the month they were assigned. What Time Zone Does The Fest Use For Bonus Prompt Cut Offs?

Since the fest’s participants are located in many different time zones, you’re free to submit your fill for the month so long as there is some place on Earth that hasn’t yet rolled over to the next month, even if your home time zone already has.

What Do I Get For Filling Bonus Prompts?

First and foremost, whatever work the prompt inspires you to create

A way to swap out a square on your card – just be sure to keep a record of the swap

The Merit Brush badge (if you fill 5 bonus prompts)

Do I Have To Complete The Bonus Prompt?

Of course not. They’re 100% optional.

Apart From Having To Complete The Bonus Prompt Within The Month It Was Issued, Are There Any Other Changes To The Rules Regarding Fills?

Nope!  Just like with your card, creations of any length and format are allowed provided that they’re not reused or plagiarized. You are also allowed the same freedom and flexibility in interpreting the bonus prompt as the squares on your card.

Can I See A List Of Previous Prompts?

Sure!

2023 Bonus Prompt List

February: Meet Cute

March: Take A Leap

April: Ancestors

May: Acceptance

June: Twins

July: Animal Transformations

August: Constellation

September: Moon

October: Costume/Disguise

2022 Bonus Prompt List

February: Tiger

March: Women and Gender Non-Conforming Characters

April: Birthday

May: Time Travel

June: Dragon

July: Meeting Again

August: Star-Crossed Lovers

September: Trying Something New

October: Supernatural Elements

November: Short and Sweet

December: Keep On Going

Who Chooses The Bonus Prompts Each Month?

The ever-amazing and very appreciated @sasamelons!

I’ve Read Through All Of This But Still Have A Question.

We’d love to answer it. Please email the mods at guardianbingofest@gmail.com

[dg-outlaw]

Agatha All Along - Season 1 Review

*spoilers ahead*

So I finally finished this series and I almost wrote a review after episodes 1 and 2, but felt this was a show that needed to be completed and have me marinate on for a bit.

I won't go too deep into the series or do a blow-by-blow of each episode and character, but I will say that this was one of Marvel Television's better live-action series. And this coming from someone who is "supposedly" not the target audience, which I think is total bullshit when it comes to media consumption. Most protagonists on-screen are not me (or you for that matter). Maybe there's a shared gender, ethnicity, culture, sexuality, etc., but a good story is a good story. Yes, it can be more engaging if you can see yourself in the characters on-screen and representation DOES matter, but again... give me a good story with good/complex characters or just something enjoyable and I'm in.

First, I appreciated that this series solved what I've perceived as Marvel/Disney's biggest problem with a lot of their shows the last few years, and that's pacing. Most Disney+ shows, even non-Marvel ones, have felt like long film scripts that were chopped up and extended for a 6-10 episode series, with writers/showrunners who don't understand series storytelling. Good beginning episodes, slow paced middle, random side plot/non-plot episode, and a rushed ending.

While some of the reveals in this series weren't necessarily shocking (thanks in part to some spoilers I accidentally saw online), I will say they were well done and the writers knew how to weave all the plotlines together for a satisfying story. If anything, I'd say episode 1 was the weakest episode, which is a hard start for a series (especially in trying to appeal to a general audience for a spin-off show), but going into the show knowing that it was about witches and not a re-hash of the WandaVision different TV show settings schtick, I was able to endure the whole dark crime drama show façade until it was torn away. That said, episode 1 wasn't bad, but the delivery was inconsistent at times. Obviously, this was later explained as the rest of Westview just going along with Agatha, but as a viewer it was hard to tell if Kathryn Hahn and the other actors were spoofing dark crime shows like 'Mare of Eastown' or trying to give a genuine performance like in WandaVision. It also didn't help that when Hahn and others were going a bit over the top in their acting I kept thinking about the Murdur Durdur SNL skit, which then took me out of the story. Thankfully, this stopped within episode 1 and episode 2 took us into the main story. So I say, good call in releasing episodes 1 and 2 together.

The rest of the series after episode 2 did follow a similar format to WandaVision, where each episode was a new setting with new costumes, but unlike WandaVision I felt like that gimmick never overstayed it's welcome. In WandaVision, the new TV show thing became repetitive about halfway through the series, but I stayed for the plot nuggets that dropped along the way. For 'Agatha', while each episode was a new "locked room" type experience, I think having the ensemble cast helped keep it fresh. Each character got focus, the story unfolded naturally, plot points were revealed throughout the episode rather than teased as a way to come back for the next episode, and the stakes seemed to get higher with each new trial. Basically, each episode was a self-contained story while also being part of a larger series arc. Series Writing 101. Thankfully, someone at Disney/Marvel finally understood the assignment.

I loved all the different characters in this series--the coven--and I was sad when most them didn't make it. So even despite each episode having some sort of themed gimmick it never felt like it was doing stuff for the sake of the gimmick or fan service, not to mention the big reveal in the last two episodes about the Witches' Road. Again, hats off to the writers for Keyser Söze-ing us (IYKYK) while also showing how myths, legends, or lore can form over time from the simplest of stories told around a campfire (or a fun little song between mother and son). And yeah, that song is catch as hell. Unfortunately, I'm also not someone who can memorize song lyrics, so it's just, "down, down, down the road. Down the witches' road." on repeat in my head. Thanks, Agatha.

Also, I'm glad Disney/Marvel committed to the LGBTQ+ representation on-screen. I know it's not the first instance, but the studio has gotten it's criticism in the past for queerbaiting. After all, Deadpool is on the app now so there's no going back. Plus, if you didn't know Agatha and Rio/Death had a past in episode 1, I don't know what to tell ya. I'm a cishet dude and I got it. Then again, Aubrey Plaza is always a good casting if you need an actress who looks like they might want to kill you, fuck you, or do both. And I mean that in the most complimentary way to Ms. Plaza. Hahn also did great and it was fun seeing her really chew the scenery as Agatha, while also knowing when to dial it back to let the other actors shine. Again, a great ensemble (Joe Locke, Sasheer Zamata, Ali Ahn, and Patti LuPone. Not to mention Debra Jo Rupp--poor Mrs. Hart).

Overall, I enjoyed this show. It was a perfect watch for spooky season. It was fun, heartfelt, and I enjoyed the whole cast. I know there are those who probably have deeper analysis/critique regarding witch and/or wiccan lore, magic, tarot, and the different trials each character faced in this series, so I hope you find those posts as well. I know I'll be interested in reading them as they pop up.

[brigdh]

9 People You’d Like To Get To Know Better

Tagged (AGES ago, I am SO sorry!) by @saiditallbefore and @badgerette! <3

Favorite color: oh man, I can never choose. And it depends on the context, you know? My favorite color to wear is not necessarily my favorite color in other formats. Anyway. Green, maybe? I do like a green!

Sweet/spicy/savoury: Another terrible choice! I need all three! Not simultaneously, but I definitely have cravings for them all, depending on the day. In this specific moment right now, I'll say sweet.

Relationship status: Married to @lettersfromtitan <3 <3 <3

Last song: 'One More Chance' Goddy Oku. I am listening to an OFMD S2 playlist, unsurprisingly.

Last movie: Killers of the Flower Moon, which was very good but not quite as good as the trailer made it look. But honestly, it would have been pretty miraculous if it had reached those heights.

Last thing I googled: new york city bleeker "black triangle". I was trying to figure out if a notorious slum neighborhood in a historical novel I read was a real place or made up by the author. Seems to have been made up, but I only skimmed through one page of Google results, so I might have missed something.

Currently watching: I'm still only halfway through Deadloch, because I'm watching it with my wife and we never seem to have free time at the same time lately. Also just started S2 of The Gilded Age (trashy soap opera with gorgeous costumes) and S...7, I think? God how does this show have so many seasons, of Big Mouth (stupid sex jokes and animation, which I am weak to).

Currently reading: The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling. Pseudo-Victorian gothic, which is pretty good, but not nearly as good as the author's previous book, The Luminous Dead. But that one was AMAZING and it's not surprising that the new one can't quite measure up.

Current obsession: OFMD, of course! For all my critique of S2 (and I do have a lot of critiques. obviously), it's still the only thing I want to read fic about.

Tagging: @jessica-drewz, @louciferish, @sweveris, @why-worry-do-it-later, @sixappleseeds, @dracothelizard, @napneeders, @likethehotsauce, and @thewalrus-said! (Only if you want to, of course.)

[adultswim2021]

Aqua Teen Hunger Force #100: “One Hundred” | May 3rd, 2010 - 12:00AM | S08E12

The dang-ass big-ass hundo is upon us, and now we need to talk about it. In this episode, Frylock mysteriously starts seeing the number 100 everywhere (similar to the James Carrey film The Number 23). Suddenly, Shake becomes self-aware that this is the 100th episode of the television series Aqua Teen Hunger Force, which causes him to to Hollywood and negotiate a deal for the show to enter syndication. Shake is depicted as a full-body costume which a realistic Dana Snyder is wearing in an amusing reveal. Eventually a monster, whose body is the shape of a number one-hundred, shows up, and is scary at the Aqua Teens, and begins ripping the show asunder. 

In order to evade the Hundred Monster, the Aqua Teens “hide out” in a new show, now called Aqua Unit Patrol Squad, where the characters are reinvented as Scooby-Doo/Hanna-Barbera style guys. This is a delightful bit, with an opening sequence that depicts a lotta minor characters coming back, just so we can see what they look like. The Hundred Monster catches up with them anyway, and they talk at some length about how syndication doesn’t really apply to them yet, because you need 100 half-hours, and the vast majority of ATHF is in the quarter-hour format. 

I just did some napkin math, and if you took every episode and squished them into half-hour bricks, along with the movies and the Aqua Donk Side Pieces and, for good measure, Baffler Meal, you’ve got 83 half-hours. That means in 10 more years they might actually make it to syndication, if still even exists. 

I like this one a lot! Lotta goofy shit and some genuinely funny jokes. It actually does feel fairly special. Whomst among us can keep a smile from happening on their face when they hear George Lowe say “good thing this wasn’t blood, I’d be licking AIDS right now.” I feel like most shows would reject that line for being so abrasive. A good reason to love this program. 

In addition to George Lowe, we got Tom Savini, a li'l song from li'l MC Chris, and Robert Smigel as the 100 monster.

The Scooby-Doo bit is especially fun, and it's not just the cool animation. It's also a fun joke about the show's origins as a sorta parody of the Scooby-Doo clone phenomenon of Dave and Matt's Gen-X childhood. When Scooby-Doo became a hit, Hanna-Barbera created over a dozen of new shows that followed roughly the same formula. Aqua Teen Hunger Force was created with that spirit in mind. This is also why at the beginning of the show the characters were kinda-sorta trying to be detectives.

One of my favorite things about this is that they actually did rename the series to “Aqua Unit Patrol Squad (1)”, and Shake’s throwaway line about them relocating to Seattle actually stuck; I recall moments in the new season where the show reminds you it takes place in Seattle now despite doing nothing to actually change the physical appearance of the setting. Great joke. Eagle-eyed viewers will note a DEFIANT nod to their failed pilots Stiff and Duckworth. They will note it, and they will NOTE like it.

[natlacentral]

Elizabeth Yu Surrounds Herself With Fan Art

The corseted leather armor Elizabeth Yu wears on Avatar: The Last Airbender is what really transformed her into Princess Azula, the show’s cut-throat, fire-bending, conniving villain. The costume snapped Yu’s posture into place while filming, keeping her back straight as she stomped onto set while listening to a playlist that included “Maneater” by Nelly Furtado. “Walking around with that playing in your ear, how could you not feel like the baddest bitch in the room?” the 21-year-old actress tells the Cut from her apartment in New York, which she shares with three cats and her boyfriend, Stranger Things’ Gaten Matarazzo. “I couldn’t really relax back into my own body language.”

On the original Peabody-winning animated series, the blue-fire-shooting character of Azula doesn’t actually appear until the second season. In the highly anticipated live-action adaptation, which premiered February 22 on Netflix, we get to know more about Azula behind the scenes while Aang and his crew fly around the world training to take down her father, Fire Lord Ozai (Daniel Dae Kim). “We’re laying a foundation for her to jump off of,” Yu says of the earlier-than-expected introduction to her character. After filming Avatar when she was 19, Yu went on to appear in the critically acclaimed film May December, in which she plays Mary Atherton-Yoo, one of three children raised by two controversial parents (Julianne Moore and Charles Melton).

Below, Yu shares the advice Melton offered on set that she follows to this day as the young actress blazes her own path in Hollywood.

Were you a fan of the original Avatar: The Last Airbender series before auditioning for this role?

I was one of those kids who was only allowed to watch Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. So I would watch all the reruns, but I didn’t actually see it all the way through until the audition process. Growing up you see it as a children’s cartoon so there are all these zany adventures, but then actually watching all the way through I was like, This is actually so good. There are a lot of lessons that you can take through your whole life.

It feels to me, as an outsider, that we’re in a breakthrough moment for Asian representation in media. Are you feeling that shift in the opportunities coming your way as a young actor?

Hopefully! I’m really lucky to just be starting in this sort of new era of Asian representation. It’s also so amazing to be able to work with actors who were the ones to lay out that sort of format that we are now able to play with. I’m reminded of it every single day I go to work through new auditions that I’m getting and seeing new movies. Past Lives was groundbreaking for me. Here’s this movie that is probably 75 percent in Korean, but it’s so American. And it’s a love story that everyone can relate to with a female Asian lead. That and Everything Everywhere All at Once — it’s healing the little Asian girl in me.

Moving onto our Taste Test — Where do you get your best culture recommendations from?

I follow a lot of Asian artists and creators on Instagram. There’s this new band Wasia Project I’ve been listening to a lot recently. I’m also half-white, half-Korean, so following mixed-race artists is really cool. Trying to surround myself with Asian creatives is a huge part of why I love doing what I do. I also like to keep up with Michelle Zauner, Bailey Bass, David Iacono, a lot of my actor friends. And Daniel Dae Kim!

Which celebrities, dead or alive, would you invite to a dinner party?

Beyoncé. Everyone loves Beyoncé. Michelle Yeoh, Michelle Obama, William Shakespeare, and Stephen Sondheim.

What’s the last meal you cooked for dinner?

I made a leftover risotto kind of thing two days ago. I had leftover rice and a bunch of vegetables in my fridge: broccoli, peas, corn, celery, onions. I boiled the leftover rice in chicken stock and added heavy cream to it. It’s actually really good.

What is your pre-filming ritual? 

I make a playlist for every character that I play. I had to make a good Azula playlist because I needed a hype up before I walked on set. Eminem’s “Without Me” is on there, that one was really helpful. There’s also “Feel Good Inc.” by Gorillaz, “Maneater” by Nelly Furtado, and “Pride” by Kendrick Lamar. I’m pretty proud of the playlist actually.

What’s your comfort rewatch?

I love rewatching movies. I watch Perks of Being a Wallflower a lot, Call Me By Your Name, The Breakfast Club. My favorite movie of all time is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I’ll throw it back on if I’m feeling uninspired.

What’s the best piece of gossip you’ve ever heard?

When Solange slapped Jay-Z in the elevator. If I could travel through space and time and be in one place it would be in that elevator. I’ve done a deep dive on TikTok and YouTube of like, Here’s everything that was leading up to that moment and what could have been said. I love that pop-culture moment. I think it’s absolutely iconic.

Favorite game to play?

I just recently started getting into video games. This is a new development from the strike, just being home not doing anything. I started playing Hogwarts Legacy. Fuck J.K. Rowling, but I loved it. I started playingBaldur’s Gate, the Dungeons & Dragons game. I spent months and months finishing that game. I’m on the final boss now but I don’t want to finish it, it’s so good.

What music do you listen to when you’re alone?

I listen to a lot of movie soundtracks. Jon Brion’s soundtracks are really good, he did Lady Bird. I like a lot of the A24 soundtracks. I like romantic, sad music. I don’t know why. I’ll play it while I’m cleaning or cooking.

Name a book you couldn’t put down?

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. Actually I had to put that down because it was too sad, but I’m picking it back up. I blew through The Woman in Me by Britney Spears. It’s a pretty easy read, but it’s so interesting to see her perspective of everything we were seeing in pop culture. I’m also reading Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman right now, it’s really good.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

The best advice I ever received was from Charles Melton. When we were filming May December, he was constantly offering me advice and mentoring. I filmed Avatar first, but this was my first big movie, it’s the first time I’m doing all this stuff. And he was just like: “Whatever career decisions you’re facing, follow what you want to do, not what you think you should do, or what everyone else is telling you that you should do — and you’ll never regret a decision.” That was really helpful.

What about bad advice?

I can’t think of bad advice I’ve been given. Probably because when I hear bad advice I’m like Yeah, okay, let me expel that from my memory.

Favorite piece of art you own?

I live with my boyfriend and he gets a lot of cool fan art that he collects. He was on Broadway last year and got a lot of fan art from that. So we have that sporadically around our apartment. We have to keep it around because it’s so good! There’ll be little paintings of him and his cast members or like, bracelets that people have made him.

What show is your boyfriend not allowed to watch without you?

We’re currently watching Mr. & Mrs. Smith and he is not allowed to watch that until he comes back home and sits down to watch with me. Once I heard that Maya and Donald were doing it, I was like, This is going be my whole personality, I have to watch this. And it is now my whole personality.

What would your last meal be?

A mixture of guilty-pleasure foods. Raising Cane’s, and I’m notoriously known for my obsession with Applebee’s breadsticks and Alfredo sauce. Oh and my boyfriend makes bomb-ass Kraft mac ’n’ cheese.

[petalsmooth]

And the season three tease that just uses old footage has 15 million and that's been out months. The first one here is just an advert for their wedding contest. The only content with more views is QC's trailer which has been out over a year at around 16.4m.

