it would be so so so RAD if we managed to get rottmnt unpaused while mutant mayhem is going, I mean, out of the 5 tmnt shows we’ve had 3 of them have their wanted seasons canceled, the bayverse sequel flopped, and the most hyped tmnt show as far as I’ve seen is 2012 which isn’t an amazing look considering some of the concerning writing decisions in that show. a new wave of turtle mania over 30 years after the first wave? a new wave that doesn’t rely on the shredder coming back more than william afton and focuses more on mutants and their communities? with the turtles looking distinct from each other and the shows themselves being stylized and fun? with a black april and a crew that genuinely shows a lot of love for the franchise it’s building on while creating their own world and lore and really having fun? two versions that bring the fun and silliness of the 87 cartoon and the 90’s movies while also having the dark, gritty, emotional, and horror inspired elements that have been baked into the franchise for years? to have rise and mutant mayhem exist at the same time would be INCREDIBLE my autistic self would EXPLODE to see this rejuvenation. all the people complaining about the new versions who are claiming to be fans are ridiculous because mutant mayhem and rise are love letters to the teenage mutant ninja turtles legacy and I am so excited for the direction this franchise is going

Rick and Morty Finale Theory’s/Predictions

inspired by posts by @fear-no-mort please check them out!!

The Freaky Morty Theory

The Freaky Morty Theory is that at some point either during or after episode 5, Evil Morty switched places with Morty Prime. There are some actual bases for this, and users have been collecting a decent amount of possible evidence for this reveal!

- Morty acting almost pre-season 4, like a Morty that hasn’t properly interacted with a Rick in a while

-Flinching significantly more then usual. In a flashback it implies Evil Mortys Rick was abusive which checks out

-the smug look. Don’t get me wrong Morty also has a chronic resting bitch face and smug I told you so look, but it has been a lot more prominent in the last couple of episodes

There’s a lot more to this but the basis is somehow they switched, and the season finale would be the time for the reveal.

If you are interested, @sadiecoocoo and @glitteringcrab have much more in-depth stuff about it!

personally, I want this theory to be true. It opens a lot of doors and would be a fantastic cliffhanger and segway to a more Morty-oriented episode or season.

Ricks Deepest Fears

His Fear Of Morty

Ok, so there are a lot of ways this can go. But here's in my opinion the most likely avenue;

Rick would absolutely never admit it, but part of Morty scares him. We see it on his face during the Purge episode, and more frequently during the last few seasons. But I think the reason he dogs on Morty and tries to keep his confidence low is because Rick knows how dangerous he can be when motivated enough. Morty is more aware than most and Rick picks up on that. He is scared one day Morty will grow up to be like him, bitter and angry. He sees it in him now and can't blame anyone else. Now with everything with Prime, I think Rick fears Morty will grow up not just like him, but like Rick Prime specifically. He'll get angry and lash out, do something drastic in revenge for all the ways Rick has wronged Morty throughout the years. Morty will realize what he's capable of and leave, and Rick couldn't really blame him.

His fear of Rick Prime

This one is probably what's gonna happen. Since Rick definitely didnt get closure from killing Prime, this could be his chance. To get over his fear of Rick Prime, of what he represents and what he is capable of. This episode might be his chance to a means to an end.

His fear of losing everyone else

Another huge one would be his fear of the Smith family dying the same way his family did. Rick has kind of detached himself but it’s no secret that he cares. He’s especially fond of the version of the Smiths he lives with now. Even admitting Summer reminds him of Diane. To lose them would absolutely devastate him. Maybe this episode will be him trying to finally heal from his fear of losing everything all over again and being alone.

Mortys Deepest Fears

His fear that Rick will kill him too.

Now I know how this sounds, but I thought, that would be interesting to see if one of Morty's fears is that Rick C-137 tries to kill him. Now I know that sounds out of character since WE know Rick would never but think about it, it’s not said but almost implied he probably could have fixed the prime universe from being Cronenberg but chose not to because it wasn’t his family, it was Primes. And I think Morty is smart enough to figure that out once he found out Prime was really his Rick.

He also compared Morty to his biological Rick multiple times, then basically beat his biological Rick to death with Morty to practically witness it. Now obviously Morty doesn’t blame Rick for hating Rick Prime and frankly Morty doesn’t seem to like Rick Prime either. But subconsciously I wonder if he thinks he’s the last strand, that Rick will one day finish what he started. it’s pretty clear C-137 would absolutely never actually kill him, but could you imagine him finding out Morty fears him

His fear of being alone

Morty has become detached in the past few seasons, and you can’t really blame him. His own Jerry seemed to get frustrated when he offered to get him a “new” Beth and Summer. Like they were toys he could just swap out. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. He does. He defends Summer and his parents. His love is like a dog, it’s unconditional so no matter what he still loves Rick even after everything he put him through. So he was angry and upset when he left. Even afterwards, when Summer brought up”The Crow Thing” Morty got visibly upset. He even tried to manipulate Rick to come back. If a representation of that comes up, this could be a chance for him to give faith to Rick and his family that he won’t be left behind.

Not saying this means anything especially since TBSOAS (the book) only came out in 2020, more of a “hey this is weird” post but:

I’ve always thought these two looked / were similar as two wavy blond haired blue eyed men, and it definitely helps that they both premiered (in the case of film Corio) within one year of each other . But there’s like, more than that? And some of it is very strange?

First off, they are two characters who since the start of their chronological stories teeter between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ with a lot of forces in their life, including their evil scientist mentor, pushing them towards the dark side by use of manipulation tactics. Henry is much more of a direct victim to this than Corio is though, and the latter also does have more good influences in his life.

“Fueled with the terror of becoming Prey, see how quickly we become Predator?” - Dr. Gaul

“I could restore balance to a broken world… a predator, but for good” - Henry Creel / 001

Also, can I mention how both TBOSAS and TFS are set in the same exact time period? The Hunger Games uses retro futurism since the entire story is set centuries from now, but the era is clearly inspired by the late 50s to early 60s, especially given that it takes place 60 years before the main series.

Now here’s the actual weird part that had me making this post.

Both of their origin stories center on a romance with a female co-lead that ends with them killing her (heavy question mark). That’s not the weird part. It’s the way that the plots of both of these origin stories and said female characters are based off of old European folk-songs that were popular in Appalachia. TFS is based off of ‘The Tale of Barbara Allen’ and TBOSAS is based off of ‘The Ballad of Lucy Gray’ - Stranger Things just bothered to change her name to Patty Newby. Barbara Allen (Patty) appears as a covey sister of Lucy Gray in TBSOAS. Naturally, both of these characters are singers which plays a role in their respective stories.

I just have to say, it’s a very obscure source of inspiration to happen twice like this. There is a little part of me that thinks Kate Trefry and the writing crew on TFS might have been fans of The Hunger Games. But who knows.

Suzanne Collins wrote the TBOSAS prequel to answer the question of ‘nature vs nurture’ and how much choice villains have in becoming their future selves - which is the exact same question that is actively being posed by Stranger Things in regards to Henry.

And then how I got started on this line of thinking again today - the older adult versions of these characters both kidnap the respective sweet boy love interests and hijack them against the main characters. For strategic reasons and, in the case of Peeta, emotionally torturing the main character so she gives up. Will and Peeta are just both so similar as characters; soft and sensitive, traumatized, painters, both the poor underdogs with (seemingly) unrequited love for the protagonist though Mike isn’t really the protagonist.

I’m not sure if there’s actual inspiration being taken here. I typically assume not on the basis that I’m someone who can find connections between any pieces of media I enjoy. But the whole Appalachian folktale angle of it all is strange to me.

While I don’t think Henry was conceived with this in mind, it’s possible the inspiration sprang up during the further fleshing out of his backstory and into writing The First Shadow. Maybe it will even have an impact on the final season.

One of the things I liked about TBOSAS was the theme of the past coming back to haunt Snow in the future through Katniss and the music Lucy Gray created living on through her. If this was in any way inspiration, I’d love to see Vecna haunted by how similar Will is to him and especially the ways that he is different and able to do better.

BLs with the most interesting & unique premises

I like me some pretty standard romance trope foundations. We Best Love is one of my favorite BLs, and there is absolutely nothing unique about the story. But there are a few BLs out there that really do have something DIFFERENT going on with their narrative. Not just different as BLs but also different as romances. So much so that I would pull them out of the BL universe, and put them up against the best romance dramas and romcoms on the basis of concept. And I don’t say that about BL often. 

Color Rush

For a reader of genre fiction the premise of this world is a very in your face allegory, but in BL we NEVER get this kind of thing. Magical realism isn’t completely absent from the BL cannon, but this type, were it’s a blatant representation of the homophobia experienced in a hostile society is really fascinating and rare. Especially as we get to watch Korea dance around its own social norms so dexterously. I’m reminded of Star Trek’s “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” (1969). Like that episode, from an outsider/future perspective, Color Rush probubly could be regarded as clumsy, but also like that episode it’s important in context: for what is says about the time it was made and the culture it’s sitting inside. Both shows got to be brave BECAUSE of their SFF elements. As a long time geek about high concept genre narratives tackling subversive materials in interesting ways, I am HERE for Color Rush and will never not support it.