Now end of the day it doesn't matter how the show stacks up to other seasons in ratings because it's not like the show is suddenly going to change it's format. It's one couple a season, and if the prior actors stay maybe a side story but not near the same time onscreen and I accept that because I'm not delusional. However, it's important for a few reasons.

First is that I like the family and I hate the meandering triangle of season two which served no purpose aside from telling ME the showrunner at the time though he was more creative than he actually was, when really he had nothing to say or there wouldn't have been so much filler. If you cannot improve on the book, then stick to the book. So if THIS season is insanely popular, hopefully puts to rest any idea of future seasons being like THAT one.

Second, I'm tired of Kanthony fans and just fans in general playing ship wars with a show that shouldn't HAVE ship ways because of its format. It's among the most ridiculous things I've seen in an online fandom. It's one couple a season, everyone knows that. How do you then manage to create so much animosity in a fandom over new seasons not featuring your couple? I don't CARE if the season after POLIN is even more popular or if less. I only want it to be good. It won't diminish THIS couple either way. I am not rooting for other seasons to fail because I like the family! I want more eps! If you don't then STOP WATCHING THE SHOW and leave. Do not try to bully your way into a spinoff that will NEVER happen for you.

So, I feel like if the couple these ridiculous people trolled for year's is insanely popular maybe it will shut them up in a way season two should have shut them up. Because Kanthony is NOT the show. It never was. Infact season 1 STILL ranks higher in views. They did not make Bridgerton popular, and they are not why it would stay popular. People love the format of the show, the period, the costumes, the family of Bridgerton's. Really it comes down to more continued good writing and good casting for future seasons. Not any one couple.

That being said, contrary to their beliefs, Polin ARE popular and the views above prove it. And since women are primarily the audience, the idea they thought that same audience wouldn't identify with someone like Penelope...I dunno. Because while the show is known for diversity, that comes in ways aside from color of skin too. I think all women, even men really, can identify with not fitting a certain beauty standard or being socially awkward. This is rather universal across all boundaries I'd imagine. Even with Colin, being rather adrift in a family and uncertain of his purpose is...that is relatable. Throw in having seen the characters a couple of seasons and not sure how anyone would think there isn't an audience for this romance. And the chemistry? That was always there, need only look to season 1 with the "barb" scene to have a sneak peak of what would happen once the writing allowed it explored.

Also, in news related to the "family" of Bridgerton, Jonny has hinted will be a part of the show for years to come. Which I love because he has gotten more offers of late and could have followed same path of the previous lead, but indicated he wishes to be supportive in future generations of the show for the fans. Probably won't be on at same rate as before, but will still be there so I love that.

[herrymccourt]

Stand Out in Cheerleading Competitions with Creative Pom Pom Routines

Cheerleading competitions are an exciting opportunity for squads to show off their skills, athleticism, and spirit. A big part of standing out and scoring high during competitions often comes down to creative and memorable pom-pom routines. Pom poms allow squads to punctuate motions, add visual flair, and get the crowd excited. By putting together unique and energetic pom routines, your cheer team can really make its mark during competitions this season.

Brainstorm Creative Pom Motions

One key to coming up with creative pom pom routines for competitions is to brainstorm different movements and visuals you can create with the poms. Think outside the box beyond just shaking and waving them. You can use poms to make shapes, letters, and pictures. Get imaginative with how you can open and close the poms in sync. Experiment with new ways to toss them, spin them, and incorporate them into cheer motions. Don’t be afraid to try out unorthodox ideas - you never know what might turn into an exciting new pom routine. The cheer pom poms are props, so use them to enhance your performance.

Assign Cheerleaders Specific Pom Motions

It helps to assign each cheerleader a specific type of pom motion to focus on so you can later combine them into dynamic choreography. For example, have some squad members perfect pom tosses while others work on creating visual shapes. You can also challenge cheerleaders to come up with innovative ways to pass the cheer pom poms between each other. Get creative with where on your body you place and move the poms, too. The goal is to showcase a variety of pom techniques to put together a truly unique routine.

Use Formations and Levels

When choreographing your pom routine, think about using formations to make your motions stand out. Work the poms from different levels, such as high, mid, and low. Create contrasting movements from one section to another. For example, you can transition from synchronized swinging poms to a ripple effect. Use opposing motions, like some cheerleaders raising poms high while others move poms low. Take advantage of the whole performance space to allow for dynamic formations. The visual impact will wow judges and spectators.

Pick the Right Music

Music selection is also crucial for creative pom routines. Pick a mix that has a catchy beat and changes tempo to allow for pom highlights. For example, a driving rhythm can emphasize synchronized palm-pumping pom motions. But a cheerful chorus lends itself to making pom pom shapes and pictures. Changes between fast and slower music also give you opportunities for innovative movements. Don’t forget occasional pauses in the music to feature impressive pom skills like flexibility tricks. The fitting soundtrack can really enhance your pom choreography.

Use Costumes to Make Pom Motions Mesmerizing

Costume choices also impact how your pom routine looks. Go for bold, sparkly outfits and accessories that complement the poms’ energetic movements. For example, metallic pom poms pop against black uniforms. Or choose bright, colorful poms to match the cheerleaders’ hair bows and shoes. Consider holding auditions to assign cheerleaders unique costume pieces like tutus for visual pom choreography. The right costumes make the pom motions mesmerizing. But don’t let outfits overshadow the skills. Find the ideal balance to wow judges.

Enhance with Lighting and Backdrop

Lighting and backdrop can also emphasize your pom choreography. For example, color-coordinated stage lighting makes the poms’ hues pop for the audience. If you have a backdrop, add pom graphics or shapes to highlight key motions. You can even use video effects to leave virtual pom trails onscreen during tosses to punctuate the skills. Enhance the visual dynamics using bright production elements without being too gimmicky. Use lighting, backdrop, and video projection to make the pom routine genuinely eye-catching.

Perfect Pom Transitions

Lastly, don’t forget to practice the transitions between pom sections. Moving cheer pom poms in unison between formations, levels, and motions takes timing and coordination. Mark transitions in your routine choreography and drills them regularly. Record practices to catch any issues. Nail those pom transitions so you can execute innovative movements from one segment to the next flawlessly. Clean transitions will make your pom routine look polished, synchronized, and ultimately competition-ready.

Conclusion

Creating a stand-out pom routine takes creativity, hard work, and lots of practice with those cheer poms. But with unique choreography, fabulous costumes, great music, and eye-catching production elements, your squad can develop the perfect pom routine to impress competition judges and spectators. Bring the crowd to its feet and rack up high scores this season with an energetic, memorable pom pom performance.

[dwtsfun]

Dancing with the Stars Season 32 Week 4: Fashionably Late and Lovin It

Sorry y'all. Life. Anyway, I'm happy some new songs were used. Of course we got some songs that we've seen 50leven times over the years. It's why Disney Night has been such a bust and a wasted opportunity. Instead of exploring forgotten and underappreciated movies and songs, we get the same songs from Beauty and the Beast, Toy Story, The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, The Lion King and Aladdin. I'm glad we saw new entries from Dumbo, Coco, Frozen II (shocking it took them that long to use Into the Unknown which is considerable better than Let It Go) and Fantasia. Also, slight annoyance. I'm not happy that Alfonso didn't try to dress up for Disney Week. Put a little effort into it. I know Tom never did, but I also like him more than Alfonso (I got my problems with both though).

Mauricio and Emma- Paso Doble (Score=19)- So first of all, I enjoyed the use of The Sorcerer's Apprentice as a song for a paso. It made for a super interesting routine. This is why I get so frustrated with Disney night. We can have routines like this. Now a few things. First of all, Mauricio was stiff and didn't moves as hard as he should've for a paso. The second is that I hated the styling. The broom costumes were not cute. Emma has missed real bad on two of the costumes this year. I don't want to have another one from her. I also felt that the other brooms messed up the formation at the end. Idk what was going on but for a dance, that needed to be perfect. It wasn't and took my attention away from the dance. All of that said, it was a nice improvement for Mauricio.

Mira and Gleb- Waltz (Score=21)- So I think Mira had her best dance of the show with this dance. I'm not shocked considering everything about her screams ballroom. But I wasn't amazed by it. I didn't even really enjoy it. It was cool. It worked. That's it. It was boring. I'm not sure if Gleb knows how to wow the audience with his partners. Shangela was just an anomaly for him. Hopefully Mira can build from this point and get better.

Barry and Peta- Jazz (Score=18)- This dance started out really well. It was actually on track to be Barry's best dance of the season. But he slightly forgot one piece of the choreo and then messed up the lift right afterward. He took a while to get back on track after that, but he did and ended the dance very strong. I wish he hadn't had that issue during the dance. But, it happens. He fought through it and recovered and that's what matters.

Jason and Daniella- Foxtrot (Score=24)- So this dance proved exactly why we need to have the celebs do a Latin and a ballroom dance in weeks 1 and 2. A dancer that is as good as Jason should not be struggling like this with foundational things in a ballroom dance in week 4. It just doesn't make any sense. Jason was definitely uncomfortable. His frame was awkward. And he was kinda sticking to the ground throughout the dance due to really not understanding the rise and fall aspect of the foxtrot. He's got enough time to get that stuff fixed, so I'm not worried. I am frustrated with how the show divvies out these dances. Just make sure the couples get a Latin and a ballroom dance by week 3 if we're gonna keep this random dance a week thing up.

Lele and Brandon- Rumba (Score=22)- This dance was grossly underscored considering where everyone else was scored tonight. I think this was one of the most competent dances of the night and one of the best of the competition so far. At the beginning, Lele was definitely in her head and a little nervous. But as soon as she ran down those stairs, we got an assuredness from her that I don't think I've seen from her up until this point. I also feel like we've seen her improve the most of all of the celebrities. I see so much more refinement in her dancing. She needed a slower dance to get some of that stuff figured out. Now that we are here, I cannot wait to watch her build on this and soar. And lastly, I wanna shout out Brandon for some really beautiful choreography.

Alyson and Sasha- Jazz (Score=18)- Mm. Okay. Um well, it was better than her week 1 dance. But it wasn't good. She didn't dance much and when she did, it was heavy and low energy. She was off time as well. The judges are now getting scared to judge people properly because this dance should've been a 16 at the most.

Harry and Rylee- Quickstep (Score=21)- While I like this couple and like how Rylee is helping Harry through this process, this was not a great dance. It was Harry's best dance and he sustained a level of performance throughout that he had not yet done, but that was it. His frame was awkward and bad. His feet were not good. There was virtually no body contact. The technique was pretty much nonexistent. It didn't deserve 7s. 6s would've sufficed. It was cute though and I enjoyed it for what it was.

Xochitl and Val- Paso Doble (Score=27)- So I have something controversial to say about this dance. I didn't care for it. It wasn't bad, so don't act like I'm about to go there. BUT, it made me take notice of something with these two. They don't really have light and shade in their dances (shoutout to Len Goodman himself). We don't have nuance in their dances. It's just "GO GO GO GO GO GO" the whole way. And while that can be a good thing for certain dances, that being the typical speed in which they dance is making me believe it's a way to cover up a weakness of Xochitl's. If you look closely at her dance this week and then compare her legs to the other women celebs, you can see that she is never quite steady on her legs or feet. This is a problem that I have called out with many of Val's partners. I just talked about it last year with Gabby.

Adrian and Britt- Viennese Waltz (Score=21)- This was Adrian's best dance of the season by far. I actually am a little bummed that he got eliminated (again, I am only talking about competition stuff here and he seemed fine these past few weeks) because he looked like he was starting to let go of the uber masculine energy and start embracing the femininity. I thought the dance was really pretty. I thought Adrian danced it well. His frame and posture needed some more work. But his arms and his lines were so nice. What struck me the most though was just how gentle he was throughout.

Ariana and Pasha- Contemporary (Score=25)- This was a cool dance. If you've been here for a while, you know that I don't really care for contemporary and never truly have comments for it unless it really moves me. This was fine. Ariana handled it well. It was nice.

Charity and Artem- Waltz (Score=24)- Hmm. Okay so this was a really pretty dance. It was probably the best dance of the night to me. A 24 here was criminal. We should've seen 9s for this dance. The frame still feels funny to me, so I wouldn't give it a 10. But otherwise, it was a great dance.

So that's it. Adrian and Britt were eliminated as we now know. Sorry this is so late. I would've skipped this week in most other cases but I really wanted to talk about the dances as I think this was a pivotal point in the competition for many of the couples. I also want to point out that the judges are being real scary with scoring and we're gonna start seeing some odd results pretty soon here, if not this coming Tuesday. Let me know if you got questions or anything and I'll talk to you all soon.

[aceforwhatevenisthis]

[I'm going off what I vaguely remember from the movie btw]

The Professor is a world-renowned academic, much like the actual Mr Peabody, and obviously he's a sentient puppet but the entire world just kinda glosses over that fact

(Except for Ryan, who cannot get over how he came to be close friends with a literal Muppet)

(Also, the Professor is his seasons 1-4 size just with working legs and such.)

Ryan and the Professor are buddies in this AU and Puppet History is still a Watcher show- but! there is no special guest; it's just Ryan and the Professor, so what do we get? We get a Peabody and Sherman-esque relationship to history in which the Professor has his time machine (Genie shit is canonical to the AU) and takes Ryan on learning adventures

The singing puppet guests are still byproducts of the Professor messing with the space-time continuum except they kinda sing in real time and it's not a staged performance by them

Basically the entirety of the Peabody movie with the Professor and Ryan except Ryan is not the Professor's son

Also, their adventures are uploaded to Youtube. It's literally the show. Everyone thinks it's really GREAT vfx and cgi (more observant watcherinas would be like, "wow the costuming for this show is so historically accurate!). There is no cameraman either, it's first person vlogging but the Professor and Ryan have mics on their person. There's also a camera in the time machine btw, yes there's a literal machine, but it shrinks and it's portable and the Professor carries it in his bag when he's not using it and it's powered by jellybeans.

But no special guest means no coveted History Cup! What motivation would Ryan have to make a deal with the genie?

Well, put shortly: Ryan fucked up.

You see, they had just come back from a history lesson trip that was particularly (accidentally) depressing. The Professor thought it would be one of the more weird and niche history lessons but it ended up being WAY more tragic than he meant and via the magic of storytelling, it was probably something that made his thoughts connect that event with some insecurities or problems in his current life. Safe to say, both he and Ryan were rattled after that one and weren't sure if to upload it at all.

Through all his stress, the Professor accidentally left his little bag WITH the shrunken time machine in it. He had already left Watcher HQ. Ryan had stayed behind to clean up their set and lock up the building; also, he noticed how rattled the Professor was and figured the guy would want to go home early. That's when he noticed the bag with the time machine. He fully knows what it is too; it's not a secret to him. Except he also has no idea how to use it and while trying to move the bag and get it to the Professor later, he accidentally drops it or something and the machine activates, sending him to some random period in time.

Oh he fucked up, because he also has no idea how to get back to his own time. The Professor never taught him how to use this dang thing!

"Need help?" The genie appears. Ryan knows this dude is Bad News. But he's also his only hope at this point. A deal is struck that Ryan fully intends on not upholding. Uh oh, the genie locked him in the deal and misconstrued his words (genie trickery shit!). Fuck.

Events of s4 finale happen as is. Professor is in dinosaur times, he has his dino family. Puppets are not in the Wondrium, they are very much dead. So what about the Hologram!Professor? He's created by the genie as a result of his deal with Ryan, because the genie is not a complete monster as the Professor makes him out to be. He took pity on Ryan. Except, uh, yeah nothing is the same. There's no time machine, the show's format changed to what we know Puppet History to be, and Ryan. Hates. It.

So he talks to Shane and Steven about it. Their hands are tied; there's not much they can do about it because they have a show to continue and they have a perfectly capable host even if he is a hologram with it's own adaptive AI. Ryan can back out if he wants. But no. Ryan plays along begrudgingly until he can find a way to get the Professor back.

But the Hologram!Prof is also literally an AI. And he feels real. Why is Ryan trying to replace him with some dead dude? He is the Professor! He is better than the Professor in fact! Attempted murder ensues when Ryan tries to use him like an ask bot by asking how to make a time machine.

Then s5 finale happens as is :) Happy ending :)

Puppet History Mr Peabody and Sherman AU The Professor is Mr Peabody and Ryan is Sherman please give me your thoughts

[philomaela]

Costume Appreciation: Elizabeth Harvey’s pale blue and yellow dress (Harlots 3.02)

[no-droids]

Home

gif credit: @javier-pena

Part Eighteen of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 19.5K

Warnings: SMUT, religion kink (maybe?), squirting, consensual stalking/pursuing, canon-typical violence, mention of underage drinking, uhh I believe that’s it but as always, let me know if I’ve forgotten anything please!

A/N: Hey yall!!!  So I know this chapter has been a long time coming and though I’m not completely satisfied with it, I hope it brings a little happiness to you for an hour or two while you read!  School has been kicking my ass and I’ve been in a bit of an emotional slump recently, but I pulled a few all-nighters to post this on time and it’s finally finished!  Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me and sent me encouraging words over the past month or so, I hope you enjoy the end of the Sanctuary arc💕

Also like last time, part 2 of my collaboration with @followwhereshegoes will be posted after the chapter!!  As a reminder, sweet girl is a reader insert and every imagining of her will be different—this is Lisa’s interpretation of her and her artwork is absolutely gorgeous, so please go give her a follow!