Also from Korea?

First Love Again - I just love the gay twist on the tired reincarnation trope, it’s a clever new way to get at bisexual awakening and identity crisis, it was just that the shortness of this series didn’t allow for it to be adequately developed and Korean social norms didn’t allow it to to be full explored and focused on. Review here. 

Love Class - a university class focused on relationships is an interesting twist on fake dating and forced proximity tropes, but ultimately I found that aspect the least successful thing about this show (it probubly would have been better as a longer treatment with more time spent in the classroom and on the assignments). Review here. 

Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding - Korea is famously fond of a crossdressing historical, this was our first man crossdresses as a woman version and one of the first blatantly BL historicals. I really enjoyed its almost fairy tale execution. More are coming, so it’s about to be rendered mundane in retrospect, but at the time it came out it was revolutionary. Review here. 

In general, Korea really enjoys high concept romance with a strong POV that’s sometimes considered a bit in your face (on messaging) by mainstream western audiences (but which is very successful when applied to genre, see Squid Games or Uncanny Counter). So I expect to see more and more from them in their BL too. Fingers crossed. 

Until We Meet Again 

Fated mates (or soulmates) and reincarnation aren’t unusual. in fact they’re particularly popular as they activate both long term pining and reunion romance narrative foundations. (Not to mention being the ultimate version of “the only one for me.”) However, the way UWMA handles the red thread trope, and the cleverness of its interweaving past/present story structure is entirely unique and vitally gay, not just in BL but in fiction. I’ve never read anything as tidy and well executed. It’s a genuinely awe inspiring narrative structure. 

Also from Thailand?

Cutie Pie - this one is noted for taking the SUPER classic romance trope, arranged marriage, and doing a BL based on it. Is that absurd? Yes. Also turning ARRANGED marriage (by its nature disallowing choice) into a propaganda piece for marriage equality (all about choice) was very much an “oh, Thailand” moment. But hey, it’s utterly unique as a BL, and likely to remain so. Review here. 

Ingredients - look it’s a weird long form advertisement Gold Blend couple style only gay, in lockdown, and hella domestic. Yet we loved it. But as a premise, pretty fucking unique. As a narrative? No there isn’t one really, but do we care? Nope. Review here. 

Love Sick - it is unique for its time and IMHO the world’s first gay YA soap opera. Sure we got gay soaps (Queer As Folk, L Word) but not set in high school. Certainly more are happening now with Heartstopper etc.. but Love Sick happened in 2014. Never forget, never surrender. Everyone should watch this show. It’s messy as all get up, but it holds up, and it’s a great example of emotional chemistry. We unquestionably watch these two boys fall deeply in love and then have to deal with the fallout. 

Lovely Writer - the first BL that stuck to its guns as a BL and still decided to take the BL industry and fandom to task, there were others coming out around the same time (Call it What You Want) and since then a few have been doing this in more subversive ways (Not Me, Bad Buddy, Secret Crush On You) but Lovely Writer was the first super successful attempt. Review here. 

Like with Cutie Pie, Thailand has done a lot of classic romance tropes first in BL: the reaper lover (Dear Doctor), lots of body swap (Great Men), kink (DSN), time loop (Triage), it’s just these tropes are ubiquitous to romance in general and I’ve kind of always expected them to transition to BL. You see, they often work better with a bit of queer coloring them up for range. Arranged marriage, on the other hand (outside of a historical cross dressing sitch, which probubly wouldn’t work for Thailand given their period clothing options), none of us really expected this one. Honestly it’s why many of us are patently waiting for Thailand to give us the gay Boys Over Flowers. Making popular Asian romance tropes gay is what they do best. 

Seven Days

Speaking of clever. The premise on this (what amounts to a very simple) contemporary YA romance, is so perfectly tight and unusual that there’s an “idea theft” scandal around it. (An author wrote an English language book that is clearly derivative. Before we get into it, you can’t copyright ideas, and if you see the tropes tracked in this blog I hope you can see why. There are no new ideas, there are only twists on old ones.) Review here. 

Also from Japan?

Cherry Magic AKA 30-sai made Dotei Da to Mahotsukai ni Nareru rashii - another magical realism take, like Color Rush, but without the allegory. Still it’s utterly charming and unusual, although of a style we see in manga and het Japanese romcoms a lot. 

Silhouette of Your Voice AKA Hidamari ga Kikoeru - probubly one of the first BLs to tackle disability, ultimately (I feel like) the source material (manga series starting with I Hear the Sunspot) is successful but this adaptation is not. It’s sad because the cast is great and the premise solid, it just didn’t push itself enough. 

Japan doesn’t really like high concept so much as they love exploring the boundaries of romantic subversion, kink (particularly fetishes), and just plain weirdness. Trying to describe Japan’s relationship to the romance genre (especially romcoms) to someone unfamiliar with their oeuvre is exhausting. I usually point people at the popularity of Kimi Wa Petto and back away slowly. I recently watched Ase to Sekken and the degree to which I enjoyed it I think says more about my willingness to swim through the mires of Japan’s quirks than it did about the success of the show. Which is a long way of me saying, I’m not sure how good I am at judging Japanese stuff anymore, since I seem to be firmly stuck in the weeds. But I can confidently say that even with BL, Japan is more likely than not going to push your expectations and limits of what romance actually even means. The best example of this in BL form is Utsukushii Kare. If you watch that, you’ll understand what I’m talking about. 

DNA Says Love You

This is a BL that tackles subject matter that usually makes said BL fall out of BL-dom by becoming too queer and realistic (and often depressing). The fact that DNA brought it around and made it end happily (and made it very BL) is part of it’s uniqueness. Because it’s a twist, I can’t really talk directly about it but trust me, it’s pretty darn unique in the arena of BL. And you’re safe, it is a BL with a very happy ending. 

Now, there are a few queer dramas out of Japan and the west that tackle this particular subject matter more directly. But I don’t want to spoil anyone by naming them, because they are all known for what they rep. If you want recs I can put some in the comments. 

Also from Taiwan?

Innocent - short but VERY unusual take on romance in, around, and (in certain ways) WITH an extreme neurological disorder, and yes it’s happy in its way (and more honest about mental health than usual for Taiwanese or Chinese romances) - or romance in general, for that matter (and yes I am looking at you, The Tuxedo) 

Papa & Daddy - less a BL than a slice of gay life, I’m mentioning it because it’s so different and so very queer - the narrative, however, is still pretty pat 

Taiwan actually has the social capacity to push this more than any other country, but they don’t have the funds or the industry. I’d LOVE to see them put a love rivals to lovers tope on screen, for example. Speaking of which... 

Hay Rival, I LOVE YOU! 

Two boys (jock & nerd) learn that they are both dating the same girl. At first they hate each other, but then they decide to get together and take revenge. In the process they fall in love with each other instead. This is a classic love rivals to lovers story, which by its nature MUST be queer. It’s my favorite trope of all time and it’s so rare to find in use. (Waves and Jack & Koh in Gen Y 2). To my knowledge this short is the first time it’s been put on screen ever, maybe. 

Also from Vietnam?

My Lascivious Boss - it’s fake identity, but the queerest take ever. Look we have gotten some falling in love with a cross dressing “boy,” but I wouldn’t call it ubiquitous. And mostly they deal with a trans identity. This one is about drag, and falling in love with a drag persona. In that regard, i think this is a first, certainly the first pure romance based on this premise, and unquestionable the first BL. Review here. 

Honestly, Vietnamese BL has a lot of unique qualities married to premise, it’s one of its charms (in addition to their ultra high domesticity). It’s just that there is so little VBL, it’s hard to make firm judgement calls on taste and trends.  

Gameboys 

This is notable for being not just the first lockdown romance we got in BL but one of the first lockdown romances the world got at all (on screen). Certainly plenty were written. But a combination of speedy production and engaging cast made this (originally intended as a fun webs series) get picked up for wide distribution pretty much instantly. Not everyone wanted to experience love in lockdown, many viewers who might have watched didn’t because they wanted escape from reality. But plenty of others wanted to watch the possibility of love in lockdown. They wanted the see two adorable boys find love virtually in our times, and then end happily, so they had hope for themselves. And this show did THAT perfectly and with such an honest queerness it found a home in people’s hearts all over the world, well beyond BL fandom. 

Also from the Philippines?

Rainbow Prince - the first high production Disney-style BL. There have certainly been gay musicals before (see Were the World Mine) but this one set out to be very BL about it. Was it successful? That depends on your tolerance for such cartoony things. Mine is low, and i don’t love musical theater or singing feelings, so for me they didn’t manage to limbo under it. 

Like Taiwan, the Philippines has the capacity for greatness in regards to unique premise and story but not the capital. I’m hoping Rainbow Prince was successful enough to give us more, but I’m afraid it was not and might be taken as a bellwether for them to retreat to less experimental safer (cheaper) arenas of BL. 

Sirs Not Appearing on The Above List

I just know someone is gonna jump into my comment thread and mention some of these. Now, I don’t entirely consider many of these BLs but as there is a case to be made. And as they are on my spreadsheet of doom and certainly tangential to the genre, they get shout outs. 

Manner of Death

Gay romantic suspense is common in the romance world, basically it’s own sub genre. But this is the first time I’ve seen it coupled to the BL market. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s successful as a show in balancing the two, neither the suspense/mystery element nor the romance elements were particularly well done by modern standards, but it’s still a REALLY fun show. The action sequences are decent, and the chemistry cannot be faulted, even though the show depends on MaxTul’s established chemistry rather than bothering to establish it itself. You read me going though the rollercoaster of figuring out this show here. 

Not Me 

I talk a lot about why I don’t really think this is BL but, like it’s forerunner (3 Will Be Free), it is a very special and unique take on... everything. The romance is underdeveloped and secondary to the plot, but that plot is not quite strong enough to carry a show. Still, what it’s trying to do is very interesting and what it accomplishes as a queer narrative is kinda remarkable. Like Manner of Death, though, it’s lazy about establishing the romance arc, relying on OffGun’s established chemistry to make the couple pop off the screen. And they do pop. Review here. 

I feel bound to mention the excellent 3 Will Be Free, which is so unique and different I really don’t think it qualifies as BL at all. It is excellent though, I highly recommend it. 

Guardian

Parallel fantasy world, or what amounts to urban fantasy with superhero elements and a police procedural foundation is actually not uncommon in gay romance (we’ve even got police procedural before from China as a censored bromance see S.C.I Mysteries), but I’ve never seen it on screen before in this guise. Of course it’s China so its censored. Still it’s a very interesting series. I don’t love it the way some do and, as with everything not-het out of China, be wary of the ending. 

Untamed and Word of Honor probubly also should go here. I just don’t personally consider either of them that interesting or unique since I’ve seen both the setting and the romance pairing archetypes quite a few times before. Also, since they were so censored and caused such scandal within China, I don’t see them impacting the BL genre going forward, and I don’t think we’ll get more like them for a long while, if ever. They are unique because of oppression, and that makes me sad to think about. 

(source)

He's a biter, you know.

details and un-shaded version (and also lineart version) under the cut:

I meant to draw this for peterfel week and made the sketch in like, literally February but didn't get around to finally finishing it until now… lol… well it's done now!!!

i dunno if i love how the dark shaded version turned out...

These are my base colors, but I guess I just felt like spending a couple hours with color overlays and fucking around to make the final moody blue version lol

as an aside the bokeh is a brush by Bunabi/Eriart which you can find as a freebie on her patreon - i saw it and was like omg wait i could use that

...the buildings are also brushes (well the windows are)

anyway here's the lineart

I also used a chain brush of course cause I ain't fuckin drawin all of that lmao —I used a brush from this set, they're pretty nice

😻 there she is oh i also used a diamond stamp 😂 the lesson to learn about me is if i can use a brush for something that would otherwise be tedious and it looks decent i will because i am lazy. unless i only have like a Single instance then I'll usually just draw it but when I have more than one it's either brushes or copy pasting lol

Felicia's outfit is a mix of sources, inspired by both her original costume, with the furry chest (in this case unzippable) as well as obviously more modern sexy latex outfits and so on... but i did NOT give her cleavage to her bellybutton cause I think that's dumb. though. to be fair in this case it would be more justifiable 😂

i love drawing her long long hair (angel medina's fault tbh) (sensational spider-man my beloved...)

rawr 😼

he's trying very hard not to laugh 😂 but he's into it, he's having fun

the muzzle ended up being like multiple designs from photo refs mashed into one so idk... how realistic it is other than the nose-forehead piece which was the same on both my refs. admittedly it looks a little loose but 🤷 still looks nice 😏

claws 😏

I also drew Peter in the classic suit, which I don't normally do, but I was doing more of the comic book look here instead of my own AUs and so on lol

he broke the cuffs so he could touch her butt 🙄 god peter don't you know how much real leather BDSM gear costs (don't tell him)

this new pen tablet is a lot of fun, it's way more comfortable to draw on and the increased pressure sensitivity makes it a lot easier to draw my favorite thing to draw: peter's arm hair 😂😂

the only weird thing is if I press down medium or harder while I'm drawing it... creaks? which is very funny, my old pen did not do that. it really is weirdly like using a felt tip pen or a very fine point marker. except it's plastic.

shoes. it may be classic style but I can never resist giving Peter sporty soles lol I know some people hate that but I just think it looks nice and I can handwave the sticking away as electrostatic forces or something. negative charge. electron transfer. blah blah blah. (in my AU i decided Peter has both electrostatic sticking that encompasses his whole body and ALSO adhesive secretions so if he gets his hands and feet bare i guess he has double the sticking power lol)

shaded versions just cause

tits

i really like drawing latex lol

also if you're wondering why i didn't give peter a boner to match his red face well i have an out and it's that long ago i decided he wears a dance belt under the costume so as not to inflict the outline of his dick and balls on the people of NYC on a daily basis, and dance belts are first of all designed as mentioned to smooth out and hide that outline but also you wear them with everything pointing north and the waistband is like 5 inches wide so i don't think he has to worry about his little buddy escaping LOL (though I'm sure it's possible it would be more visible... i didn't bother trying to google it lol)

really i just didn't feel like trying to draw a boner 😂

Hi Battie! I was wondering how you get inspo for your OCs? Like how do you come up with them and everything? If you’re ok with sharing that ofc!! Love your writing💖

Thank you so much! This means a lot to me considering I'm relatively new to making OCs, but people have been really supportive, so I appreciate it more than I can coherently express. I was definitely hesitant to make any, but I think starting with The Godfather helped because it's not a very big, active fandom to begin with, and there isn't a huge readerbase for OC fics on top of that, so it wasn't like I was jumping into a fandom with a lot of eyes on what I was doing or worrying too much about comparison with other writers.

It's honestly so varied! I guess I’ll discuss Gloria (The Godfather) and Holly and Woody (Masters of the Air). I can’t say I make OCs with the intention of them being paired with a specific character. I’ll go into it more under the cut, but Holly and Woody definitely had minds of their own when it came to that lol.

I find it helpful to write short “scenario” type of fics for my own personal reference (I use the term fic loosely because these end up being a mix of actual story and bullet points and chunks of dialogue) to figure out a character’s background and personality. Also making Pinterest boards and playlists are a huge part of the creative process for me! If I get an idea for an OC, I’ll make a private board for them and start adding stuff and see how their vibe comes together over time. Character spreadsheets or question lists (outside of ask games) feel like such a chore to me, so those aren’t part of my process at all.

Gloria

I wasn’t originally planning for Bruised Fruit to become a longfic, but I've always had "Gloria," the little Sicilian-American troublemaker she is, in some shape or form, but she was a lot of vague ideas and a Pinterest board that I never did anything with until I threw her into Bruised Fruit. What’s now the first chapter was just going to be an experimental one-shot because I had that specific idea. I left the ending open to be continued. I still had inspiration, and a few people expressed interest, so from there I kind of had to actually flesh out Gloria to who she was beyond that first chapter.

Holly

Miss Thing went through like 3 names and 2 backstories before I settled on the Holly Dean we have now. I actually started out thinking she was going to be paired with Buck! I started writing Damn Yankees as some background on Holly and Bucky’s friendship because he was going to play matchmaker for her and Buck. Literally so much changed from when I started writing that fic to when I finished. I had two versions of it that I’d switch back and forth between before finally settling on what I posted. As y’all can tell she went way off track the planned track, but I love where she ended up!

Woody

*Ray Liotta in Goodfellas voice* As far back as I can remember, I always knew I wanted to use Veronica Lake's look in So Proudly We Hail as the basis for an OC. Woody also changed a lot! There was always a past she was going to be running from, but the context of that changed from what I started with. I was kind of playing around with the idea of her being with Rosie, but I could never quite get their dynamic right as I began outlining. That’s when Holly kind of took over as my focus. Then as I’d go back to my messy as hell doc for Woody, I figured I’d focus on her friendship with Holly and see if anyone else came to mind in the meantime, and she and Brady just clicked.

Hello there!! I see a lot of your world building posts on a regular basis, and I love getting to hear about everything you're working on, so I want to ask: how do you go about world building? What's your process? How do you keep track of it all?

As always I adore seeing you on my dash and I love seeing you in my notifs, all my love to you! May you have a good timezone!!