Day 5–11:13am:

You zone out again in the early morning, but that happens a lot.  Din always keeps you up so late, all the time, and without any caf here, the rising sun just makes your eyes droop instead of flutter brighter and wider.  You helped a bunch of younglings find their way into their robes when it was still dark out, tying sashes and fitting masks while holding back your yawns.  The walk into Nariss is close to three hours, probably more with all these tiny little legs, and you almost forget to change into your new digs before everyone grabs breakfast.

Even though your ragtag entourage leaves for Nariss just as soon as everyone finishes eating, you don’t reach the city until nearly lunchtime.  Mostly because the kids walk about as fast as the elderly holy women chaperoning the trip.  You and Naydee lag behind the group, forcing yourself to meander slow as fuck when you nearly sprinted this same exact path just a few days ago.  On the way there, you listen to children of all sorts sing happily as they walk, chatter about their excitement for the parade, complain about wearing the fabric mask they made themselves, and more than once, somebody takes a tumble onto the ground and is left in teary sniffles and dirt stained clothes.  Likely for this reason, the robes are designed to be two pieces—a long tunic with a hood and a separate pants portion to prevent tripping instead of a draping skirt, but the smallest ones are clumsy and find a way to fall anyways.

It’s a colorful bunch—a chaotic rainbow of babies running around, and you share easy conversation with your new friend about the plans for the day until she asks something that makes you nearly trip and join the dirty robe club.

“Sister Drya said your family is meeting you in the city,” she tells you, ignoring your immediate subtle toe stub and the awkward shuffle you have to do to make up for it.  “There’s going to be lots of people downtown, I’m worried it might be hard for them to find you.”

Your heart thuds in your chest and you feel a bit short of breath at being abruptly confronted with the need to lie, but at the same time, you kind of love it.  Having a secret, hiding the truth from others, and just the reminder that you’re almost guaranteed to see Din and the baby before midnight pours warmth and tingles through your tummy.  Everything together is a hit of spice, filling you with a kind of excitement that used to be foreign to you.  Having fun, experiencing new things isn’t quite over yet, but home is calling and you miss it with every fiber of your being.

“I don’t think so,” you eventually respond, hoping she can see your kind smile and the sentiment it carries even as light, shimmery fabric wraps right around your mouth.  “If I disappear, you’ll know why.”

Naydee’s eyes crinkle in the corners to match yours.  “Hopefully you’ll be able to see the fireworks first,” she nudges you, her skin glowing against the pale cream fabric she has wrapped around her own mouth and the hood laying delicately over her braids.  “They start at eight.”

The fireworks, you almost forgot.  You know what?  Today is a good day.  You hear yourself think the full sentence multiple times, and the words put a spring in your step after every single one.  The road gradually becomes wider and filled with more travelers, and you feel safe in the back.  Like some kind of sheepdog bringing up the rear of this migrating cluster of children, making sure none of them drift off by themselves and start eating grass or something.

Surprisingly, the kids manage to be relatively patient and well-behaved once they’re in line at the gates.  The Sisters shuffle them along one by one as everyone moves up slowly, taking even longer to get into the city than it did a few days ago.  The entrance is packed already—so many people visiting for the festival, and they’re all dressed in costumes or robes of sorts, or at least a mask.  Most are beautifully crafted, but some manage to look slightly scary even with the soft springtime color schemes.  It’s a completely different world, a different life for each person as you pass them by.  Your stomach is starting to growl by the time you finally make it to the front, and luckily the guards just let the kids through without any ceremony.  Just you and the rest of the caretakers in light robes need to hold still for the retinal scan, matching each other perfectly except for differing shades of fabric, skin, and eye color.  Once the gates open for you and you step through, though… it’s… Maker.

Extravagant, magnificent are both words.  Floral is another.

It’s like they hung up bouquets wherever they could think to fit them, and this is just the edge of the city.  As the group moves through the streets and closer to downtown, it becomes more and more overwhelming.  The air itself is a warm fragrance wafting all around you, sunshiney and breezy and perfect, flowers of all kinds lining the modern buildings and archways like they were planted there from the very beginning and it just took this long to bloom between the cracks in the concrete.  You wish you had names for all of them so you could list them—the only thing you can offer is the color and vague descriptions of the ones that stick out to you.  Tiny yellow ones that are so small, they need to be bunched all together in massive quantities to even resemble normal flowers.  Up overhead, elaborate arrangements of enormous blue and purple and pink ones, wrapping around each other and hanging down from rooftops.  Some don’t even have petals, it’s like they’re big green cups that are big enough to hold things inside them.  You’re fascinated by every single one, wanting to stop and smell them all individually but needing to keep up with the large group and not allow any stragglers to be left behind, including yourself.

About an hour later, when you’re almost in the middle of the city and there are people everywhere, it’s time to eat lunch.  There isn’t much to it because of how expensive it is, and you’d normally feel bad for accepting the small meal each one of the children gets, but you donated all of your credits to the Keja and left absolutely zero for yourself.  Good intentions, terrible idea.  Still, you pull your mask down and snack on some deliciously fried food, trying not to eye anyone else’s platter after you finish yours.  It’s so good and it’s gone in an instant; you couldn’t even say what exactly it was besides which stall you got it at.  Whether it’s just the brilliant atmosphere or if the food on this moon is really just that good, you’re not really sure, but you’re still slightly hungry afterwards with no extra money to sneak a snack.

Soon after, the kids all line up to get their faces painted, or whatever portion of their face is visible behind the cloth masks and hoods they’ve got on, and music blares from at least four different directions and none of the songs are even in the same language.  Depending on the part of town, it seems like the celebrations are all different.  It makes sense, considering most if not all of these individuals were victims of the Empire’s wrath, spread far and wide across the galaxy.  Here, they’re free, and they want everyone to know it.  Spring festivals of some sort are likely common for most cultures, at least those from planets with seasons, not like Arvala-7 where it was arid and hot year-round, and you’re assuming there are multiple things being celebrated today depending on which street you live on.  There’s chanting in different tongues, dancing and drums, outfits and masks from different cultures every single time you look.

At some point, the children spot a crowded street with flowery rails set up all along them, and you stand behind the tiny heads while everyone waits for the parade to begin.  You think your heart has just been beating slightly faster than normal all day today, but when you finally hear the sound of sirens blaring in the distance and cheers begin to pour out from the gathered crowd, it kicks up and you feel like you’re just as wide eyed at the spectacle as the waist-high babies all huddled together up against the railing.

A flurry of people and things pass in slow succession.  First, New Republic officers with their blaring holobikes, bright orange as always.  Then come large groups of people walking behind banners in languages you can’t read, some of them waving, some of them making different sounds and songs.  Bands marching in formation, dancers in dresses and masks and gorgeous flowers in their hair like crowns, and then brilliant hovering vehicles decorated in bright colors and festive depictions.  The craftsmanship and cultural significance is stunning to witness, it’s so insanely loud, there’s so much going on, and yet…

Through it all, you think of Din.  No matter the faces, the sights you see.  There’s someone juggling.  There’s either a very tall man and woman walking together or they’re both on stilts.  There are enormous balloons being led through the air, people are riding atop an assortment of animals you’ve never seen before, there are traditional costumes and spectacular stunts being performed.  Stalls with games and prizes line the stretches of concrete on the cross streets, people are laughing and celebrating and drinking in equal parts, everything is so lively and festive and fun, and yet, though it all, you think of Din.  Him and the baby, they’re always in the forefront of your mind, occupying your thoughts and making your tummy stir more and more as the time passes like the parade in front of you.  You don’t think this environment would ever be his favorite, and in some far away galaxy, perhaps if you lived other lives together and called a beautiful moon exactly like this home, then you might have to drag him out to see all the with you and the kid every year.  You’d have to bat your eyelashes and kiss his cheek and snuggle up to him all nice and pretty like, and he’d probably grumble and complain about it while wrapping his arms around you—all the people and the noise, sweet girl—but he’d go.  For you, he’d go.

Your thoughts suddenly stop short and you blink for a second.  Why… Why was that scene so vivid?  So wistful?  You used to preoccupy yourself with fantasies about Din all the time, back before you even knew him as Din.  But in every single one, it was sexual and likely came from a place of boredom, a lack of external stimulation.  Here you are amidst bustling surroundings, and you’re daydreaming about domesticity with him.  Why?  You want to travel the galaxy, right?  You want to see things you’ve never seen before, right?

For some reason, you think of the floor, and you miss it.

***

Day 5—5:04pm:

It’s late afternoon at this point and nobody can find the teens.

More people have made their way into the city and it’s starting to get extremely fucking crowded, especially where you are downtown, and the handful of them must’ve slipped away with all the excitement happening and how difficult it is to keep the young ones together now that the parade is over.  You don’t know how long they’ve been gone—one second they were walking around just slightly detached from the rest of you, you assumed because the boisterous younglings fucked with their cool vibe, and then the next Naydee is gasping out to you that they’re gone.

“Sister Drya is going to kill me,” she hisses, her dark eyebrows furrowed in self-admonishment and stress.  So many fucking people here, you know her pain.  “I was supposed to be chaperoning them, they were just here—”

She shakes her head under the loose, cream-colored hood, groaning and then speeding up her gait to catch up with the woman in charge, but you decide to grab her wrist before she can relay the bad news.  

“I can go find them,” you offer, speaking as low as you can with the blaring noise surrounding you.  “Before anyone knows they’re missing.  Is there a way to convince everybody to stay in one spot for a little while?  You won’t get in trouble, but I need to know how to find you again.”

Naydee’s eyes widen in surprise, and even though it’s likely a bit out of character for you, you have a feeling it’ll be a deceptively easy task.  Even with the masses right now and how atrociously big this city is, you already have a general idea of where they’re likely to be.  Besides, you’re not even sure your absence will be noticed if Naydee is the only one who figured out the teens were gone—the other Sisters can thrive without you while missing anyone else would be noticeable, and you owe your new friend a thousand favors for helping you out these past few days.  The least you can do is save her from the scolding of one of the scariest old ladies you've ever met.

“Be as quick as you can,” she finally agrees.  It’s a lot of trust to put into you, but you’ve had experience in reading the most unreadable man in the entire galaxy, some teenagers shouldn’t pose too much of a problem.  “If you’re not back in thirty minutes or somebody notices, I’ll have to say something.”

You nod, silently breaking away from the group without another word.  You think you can hear her announce to everyone that it might be best to eat dinner now to skip any long lines later—smart—but you’re out of their hearing range and line of sight almost immediately.

***

Day 5–5:17pm:

“Really?”  You raise an eyebrow since they won’t be able to see the way your mouth is twisted up underneath your mask, crossing your arms and tapping your foot against the ground to further illustrate just how not fucking impressed you are.

Seven teenagers freeze, and slowly—depending on how much bravery they can individually muster—they turn around on their stools to face you.  The atmosphere in the tavern is bustling and cheery, booze being passed around a large crowd that laughs and mingles, but your vibe is stone cold and quiet.  The contrast doesn’t feel wrong on you like it normally would; the negative and disapproving energy you’re emitting makes you feel powerful, untouchable, armored and strong.

“How did you find us so fast?”  One of the twin boys squeaks out behind a light blue robe, sounding worried.

“Had a hunch,” you grumble, glaring sternly at each of them in turn.  Your tone is dry, your voice sits lower in your throat when you’re pissed off.  All you had to do was look for the closest bar that doesn’t have any orange jumpsuits poking around waiting to card underage younglings, it wasn’t that difficult.  “You’re not exactly unpredictable.”

“Are you gonna rat us out?”  The other twin asks you, in a voice that’s oddly deep compared to his brother.

“I should,” you snap, quickly reaching out to push their drinks away.  “I should let Sister Drya rain down her holy fury on your asses, got good people all twisted up over you for nothing and I’m missing dinn—”

You don’t know why, but you suddenly cut yourself off and jerk upright, spinning around.

The sounds of glasses clinking and boisterous voices fill the bar, but they seem to fade out for a second.  Your eyes fly around the crowded space, your heart lodged in your throat and looking for anything reflective.  Every flash you see is a false alarm—belt buckle, wristwatch, cocktail shaker—

He’s here… isn’t he?

Only, there’s nothing.  Nothing is out of place, nothing jumps out at you the way you’re assuming it will.  You’re braced taut and ready to bolt at the first sign of a chase, but it never comes.

It’s so… unexpected, this feeling.  It’s not like you’re being hunted anymore, but instead, you’re the hunter.  You’re feeling the weight of him from this far away and it’s like he’s calling for you to come find him, teasing the wild adrenaline rush you get from just feeling his presence, as if he absolutely knows it happens.  Whispering soft in your ear and then vanishing the second you’re able to turn around, like he’s here but he’s not.  Playing with you from so far away.

This… this is a taunt.  

The whole thing at the inn was leagues below this, that was rudimentary.  Teasing, getting even, having fun with each other, whatever you want to call that, that’s what it was.  This is scarily sophisticated.  Fluid and practiced and the best kind of frightening, stark and dangerous compared to the carefree and upbeat setting surrounding you.  You’re not making it up, it’s not just you being paranoid.  You know him with your eyes closed.  You know he’s here somewhere watching you, just like you know the starlight that streaks across the pitch black horizon of hyperspace.  Not because you can see it, not really, not directly.  But because by it, even in the vastest and darkest and emptiest of voids, you’re suddenly able to see everything else.

“You okay, Nerida?”

The volume gradually comes back up and you blink, suddenly remembering where you are, who else is with you.  The chatter becomes slightly louder than it seemed before.

“Yeah,” you eventually say, slightly airy while continuing to stare emptily at the crowded room.  He’s not here, you don’t think, not anymore at least.  But you’re not stupid, you know what this means.  You’re already caught, there’s nothing you can conceivably do that will delay the reunion for the next—you look down and pull the loose sleeve up to check your communicator—seven fucking hours, there’s no way.  He’ll pull back and follow you, keep up with you from a distance and then snatch you away right when you let your guard down.  You at least need to get the kids back to their guardians before that can happen, though.

“Let’s go,” you quietly tell the group of foundlings, grabbing elbows and hauling them out of their stools.  “Naydee was the only one who knew that you were gone when I left.  Here’s to hoping she managed to keep it that way.”

***

Day 5–5:32pm:

Against all odds, you’re able to rally the wayward teens and successfully lead them through shoulders that are beginning to move closer together as the crowd grows and grows.  You stay towards the back and don’t look behind you once—not only do you not want to give the younglings an unnecessary reason to become paranoid or to question your actions, but you can still feel Din lingering.  Moving like a shadow, probably fitting in perfectly with the masked festival-goers, nothing drawing any attention to him with all the spectacular sights and noise occurring.

Soon you return to the same spot from before, and you and the teenagers seamlessly integrate yourselves back into the rest of the group without anyone noticing a thing is out of place.  When you move to stand beside her, Naydee’s bone-deep sigh of relief is palpable even behind the concealing fabric; she squeezes your hand incredibly tight in a silent gesture of thanks, and then pulls something from the deep pockets of her robe and passes it to you sneakily.  A purple fruit.  She must’ve saved it for you.

Maker, fuck yes.  It’s not much but it’s more dinner than any of the seven troublemakers get, but Naydee quietly assures you they’ll be able to eat something once they return to the Keja around midnight, just not the tasty expensive treats they’re selling at the vendors.  As the sun goes down, you try not to stain your pretty fabric a deep maroon as you chomp and feel your lips start to curl upwards.  It sounds so fucking stupid when you put it like this, but you keep going back to Din and revelling in knowing that he’s so close, like you’re just mentally checking in on him.  You don’t get the sensation by thinking, though—more like you just focus really hard on your heart and feel him there just a second afterwards.

Is that how pure, stupid, shameless love feels when you’re completely entrenched in it?  It’s not like it’s surrounding you, it’s not suffocating you or making you float.  It’s just a thing.  Like… a thing inside your chest, a physical thing you can search for and find, something you can point to on your body and say it’s right here, this is where my love for him lives.  Right at the bottom of your heart, right where it curves and beats strong when other hearts meet flat at sharp angles.  You do it over and over again, reconfirming its existence every single time.  You don’t know what else you’d call it.  Love is the only word.  To love, to know.  To hold in the heart.

Soon, you start to notice that people are slowly moving around your stationary group.  You look up and watch the crowd begin to walk, some of them giving soft smiles to the cute children as they pass by, but all of them following the same unspoken direction.

“Where is everyone going?”  You ask Naydee, standing on your tiptoes to watch the crowd migrate like a giant system, an organism or mechanism of thousands (or tens of thousands?) of smaller moving parts all traveling in tandem.  It’s fascinating—you’ve been to crowded places, you know what it looks like when a lot of people are packed into one area, but you’ve never seen what it looks like when they all move together.  They would normally be bumping into each other, slipping in between, fighting and never really getting anywhere, interacting individually and thinking separately.  Now they’re progressing in one single direction, so many with the same mindset and understanding of what comes next.  A second parade, almost, with New Republic officers directing the flow of pedestrians as they pass.

“The eastern part of the city!”  Naydee yells over the noise and points, and beyond her extended finger, you can barely see the light of a dusky body of water in the distance beyond the buildings.  “The fireworks are going to go off over the bay, but it takes awhile to get there!”

“Is…”  You blink for a second, suddenly caught off guard, trying to think back to the holomap the concierge pulled up at the front desk of the inn.  Surely you would’ve noticed it, but your sudden childlike hope makes you ask anyway.  “Is it part of an ocean?”

Naydee shakes her head.  “A really big lake!”

Your shoulders drop just the slightest bit in disappointment but still, you ache to see it.  You can’t even imagine—the fireworks are likely going to reflect across the water, giving everyone double the view.  And luckily, after all the children and caretakers are individually accounted for, you start to behind the slow-moving crowd towards the docks you know lie beyond.  