Oh how to answer this... Hmm... I guess it's kind of a hyperfixation on one particular aspect at a time? I'll think about one aspect or another and ideas will come to me. Depending on what it is I may have to do some research and then start writing things down (or in some cases drawing).

For example, I started working on an alphabet for the Avestrens (bird people) in Project 47 and early on I had decided to avoid the monoculture tropes so often seen in scifi/fantasy so there are populations of Avestrens spread out across three continents. After coming up with this, I thought it would be fun to base their language on mythical bird names.

Three days of looking up mythical birds on Wikipedia (and one or two other sites), I had enough to go on. Then I broke down things into themes. For example, the nations of Kyros had Asian themes so I used various bird/bird like creature names from Asian mythologies. Kyros has two different Avestren languages. All in all I came up with 9 different alphabets.

Right now for my Final Fantasy fic I'm (slowly) coming up with backstories and technobabble about the various planets in The Quintet. (For example, Eden orbits at 2.5 AU's which is roughly the orbit of the dwarf planet Ceres in the asteroid belt IRL, which takes 4.6 Earth years to orbit around the Sun. For a fun FFXIII/DS9 reference, I gave Eden a 26 hr day, which I had to find a calculator online to convert into 1550 hours in a year, which I evened out to 50 months lasting 31 days each, cause I really didn't want to do the math to try and make a leap year kinda thing...)

(The Quintet has common hour/etc. definitions, but years and days are all by planet (though most of the more habitable worlds are more or less the same in that regard), so for the example above they use Dia Eden for an Eden Day and Annus Eden for Eden Year (change planet name as needed).)

As for keeping track of it all... I do that with multiple Word files, sometimes with multiple versions, cause when I make a big change I'll save as a new file. I tend to keep a sort of general idea file I'll call "Production Notes" and then make a different file for each specific thing (character lists, biology stuff, etc.) Sometimes I'll write things in a post here or elsewhere and then copy/paste them into Word, but mostly sometimes I'll type it all out first then copy/paste it here or wherever.

I have a folder for each project and then multiple folders for each thing associated with that project. (And I've been doing this for YEARS and will often go back to old notes for inspiration or whatever.)

Thank you so much for the kind words and the ask!!!!

► New Song: "Venture (Album Version)"

Song 5 of 8 from my debut album "I Would Like to Introduce" --> Watch the associated music visualizer on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ccWqkch7yM ► You can listen to the album in these places: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/daymusik/i-would-like-to-introduce-2

🐾 Gee! A lot can be said about this song, actually. However, the description was too long for YouTube so I'm going to paraphrase this paragraph: I was messing around with the harpsichord patch in FL Studio's Morphine plugin and ended up playing what you hear here myself without any piano training. There's sheet music of that part if you want it, but I'll have to figure out how to share it with everyone first. 🐾 Huh, well, that paragraph was longer than expected. Well, moving swiftly on, there are a couple of quotes in this song. One quote is by Vance Havner. "The vision must be followed by the venture. It's not enough to stare up the steps, we must step up the stairs." I think the title "Venture" came first and then I searched for quotes containing profounded statements about ventures and found this one. I don't know nor remember who Vance Havner is (or if I even spelled it correctly but it's late and I'm too lazy to look it up). The other quote, if you are not aware, is from Shia LaBeouf. It has been a few years now since his motivational video was uploaded and memed. "Just Do It" was a motivational video Shia uploaded onto YouTube and, though motivational, many people took the power behind his declaration of "just do it" and used it as the basis of many, many memes. I, for one, really admired the message being portrayed in it and wanted to include another motivational quote in this song. However, I felt no one would take it seriously if I included the particularly "meme-y" quotes and purposefully left those out, and instead supplemented with portions of his speech that... I felt resonated with me. Honestly, this song means a lot to me. As someone who struggles with inspiration and support for my musical career, I always think back to this song and think it wrong to give up after having made such an evocative stance against it. 🐾 Now, one final point. If anyone is even reading this, I will TRY to make it quick. I am still making these videos with FL Studio's ZGameEditor Visualizer (as you can see at the bottom of this description), and while it's nice to have the ability to sync various effects to specific parts of the music, some basic effects -- like the fading text effect that I called "ghost text" -- end up being much more complicated than they need to be. This video project ended up much more messy than I would have anticipated simply because I wanted to make it look nicer. When the ghost texts appear duing the "Stop. Giving. Up," part, you would think it's, like, a single text layer that I'm fading in and out and scaling, but because there is no such thing as a "simple text layer" (well, there is, but both options are horrible, which is why I started using "HUD Text" instead), the text layers don't have a scale effect, just font size, so I have to process them as their own video output and input them into an image layer (I use "HUD Image") and then scale it that way, and the text layer doesn't actually contain any text in it; the text is stored elsewhere and you access it by changing/automating the "Text Line" effect to correspond with the line the text is on where it is stored, making the speech-follow text effect I use much more intricate because I need to copy and paste each position the text line is in (which is why I gave up after the first quote, because if I don't add it to the text page, I can't have it as a text effect, but then if I decide to add in the specific text (like when he only says "step up the stairs", that's part of the full line and not on its own instances) then it changes the positions of each text line and I have to reposition the automation points individually). Oh... well, so much for a quick section. Just... I hope you enjoy the effort and detail I put into these videos because I sacrifice a lot by not using an actual video editor for these videos just so I can use one WITHIN FL Studio that allows me to sync parameters to individual instruments and sounds in the music.

🐾 Support my music production: https://daymusik.bandcamp.com https://ko-fi.com/daymusik

🐾 Where to find me: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6N6Yxpe5ruM1Ogy52BpOzL Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/za/artist/daymusik/1556234296 Amazon Music: https://www.amazon.com/music/player/artists/B08XWM5RJ1/daymusik everywhere else: https://linktr.ee/daymusik

gathering dust chapter 5 directors cut !!

oh my, artichoke my hot&cold girlfriend. i had to go back and re-read, this was ages ago (to me). this chapter was in my drafts for so long and underwent so many rewrites/additions even after it was up. i think it's much better for me taking a break from and coming back to it refreshed.

partially inspired by the scene of armand feeding on a guy in front of louis, mainly vampires tasting food through a human, something that's close but different to tasting a human's memory in the blood. the mnemonic quality of taste and smell is fascinating to me, which is why i brought in the vial scene, actually one of my favorite small scenes i have written. it connects back to keeping a particle of your lover in stasis in a bottled up memory, something that's a very distinctive and dear aspect of armand's character to me, and harkens back to the baudelaire poem at the start.

i drove myself a bit crazy with research on photographic processes, i like how they are a chemical crystallization capturing a moment of time and thus near to my conceptualization of vampire bodies. also armand saying somewhere he has points of memories but can't synthesize knowledge from them. louis and armand fixing on each other to keep a grasp in time. shadow girls voice 'but was that really such a good idea?'

the bathhouse scene is my version of the cruising (see also the essex hemphill poem being the one used in the cruising scene of looking for langston). i am tempted to pick it up again at a later point, little drink lessons are so dear to me. always enjoy blending present and memory together in louis' sensory storytelling.

the basis for gathering dust is louis (&armand) staging and performing echoes of his narrative in the now space of the penthouse, and this was basically the tower date, this universe's setting of loumand's first time. most important thing for me to capture in the choreography was the grace and lightness of louis' movements, the languidness of vampire time & physicality set off against the stumbling humanity of daniel's observer. i was arguing for a long time w myself if i want them to actually kiss daniel in this because imo vampire body fluids are blood and that would bring back some memories, & decided for it in the end, let's see how i shake this one out. most important thing really was the blending of past & present, body memory & instinctual attunements that rest under the surface & get drawn out by sensory activation, echoes, repetitions and ritual.

also daniel is SO annoying in this, he truly has a death wish. i was becoming frustrated by gathering dust mainly because writing from daniel's perspective is exhausting, the pov switch to armand helped a bit, but the slow pace at which i'm writing also means my conceptualizations and ideas changed a lot since i started it, which is why this series is on ice for now until i figure out where exactly i want to go with it.