Naydee scurries ahead to keep the kids together, ushering them forward and preventing any drunk passer-bys from accidentally stepping on them, and you quietly bring up the very rear of the entourage.  You take the time to observe more than anything, walk in the back and experience instead of trailblaze.  So many people, so many stories to be told, so many differences and diversity around you.  Your face is partially concealed and you don’t move your head too much, just your eyes.  They flick around to take in everything, the crowd thinning little by little as you make it out of the confined space downtown.  You’re able to make out full bodies and outfits again instead of just heads and shoulders, allowing you to breathe just a bit easier under your mask.

And then at one point—and it’s almost a little startling because it happens all at once—the organizers must decide that the sun has officially gone down, because the lights come on.  All of a sudden, paper lanterns and bulbs flicker into existence all around you and the world decides it wants to glow, glint and twinkle from the inside out.  They’re everywhere, draping across rooftops and tangled around street signs and stuffed into the flower bouquets overhead, raining soft colors down on everything.  You’re in complete awe, trying to keep walking but also needing to look at as much as fucking possible in the suddenly luminescent city.  It’s so colorful, so vernal and warm and you feel like you’re… Like when you took a shower on the Crest for the first time and spent a few happy moments just playing with the water and soap for your own enjoyment, it’s as if all the brilliant rainbow of colors the bubbles would make under the fluorescent light decided to surround you at the same time.  You’re inside stained glass, blinking at the flowers and wondering if Din can even smell the air or if it’s filtered, processed and reduced to nothing under the helmet.

And that’s when you see him.

But with the way your chest rapidly constricts and you can count your heart beats as they pound, blaring white noise through your ears and adrenaline through your veins, it’s like he's just allowing it to happen.  You immediately understand that you don’t have fucking anything the second your eyes land on him; this isn’t a heads up that you caught wind of early, it’s not a gift or an advantage you’ve incidentally gained over him that you should be thankful for.  Being able to see him directly like this, being able to make out all these fucking details from this far away…  This just feels like you’re being informed of the endgame right before it comes.  If you were anyone else, if you were a real bounty and this was a real hunt, his armor glinting and reflecting the lanterns overhead would feel like a knife you're about to be on the wrong side of.

You have a decision to make, very quickly.  Either keep in this same direction, head straight towards him and just pretend like you are who you’re dressed as, a random caretaker for a bunch of rowdy foundlings during a spring festival on Nariss, or disappear.  Drop back, move through the crowd and use the distance you have between you right now as your only hope of getting away in time.  Neither one gives you a particular advantage—your chances of being caught have already skyrocketed exponentially just being able to see the reflection in his armor, the hovering shield at his side with big black eyes… staring directly at you.

You almost trip over your pantlegs, gasping.  Baby.  He beams at you and you think he calls out through the passing crowd, his tiny arms extending out, and your chest feels like you’re pulling organs as if they were muscles, cramping up and seizing with emotion.  You want to run to them even though you’re meant to be running from them, call out over the noise and wave even though you’re not supposed to.  You want to hold the kid again, squish his little forehead with kisses, walk around with Din’s hand pressed against your lower back and see the fireworks with him.

Your hands clutch at the draping fabric covering your chest, pulling and twisting it uncertainly.  What do you do, what do you do?

No matter what, you know it’s over.  Keep your head down and try to move past him, or break away from your group and try to escape—both are different paths that lead to the same result.  What’s the point of running when he’s the one chasing you?  The heart-pounding thrill is the only reason you’re even considering it, but his body stands so tall amongst the crowd, not moving while people ebb and flow like a river passing around him.

Except then you can hear his voice repeat the last thing he said to you in person as if he says it directly into the comm in your ear.  When you do see me… try to outrun.

You should run—run, it’s better than just hoping he doesn’t see you when you already know he does.

Unless…

Out of a trillion different possibilities, you soon realize that there is exactly one situation in which this could turn out in your favor.  You can immediately picture the scenario in your mind, but there’s just too many variables to conceivably rely on getting them all right.  This maybe has a… two percent chance of working?  Maybe?  Everything would have to go perfectly, just fucking flawlessly, but what other choice do you have?  Two percent is better than whatever odds you’re dealing with now.

You walk silently behind the group of foundlings as you approach closer and closer, keeping your head purposefully down as they skip and giggle and dance ahead.  He knows you’re here—he has to know, you’re counting on him knowing.  Walk right in front of him, pretend like you don’t see, make sure you keep left.  Keep left, keep left, keep your head down, keep your head down—

A leather glove suddenly catches hold of your wrist hard enough to tug you backwards.

Your gasp is audible over the sound of the crowd and you spin around, jerking your head up to look at him in fear.  Your heart slams as the beskar reflects your mask and hood back at you—you’re terrified and it shows, you can see it in your eyes.

You quickly try to yank your hand away, even as your index finger stretches up towards the communicator around his wrist.

“Miss Nerida?”  A child’s voice cries, and then small hands grab at you from behind as you bury the urge to actually fight him.  Your instincts are demanding you attack when his grip is this strong, but you just whine and struggle, slapping weakly at him with your free hand and feeling more of the younglings begin to pull at you, their high pitched voices calling more and more attention to the scene.

Your gaze flicks to the side, suddenly landing on a pair of New Republic officers helping direct the thousands of moving bodies from the closest street corner.  They’re looking at you, pointing and beginning to speak into their own comm units.  Din’s helmet snaps sideways to follow your gaze, and then he’s immediately dropping your wrist and stepping back, retreating as quickly as he caught you.  Though you don’t want to—though you don’t want to give yourself away even more, you want to pretend fully that he was a complete stranger and the children were right to try to help you get away—your eyes fall to your son in the hovering crib by his side and you feel yourself crumble just a bit.

Just a few more hours, kid.  A few more hours.

Children pull you away while your pursuers both disappear into the crowd, and you quickly turn to soothe the tiny babies instead of chasing after the one you miss so terribly.

“I’m alright,” you tell them, scooting them up and encouraging them to continue walking.  Blend in, blend in, don’t let anybody think anything is wrong.  “Come on, we’re fine, come on, we have to catch up.”

They take your lead as soon as one of the caretakers turns around and sees the small group crowding around you.  You think she asks what happened, but you just tell her a man mistook you for someone else and nothing more comes of it.  She’s able to settle the chaos better than you are, and by the time you’re continuing to travel forwards once more like nothing happened, the communicator suddenly flicks on in your ear.

“What did you do?”  He breathes out, his footsteps moving fast through his voice.  He’s traveling much quicker than you expected—is he still being followed?  The officers are gone from your sight, they might be going after him right now, weaving between bodies and calling out to the perpetually vanishing glint of armor as he navigates his way out of danger.

You look down at the comm on your wrist and your heart nearly soars with victory.  It worked.  It worked.  You just have to outlast a bit longer, don’t draw any extra attention to it—he’s preoccupied and he certainly doesn’t sound happy, but you hope that’ll be enough to make him slip.  Use his frustration to your advantage, let him think the only thing you were successful at was momentarily escaping him.

“The cops weren’t part of the plan,” you admit quietly, keeping your head down as your loose hood billows in the twilight breeze.  “Don’t get caught.”

There’s a few moments of just his breathing, his footsteps, and the noise floor humming through the comm, before he finally responds.  “You look beautiful.”

You stare unseeingly down at the concrete under your feet, still feeling your hand tingle from where he caught you.  The line abruptly mutes on his end and you just keep moving forward, onward, wanting to look back but knowing he’s already long gone.

***

Day 5–5:24pm:

Din is fucking furious.

He had you.  You were right there, right in front of him, and even if he hadn’t been subtly trailing you all day, seeing the red footsteps get covered and flicker out of existence just a few moments after you make them, he would’ve recognized you anywhere.  In black and white, in the fading light, with your face covered, children calling you by a different name and attaching themselves to you like they’ve known you forever—doesn’t matter, he would’ve known you.  Your eyes have always given you away, always so expressive and starry and soft, but able to see right through solid steel whenever you look at him.

But then you slipped from his grasp, and then more guards pushed him further and further away from you.  They must all be in constant communication, because every single jumpsuit he sees immediately spots him and starts following.  It’s fucking exhausting, and he thinks of you the whole time.

He waits in a dark alley with the kid and taps the side of the helmet a few times to bring up the time on his comm, but then relaxes just slightly when he sees the hour.  It’s earlier than he thought it was, he’ll be able to find you again.

Though, something tugs at him while he’s looking at the clock ticking away in front of his eyes, counting down each second that passes.  There was… a moment.  Back in the square, when he was holding onto you again, when you were looking directly into his once more—everything in his helmet— 

No, he shakes his head while the kid looks up at him curiously, it can’t be.  It was just a split second, it was gone so fast.

But he can’t get rid of it.  Though there’s no explanation, he thinks the display screen flickered.  The sky behind you looked different for a single frame, your footsteps weren’t bright red and visible anymore, your eyes weren’t grey and he stopped wondering what shade of fabric you and your friend decided to choose for you to wear.  It was silvery, he’s almost certain.  Like his armor, it only reflected the color of everything around it.

Color.  Everywhere.  Bursting for a blink of an eye, and then gone just as quick, before he could actually figure out what it really meant.

***

Day 5–6:59pm:

This water is quiet here, but it sparkles.

It doesn’t ever really get truly dark thanks to the enormous hanging moon and ringed gas giant dancing with Sanctuary II, constantly reflecting light back onto the surface and reacting with some of the trace chemicals up above the atmosphere, and you think the sky just might be the prettiest you’ve ever seen it.  Must have something to do with the equinox, the glimmering angles of light being played with by celestial bodies in this stunning system, but it’s a dream.  The Maker apparently couldn’t decide which colors he wanted tonight so he just splashed all of them together all at once, let them run and blend like ink in the gentle water below, like the various people who call this moon home.

That view in front of you, coupled with all the flowers and lanterns lining the streets behind you, and you’ve lost track of time the exact same way you hoped Din would.  You think you’ve stood for about an hour or so in this one spot, half-listening to excited chatter from the babies, mostly just gazing across the stretch of water and being able to just barely spot the docks in the distance, but it feels like it’s only been minutes.

You check your watch—the fireworks should be starting any second now.  You don’t know what to expect, just that in your experience, explosions tend to be loud.  You've decided you’re not going to plug your ears, though.  Tummy twisting with nerves and another inexplicable feeling you can’t quite put your finger on, you resolve to experience the unknown exactly the way it’s meant to be.  Fully, without worry or fear.

Then, lacking any warning or ceremony whatsoever, a single flare launches silent and high from one of the small boats skimming the bay, and the crowd seems to hold its collective breath as the dim light disappears into thin air for a split second, before—

It’s… quite possibly the most dazzling thing you think you’ve ever seen.  So shamelessly decorative just for the sake of it, not serving any other practical purpose besides celebration and visual spectacle, and you’ll probably never know another extravagance like it.  You grew up with dust pelting against tired eyes, you never thought they’d get to reflect such gorgeous bursts of color back up at the sky, glassy and childlike amongst a group of equally wide-eyed children.

As expected, a deafening boom follows closely behind the singular display, but just witnessing it is incredible enough to make you forget to brace yourself for the sound and you jump almost violently in response.  There comes a loud cheer from the people standing around you, a few delighted gasps and children who decide now is the best time to start crying, but then more flares begin to launch from the boats and the subsequent show will sear itself into your memory to replay over and over again.

Still, you think the endless sky and dark water below would have to light on fire to stop him from coming to mind.

Din.

You click the comm on, continuing to stare in stunned awe but wanting nothing more than to hear his voice right now, feel his hand rest on your lower back and the kid’s three fingers squeezing one of yours while the stars rain down from above.  You’re only continuing to run from him because it’s expected of you, that’s the reason you’re here, but it’s becoming harder and harder to argue with yourself.  “Do you always see in black and white?”

It takes him just a few seconds to respond, but he always does.  “Only when I’m tracking someone.”

The loud booms can be heard over the earpiece, happening maybe a second after they crack and sparkle above you.  You can’t tell if the latency is due to the electronics or if he’s just that far away from the source of the sound itself, but… you don’t think he is.  He feels close again, like he could just walk up right next to you any second, or maybe that’s just how he always feels now.

“Does that mean you haven’t seen the sky here?”  You ask after a moment.  This whole time, everything has been grey for him?

“I saw it,” Din murmurs, and even though it’s quiet and explosions are thundering loud enough to deafen more sensitive ears, his quiet voice somehow breaks through it all.  “When you left the Crest, I saw it behind you.”

For some reason, you suddenly feel like crying.  Whether it’s the way he phrases it or the sentiment in the words, you’re close to tears without even knowing why, looking up at the sky illuminating spectacularly.  He says it like he wasn’t the one who parked on this moon and told you to go on without him.  “Can you… turn it off for just a second?”

He takes a second, before clarifying for you.  “I turn it off and I lose your footprints.”

So that was the ultimatum.  He doesn’t want to turn it off until you’re back with him again.  Does he not understand?  Does he not know what you know?  Maybe you just happened to feel it first, this overwhelming physical sensation inside you whenever you think about him.  It’s like the exact opposite of a hole in your chest.  And it’s so odd, so counterintuitive.  Being comforted in his absence, feeling him with you when he isn’t.  Falling in love in the dark, knowing him without ever seeing him.

“You never needed them,” you say, reaching up to pull your mask down under your jaw and chin for a moment, wanting to freely breathe the freshwater and flowers while stars explode and fracture across the sky.  It’s a truth you’re acknowledging, something you’ll carry with you, something you fundamentally own at this point.  “You’d find me without the helmet.  And I’d find you.”

The fireworks continue to bleed into the water beneath them, multicolor splashes rippling into existence and disappearing just as quick.  You could’ve never imagined a more colorful, magnificent landscape—besides your waterfall on Naboo, of course.  That was a pure product of nature though, a place hidden away and untouched by people, completely sacred.  Light refracting against mist, natural glass that would shatter under your weight.  This is a celebration of life and family.  Loud in a different way, affecting you in a different way, but just as wonderful and touching.  A cultivated paradise, designed to be beautiful and safe only because they wanted it to be.

“Think so?”  He asks softly.  He sounds so deep and warm, but… a little distant.  You’re able to hear it in his words.  You don’t know why, though.  Doesn’t he believe you?  Perhaps… perhaps this isn’t The Way.  Perhaps this is part of a completely different oath, one where knowing and loving somebody isn’t the same thing as looking at their face, not at all.  Where you can have them exist entirely separate from each other, because this is love.  This is real, enduring, bone-deep love, and you haven’t ever seen his face, so how would he explain that?  How would the Mandalorians reconcile that?  You bear the mark of the mudhorn, you’ve moved through time and space with him, you’re a mother to his son, and you’ve never seen his face.  It defies both the Mandalorian oath and traditional understandings of love, or it meets them right in the middle, depending on how you look at it.

“I know so.”  For the first time, you think you might sound more confident and certain than he does.  Maybe he doesn’t fully get it yet, but then you suppose he’ll just have to trust you.  “Will you look at the sky?”

“I see it,” Din tells you, but you know he doesn’t.  Not the way you want him to.  And stars, you just want so many things for him, don’t you?  The sky, fresh air, water, light, food, rest.  You want him to see the galaxy the way you do—have a new appreciation for the gifts that are given just because you’re alive to experience them.  All the physics and mathematics aligned perfectly for it to happen—all the chemistry, the systems, the dynamics that dictate the universe, they all got together and crafted a world where you, him, and the kid all exist together at the same time.  You want him to know the significance of that.

“With color?”  You ask, knowing his answer before he seems to.

“I…”  Din wants to argue, or at least say it again.  He can’t or he’ll lose you, he already told you he doesn’t want to turn the setting off.  It’s such an unnecessary conflict, but you want to respect it so much that you’re willing to give up things of your own to make it happen.

“How do I fix it then?”  You whisper, so desperately wanting this one thing for him, this one grandeur to behold.  How do you fix this problem?  How do you convince him to look with you?  You’d offer to just go and find him instead of continuing to run away for the next few hours, but you know the show will be over soon and you don’t have much time left.  “Do you want me to come look for you?  It’ll be too late by then, you’re too far away.  Look at the sky.”

It’s silent for a moment—truly silent, even though colorful bombs are going off above the bay.  You don’t know why you’ve attached yourself to this so strongly, but it’s almost devastating when you don’t get a response.  You look away from the spectacle for the first time in an eternity, gazing unseeingly into the crowd of onlookers with a sudden sadness taking hold of you.  He won’t look, he’s too stubborn, he holds onto things too tightly.

But then, a flurry of flares start launching in rapid succession from the distant boats, screaming and crying on their way up and then igniting into showers of light, and the abrupt increase in activity manages to catch your attention once again.  This must be the end, they saved the best for last.  Every corner of the horizon flashes and sparks, and you’re mesmerized at how bright it is, how many colors they’ve managed to fit into one single frame.

“It’s beautiful,” comes his voice, and the smile that you break into feels just right for the brilliance of the view above you.  Maker, it is, isn’t it?  Now you can hear it—he sounds like he’s looking at it too, with color, in all its breathtaking glory, and you feel like you’re flying.  Like he picked you up and let you watch up close, like you can feel his armor under your fingers right now as he carries you through the sky.

It swells up inside you, a rising wave similar to the ones you can see in the distance, and you know you probably shouldn’t say it because it’s not in your best interest to say it right now, but you have to say it anyways.  It’s an unknowable compulsion, a need to connect and communicate directly with him but for your sake, not presently, not at this exact moment in time.

Luckily, you mute your comm just in time and simply give the words to him from very far away.

“Hurry up,” you say, sending the sentiment into the sky with all your love, and the conflicting hope that he won’t take the advice until a bit later on.  “Come and find me.”

***

Day 5–7:37pm:

After the fireworks are over, people start to drift off in separate directions, clearing the traffic and congestion from the streets around you.  Someone puts their hand on your shoulder and you blink a few times, spinning around and almost stepping on a bunch of tiny little feet by accident.

Stars, that’s a lot of children.  They’re all crowded around Naydee, who pats a few heads and almost buckles under the younglings clinging to her leg.

“Figured you would be long gone by now,” she grins at you from behind her mask, and you’re reminded to pull yours up over your face just from looking at her.  “It’s late—we’re going back to the Keja.”

“Oh, shit,” you breathe in surprise, but the noise of the gradually dispersing crowd manages to cover it up.  At least from younger, more easily distracted ears, but you think Naydee hears you.  Her dark eyes roll good-naturedly, looking happy but exhausted from the long day.  You’re going to have to say goodbye now.

“What happened to your family?”  She asks after a moment, and you think she’s being careful with the way she says it, likely because family is a difficult topic to navigate in general around some of the children hanging on her and begging for her attention.  “Have you been in touch with them?  If not, I’m sure you can come back with us.  It’ll be late by the time we get there, but at least you’ll be safe.”

You open your mouth to automatically decline her offer, knowing Din is still in the crowded city looking for you and wanting to stay where there’s lots of people.

But then… well, he would expect you to do that, wouldn’t he?

There’s more people here.  More danger, but better places to hide.  It’s the obvious choice, it’s the one that makes the most logical sense.  But you’d also be completely alone and you’re assuming the only reason he hasn’t snatched you up yet—which you know he could’ve done multiple times by now, is likely because you’re with a group of innocent foundlings, moody teenagers, and very stern older women.  He probably doesn’t realize you’ve told them about him and the kid, though you were slightly vague on the details.

It’s also a little over three hours to get back, but you’re banking on it being closer to four with how whiney and tired some of the small voices sound, others sounding like they’re an enormous sugar rush contained into a tiny little capsule.  Would he have the gall to try and get you right from under their noses?  Will he even know you left the city, or will he assume you made the smartest decision possible and simply account for it ahead of time?  No, you're overthinking it, just make a decision and stick with it.

“There’s also free food,” Naydee shrugs while you’re still considering, but… well, that settles that.  Almost three days of friendship and she already knows exactly how to win you over in the end.  Sustenance for your empty tummy, an escort the entire way there, and heavily guarded walls beyond.  Din will have to get creative in response—you flaunted your imagination for days, coming up with dozens of evasion tactics to outlast him, but this one just seems… incredibly practical.  Exploiting a weakness of his—isolating it, having it be reinforced by precedent, and then taking advantage of it.  You bet he’ll catch on, but still, it’ll make it more difficult for him, and you’re grasping at straws to hang on just a little longer.

“I…”  Quick, come up with something.  You clear your throat.  “The city is too crowded, I haven’t been able to find them.  I could just… tell them where I’m headed and see if they can find me along the way?”

Naydee smiles and nods.  “Sounds perfect.”

Yet, the entire walk back… you keep thinking you’re going to feel Din trailing behind you, waiting to feel the nerves twist in your tummy and your palms to sweat, but you don’t.  You keep glancing over your shoulder and then down at your wrist, needing to talk yourself out of addressing him through the comm to let him know exactly what the plan is.  You like maintaining a sense of secrecy from the new characters you’ve met on your adventures—Naydee, Karga, Peli—almost everyone you’ve been introduced to, you found a way to find a subtle enjoyment in hiding certain things from them.  But with Din, you don’t have any walls.  They crumbled nearly a full year ago when he silently pushed a cauterizer in your hand and took his armor off for you, and you’ve felt the inexplicable need to bare yourself to him in return ever since.  It would be to your extreme detriment to do it now, but you still have to fight the urge.

Even if you don’t feel him following, you still find yourself acting like he is.  Constantly turning back to double check the road behind you, drifting off in the middle of shallow, distant conversations with tiny foundlings who can’t tell the difference, keeping towards the middle of the pack this time to avoid being picked off towards the back.  The belltower at the orphanage is loud and will ring for quite a distance, so your timing has to be utterly pristine for this to all work out.  You eye your comm the entire way there, trying to stall just the right amount to avoid any realizations or fall into any traps he may be setting for you.

You eventually leave the city walls far behind you, and now you have no clue where he is.  You lost him, and maybe that’s why you feel your heart beat insanely fast the whole time.  He could be anywhere now.  Behind you, adjacent, parallel—you can’t decide where to look, but it keeps you wide awake and focused while the group tiredly travels back to the temple.

***

Day 5–11:32pm:

You can see it in the distance, the brick buildings slowly coming into view.  One might think your stress would have worked itself out by now, been brought back to a manageable level after four hours of walking, but you’ve been on red alert for the past hour or so.  Any movement or rustle that doesn’t come from the sleepy children or exhausted caretakers, you’re on top of it, snapping your attention to the offending tree or animal and not being able to relax even after affirming it’s just nature, it’s not shiny metal bounding after you in the darkness, ready to take you down.

The infants are all likely snoozing away in the nursery, and the Sister who volunteered to stay behind and look after them comes to greet the group at the gate as you approach.  Like always, two Brothers open the iron bars to allow you inside, and you feel the anxiety dig its claws into your tummy.  If Din is going to get you, this is the very last moment to do it.  These walls are guarded and you’re nervous for him, you’re nervous for yourself—you’re just fucking nervous.  Jumpy and worried, not being able to pinpoint him anymore and feeling all the more anxious because of it.

It doesn’t feel right.  Nothing feels right about this, but you can’t figure out specifically what’s wrong.  This was the exact plan, this was a way for you to just survive these last few hours and yet, it doesn’t feel right that you actually succeeded in doing so.  It doesn’t make sense that he’d allow you to return all the way here, especially when he was close enough to touch you earlier.  Din has had so much time to snatch you up, so many opportunities to lure you away, confront you—anything to catch you, and he hasn’t done it yet.  Why?  Either you truly did escape and he has no idea where you are, which doesn’t feel right, or he’s choosing not to get you for whatever reason, which also doesn’t feel right.  What’s he waiting for?  You can’t have won.  It was all too fucking easy, you’re expecting to see him around every single corner because he should be there, he shouldn’t have allowed this to happen.

When someone gently touches your elbow, you’re so on edge that you nearly whip around in surprise.

“Sorry!”  Naydee immediately apologizes, taking her hand back to lift her hood and remove the mask covering her face.  “Didn’t mean to scare you!  I was just going to say that the commissary is still open,” she offers, and you watch the small group of hungry teenagers break off from the group to make their way there.  “It’s going to take awhile to get the children ready for bed, so we’ll be in the dormitories if you need to sleep.  Otherwise, I’m not sure I’ll see you again.”

You stare at her and blink a few times, trying to readjust your focus.  She’s your new friend, she just said this was likely the last time you’ll see each other, but you can’t stop thinking about Din.  Imagine he’s hours away in the city right now, still looking for you.  You’re trying to evaluate your priorities here, but you truthfully never expected to get this far.  Inside the gates, surrounded by brick buildings and silent guards.  You know your way around here, you know hiding spots, you know how to outlast—it’s incredibly advantageous for you to be inside these walls.  What is he doing?

Shaking your head to clear your thoughts, you give Naydee a quick hug and she happily accepts it.  “I’m sure we’ll meet again at some point.”

She smiles and nods, pulling back and letting a couple grumpy foundlings catch her robes and yank on them impatiently.  The loud group eventually disappears into the dorms, and the door shutting behind them cuts off the tired crying and chatty voices determined to stay awake, leaving you in silence that feels slightly unfamiliar after going without it for so long.

Fuck, you just need to breathe.  As soon as the dead quiet grips the air around you, you realize you need to relax.  You’re way too fucking wound up; you want to bolt at the smallest thing and the sudden silence of being alone multiplies it to the point where you have to remind yourself of its importance.  Breathe.  Focus.  There’s about fifteen minutes before the bells ring, fifteen more minutes and the chase will be all over.

Can you eat?  You thought you’d want to, but you think you’re too fucking antsy.  You can’t stay here alone, that’s for sure, but you also don’t want to be around all the children right now.  The commissary will have a handful of people wandering around, teens snacking and maybe a Brother or two standing guard.  It’s the best place to wait the clock out, so you make your way there.  The gentle breeze billows around your loose robes, your pantlegs swishing as you walk.

A few minutes later, you’ve got a plate of food in front of you but your mask is still up, and you’re just sitting there.  Towards the back of the large room, sitting by yourself at one of the tables and staring down at your communicator.  Five minutes.  You have five fucking minutes left before he finds you.  Can you feel him?  Is he closing in?

You sit up a bit straighter, taking a deep breath.  Focus on that feeling from earlier.  The presence in your chest, the weight that didn’t used to be there months ago—focus on that feeling and branch it outwards.  Can you feel him?

Something catches your eye.

Or no… it doesn’t, does it?  Nothing is out of place here, nothing is visibly wrong or amiss.  The only thing that’s changed from all the times before is how dark it is through the windows, and how there are only a few kids in here grabbing a midnight snack instead of being packed like usual.  Nothing else.

But there’s… there’s an acolyte in the far corner, standing guard with his back to the wall.  It’s not his presence that gives you pause—you expected him to be here, there’s always been at least one present whenever you’ve sat down to eat.  He doesn’t look any different from the rest of the Brothers you’ve passed by this evening or the days before—tall, silent, dark brown robes, hooded and mysterious—so why do you suddenly feel yourself break out into a cold sweat as soon as your eyes land on him?

Bubbling laughter and chatter echoes through the large room from one of the tables near the entrance—seven teenagers stuffing their faces with food and sharing animated conversation with each other now that it’s late and they’re alone—but your stomach twists and your fingers start to tremble as you slowly rise from your seat in the back.  You want to keep your head down and be casual but it’s impossible, you desperately need to keep looking at that silent guard in particular and your heart kicks up in your chest—

—and then it wrenches sideways when you’re carefully backing away from the table and the offending acolyte takes a single step forwards.

Run.  Everything in you screams for you to run, and it’s rarely done that before, but you can’t.  Not yet, you don’t want to draw attention, and the logical part of your mind rages against your gut instinct to haul ass.  He’s here—of course he is, the thought screams through your veins as you try to weave quickly in between tables, feeling light on your toes and readying yourself to run as soon as you can.  The dark figure seems to find a careful pace behind you, staying just far enough behind and walking in perfect silence, and you have so many fucking questions but you can’t even think a single thing beyond run away, run away.  Where’s the kid?  How did he get those robes?  Did he actually take his helmet off just to get to you in a room where anyone could confront him?

Your feet propel you forward as soon as you make it out of the door, you break out into a sprint—just flat out bolting because you know how fucking fast he is and you need as big a headstart as you can get.

You race down the stairs and through the courtyard, the beautiful surroundings contrasting drastically with the way you’re running for your fucking life through them.  It’s not beautiful to you right now; you feel clumsy and physically unable to move fast enough no matter how quick you go, your eyes are wide and every nerve is on fire and you can’t even tell if he’s behind you anymore with how silently he moves, but you just trust that he is and keep barreling forward.  Your breath puffs against the clinging fabric of your mask as you keep sprinting, willing your legs to pump faster.  Get to the belltower at least, get to where you have the smallest chance of being caught by the people who guard this place.

As soon as you allow yourself to even conceive the possibility, two Brothers in dark hooded robes suddenly turn the corner a little ways in front of you and your reaction time is perfect—you jerk to a halt and take a single step forward as soon as they spot you.  Since your momentum already committed you to it, you just have to walk, keep your head down, move directly past them and hope Din disappeared from behind you in time.

Step, step, step—keep going, control your breathing, you’re okay, you’re allowed to be up late tonight and they shouldn’t stop you.  Walk right by…  Stars, you feel their silent stares as you casually pass, and it just feels so cold and analytical compared to the kind of danger Din is gives off when dressed in the exact same clothing.  He’s hard and tangible and an unrelenting force, where they just feel like ghosts that haunt this place.  The threat they present is impersonal and detached, but the terror currently chasing after you is so real that he can read your mind.

You wipe the sweat from your brow as soon as you turn the corner, and your feet are already starting to speed up on their own knowing you’re out of their sight.  Run, get to the belltower before Din does, you can see it standing tall about a hundred feet away.  The stairs leading to the door come closer and closer, but you hear something behind you and it propels you faster.  It’s like you can feel him right at your heels even though you haven’t seen him, snapping at your ankles even though your footsteps are the only ones you can hear anymore.

You scramble up the stairs and close the door behind you, spinning around and facing it even as you slowly retreat backwards into the moonlit tower, trying to stay quiet.  Breathing through your nose, eyes shifting around the enclosed space, continuing to back up and away from the door.  Where is he?  There are so many windows that allow you to look outside, but why can’t you spot his movement through them?  Wasn’t he right behind you?

Behind you.

There’s no reason or logic at all to it; you just react.  Spinning around and throwing a mean punch.

Din jerks back just in time to miss it, twisting and dodging at the very last second to avoid your next few hits—but… things seem to slow down, even if they’re happening so fast.  The moonlight cascades through the dozens of windows lining the circular walls and it shines just enough to reveal small glimpses of him.  With every aggressive strike from you, you see something else—you see a flash of his chin when you try to uppercut, you aim for his chest and you see a bit of his jaw.  When you go for his jaw, he steps sideways and catches your wrist, and you see the bend of his nose catch the light this time.

But then it’s like he finally figures out that you’re actually fighting him, and now he’s coming for you.  Trained and ruthless, not weighed down by any armor and lightning quick, launching perfectly aimed attacks that you’re only able to avoid from reaction and muscle memory alone.  You block or move whenever he strikes, you attack whenever you see an opening, you sidestep at the same time he does—

Until you land a spin kick directly to the center of his chest and snap your leg to shove him back, your heel smashing into that soft spot right above his stomach with dead precision and brute force.  He exhales sharply and takes a few more steps back to steady himself while you pause to catch your breath.

Din abruptly comes back and you fall into it with him again, keeping a sharp rhythm with each other that’s faster, harder, and way more real than any sparring match you’ve ever shared.  The hours and days in hyperspace you spent practicing with him are but a fraction of what he’s throwing at you right now, the combinations so rapid and blurred that you just have to trust your knowledge of him and his movement through the dark.

But then, your downfall.  Bells begin ringing an earsplittingly familiar melody above you, and it shatters your concentration—you falter just as he grabs you and sweeps your feet out, and though you know how to get out of that, you’re not quick enough on the jump nor counterswing to prevent it.  He takes you to the ground, hard, and then your wrists are being pinned together above your head and your mask is being tugged down.

Din’s mouth on yours makes you want to cry.

The whole thing is like coming home.  You spent a week surrounded by strangers and having them call you by a name not given to you, fending for yourself, and now here he is.  Someone who knows who you really are, someone that wants to care for you.  Tears come to your eyes even as they're pressed tightly shut, and Din kisses you like he’s never known anything else.  His mouth fits to yours as if the Maker made your lips before ever considering the rest of you, his bare hand clutching your jaw and forcing you to open for him, letting him lick deep inside after going so many days without it.  It might feel dominant and overwhelming if it happened to any other person, but through it, you can also taste his desperation and weakness, how soft he is even when he’s squeezing your jaw and squishing your wrists together too tightly.

Rigid steel that bends only for your touch.

He pulls back and your heart throbs at how moonlight continues to bathe just the smallest glimpses of him under the hood—never the full thing, never the whole face, but enough.  The quiet light that brushes the arch of his nose, how it bathes the hard line of his jaw so that you can barely see his scruff when he turns his head the right way.  His eyes are hidden in near darkness but there’s the faintest glimmer where they should be, and it’s the closest you’ve ever been to looking at him without the helmet.  You can see him, you can see shadows of his chin, his neck—dear stars, his fucking neck.  You’re pinned and paralyzed under him and the ringing bells, yet you feel like you just might float if he wasn’t holding you so tight to the floor.

“Where’s the baby?”  You finally lift your chin and ask, needing to raise your voice over the melody clanging loud throughout the tower.

“Making friends,” Din pants back down at you, and… stars, then you just start giggling.  Adrenaline turning into pure joy, imagining the kid wreaking havoc with all the other babies in the nursery right now.  It feels more light and airy than anything your body should know.

“What are you so happy about?” He asks, swallowing and then continuing on with the same quick gasps.  “You lost, I caught you in time.”

“Did you?”  You drop your head to the brick floor and ask, biting your lip as he stares back down at you.  Suddenly—

—Bong—

Din holds utterly still over you while you take a quick breath and wait for the next eleven bells… 

…but then break into a slow grin up at him when nothing but utter silence follows.

There’s a moment.  Just a single moment where the cogs turn rapidly under that shadowy hood, one where the faint reflection of light in his eyes flickers down to the communicator on your wrist that says midnight and back to you, one that solidifies the longer it takes for another bell to ring.  It’s not going to.

One o’clock.

You think he puts it together.  The one moment he was never able to figure you out—when you tried reprogramming the comms just a few days ago.  The one trick up your sleeve that you resigned to throw away and almost forget about because the circumstances for pulling it off were never realistic.  Fuck with the electronics and set the clock back just one hour—all you’d need to do is reset his communicator, the timecode is synced together.  He told you before that it’s connected to his helmet, but all the buttons still work.  Rapid, panicky thinking and a wild surge of bravery in the face of certain downfall is the only reason you were able to pull it off, and you’re perfectly willing to admit you just got lucky… especially when he’s still holding dead still over you.

But then Din moves so suddenly.  You can’t account for it because there’s no build-up whatsoever—it’s so fast, you yelp while he grabs your knees and throws them both to one side.  You flop over sideways and large hands reach up under the draping length of your tunic to yank your pants down over the curve of your ass, before he’s fitting his palm up between your legs and pushing two thick fingers inside you.