Thoughts about the Doman Liberation Front

I think it’s pretty safe to say that multiple details of this part of Stormblood were based on or at least partially inspired by King Wu’s overthrow of the Shang Dynasty, more specifically taking elements from the more historical recount of the event than the version present in Investiture of the Gods (where Jiang Ziya is more of the main character but anyways) so I'm gonna take a look at the Stormblood MSQ in Yanxia with that in mind

As a quick sum-up, King Wu’s overthrow of the Shang Dynasty, specifically King Zhou of Shang, involves him uniting a bunch of neighboring provinces in China together to overthrow King Zhou cuz he was being a grade-A asshole to his citizens. Specifically, he was seduced by Daji, a fox spirit, who delighted in torture. Near the end of the rebellion when they assault King Zhou’s castle, he burns it down in an attempt to take down the rebellion with him, but this fails, resulting in his death, the execution of Daji, and the rebuilding of China into the Zhou Dynasty

I really like this slight detail change when it comes to the Doman Liberation Front in comparison to King Wu's overthrow of the Shang Dynasty. Revising it here so that it's King Wu (Hien) who decides to burn (sink) the castle really emphasizes the thematic basis behind both stories, I think. The idea that such a building isn't necessarily symbolic of a nation, and that it would be better to destroy them once they've become emblematic of corruption and oppression and instead we should have the true core of a nation, their people, rebuild a new symbol. Much more resonant than "the bad guy burned it down cuz it was a last ditch effort to stop the rebels" lol 

Revising it to sinking, too, I think changes the symbolism behind the act. Instead of completely excising the terrible things that happened through burning, they denounce the corruption and oppression that they've had to bear for so many years while simultaneously preserving it, letting it continue to stand (if not out there then hidden) as a reminder of past mistakes

There’s some more stuff I wanna talk about though, especially concerning the characters that I feel have been directly pulled from the source material, specifically Hien, Gosetsu, and Yotsuyu

Hien seems to be a pretty good match for King Wu, being a prince of a fallen kingdom come back to reclaim his homeland. King Wu wasn’t a prince per se but his father was a Count of a province within the Shang Dynasty. More of the parallels are concerning Hien’s relationships with the other characters, but one I should mention that isn’t seen is Lord Kaien. Lord Kaien was imprisoned for quite a few years before being released and reinstated as a puppet ruler for Doma. He eventually plotted to drive the Garlean Empire out, but ultimately failed which leads to the events of Stormblood today. This I think directly parallels King Wen of Zhou, who was imprisoned for being too intimidating(?) to King Zhou of Shang. Stormblood had to cut out the especially gruesome detail that his eldest son tried to get him out and was ultimately CUT INTO PIECES ALIVE AND MADE INTO MEAT CAKES THAT WERE FED TO KING WEN but the end result is still around the same. For some reason or another, King Wen was released and was given lordship over a certain area. He then eventually plotted a rebellion against King Zhou of Shang and was defeated. I think the thing that’s interesting about Hien in relation to King Wu specifically is that Hien is a lot more insecure and sort of inexperienced in relation to King Wu. As far as I know, there is no mention of King Wu’s personality other than the typical type attributed to well-respected leaders so seeing Hien portrayed like this is not only more realistic imo but also makes it easier for you to sympathize with him. He's a bit of a goof, he doesn't really know what he's doing when it comes to the details and optics of being a revolutionary leader, but he has the drive and the passion and it's ultimately the combination of that and his allies' skills that wins the day.

Yotsuyu is also a pretty good match for Daji, both being associated with the oppression of the people. They both, especially, share a fondness for torture and humiliation, with Daji being much *much* more evil than Yotsuyu to the point where she’s kind of known for her extremely creative and brutal torture techniques. Yotsuyu is a bit more, uh, normal in comparison but she’s still far and beyond the most cruel antagonist that’s been introduced up to Stormblood (I guess you could make an exception for Lolorito/Teledji but they weren’t as visibly brutal. Meanwhile Yotsuyu within the first few minutes of her showing up manipulates a dude into shooting his fellow villager before driving him even further with her demands until he is eventually just shot dead anyways despite him trying to suck up to her good side) where I think the comparison is fitting. It’s definitely the least clear-cut parallel out of all three, but I think there’s a reason for that which I’ll discuss in Gosetsu’s portion. For now, though, I do want to point out that Yotsuyu (at least as far as I’ve played) seems to have a reason for her sadistic streak, rooted within a deep hatred of the Doman people due to what I presume to be persistent verbal and physical abuse during her childhood. I’m not certain what direction they’re planning on taking it, but I did want to at least note that they are indeed putting in effort to explain her cruel nature, unlike with Daji where it was just “oh she’s a fox spirit of course she’ll commit heinous war crimes.”

Okay so Gosetsu is possibly one of the most interesting characters when it comes to comparing the Doman Liberation Front with King Wu of Zhou’s story, not least of the reason why being that he's possibly the most accurate depiction of Jiang Ziya I've seen? For reference most popular depictions take his appearance in Investiture of the Gods and also just casually forget the fact that he isn't a handsome, skinny 20 to 40-something year old (here's FGO and the Chinese movie Jiang Ziya for comparison. This is by far the more popular portrayal I’ve seen)

But no! He's like 70-something! He's like that really cool grandpa who does all of the usual old people things but is actually pretty pleasant and I love that Gosetsu shares that

Also visually-speaking they're extremely similar lol I wouldn't be surprised if this drawing of Jiang Ziya was used as reference

But anyways the more interesting aspect is Gosetsu's small character arc regarding the Dotharl and Geser. Gosetsu kind of shows that he's a bit. Close-minded regarding differing beliefs. It's difficult for him to accept the Dotharl's beliefs regarding death and the afterlife but he ultimately reasons that it *does* make sense and he just didn't look at it from the proper perspective. This crops up a little bit later when Hien suggests they flood Doma Castle, where he is the only one to very vehemently object to it. This running theme (albeit minor) of Gosetsu having difficulty accepting new ideas and beliefs combined with the changes they made and analysis of what they change symbolically and thematically, I think is the game directly critiquing the original story.

Gosetsu is possibly the character parallel that most closely aligns to the original what with Jiang Ziya not only looking very similar but also having very similar roles and personalities (mentor figure, humble, generally seen as a model vassal) and I think that sort of signals that Gosetsu is symbolic of the old story. After all, Jiang Ziya is probably the most popular figure out of that story (even moreso than King Wu) so to have a character that looks the same, acts the same, has the same role, have an arc where he is directly encountering, struggling, and finally understanding "new" beliefs feels like it is a commentary on the original story.

This fits in with Yotsuyu’s character being vastly different from that of Daji’s, almost as if the story is directly addressing the inherent misogyny in Daji’s portrayal. Daji’s role in the fall of the Shang Dynasty is commonly seen as a cautionary tale against the femme fatale trope, which I doubt I really need to explain how the trope is historically misogynistic. It’s the idea that a woman is able to, using her power over men, completely fuck shit up and in most cases these femme fatale characters are given no greater motivation than “meh I like it.” This is the case with Daji where she is given no greater reason for her torture methods than “she’s a fox spirit” and “she’s a demon of course she likes it.” Yotsuyu appears to have a reason for her bullying and oppression, her abuse of the Doman people is rooted in what appears to be abuse that she suffered as a child. I’m not gonna speculate further as to why she specifically chose the entirety of the Doman people as her target for revenge since I genuinely cannot even guess as to why right now, but it’s further evidence, I think, that the writers are not only taking inspiration from the source material but also directly engaging with it, critiquing it, and folding that critique into their primary themes which is insanely cool to me.

This is, obviously, only supported by the fact that the story on its own is also an extremely well-crafted look at imperialism and the tactics that conquering states like to use to subjugate their newly-made subjects. I was hoping that Stormblood would analyze this as well as it analyzed the complicated relationships between Ishgard and the Dravanians in Heavensward (which, btw, I should write something about that later when I decide to replay it because Holy Shit I Loved That So Much) and this section of the game at the very least definitely lived up to those hopes. Cannot wait to see what they do with Ala Mhigo.

My Professional Identity

My name is Buddy Wolfe. I’m a Red Seal chef with over 25 years of experience in the restaurant industry. I’ve been in every position in the kitchen from dishwasher to executive chef and I am now a culinary instructor at Vancouver Island University where I have been teaching for the past 6 years. I’ve wanted to be a chef my whole life and having reached all of my professional goals my last progression in my industry was to become a teacher. It’s something that I realized that I would want to do when I attended culinary school where I met my first mentor who I’m still in touch with. Chef Leake changed my life and inspired me to be the chef that I am. I knew then that one day I would want to be that inspiration for the next generation of up and coming chefs.  

When I think about what guides me as an instructor I think about my core values and beliefs not just as a teacher but as a human being. Honesty & integrity, kindness & compassion, humility, patience, and work ethic. All of these mold who I am but also how I teach. I really enjoyed Brookfield’s “truths” that he shared in The Skillful Teacher because they were honest and true to himself. 

I remember my first day of class. Being in the kitchen was easy. It was the 60 minutes of airtime that I needed to fill in the classroom before we went upstairs that scared me. I felt like I was going to throw up. One of the other other instructors looked at me and said, “Don't forget, you know WAY more than they do!”. That really hit me. And it’s kept me one step ahead ever since. I know that I have to work really hard to create content in the classroom that is engaging and interesting. I know that if I can come from a place of passion for the subject matter, that I will inspire my students like I was inspired all those years ago. 