Your head thunks back against brick with how unexpected and merciless it is, but his other hand is grabbing your jaw and twisting, forcing you to look up, stare right into the dark shadow under the loose cowl.  The whole thing is too overwhelming—you’re trying to keep quiet but your breathing feels like thunder crashing inside this tall, echoing chamber.  He’s touched you so many times, he knows exactly how to do it by now, but it feels like so much more than that.  Probably because you can see the way Din’s mouth silently falls open as he feels you, stretching his fingers up and hooking them tight inside.  You can tell when he closes his eyes, the smallest glint slowly disappearing into nothingness while the hand around your jaw blindly moves up.  It catches your chin and lips, and then two fingers push over the bottom edge of your teeth to slip into your mouth.

Your entire leg twitches and jerks while you lay sideways on the ground and open up for him, your neck twisted at a sharp angle to keep your eyes on him and his fingers in your mouth, giving you something to bite to stop making noise.  Din makes room for himself inside you two different ways, and you just choke on his fingers and try to stay quiet, praying he’ll go deeper.

But then you’re not expecting his whole fucking arm to start moving the way it does—oh fuck, what is that?  First you just feel jostled and displaced, but then suddenly a wicked, deep, burning pleasure starts to roar through you, radiating outwards from the rapid motion of just two fingers inside you.  It’s not in and out, it’s up and down so hard and quick against your g-spot that your eyes cross and your hands go numb.

You think you grab at him, clutch onto his arm or chest and open your mouth to moan at the new and overwhelming sensation, but his hand pushes up against your chin and closes it for you, the bend of his fingers caught hard between your teeth but you don’t think he cares.

“Quiet,” Din hisses the word down at you while his arm continues to work, your toes starting to curl as the feeling overwhelms you.  Fuck, what is happening, what is happening?  It’s like he’s just shoving unfamiliar sensation at you so forcefully that you can’t even think straight anymore, not even ten seconds in.  You can only feel the pleasure, fire blurring hot and shapeless through your entire body as your eyes clamp shut, his fingers isolating that perfect spot and stimulating it directly, relentlessly.

Something dull and white hot presses up tight against all the muscles you have down there and you’re almost afraid of how strong it is.  You gasp and choke and he has to take his fingers out of your mouth and just clamp down around your entire jaw, sealing the whole thing shut with his large hand.  And then Din’s fingers leave your pussy too—and stars, you should be embarrassed by how desperately it clamps around nothing for as long as it does.  He’s not even inside you anymore but your body is on such a delay from the hot, twisting pleasure, and he doesn’t put them back in until your muscles are finished spasming.

Everything comes back full force as soon as he starts moving again.  Noise starts to come from your throat, humming in your vocal cords to deal with the arcing, swirling build, and so Din just moves his hand there instead.  He finds where it’s vibrating from your neck and he pushes up against it, trapping the sound right at the source.  He’s fucking perfect at it for some reason… how many times must he have done this to know how to cut noise out without stopping airflow?  You clutch at his wrist and silently mouth his name, feeling his arm work between your legs—faster, faster, harder, pushing you higher, higher—

Din pulls his fingers out again and this time, one of your thighs suddenly feels warm and wet while you spasm and you hear him growl out a ragged, “Fuck yes.”  Everything is sparks zapping through you long after his touch is gone, you cry out but it’s all trapped under Din’s expert grip.  His fingers soon push back inside you and you dig your nails into his forearm, your sounds muffled and quiet enough to hear his raspy groan.  

“Let me see it again,” Din breathes, his arm starting to work up and down once more, and you don’t even know what he’s talking about anymore.  What does he want to see?  You losing your mind again?  Being reduced to an utter mess in front of his shadowy but unobstructed gaze just because you managed to pull one over on him?

Fucking… apparently.  It’s what happens, after all.  You’ve never seen him like this before; whenever he’s worked up and taking it out on you, there was always something in it for him, too.  He’d hammer into you and rock your world until his eventually shattered, and then you’d both lay exhausted afterwards, equally affected and satisfied.  This isn’t like that—this is just cruel, targeted retribution on his behalf, coaxing the molten pleasure out of you with his fingers and keeping his other hand locked around your throat.  You blink helplessly up at him, your vision starting to blur by the time he leans down to whisper to you.

“I missed you, sweet girl.  Did you miss me?”  It’s so soft and quiet compared to the strength and relentlessness of his movements.  You can’t speak even if you wanted to, but when he finally pulls away to yank his hand out and you feel all your muscles automatically flex outwards and push against the sudden emptiness inside you, his voice groans long and satisfied while your thighs get wet again  “Yeah you did,” he breathes, pushing your shaky legs to the brick with his hand and watching you struggle through the aftershocks.

Did you just cum?  You don’t even know, that’s how fucked up you are right now.  The whole thing felt like an orgasm from the very beginning, just a boiling hot tornado ripping through every single cell in your body, never really having a peak.  If you didn’t cum, then why do you feel so weak?  You feel heavy, your limbs don’t work properly, and you barely even register Din pulling at the fabric of his own robes until he fits himself up against your entrance.

When you do realize it, though… your body burns with it, wrecked already but wanting him to take what he wants from you.

“Oh, plea—” you gasp but you don’t even have enough time to get the full sentence out.  He’s already pushing his hips forward, pressing you tight into the ground and opening you up after what feels like a fucking eternity without him.  It’s the hottest, slickest welcome you could give him, you hear it in the whispered curse his lips brush up under your ear, the wet noises your body makes that get louder the longer you hold the moan in your throat and bury your head into his shoulder.  He throbs thick and perfect inside your tight, spasming cunt, stretching you and smacking the rough ground near your head with how fucking good it is to be back, finally, finally—

Your hands grab uselessly at his chest while you try to acclimate, try to breathe while you’re blind with sensation.  It’s so fitting for him, isn’t it?  That your reunion should be just as physically debilitating as it is mentally.  Din’s voice scrapes on a groan like he’s dragging it across the brick ground as quiet as he can, catching when you clamp down on him and shuddering when you clamp down harder.  That’s just it—you don’t ever loosen, you just keep tightening and tightening around him, threatening to break and cum again.

This feels different from before, though.  It’s deep, purposefully so.  His hand reaches up to push the fabric of your hood back, lifting himself up over your body and wanting to start as deep as he can.  You feel him in a place you’d never be able to reach and that’s just the beginning—that’s before he starts thrusting into you, hitting a dull sensation at the apex of each movement so hard that it becomes sharp.  His hips don’t make practically any sound smacking into you because they don’t really smack, they just rock downwards and fuck you into the floor without needing to pull out really at all.  You know he’s just trying to keep it as quiet as possible, but what he lacks in speed and agility he makes up in power.

You don’t even realize you’re making too much noise until a palm wraps tight around your mouth and the room gets a little emptier.  Din keeps you all to himself on the floor, silencing as much as he’s working you up, smothering as much as he’s freeing you.  There’s no easing up, no dragging it out, no gradual build or climb—it’s just there all of a sudden, pleasure and pain pummeling you all at once, engulfing you in flames.

You reach up to grab at the loose fabric of the hood over his face, catching a fistful of it before his hand suddenly snatches your shaky wrist and pins it back to the ground.

Maker, you forgot—oh, you completely forgot about how many people could find you right now if they ever decided to look in the right place.  You’re not in hyperspace; your body is rocking against rough brick, you’re probably going to have a lump on the back of your head from how terrible you are at trying to map out heaven while holding still.  He’s pinned down what he can with one hand; your fingers are the only things that can move besides how tight you can curl your toes, but you feel your moans turn into words against his palm.  They garble indistinctly and you’re not really even sure what you’re saying, but Din decides it’s worth hearing.

“Shh,” he whispers, slowly lifting his hand from your mouth.  “Shh, tell me—”

“W-wanna look,” you hear yourself whimper, trying your best to keep quiet but wanting to scream it while he fucks you hard and slow on the ground, “—I wanna see, I wanna look at you—”

“Fuck,” Din gasps, and though his grip tightens on your wrist and you know he can’t do it right this second, the words seem like they shatter something inside him, “Keep—oh fuck, please, k-keep saying…”

“I want to marry you,” you nearly whine for him, feeling his hips kick up rapidly and start hammering in and out, in and out, in and—“I want to see your face, I wanna be yours, I don’t want anyone else to know you the way I-I—”

You think he drops his head into your neck to muffle his own sounds.  Though they start out rough and quiet and indiscernible, but they gradually become louder as he repeats himself over and over again, growling and fucking you rough.  You only catch it on the peak, when he pulls his mouth away from your skin and gasps them raggedly one last time.

“—ve you—I l-love y—”

He kisses you to stop himself.  But it’s not really a kiss, it’s more desperate than that.  Though it’s beautiful, it’s beautiful in a different light.  It’s not rejoicing at having you back with him once again; it’s a last prayer begging you to stay by his side forever.  He loves you.  He gives it everything—it feels even more concrete and simple than taking the hood off him and revealing his face would.  You told you that you'd know him without ever seeing him, and you did.  You picked him out and found him when absolutely nothing was giving him away, and this feels like a manifestation of that.  Even if you’re not in a place where he can show you his face, his beautiful brown eyes, something still feels like it changes.  He loves you.  You gasp into his mouth and his tongue sinks deep into yours, tenacious and brave and unyielding.  

When you finally cum, you almost bite him on accident.  

Everything surges hot and molten while he pulls back and keeps fucking you through it, and you can’t tell where you’re touching him anymore, just that his skin is blazing hot under your hand and he feels like everything the armor isn’t.  He loves you.  You’re looking into his eyes right now.  You can’t see any of the details, not really, but the moonlight flickers like silent stars moving through dark depths, staring right back at you and giving you an anchor for the euphoria rocketing through you.  He loves you.  Your nails dig in sharp and slowly drag downwards, scratching hard red lines into whatever thick muscle that is—

The back of his neck, making his hips stutter and when he cums for you, he does bite.

You lift your head just in time to feel his teeth catch your chin instead of your mouth, and his entire body shakes while you keep dragging your nails down the side of his neck and his throat.  Din fucking lives for it, he releases you and arches into the pain and owns your marks like he wishes you made them deeper, stretching his neck and lifting his chin into the moonlight and—

Maker.  You can see it, with direct light, you can see more of it than ever before.  You can see his soft lips and white teeth gritting the sound of your name as quietly as he can, the dark facial hair dusting across the lower half of his face.  A fucking gorgeous jawline and throat extended long over you, flexing hard with his cock pulsing inside you.  You can just barely see the bottom of his nose from under the brown hood, the dark curls brushing up under his ears.

Stars, you still never see his eyes, the fabric of his hood acts like a blindfold draped over them, but you think you cum again.  Even if it’s on accident, it’s mean—Din tries to keep from squishing you and his hand pushes down hard against your lower tummy while he shoves his hips deep one last time, and you cum while staring at half of his face in the moonlight.  Completely lovestruck.

How can he be this beautiful when you’ve only seen fractions of him?  You have everything but the eyes now, everything but the most mysterious thing about him, the reflection into his deepest self, but you feel like you’re hypnotized by every single feature you do see.  His tongue coming out to wet his lips, the vein pulling under his sharp jaw—he’s gorgeous, he’s gorgeous, and your body agrees.  It shakes and shudders under him and eventually, Din finishes and you keep looking as his chin slowly lowers, face disappearing into the shadow once more.

Stars.  He’s so handsome and no one has ever told him, fucking dreamy and the biggest grump you’ve ever met.  Without being able to see him, you already want to reach your hands out and touch him, drag your nails through his scruff and force him to extend outwards into the moonlight again for you.  Whenever he does end up showing you his face, you know right fucking now that you’ll never be able to look away.  For the rest of your life, you’ll be staring at him, apologizing blankly for your rudeness but not feeling sorry at all.

Din leans down and gives you a slow, gentle kiss, finally relaxing into a slouch and breathing hard with the effort it took to shatter you with pleasure.

“The kid is with the other foundlings,” he whispers against your lips.  “You… you’ll have to go get him, I need to grab my armor.”

You squeeze around his cock, pulling at the fabric of his robes and ignoring him for just a second.  He fucked you in robes belonging to one of the guards and nobody has mentioned it, you need to say something.  “Where did you get this?”

“I found it,” he tells you after a moment, kissing up under your jaw.  Oh fucking Maker, he feels so good and perfect inside you, shoulders so broad and crowding you on the floor, and his lips are plush and hot, brushing and fitting your skin like it’s just an extension of his own.  “Some guy was wearing it.”

It takes you a second.

“Mando,” you suddenly gasp in quiet horror, pushing at his chest and trying your best to detach his mouth from your throat.  It’s so much more difficult than it needs to be, but you eventually succeed.  “What did you do to him?  Where is he?”

He lifts his neck up just the tiniest bit, turning his face towards yours under the hood and holding still for way too fucking long.  He’s too close to see the expression he’s making, but you know the tone of his silence.  He’s in trouble and he knows it before you do.

“Ma—”

“They’re in a closet,” he admits at the very same time, completely monotone.

You don’t know which word to emphasize.  A fucking closet?  They’re?  Plural?  Instead of stressing any particular word, you decide not to do it at all and it ends up just coming out in the same exact blank tone as him.  “They're in a closet.”

“Inside the Temple,” Din continues on when you lay still as a statue underneath him.  His head slowly dips down once more, pushing his hips against you just the slightest bit to make you remember the cock still inside you instead.  Your eyelashes flutter with it—fuck, focus—“I didn’t know there’d be more than two.”  He kisses your neck so gently.  “It was an accident.”

You don’t say anything at all, your mouth pinching down at the corners because it should but your heartbeat galloping with how… fucking sexy he is.  You shouldn’t encourage this, this horrible behavior just to get close enough to catch you, but your curiosity overtakes you and you ask a question you’ve asked yourself before.  “Did they put up a fight?”

“Mm,” he whispers noncommittally, rocking his hips down once more.  “You did.”  Your nails dig into his chest, making him falter just slightly before slowly kissing your neck again.  “Did so good.  Fought hard, outsmarted me.  Pretty fucking girl.”

And then your eyes pop open as you feel it.  His cock suddenly beginning to harden once again inside you, twitching and gradually gaining a thicker shape, and for a moment, you actually fucking consider it.  He’s the only one in this galaxy that could not only ruin you on these sacred grounds, but then coax you into doing it more than once—stars, are you actually considering it?

“We can’t,” you automatically tell him, but it’s fucking pitiful.  Zero effort, absolutely no umph behind it, leaving it entirely up to him and how much he wants it.  Your logic reminds you that the kid is probably wreaking havoc in the nursery and there are tied up guards in the fucking temple that could be discovered any second.  You shouldn’t have even let him fuck you here in the first place, but…  “Mando, we can’t—”

His mouth opens against the crook of your neck and his tongue brushes velvet hot on your skin, tasting the glistening sweat there and not moving his broad figure a single inch over you besides getting closer, deeper.  Your nails dig into his collarbone, aiming for reason one last time.  It’s apparent that you’d be better off rephrasing, knowing the challenging streak in him and how much telling him what to do doesn't help.

“It’s not a good idea,” you attempt instead, breathless and trying not to move under his mouth and lazy hips.  “Not smart.  Bad idea to fuck again.”

Din’s body stops moving, even though he keeps getting harder.  His jaw opens and then his teeth scrape softly against your flesh, making you tilt your neck back and gasp.

“Later,” he lifts his head to state aloud, committing it to truth now that it’s been spoken and heard by another person.  “Later, I’ll fuck you on the ship, in our bed, when I can get you naked and have your taste in my mouth.”

Tingles rock through your body and you squeeze around his cock just as he pulls it out and tucks it back into his pants.  Your lungs quiver when you inhale—it’s shaky, but it reminds you of how long it’s been since you’ve been able to breathe correctly.

“Later,” you finally agree, combing your fingers through your hair and glad you have this hood to cover your freshly fucked dishevelment.  He came inside you and you don’t want to be leaking and getting your nice pretty robes all wet and stained, but then of course, without any prompting, Din quickly scoots back on his knees and drops his head down to take care of it for you.

***

Commotion.

After Din helped you clean up the way he sometimes likes and then disappeared to change back into his armor, you put your mask and hood back on and tried to look as casual as possible walking to the nursery.  Your knees wobbled slightly and you couldn’t stop smiling under the mask the entire walk there, but when you arrived, you just saw a dim room with sleeping infants—not what you were expecting.  Soon, however, you hear it: down the hall, distant and coming from the dormitories, you hear a loud commotion.

Fuck, you’re nearly wincing with every step you take now, and not because you’re sore.  Well, you… are, a little bit, but in a great way.  No, you’re just dreading the ridiculous shinanigans you already know are well underway, wondering if Din actually dropped the kid off in the dorms from the beginning or if he somehow migrated his way there to cause trouble.

When you walk inside, the first thing you see is a handful of crying and shouting toddlers, and while you can’t immediately spot your favorite floppy-eared monster, you don’t have to see him to know he’s probably standing tiny directly in the middle of this tense showdown.  Automatically, you’re taking a few steps forward to rescue him, but then you stop as soon as you see what the other babies are so mad about.  A large piece of chocolate leftover from the festival levitating just beyond their pitiful little reaches.

Hm.  Who could possibly be responsible for using demon powers to steal snacks and hold them hostage from a sizeable group of hostile children.  A mystery that may never be solved.

It makes you take a second.  The sheer… the… stars, you can’t even think straight—how fucking typical it is just hits you right in the chest, sends your heart into orbit.  Of course.  Of course this is what he’s gotten himself into without immediate supervision, of course this is the shipwreck you’d walk into, and you’re holding back a chuckle before making a single move to intervene.  In the midst of everything, you can hear adults approaching distantly from behind you.

“—don’t know where it came from, I was helping the younglings into bed when I heard the ruckus and I—”

The voices gradually grow louder, and you snatch the floating piece of candy out of thin air and whip around right before Sister Drya and Naydee walk in.  Their hushed, concerned conversation is cut to an abrupt end, and you clear your throat as they take you in, standing in front of chaos central continuing to go off behind you.  Do you… look as freshly disheveled as you are?  You’re not supposed to be here, you know, but hopefully the only strange thing is your presence itself and not anything concerning your appearance.

“Nerida,” the older lady suddenly announces, the name alone holding so much expectation, and the younglings missing their candy have now turned their ire towards you and the crinkly food wrapper hidden in your fist.  “What is the meaning of this?”

“Ah, yeah,” you stand up a little straighter, letting the chocolate casually fall out of your grip behind you, and a stampede of feet suddenly kick up to recover it.  It’s fine, nobody will know, it’s fine.  “It’s just…”  Your head tips behind you to the cause of the uproar, feeling a bit sheepish yet so incredibly fond.  “My… kid.”

Sister Drya stares at you for a few seconds, before tipping sideways and staring at the culprit.  “That is your child?”

You turn around just in time to see him, now abandoned by the angry mob of children, finally notice you.  All of a sudden, his pitch black eyes light up something bright and sunshiney, and you just start beaming in return.  What an adorable little creature, apple of your eye and pain of your ass.

“Yep,” you sigh, dropping into a squat and watching him barrel towards you, catching him right before he can trip over his brown potato sack and scooping him up into your arms.  “Hiya, bug,” you murmur with a grin, lifting back up and plopping him in his favorite spot in the universe—your left hip.  “You making friends?”

He giggles and it’s like sparkles and bubbles fill the room instead, wrapping tiny arms around the largest surface area he can get and clinging.  He laughs with a tiny open mouth, bless him, clearly not understanding the sarcasm, and suddenly your eyes feel just the slightest bit wet.  No, you’re not crying, don’t be fucking ridiculous, but you missed him like hell and he’s just the cutest fucking thing—why do you feel like crying?

“Sorry about that,” you apologize to the two women while slowly turning around, brushing your thumb over one of his cheeks and smiling as it squishes.  “He’s… uh.  Not great at sharing.  We’ll work on it.”

Takes after his dad, you purposefully leave out, just a different kind of sharing.  Din hasn’t shown you his full face yet and the kid performs magic tricks to taunt a roomful of children a fraction of his age for a single piece of chocolate, completely different kind of sharing.

Sister Drya says something in response, but when you look up to address her, all you see is Din standing silently behind her and Naydee, slowly dropping his hand from his helmet to his side.  They don’t seem to notice he’s there and you automatically try your best to pay attention to the Sister speaking to you, but your eyes get caught on the silver reflecting in the dim light beyond.  Fuck, he’s a presence.  An immediate distraction, taking all your focus with a single glimpse.  Seeing him fully armored again, staring at you from the silent shadows behind everything… you melt a little bit, knowing that you’ve seen more of what’s underneath than anyone.  Your shoulders settle and your entire body burns warm, wobbly like the air around a fire, and one of the kid’s hands leaves you to reach out towards his dad.

You watch the metallic helmet tilt sideways after a moment, saying everything without saying anything.  Come on, make up an excuse, let’s get out of here.

Looking at him in the quiet shadows, you’re reminded once again about how much you love him, how much softness you have inside you for a man so hard, so guarded.  And, for the first time, a voice in your head finishes a poem you didn’t realize you were writing, adding its own verse and bringing everything back around to the beginning.  He loves you, too.  How much he lets his guard down for you, the way he’s revealed more of his face to you than not.  You love each other.  You’re family.

So, all at once, you decide to mess with him, because that’s what family does best.

“Don’t be shy, come say hello,” you suddenly urge his silent figure, taking a step forward and speaking directly to him.  “Sister Drya, Naydee, I’d like to introduce you to my—”

It’s remarkable, you see it happen in front of you.  Like he has powers of his own, Din just literally fucking disappears.  Like magic, he’s nowhere to be found within a blink of an eye.  You know he’s capable of it; he’s done it plenty of times during the chase just to fuck with your head, but you’re staring straight at him when it happens this time and it might just be the funniest fucking thing you’ve ever seen him do.

Sister Drya and Naydee both turn around to an empty hallway bathed in shadows and you laugh.  A deep, shameless, loud belly laugh.  Where the fuck did he go so quick?  You were staring straight at him and you have no fucking clue.  He’s just out, and you’re left alone with his child and the unspoken understanding that he’ll just catch up with you later.

You’re giggling even as you shake your head and give the women your genuine thanks for keeping you and feeding you these past few days, grabbing your backpack with all your belongings and eventually using three green fingers to wave goodbye to them.  The very first thing Din says when he seamlessly joins you outside the Keja later is, “That wasn’t funny,” which just makes you laugh harder.

***

About a half hour has passed, and you’re walking along a dirt road, cradling a very happy baby in your arms and giving the grown man next to you an incredibly hard time.

“You’re unbelievable,” you mutter, your back twinging slightly at the way you’re leaning about as sideways as you can get without falling over.  You think you’re basically just the hypotenuse between the ground and Din, who easily supports almost your entire weight with your backpack slung around his far shoulder and readily allows you to rest against him.

“They’re fine,” he grumbles in response, squeezing you tight to his side.  You just have to focus on moving your feet; it’s like he’s practically carrying your upper-half anyways.  “I gave them the night off.”

“You stuffed them in a closet,” you hiss, feeling his shoulder shrug under your cheek.

“I gave them the robe back,” he says, not really defending himself and more just throwing it out there to see if it helps any.  “I’m sure someone’s found them by now, they’re fine.”

Your eyes suddenly go wide, absolutely mortified at the thought.  “Wait.  What do you mean you gave the robe back?”

He shrugs once more, apparently not seeing the problem yet.  “I borrowed it, so I gave it back after I put my armor back on.”

If you could plant your feet on the dirt road and screech to a halt, you would, but all your weight is already resting on him and you’re working solely off his forward movement.  You just hope your tone holds the same amount of shocked disapproval your body language would’ve conveyed if you weren’t so completely attached to his hip like a parasite he adores.

“You fucked me wearing it, though.”  Your voice is strangely flat, so fucking confused and horrified by the mental image of him just tossing the soiled garments haphazardly somewhere in the temple behind you, or even worse, leaving them somewhere respectful, and Din soon stops in the middle of the deserted road.

“Oh,” is all he says, emotionless and blank through the modulator.  Did he not even consider this?

“I had to promise them I was a virgin just to sleep there, you know,” you admit, and you can tell that’s brand new information to him with how still he goes as you continue to lean against him.  You’re getting the feeling that he probably knows a lot more about your experiences on this moon than you think he does, but can tell that this is brand new information to him.  “And you locked three of their holy men in a closet, chased me across the temple grounds, fucked me in one of their robes, and then.  You gave it.  Back.”

Din stays perfectly silent for quite some time.  You can never go back to that place, you know this for a fact.  You’re banned forever now, it’s what you deserve.

Never one to be outdone but not actually having anything to say for himself, Din suddenly decides to just scoop you into his arms and boost up into the sky without a single word like an actual fucking maniac.

You squeal and damn near drop the baby because of it, but he cinches you tight to his chest and refuses to loosen with your struggle.  Eventually, after you realize he’s completely locked you in and you won’t fall to your death with this poor innocent child in your arms, you glance over the shiny pauldron on his shoulder and watch the kid’s crib disappear by the abandoned road as Din takes you higher and higher.

The crib—he forgot the crib—

“D-Din,” you stammer out through the whistling air, stiff as a board.  Stars, you have such a different sense of adventure than him; an explorer and a daredevil, one who gets a thrill from discovering the existence of the edge of a cliff and one who’ll take a running dive off of it without thinking twice.  He’s hit with blaster fire some days, he faces down death completely fearless like it owes him one every single time, and you’re stiff as a fucking board while he carries you through the sky.  It’s stunning up here, it’s exciting and wonderful, but you’re so scared that you can barely even look.  He’s giving you the most fantastical view, everything your budding adventurous streak could ever ask for, and your terror is crushing.  It would be different if you could hold on, but you’re responsible for not letting the baby slip through your arms and you just have to trust that he won’t let you slip through his.

You raise your voice.  “Din?!”

“I won’t drop you,” he automatically reassures, and well you sure as fuck hope not, but there’s something else.

“What about the crib?”  You call out over the wind whipping, tucking the baby tight to your chest and settling your hands over his ears to avoid them flapping and whacking you repeatedly in the chin.

“We’ll come back for it,” he responds, just as easily.  Maker, you wish decision-making came that easy to you, that commitment and choice should be so simple as to just fly away from things on the ground and promise out loud to come back for them.  You know he will, but still, his spontaneity shocks you after spending the past week thinking every decision through meticulously, and you’re taken aback by the casualness of it all while soaring through the sky, committing such spectacular feats without a single thought beyond it.

Soon—incredibly soon, which honestly kind of blows your mind—you spot Nariss glowing in the distance and then you’re flying overtop of the city, slowly dropping altitude in the middle of a quiet little side street.

Din carefully allows your feet to settle on the ground before letting go, but you still stumble a bit stupidly after flying so high without any sort of safety measure besides him, prioritizing the steadiness of the baby in your arms instead of your feet underneath you.  His gloves catch at your clumsy body and pull you along with him without another word, leading you out of the quiet alley and into the middle of a beautiful, luminescent street.

What’s he doing?  He seems slightly hurried, and you’re clueless but you go with it, clamoring along behind him to wherever he’s leading you.

Though, you suddenly remember one of the very last things you told him last night right before he steps up in front of a vendor.

“Caf,” Din grunts, sliding a few credits towards the man standing behind the counter. “The… biggest one you have.”

Okay, well.  You could just about fucking cry.

“Y’sure?” The vendor asks skeptically, jerking his head at the large thermos behind him.  He’s balding, wearing a white outfit with his eyes scrunched up and forehead sweaty, likely working all day.  “It ain’t fresh.  Closin’ up soon, was just about to trash it and go home.”

The helmet turns to gauge your response to the news, the sharp angles and contours looking so sleek and dangerous as they reflect the colorful lamplights, but just filling you with comfort beyond anything in the entire galaxy.  He’ll take that armor off for you tonight and you’ll sleep next to him.  He’ll call you by your given name, or the fond name he’s given you, and you’ll cuddle your baby on a metal floor in hyperspace with him, and all will be well.  Even if he needs to leave again soon—even if you don’t get to go with him, you’ll always have these small eternities with each other, and that’s more enough for you now.

You’re completely zoned out while staring at him, and Din turns back to the vendor before you can even remember the conflict he was attempting to defer to you.

“Yeah, just empty the whole thing in there for her,” he mutters, and you want to marry him.  It’s been a long week, and in your haze and delight of being with him in this gorgeous setting, your brain turns to cavewoman mush.  Big man, makes me happy.  Strong man, loves me, knows me.  Provider, makes me feel good, protector, loves me.

Din hands you the large cup of steaming caffeine, clueless to your grunted inner monologue but knowing better than to reach out and grab the kid from your other arm.  You’re just fine like this, hands full, the little frog snuggled up against your side and blinking up at your face instead of any of the shiny or glowing things around you.  When you look down at him, you can see the world through his eyes—quite literally, they’re reflective and gigantic—and his father’s hand quickly finds its preferred spot on your lower back.

“Try to drink it quick,” Din advises you gruffly, pulling you snug into his side and sloshing the big cupful of piping hot liquid in your hand.

“It’s a thousand degrees,” you protest, trying to balance your three favorite things in the universe all begging for your direct attention at once.  “It has to cool down.”

He gives a dismissive hm in response, and you frown even as your heart soars with how tightly he’s gripping you, how little leeway you have to even move without him.  Part of you is so thrilled at being reunited with him that you consider snarking something back at him, excitement making you brave.  He could probably chug boiling hot liquid in thirty seconds and doesn’t see the point in letting it sit any longer, and you could make some stupid joke about filtering it through his helmet or having a built in bendy straw but you decide to keep it to yourself.

So then you just stand there together, under stringed lights and flowers everywhere, and he waits.  Holding you glued to his side, completely silent and clearly just waiting for your caf to stop steaming so threateningly in your hand so you can drink it.  For some reason, the fact that he’s wanted by the New Republic doesn’t really register at this second—you’re not looking for cops, though he may be.  You’re just lost in this beautiful, fancy city that’s on the edge of finally quieting down after a long day, and you’d like to see more of it with him next to you.

“Well, do you wanna just…”  You ask, tilting your head around at all the vendors.  “Shop around for a bit?”

“Shop… around,” Din repeats slowly, sounding the words out like they’re not common Basic.  Admittedly, they do sit a bit awkward in his voice when put together like that, describing a phenomena he’s likely never even considered a thing before, but it’s so fucking pretty here and you’d like to show him something this time instead of the other way around.

“Yeah, like,” you shrug a shoulder, tipping your head in a random direction.  Anywhere, you’ll go literally anywhere with him, the three of you can go explore.  “Just wander around, and look at all the pretty things.”

From where you’re standing right now, you can already see glittering crystals and jewels being sold at the tent across the street, there’s a booth dedicated entirely to floral arrangements and crowns next to it, you can hear a distant quartet playing melodically in the distance and a couple is being painted by an artist on the corner.  Bars are in full swing at this point, as if they weren’t all day, and even though the merchandise is all different, the multicolored tents look slightly similar when they’re underlit with multicolored lights.  It’s less slightly lively than it was in the daytime, but also… more beautiful, in a sense.  Muted, softer, more romantic.

“I don’t have any more credits,” Din admits casually, finally turning to look around at everything.  You get the feeling that he’s just now seeing it, even after spending the entire day here.  “That stale caf was the last of it.”

Money well fucking spent, you can assure him of that.

“It’s okay,” you tell him automatically, gently bumping your hip into his.  “We don’t need credits, we can just look.”

So that’s what you do.  Even though it’s completely not his fucking style, for the next hour or so, you just walk around downtown with him and sip your caf, looking at anything and everything new and experiencing it with him.  At first, you think he’s just entertaining you, following you while you discover new streets and attractions, but then he points out different things and you know he's looking, too.  There are large animals harnessed up and pulling carts for people to ride, there's an enormous spinning wheel set up in the distance, its colorful lights flickering out as soon as you ask what the fuck that is and why anyone would ever get inside one.

You eventually end up finishing your caf around the time he’s leading you back through a quiet, abandoned alleyway, and you hand him the empty cup to throw away in one of the trash cans on the corner.  The conversation has faded to a comfortable quiet and you don’t really need to ask—you go willingly, not requiring anything beyond his hands on you and the baby dozing in your arms.

“Come on, sweet girl,” he murmurs, gently sweeping you up into his.  You sigh, glad he’s giving you a moment to prepare yourself this time, holding the sleeping kid securely to your chest and resting your head on his shoulder.  “Let’s go home.”

After you’re comfortable, Din rockets up from the ground and climbs high up into the canvas sky.  He disappears with you and the baby into the pastel clouds above, making it back to the Razor Crest in probably about an hour, maybe less.  You and the baby do nothing more than climb into the comfy floor blankets while Din starts up the engines, and you think you’re dozing off together by the time he makes the pit stop to collect the crib and the jump into hyperspace.

You think he might shower?  You’re not sure—you just know he moves up behind you in bed at one point without any armor, burying his face in your hair while you cuddle the sleepy kid to your chest.  It’s dark in the hull, Din’s palms are bare and warm as they slide around the front of your body and he breathes you in, and there isn’t a single place that can touch you here, not a single place you’d rather be.

Home.

***

@followwhereshegoes​ Thank you for the stunning artwork! 💕To anyone interested in possibly doing an art collab in the future, please message me!!

[jamespotterthefirst]

Something Wicked (Halloween Stats)

Pairing: Dr. Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr. Lilac Allende-Ramsey)

Format: Template and Dialogue

Series: Newlyweds Game

Author’s Note: I lied. I made another one for Spooky Season.

Favorite Song?

Ethan: Mozart's Requiem, K. 626 Dies Irae Lilac: That feels like cheating, somehow. Ethan: It's a beautiful yet terrifying piece. Not unlike what someone might hear at the gates of Hell. Lilac: *snorts* And how would you know that? Ethan: It's what I hear whenever we get a new batch of interns. Both scenarios are interchangeable. Lilac: Unlike my dramatic husband, my favorite song is "I Put a Spell on You" Ethan: Jay Hawkins? Not bad. Lilac: Yes, but also Hocus Pocus. Ethan: I should have known— Lilac: *begins singing, very off tune but making up for it with exceeding charm*...I put a spell on youuuu….And now you’re mine. Ethan: *he looks at his wife, enraptured by her coquettish gestures and looking as though no truer words have ever been said before.*

Favorite Movie?

Ethan: I don’t care for the holiday so none. Lilac: Wrong. Ethan: *sighs* Fine. The Exorcist. *A beat* Lilac: My husband likes to watch horror movies with the only purpose of making fun of them and pointing out inaccuracies. Ethan: You enjoy my commentary. Lilac: Not enough to sit through a horror film. No thank you. I prefer the classics, like the seminal Hocus Pocus. Ethan: We have very different definitions of “classic”. Lilac: Mmhmm. Say whatever you want, Mr. Snob, but I saw how excited you got when I made you take me to Salem last Halloween. Ethan: I was mostly there for the historical value of the city. Lilac: *gives him a disbelieving look* Ethan:... And for you. You looked… happy.