I’ve learned a lot of hard truths over the years teaching. I had to accept that I won't inspire everyone the way I want to and that it’s not my fault if I can’t. I used to be really hard on myself if one of my students wasn't successful in class. I had to get to a place where I understood that teaching is about reciprocal accountability. I will put in the work, but my students have to put in the work as well and I need to hold them accountable to that. I promised myself that every time I taught a class that I would would reflect on how to improve it for the next iteration. I would never “rest on my laurels”. I promised myself that I would always be there for students that wanted extra help or extra work; that if they were willing to put in the time, that I would be there to. This is part of my accountability.

I’ve learned that students are coming to post-secondary institutions with more issues and barriers than ever before. As I deal with these issues I must constantly work on my implicit biases and be honest with myself and thoughtful with my interactions. Maslow’s needs seem so pertinent now. On a regular basis I see students who aren't having their basic needs met and so they show up to school (or not) and try to learn in an environment that is riddled with obstacles that they carry with them. I’ve learned that my work as a teacher has gone past the expectations of my content knowledge and that I would have to be more than just a tool for knowledge if I truly want my students to be successful. 

I’ve learned that different people have different versions of what success means to them. Whereas for me success might have been measured by GPA, for others simply being the first family member to attend a post-secondary institution may be a success. 

I’ve learned reassuring things as well. I’ve learned that my passion can create engagement. That it is infectious. I’ve learned that one thank you out of 20 students can be my highlight of the class. I’ve learned that as much as it’s important that I deliver the hard skills and the curriculum required in culinary arts that it’s the soft skills that will make my students truly successful in our industry and it’s those very same skills that are transferable to success in any field and in life in general. If I can model those traits and transfer some of those skills then I know that I will have helped to create life long learners who will find success wherever they go. 

I’ve learned a lot about myself these past 6 years. I learned that I lost my passion to learn because I was too busy running restaurants. The best part about becoming a teacher was reigniting my own passion for learning and rediscovering my own place as a life long learner.

Brookfield, S.D. (2015). The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust, and Responsiveness in the Classroom, 3rd edition. Wiley

Wikipedia. (n.d.) Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. In wikipedia.com encyclopedia. Retrieved April 23, 2023 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs 

[RERUN] Highlander (If “There can be only one” why are there so many sequels and spinoffs?)

Having recently reviewed Highlander, the Series, I realized that the film that started it all needed the RERUN treatment. If you would like to see the original review, you can do so here.

(Thanks to nikos fotis)

[All images are owned by StudioCanal. Please don’t sue or decapitate me]

For a low-budget ($15 million) film that almost no one saw in theaters (seriously, the film made less than $6 million, which is just over $12 million in today’s money), Highlander at one time had a cult following, enough to warrant a spin-off TV show, three sequels (one of which was tied to the series), a TV movie based on the series (and a sequel to the last theatrical release…confused yet?), and an animated series (wait, they made a kids’ cartoon about people chopping each others’ heads off?!)

(Thanks to silvermustangr5)

I didn’t see the movie until season two of the series was on TV (and this was the season I started from, so I was REALLY confused as to what I was watching), and I enjoyed the story a lot, but on the second viewing…questions started coming up. Questions like why the Scottish Immortal has a French accent, why the Egyptian had a Spanish name and a Scottish accent, and how could we have a series (and a sequel, as Highlander II had already been in theaters and Highlander III was being advertised on TV) when (SPOILER) there was only one Immortal left by the end of the original film.

Much like Flash Gordon back in 1980 (I promise that will get the RERUN treatment eventually!), Queen wrote the soundtrack (They originally were going to just do Princes of the Universe, but the movie inspired them to write more) and the band’s name was prominently featured in the credits and the promotional poster (though not as prominently as Flash Gordon. Guess the producers had a bit more faith in thisfilm on its own, however misplaced it was)

But how confusing is it on its own without the baggage of unnecessary additional installments? Let’s find out. If you would like to watch the film, it’s available on Tubi.

[NOTE: For those unfamiliar with any of the films or the series, this movie cuts back and forth between present-day Connor MacLeod (who goes by the name Russell Nash…which is REALLY odd as none of the other Immortals seem to bother changing names at all) and his past self. If it seems like I’m being spastic in my review, know that’s because the era probably shifted]

The movie starts with a bit of exposition from Ramirez (played by James Bond himself, Sean Connery), hinting that this is the time of “The Gathering” when the final few Immortals will battle to the headless until only one remains. Kind of like a head-chopping version of The Hunger Games.

We open to Madison Square Garden during a wrestling match featuring the Fabulous Freebirds (I guess the American Wrestling Association paid for some of the film?)…

…while MacLeod Nash looks bored out his mind (why would someone who battles to the death on a regular basis be watching staged fighting?)

Suddenly we’re in a battle in the highlands of Scotland. Somehow this flashback makes him walk out of the arena. (maybe he’s not a fan of the Freebirds?)

MacLeod Nash walks through the Garden’s parking garage (I’m assuming to get his car, otherwise this film just got a bit creepy) when a man named Fasil walks behind him and calls him by his actual name. They both then pulls swords (Fasil a broadsword, MacLeod a katana…where the hell does a Scotsman get a katana?!) out of their coats (OK…first, Fasil is wearing a suit, so where was he hiding the sword? Second MacLeod just came from inside an arena; shouldn’t security have confiscated that?)

One badly-choreographed sword fight later involving fire sprinklers, dropped swords, and way too many back flips, MacLeod lops off Fasil’s head...

...and badly-animated lightning wipes out all the cars and lights on the level. There are gonna be some pissed off wrestling fans after the main event. MacLeod stashes his katana in the ductwork (but forgets about the headless body) and runs off to find his car.

As MacLeod flees the crime scene...

...we flash back to Scotland, where we see MacLeod winning fourth place in the Mel Gibson Memorial Lookalike Contest. The scene is awkwardly announced as being in 1536, and Clan MacLeod are marching off to battle. On the battlefield, we meet the Kurgan for the first time.

He tells his lieutenant to have the men stay away from Connor MacLeod (OK…first, how does the Kurgan know Connor’s name? Second, how does his lieutenant know what Connor looks like? And third, how did he get that information to the hundreds of soldiers in the army in the moments before the battle?) Apparently word did get out, because as badly choreographed as this fight is, no one is getting within ten feet of Connor, despite his best efforts.

Then the Kurgan shows up, stabs Connor, and is about to decapitate him when the rest of Clan MacLeod descend on him and drive him away from Connor, leaving Connor to bleed out on the battlefield.

Back in the present, apparently MacLeod Nash found his car (or stole one) and is racing out of the parking garage just as every cop in New York cuts him off and arrests him none too gently (though apparently just for questioning)

Back in 1536, we attend Connor’s funeral after the battle.

Back in the present, we are introduced to Lt. Frank Moran and Forensic scientist Brenda Wyatt as they investigate Fasil’s headless body. Wyatt finds Fasil’s sword. She then awkwardly reveals she’s a sword nerd by not only ID’ing the make of Fasil’s sword but also its estimated worth, suggesting that Moran take a closer look at Nash.

Ya think?

Moran brings the sword into the interrogation room…

MORAN: You’re an antique dealer, right? OK, what’s that?

MACLEOD NASH: A sword?

Moran tries to get Nash to slip up, but Nash keeps his cool, which pisses off the uniform in the room, who insults Nash and takes a swing at him. (I certainly hope Internal Affairs has a long talk with that uniform!) In the confusion, Nash walks out.

 We switch to the Kurgan, who has traded the skull-themed helmet and plate mail for heavy makeup and studded leather. After checking into a flop house that would make Norman Bates think twice, he assembles his sword (including a two-piece blade. Wouldn’t that be weaker than a normal sword?)

Back in the forensic lab (which is a far cry from CSI New York, let me tell you!), Wyatt is given bits of metal found on Fasil’s corpse. Wyatt realizes the metal isn’t from Fasil’s sword.

Back at the parking garage MacLeod retrieves his katana as Wyatt shows up (what a co-ink-e-dink!) and uses a metal detector to find a sliver of the katana lodged in one of the concrete supports (wouldn’t the rebar in the support make using a metal detector impossible?). MacLeod manages to hide until she leaves.

MacLeod Nash stalks Wyatt (maybe I should start calling her “Brenda” as she’s obviously about to become the Love Interest. Should I start calling him Connor Russell as well? Nah, MacLeod Nash is fine) to her favorite watering hole. Nash offers to walk Brenda home, (I’m guessing more to keep an eye on her than get in her pants, but then again he is a Scotsman) but is shot down.

Brenda hides as MacLeod Nash leaves, then attempts to stealthily (good luck with that) tail him. Fortunately she’s not that good...

...because otherwise the Kurgan would have killed her trying to get to MacLeod. Instead, MacLeod saves her life. Brenda tosses MacLeod a pipe to defend himself (wait, doesn’t he have his sword back?) and barely manages to hold his own until the fight is broken up by an NYPD helicopter. (I guess sometimes there IS a cop around when you want one!) All three of them (including the person who works for the NYPD?!) flee the scene.

Brenda catches up to MacLeod Nash and demands to know what’s happening, but he tells her she’s out of her depth and to walk away (like that ever works)

Back in 1536 (remember that subplot?) the morning after his funeral, Connor is alive and well. Rather than be happy about their clansman’s miraculous recovery, they cast him out as a demon. Nice guys.

Fast forward five years. Connor has found a new home in the middle of nowhere (but has his own tower) and a wife named Heather.

Suddenly out of nowhere (but I’m guessing not the same nowhere) appears Sean Connery Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez (sorry, still wrapping my head around the Scotsman with the French accent and the Egyptian Spaniard with the Scottish accent) who sets about explaining to Connor what he is and training him.

Back in the present, MacLeod realizes Brenda’s a sword nerd (because he owns one of her books…what a co-ink-e-dink!)

Back in 1541, cue the training montage and exposition, including the origin of Ramirez’s katana. (which is the same one MacLeod now uses. I don’t see this flashback subplot ending happily…)

Eventually, when Connor is away on an errand, the Kurgan shows up for dinner. Ramirez fights him off as best he can...

...but I’m sure you can guess how this ends...

...and then the Kurgan makes Heather dessert (Don’t worry, the Kurgan lets her live afterward)

Back in the present, it’s Brenda’s turn to stalk MacLeod Nash as she shows up at his antique shop. Brenda wants answers about the Kurgan and MacLeod’s katana (by that, I mean his weapon, not his “sword”), but Nash is being coy about both and invites himself to dinner.

That night, MacLeod’s receptionist Rachel (who obviously knows everything) is worried about MacLeod and how to handle the questions that are cropping up about him.

We flash back to WW2 (because why not...) and MacLeod is in a town being overrun by Germans. In a collapsing barn, he discovers a young girl who turns out to become the adult Rachel (I guess there’s a reason she knows everything)

After that brief interlude, MacLeod Nash shows up at Brenda’s apartment (in which she has a tape recorder and gun hidden)

When Brenda excuses herself, he finds both (and the cop waiting outside) within 10 seconds (Natasha Romanov she ain’t). MacLeod Nash brings a gift for her...

...a copy of the book she wrote (you’d think she’d already have one) Brenda realizes the jig is up and confesses she doesn’t care about the investigation. She just wants a look at MacLeod’s katana (the weapon, you perverts!) With that, MacLeod Nash storms out.

One final flashback to Scotland and a montage that covers a few decades after Ramirez’s death as Queen’s Who Wants to Live Forever plays. It ends with Conner (who hasn’t aged a day) sitting by his old and dying Heather declaring their love for each other.

(excuse me…I have a bit of sentimentalism in my eye)

Back in the present, MacLeod runs into his friend and fellow Immortal Kastagir. For some reason, they don’t immediately draw swords, but reminisce about old times (which would likely take a week) They confirm for the audience that this is the time of the Gathering, when the 5,721st Hunger Games will take place.

We then flash back to the 18th century, where a drunken MacLeod loses a duel to the death…

...several times…

...to the same person (obviously the other guy didn’t go for the head)

Back in the present, we have a Punisher wannabe witness the Kurgan lopping off Kastagir’s head (one has to wonder why no one has seen all the headless bodies lying around before the time the movie takes place), opening up an Uzi on the Kurgan...

...and getting his ass stabbed (in front of several gangbangers, prostitutes, and junkies) as a result.

(Thanks to Kevin Perelman)

(They never mention what happens to poor woman. Probably for the best)

It turns out Mr. Trigger Happy survived a sword through the gut (OK, so Heather and this guy survived? I guess the Kurgan’s not that deadly to mortals. Maybe the car owners lived as well?) and tells his story to Moran and his partner. Moran is pissed that it wasn’t MacLeod Nash, but gets a sketch artist so he can get an ID (how many 7-foot sword-swinging swychos can there be? Not too many more since this guy is decapitating them all)

Brenda is curious to find out more about Mr. Nash, so looks up his birth record. You’d think she’d be disappointed about not finding one, but she actually does. (and it’s not circa 1510-1520) She then looks up the physician who allegedly delivered him, and surprisingly, he remembers doing so…only mother and child died shortly after. She then has one of the county clerks look up Nash’s property, and each of the previous owners also had apparently died at birth.

Even weirder, the previous owners had the same handwriting as Nash. Slowly, Brenda and the clerk start coming up with 4. Brenda goes to check her math with MacLeod Nash.

We cut to a church, where MacLeod lights a candle in celebration of Heather’s birthday (her dying request. Nice to know he’s a romantic)...

...when the Kurgan shows up with a freshly-shaved head, now that his picture is all over the news. (because a 7 foot tall guy with a sword, studded leather, and a bald head is totally different than a 7 foot guy with a sword, studded leather and jet black hair) He lets MacLeod know that they are the final two, but they can’t fight here because of the rule about Holy Ground (exactly what constitutes “Holy Ground”? I mean, I get churches and possibly graveyards, and I’m assuming mosques and synagogues as their religions predate Christianity…but what about Eastern religions? Indian burial sites? The Pyramids? What about Jonestown or the Branch Davidian compound?), so the Kurgan just taunts him a while...

(Thanks to ThanToFadeAway)

...quotes Def Leppard, and walks out.

Back at the antique store, MacLeod Nash…oh hell, the jig is up by now. MacLeod walks in to find Brenda demanding answers and Rachel doing her best to stonewall. MacLeod pretty much says “Fuck it” and takes Brenda to his study/trophy room, where he spills his guts...

...(literally, as he forces Brenda to stab him to show he’s telling the truth) and then he and Brenda have sex on the floor (in his blood? That’s gonna be hell to clean up)

Brenda returns to her place to find the Kurgan waiting (of course…) and is captured (of course again…) He then terrorizes her by driving like a first-time driver hopped up on meth to the site of the Final Battle as Queen performs New York, New York in the background. He then calls MacLeod and tells him where to find the gibbering form of Brenda. MacLeod says his final goodbye to Rachel before going to the Final Battle.

MacLeod sees Brenda tied up inside a giant neon sign and goes to free her, but is ambushed by the Kurgan (Gee, who would’ve thought it would be a trap?) One long, clumsy fight later...

...the skylight they’re fighting on breaks and gravity tells them to take it inside.

After they stumble back to their feet, MacLeod loses his katana. Just as it looks like the Kurgan will win the Hunger Games Prize...

...Brenda (remember her?) somehow found the door to the next floor down (Socks, Swimsuits, Suitcases, and Sword Fights) and gently taps the Kurgan with a pipe (isn’t there something in the Unwritten Rules against involving mortals? But I guess the Kurgan already broke that by using Brenda as bait, so…) This proves to be enough of a distraction for MacLeod to find his katana. (insert your own sword joke here) MacLeod presses the advantage to tag the Kurgan a couple of times, until finally both make a final mighty swing, but it’s the Kurgan’s smiling head that falls.

We are then treated to some of the worst 80s special effects I’ve ever seen as MacLeod gets the final Quickening (until the second film)

(Thanks to RacoonWarriorPrincess)

We then see what the Prize is, and it’s about as satisfying to the audience (complete omnipotence, plus now he’s mortal) as the prize was to the winner of the Hunger Games, though we are treated to a final exposition from Sean Connery Ramirez before the credits roll.

Stormwatch and Irish history

It’s been a while since the release of Arknights Chapter 9, so I feel it’s a good time to talk about its historical inspiration.

I expect that plenty of people noticed that the Victorians and Tarans are analogues for the British and Irish. I also expect that plenty of people assumed the conflict portrayed is an analogue for The Troubles that dominated Northern Ireland in the latter half of the 20th century.

I do not believe that The Troubles are the basis of Stormwatch’s inspiration; rather, I see more similarities with the conflicts that led to the formation of the Irish Free State that ultimately became the Republic of Ireland. In particular, I think they took inspiration from the Easter Rising.

(For my part, I’m not much of a historian, but to me this is general family and national history. My aim is simply for a rough sketch.)

By 1916 Ireland had been under the control of Britain for several centuries, and a formal part of the country since 1800. The past few decades had seen peaceful and constitutional self-rule movements, but in Easter of 1916 republicans seized control of parts of Dublin and proclaimed independence. The British Army quickly recaptured the city, but their tactics included using artillery against the city and killed many civilians. The brutality of it bolstered support for the independence movement and marked a new phase in its history.

Sound familiar? A “peaceful” status quo shattered first by insurgents capturing a city, then the brutal and indiscriminate backlash from the governing forces. Dublinn never intended to hold County Hillock; their purpose was to declare their existence and purpose, and it looks to be the spark that lights a fire.

Conversely, much of The Troubles seems unfamiliar from the perspective of Stormwatch. You can’t tell the story of Northern Ireland without including the ethnic/sectarian divisions between its Protestant majority and Catholic minority communities, and how they typically relate to the wish to remain in the UK/join independent Ireland respectively. The myriad communal tensions there simply aren’t represented in the Taran civilians, where the most you see is a moderate-extreme scale and how that relates to attitudes towards Dublinn.