Favorite Candy?

Lilac: Geysers Ethan: Dark Chocolate Lilac: From the vending machine at work? Ethan: The very same. *they share a silent, knowing look-- both blushing*

What is your favorite funny costume on your spouse?

Lilac: *bursts out laughing* Ethan: … Lilac: *can’t stop laughing* Ethan: You can stop now. Lilac: *with tears in her eyes, she struggles to regain control* I’m sorry-- Ethan: *unamused* Lilac: *manages to sober up* Sorry. The story behind this is too good. We have to get Tobias on the phone to tell it. Ethan: No-- Lilac: *is already dialing. The phone on speaker* Tobias: *answering* What did he do now? Lilac: Hey, we’re looking at the infamous Scooby-Doo picture Tobias: *lets out a loud laugh* *Tobias and Lilac laugh for almost three minutes straight* Ethan: Alright, that’s enough. *He gently takes the phone from his wife and hangs up* Ethan: There is nothing more to that story other than drunk med school students make stupid bets with their best friends they are bound to lose. Let’s focus on yours, shall we? It makes little sense. What are you supposed to be? Lilac: *points at the halo* I’m an angel. Duh.

What is your favorite hot costume on your spouse?

Lilac: Ethan dressing up as Prince Charming for our patient’s birthday. Ethan: You found that attractive?

Lilac: Yes, you couldn't tell by the way I climbed you like a tree after work that day? Ethan: *coughs, blushing slightly* That… What you did wasn't outside of the normal… activities. Lilac: *leaning in close to whisper* Hmmm. I'll have to make a point to try harder next time. Ethan: *shifts in his seat* I could say the same for your Marilyn Monroe costume.

What is your favorite couple’s costume that you have worn with your spouse?

Lilac: Definitely our Daphne and Fred costumes. Ethan: I’d hardly call it a costume if all I did was wear an ascot tie. Lilac: You got an A for effort, babe. Plus, you’re lucky I was there to carry the whole theme. Ethan: I definitely felt lucky to be by your side. My favorite is that makeshift costume pair you pulled off during your intern year. Lilac: Morticia and Gomez?* Ethan: That one. Lilac: I still can’t believe you agreed to that. Ethan: Honestly? Me neither.

*A/N: I’m trying to write this fic ATM. Wish me luck!

Monster Mash or Thriller?

Lilac: Thriller all the way, baby. Ethan: I couldn’t care less about either.

Apple or Pumpkin Treats?

Ethan: Apple, naturally.

Lilac: Pumpkin. And pumpkin spice everything.

Fruit Candy or Chocolate?

*Their eyes meet again and she laughs. Ethan allows a small smirk*

Trick-or-Treat or Handing out candy?

Lilac: Handing out candy because of all the adorable costumes you get to see! Ethan: I hate begging anyone for anything so handing out candy. Lilac: *smirks deviously and leans in to whisper something* Ethan: *almost chokes on his water*

Horror movies or kid-friendly movies?

Lilac: Kid-friendly. I hate horror movies. Ethan: They’re not exactly horror if they’re more amusing than terrifying. Lilac: Ethan finds the gore laughable because of how cheesy it is. I, on the other hand, can’t stand it. Ethan: … You’re a doctor, love. Lilac: So? Ethan: You’ve seen a lot worse. Lilac: Yes, but with our patients, I didn’t watch the suffering that led to those wounds for entertainment. Ethan: Makes sense, actually.

Halloween party or Haunted House?

Lilac: Halloween party because I get to force my husband to dress up. Ethan: Don’t remind me. I prefer the party too. Even if the music is terrible, at least there is alcohol there to endure it.

Creepy or cute costumes?

Lilac: Cute! Ethan: I don’t care either way.

On your partner: Sexy or funny costume?

Ethan:... Lilac: You can say “sexy”, babe. No one will judge you. Ethan: Fine. Sexy. Lilac: I almost want to say sexy but *points at Scooby-Doo picture and laughs* Ethan: *rolls his eyes but can’t help but join in her amusement*

Other Things Explained:

Lilac had never carved a pumpkin in her life. She had also never been to a corn maze. I don't know if it's an immigrant household thing? But I never did it as a child. It just wasn't a thing. Finally, Ethan does it with her a few years after this takes place so that she can experience it

Lilac is Latin American. We do NOT mess with a Ouija board. I almost lost my shit when I saw they sold those at the store like it's nothing. Ethan just thinks they're stupid. In the Shane and Ryan scenario (Goatman Bridge lol), Lilac is definitely Ryan and Ethan is Shane lol.

They haven't done a family costume because they don't have kids... yet. I wrote them doing a family costume with their kids in my Halloween fic. This is also where the Daphne/Fred costume comes from.

I'm sure I'll think of other things lol

Author's Note: I give you the first of three Halloween things I have planned (a Picta fic and a prose fic aka the Moticia and Gomez one). Send me good vibes that I finish those in time for Halloween lol

Thanks so much for reading!

[remnantoforario]

Remnant’s Top Ten Anime of 2020

2020 Was certainly a ride wasn’t it? To those that managed to make to make it through in one piece, or any piece, good job. Hopefully 2021 is better to us all. 

Despite the world mostly being on fire, I’d hazard to say that a lot of good shows came out in 2020 (despite a number of them being delayed to either later in the year or this year altogether). I meant to release this list much earlier, but I kept changing it around. 

Anyway, here are the ones I thought were the best. 

Honorable Mentions:

Dorohedoro

Synopsis: The plot centers on a man named Caiman and his search for his real identity after a transformation by a sorcerer left him with a reptile's head and no memory of his former life. 

Along with his friend Nikaido, he violently assaults sorcerers in the Hole, with the aim of taking their heads into his mouth, where a strange face will appear and confirm whether the sorcerer he has bitten onto was the one responsible for his transformation or not.

As the residents of the Hole, the En family and the Cross-Eyes gang, along with many others, collide with one another, the mystery of Caiman's identity begins to unravel, reigniting ancient grudges and threatening to forever change both the Hole and the sorcerers' world.

Thoughts: This is the only Netflix anime I watched this year (I missed out on Great Pretender before the year ended), and I can honestly say I had fun with this one. It’s animation was good, the story was engaging enough, and the characters were all unique (Noi best girl). The one problem I would say with the show is that it can come off as unfocused at times, meandering from one plaot point to another with no real connective tissue. 

Still a fun series though. 

ID: Invaded

Synopsis: The anime follows the investigations of Narihisago, a renowned detective now in prison, who is tasked with diving into the id wells of various serial killers. 

Two years prior to the current events, Narihisago's daughter Muku was brutally murdered by a serial killer, leading Narihisago's wife to commit suicide. These deaths prompted him to hunt down and murder the killer, earning him his prison sentence. He is still depressed and haunted by his wife and daughter's deaths, but also uses this as motivation to take his work seriously and help stop serial killers. 

Thoughts: One of a handful of original series that came out this year. This show gave me heavy Inception/Minority Report vibes from both its premise and presentation. It wobbles under the weight of its own concepts towards the end, but it still a fun ride nonetheless. 

Gleipnir 

Synopsis: The story centers on Shuichi Kagaya, a high school student with an unusual secret. He has the ability to transform into a monster resembling a giant dog mascot costume with a zipper down his back and a large cartoonish smile. After rescuing a strange girl, Claire Aoki, from a warehouse fire, they join each other to search for Claire's older sister, who is assumed to be responsible for the death of their parents.

Thoughts: When the initial rollout for this show began I admit I wasn’t really a fan. I thought it was just going to be a hyper violent, fanservice show. Now in some ways it is that, but if you really look Gleipnir tells a very interesting tale of identity and what it truly means to have a wish granted. The music was pretty good as well, and that’s really something from me as a person who doesn’t pay attention to soundtracks. 

Hope this show gets a season 2, but if not I’ll more than likely start the manga. 

Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina

Synopsis:  Fascinated by the stories of Niké, a witch who traveled around the world, Elaina aspires to take the same course. Her determination of studying books and magic leads to her becoming the youngest apprentice witch to pass the sorcery exam. 

However, when Elaina attempts to receive training in order to become a full-fledged witch, she is rejected due to her extraordinary talents until she finds Fran, the "Stardust Witch," whom accepts her. After earning her title, the "Ashen Witch," Elaina begins her exploration around the world, visiting and facing all kinds of people and places.

Thoughts: As a fan of the Light Novels, I was pretty excited when it was announced it was getting an anime. For the most part it didn’t disappoint. Though it skipped most of the stories in the novels, the show still told a few good stories that made for some amazingly animated tv. 

Talentless Nana

Synposis: In the near future, mysterious monsters known as the "Enemies of Humanity" begin to appear, and with it so do children with supernatural powers called the "Talented". To prepare them for the upcoming battle against these Enemies, all the Talented are sent to a school located on a deserted island, where they have all their daily needs provided for until they graduate and communication with the outside world is forbidden. 

One day, a new student named Nana Hiiragi arrives at the school. Her friendly and cheerful personality lets her quickly make friends with the class. However, with Nana comes a whole litany of mysterious occurrences on the island. 

Thoughts: I can’t say too much about Nana without spoiling it’s first episode twist, but I will say that its a pretty interesting show with a fairly compelling game of cat and mouse being played. 

Now on the the actual list:

10. The Misfit of Demon King Academy 

Synopsis: After 2,000 years of countless wars and strife, the demon king Anos Voldigoad made a deal with the human hero, Kanon, to sacrifice his own life to ensure peace could flourish. Reincarnating 2,000 years later, Anos finds that royal demons now harshly rule over lower class hybrid demons in a society that values Anos's pureblood descendants over the demons who interbred with other species, such as humans and spirits. 

Finding that magic as a whole has begun to decline and his descendants weaker as a result of the peace he created, Anos, now technically a hybrid himself, decides to reclaim his former title of Demon King, but first, he must graduate from the Demon King Academy where he is labeled a total misfit.

Thoughts: Originally I was going to put Nana in this spot, but its lack of a real ending pushed it out of the list. If only slightly. Misft at Demon Academy is just a fun ride from start to finish. There’s always something about shows with ridiculous OP protagonists (Overlord, One Punch Man, etc.) that gets the blood pumping. 

It’s like junk food. Great for the right moment, but not needed all the time. 

9. Ikebukuro West Gate Park

Synopsis:  A charismatic troubleshooter tries to keep the peace between warring factions while protecting his loved ones in Ikebukuro West Gate Park.

Thoughts: I honestly had no idea what to make of this show when I first saw the synopsis, but I gave it a try on a whim. I’m glad I did because this was easily the dark horse of the Fall season. I really liked the mostly self contained story format the series had, and there were a few very good episodes here. Check it out. 

8.  My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!

Synopsis: Catarina Claes, the young daughter of a noble family, one day bumps her head and regains memories of her past life as an otaku. It is then that she realizes she has been reborn into the world of the otome game Fortune Lover, reincarnated as the game's villainess who, regardless of what route the player took in the original game, is doomed to be either killed or exiled. 

In order to avoid these routes that lead to doom, Catarina begins taking countermeasures to try and avoid things going the same way as the game. This, however, ends up having unexpected consequences on her relations with the other characters of the game's world.

Thoughts: Normally I’m not a fan of Reverse/Otome harem series, but somehow Bakarina managed to pull me in, to a good result. This show was easily one of the best comedies I watched this year with a good cast and a likable protagonist. 

7.  Deca-Dence 

Synopsis: In the fortress city of Deca-dence, the lowly Tanker girl, Natsume, dreams of becoming a Gear warrior following her father's death during a Gadoll attack. She is assigned to a maintenance team led by Kaburagi whom she discovers is more than he appears. Kaburagi has a secret role in eliminating "bugs", humans who threaten Solid Quake's operations. 

When Kaburagi discovers that Natsume is listed as dead in the company database, he decides to keep her under observation and offers to train her to fight.

Thoughts: Giant monsters and giant robots. What more do you need? Watch it. 

6. A Certain Scientific Railgun T

Synposis: The Daihasei Festival has begun, and that of course means that Tokiwadai Middle School—a prestigious all-girls' middle school—is competing too. Despite the participation of the "Ace of Tokiwadai," Mikoto Misaka, the other students who are participating are still putting their utmost effort into winning, no matter how impossible the feat may seem against her might. However, not all is fun and games. Due to the the festival, Academy City opens to the outside world, and various factions have begun plotting ways to infiltrate the city. Misaka appears to be on their radar, and as the festival proceeds, people lurking from the shadows begin to emerge...

Thoughts: Not really much to say here. It’s the third season of Railgun, but good thing here is that each season of Railgun is better than the last. Truly the best of the To Aru universe. 

5. BOFURI: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense.

Synposis: Urged on by her friend, Kaede Honjō begins playing the VRMMORPG NewWorld Online under the name Maple. Not wanting to get hurt, Maple opts to be a shield user with maxed out defense stats, and continues putting every status point she earns in the game into increasing only her defense level. 

As a result, she is left with slow foot speed and no magic, but her high defense allows her to endure most hits without taking any damage. This, along with her basic-level creative thinking, allows for her to make unexpected accomplishments in the game, its quests and events. By doing this, she ends up earning all kinds of equally unexpected skills and becomes one of the strongest players in the game. Thoughts: Bofuri is another OP power fantasy like Demon King Academy, but with the twist of being fused with CGDCT. The cast is extremely likable (especially Maple) and when Silver Link wants to they can make the battles REALLY dynamic. A nice comfortable watch, which was sorely needed in 2020. 

4. Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle

Synposis: The story follows Princess Syalis, a young princess who was kidnapped by the demon king, and her quest to sleep well while imprisoned.

Thoughts: A simple premise for a not so simple story. Sleepy Princess for me was easily the best comedy of the year, with plenty of heart and action thrown in as well. I was wary of the series at first, thinking that the premise wouldnt be entertaining for more than a few episodes, but boy was I wrong. Each episode was funnier than the last and Doga Kobo pulled out all the stops to make it look as gorgeous as possible.  

3. Jujutsu Kaisen

Synopsis: Idly indulging in baseless paranormal activities with the Occult Club, high schooler Yuuji Itadori spends his days at either the clubroom or the hospital, where he visits his bedridden grandfather. However, this leisurely lifestyle soon takes a turn for the strange when he unknowingly encounters a cursed item. Triggering a chain of supernatural occurrences, Yuuji finds himself suddenly thrust into the world of Curses—dreadful beings formed from human malice and negativity—after swallowing the said item, revealed to be a finger belonging to the demon Sukuna Ryoumen, the "King of Curses." Yuuji experiences first-hand the threat these Curses pose to society as he discovers his own newfound powers. Introduced to the Tokyo Metropolitan Jujutsu Technical High School, he begins to walk down a path from which he cannot return—the path of a Jujutsu sorcerer.

Thoughts: Originally I wasn’t going to put this on the list, because the season doesnt conclude this year, but I decided to make an exception since the show started so strong. Many people were hyping this up as the next big shonen, and they were right. Mappa really went balls to the wall with this show and I’m pretty hype for what happens this cour. 

2. Akudama Drive

Synopsis: The bustling metropolis of Kansai, where cybernetic screens litter the neon landscape, may seem like a technological utopia at first glance. But in the dark alleys around the brightly-lit buildings, an unforgiving criminal underbelly still exists in the form of fugitives known as "Akudama." No stranger to these individuals, Kansai police begin the countdown to the public execution of an infamous Akudama "Cutthroat," guilty of killing 999 people. However, a mysterious message is sent to several elite Akudama, enlisting them to free Cutthroat for a substantial amount of money. An invisible hand seeks to gather these dangerous personas in one place, ensuring that the execution is well underway to becoming a full-blown bloodbath.  

Thoughts: Want to know what it would be like if Quentin Tarantino made an anime? Well here you go. An adrenaline filled rollercoaster ride from start to finish with a crazy cast of characters and even crazier visuals. There’s even a bit of social commentary in there if you squint. 

1. Oregairu Climax

Synopsis: Resolved to become a more independent person, Yukino Yukinoshita decides to smoothen things out with her parents, and the first step toward achieving that goal is to prove herself. As graduation draws closer for the third-year students, Iroha Isshiki—the president of the student council—requests a graduation prom in collaboration with the Volunteer Service Club. Yukino accepts this request of her own volition, hoping to use it as a chance to demonstrate her self-reliance, but what lies ahead of her may prove to be a hard hurdle to cross.

At the same time, a chance for the Volunteer Service Club members to better understand each other presents itself. And thus, Hachiman Hikigaya's hectic and bittersweet high school life begins to draw to a close.

Thoughts: The gif says it all really. I could just leave that there and end this list on a somewhat high note, but I’ll explain it. 

Now objectively, there were better shows than this one (off the top of my head JJK comes to mind) but when you combine all three seasons there is no contest in my mind that Oregairu had one of the most perfect endings to a series I have ever seen. 

It was an ending 7 years in the making. The first season in 2013 was good, the second season two years later was even better, but Climax was Oregairu at is absolute best and that goes beyond the story and characters. A lot of praise also has to go to Studio feel., who took over animation duties from Brain’s Base in season 2. While BB’s animation was much more accurate to the LN, feel’s more realistic designs fit the more mature direction the story was starting to go, giving the anime some of its best moments. 

Watching Hachiman, Yukino, and Yui grow and change from naive teenagers to somewhat understood young adults was amazing and sometimes heartbreaking to watch. Hachiman’s search to find something “genuine”, Yukino’s desire to be independent, and Yui struggling with her feelings of love and friendship all clash and compliment in very interesting ways that makes these three characters even more relatable than they were before. 

Lots of long running series don’t stick to landing, but in my eyes Oregairu stuck it perfectly. That’s why its my favorite anime of 2020.

Here’s to 2021.