(One point that does remind me of The Troubles is the unconditional support Dublinn demands from Tarans: we proclaim we fight for you, therefore if you act against us you are a traitor. Multiple are the stories I’ve heard about how Catholics were expected to give harbour to the IRA regardless of their personal feelings, and of the IRA enacting its own justice within communities.)

I could go on, as The Troubles are a messy affair tangled up in the complex web of history. But then, what isn’t? While Arknights is taking inspiration from history, I don’t think they’re aiming to retell history. By telling their own story and keeping the informing history at arm’s length, they can try to avoid getting bogged down in the risk of appearing to pick sides or determining which details are unimportant enough to leave out, let alone claiming how your OCs might have made things better.

Stormwatch isn’t “The Troubles with catgirls”, but it isn’t really “The Easter Rising with catgirls” either. It’s a story about a brittle imperial status quo and how divisions can fester and harden. It’s a story about model minorities. It’s a story about how someone can justify committing genocide as a righteous and necessary act. It also looks to be a story of conspiracies within conspiracies, as we might expect from Arknights by now. I don’t think any version of the IRA was quite so quick to murder people in the name of secrecy, nor was the state implicitly letting them run free. I don’t think they were vying for the throne. I’m no expert, but I don’t think Theresis was there either.

There are other interesting conversations to have, like how the AK story most focused on racism so far has been about racism between two groups of identical-looking Felines, but I think that’s enough for one post.

sweaty hands, reluctant hearts

Pairing: The Mandalorian (Din Djarin) x Fem!Reader

Words: 13685 (god this wasn’t supposed to be this long I’m actually sorry this time)

Warnings: Angst and Smut (my fav). Hurt/Jealous Mando -> Touch Starved/Rough Mando -> Fluffy Mando -> Shy Mando. Penetrative Sex. Oral Sex. There’s lot’s of sweat because exertion yall. Breeding Kink 😏. Slight Exhibitionism. Overstimulation and slight slight non-con because of oversensitivity. Umm, squirting 🙃. Dirty/Sweet talk. Spanking (ass and hoohaa).

Summary: He never thought the day would come when he’d hear you saying you wanted to leave him. Yes there was an understanding between the two of you that you were hired to help him care for the Child and to somehow keep the Razor Crest alive and working. And he knew it made sense for you to find work elsewhere now that the Razor Crest was destroyed and the Child was with his own kind. But he just assumed you weren’t going to leave considering it’s been a couple of months since he’d given the kid to the Jedi and you never brought it up. It hurt hearing you say those words, especially when he realized he wasn’t meant to hear them and that you were confiding in Cobb Vanth of all people. Turns out, all Mando needed was to see the Marshal eye-fucking you as you fixed the new ship and overshared your thoughts for him to snap and finally make a move. Hopefully he can change your mind...

A/N: Yall, this is post Season 2 so sadly Grogu is not here, hence the angst! Umm, this was a lot to handle because you know, that gif here. Enjoy ☺️

It’s been months since the events that transpired on the cruiser. Months since he’d given away a piece of himself to an unknown being. Months since he’d sat down and re-evaluated his life’s mission. He wasn’t sure why he’d chosen to return to Tatooine of all planets but he needed some time to think of his next steps. So much has changed over the course of the past year and it took the Mandalorian longer than usual to realize that he can’t use bounty hunting to fill the void in his heart. 

One thing he did know for sure, however, was that he couldn’t have managed to survive the emotional and physical changes without your presence. Somehow, you’ve managed to make his life easier and by a whole lot. He has never felt this grateful for having a companion, maker, didn’t even think it possible to ever consider another as such. He’d spent years and years living by the Creed and never once doubting his way of living, but he found himself questioning everything about himself when you came in. It wasn’t that he was suddenly open to the idea of taking his helmet off or anything, it was more of a passing thought on what it would be like if he were to open up to you more, perhaps even share with you more than his name and an abridged version of how he became a Mandalorian. 

He mulled over how he would approach the topic with you, finding himself growing more nervous when he considered how you’d react. You’ve never given him any inclination of ever thinking of him as more than your boss and he knew he needed to figure out a way to make this seem natural and not forced. Frankly, he found it interesting how you managed to read him better than anyone he’s ever met, and he wished he could ask you how you’d done so when he never took off his helmet. 

Mando pushed the thought aside for now, cursing to himself as he dragged the giant piece of scrap you’d requested for him to pick up from Peli. He wanted to argue with you then, tell you that the only reason for coming to this awfully hot planet was to take some time off, if that was even possible, and avoid falling into the temptation of another mission. But he couldn’t find it in himself to say any of these things, mostly because you were the one that managed to procure the new ship for him and you were also the one that told him the two of you were in serious need of rest. He’d only realized the ship needed fixing when he landed and you told him you would get right on as soon as he picked up the necessary pieces from Peli. He felt a little out of the loop when he’d gone to her and found her giving him everything you’d requested for, and he knew you must have contacted her before you landed or else she wouldn’t have been this quick. 

As he made his way through the quiet “streets” of Mos Pelgo, he thought back to what Peli said to him an hour ago. Had he not considered her as a friend, he would have responded rudely when she bugged him about you. As much as he wished to humor the idea that you looked at him as more than a colleague, partner, whatever it was the two of you were, he didn’t want to grow any more false hope, especially now that he’d already given up the one thing that managed to crawl into his heart. 

Mando saw that you’d moved the ship behind the cantina and he chose to blame the heat for the way his skin crawled with goosebumps because no, he didn’t suddenly feel calm at the thought of you. 

He shook his head from the intruding thought and was about to say something to you when he saw who was standing nearby. If there was ever a time where he didn’t wish to see Cobb Vanth, it was definitely now. The bounty hunter put down the scraps of metal before moving closer to where the two of you were standing. He was sheltered behind a shack of sorts and allowed his heart rate to return to normal before listening in on you. 

“I don’t believe you sweetheart.” The Marshal threw back his drink and shook his head when you shrugged your shoulders at him and Mando felt his stomach twist at the endearment. Since when were the two of you on such a close basis?

“Believe whatever you want Marshal, I was only answering your question. Besides, it’s not like I’m actively looking right now.” Mando watched as you swiped the sweat rolling down your face with the back of your hand and swore when he felt the fabric of his pants grow tighter around his crotch. He felt dirty watching your every move, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of the way your muscles gleamed under the excruciating sun rays. He cursed the day you bought that garment and he recalled back to the first time he watched you work in it. Mando had almost tripped over the child that day because he never expected to see you walking around with the chest binding so visible to his eyes. It was worse when you reached up high for something because if his eyes lingered long enough, he could see your undergarment peeking from the low-hanging pants of the overalls. 

The bounty hunter had to take a few deep breaths to move on from the inappropriate thoughts he was having and he narrowed his eyes at Cobb when he saw him walk closer to you. 

“Are you ever going to tell him?” The Mandalorian watched as your expression shifted slowly to a more sombre look and he was familiar enough with you to know that you weren’t too happy with that question or the answer you were going to give Cobb. 

“I- I don’t know. I wish I could tell him about how I fe- what I’m thinking about but I can’t...and I also can’t just say ‘Hey Mando, I had a blast taking care of the kid and getting hunted by the kriffing Empire. I fixed the ship for you so see you later.’ It’s not right and I didn’t realize it would be this difficult to come to terms with what I have to do. But I can’t keep doing this, it’s not fair.” 

Whatever the Mandalorian thought you were going to say, that certainly didn’t make the top of the list. He almost fell back when he registered the meaning behind your words. You wanted to leave. You’ve been wanting to move on for a while and you weren’t sure how to tell him. You were confiding in Cobb Vanth of all people and relying on his opinion to decide what you were going to do. A thousand thoughts flew through his mind and he tried to see if he’d done anything wrong. Besides the whole thing with Gideon and Bo Katana, there wasn’t really anything he’d done that would inspire such a reaction from you. Not that those weren’t enough to change your mind about staying with him but it was all in the past now. 

The sound of laughter broke Mando out of his haze and he turned towards you again, watching as you slithered down the ship, clenching his fists tightly when he saw Cobb grab your hips to help you down. He was torn between strutting towards the two of you and punching the daylights out of him and remaining where he was to listen in on your conversation. He had no right to do either, but he needed to know.

“I hate to ask you this question because it defeats the whole purpose of this entire chat but...have you thought of how he’d take it? Should you decide on-” You pointed to something on the floor and Cobb leaned down to grab it for you, handing it and gauging your reaction to his question as you continued to work. 

“Why else do you think I’ve been putting this off? Of course I’ve thought of how he’d react. But I deserve more than...ugh, I don’t mind this, I swear I don’t, but I also can’t just sit back and pretend I don’t want more.” You motioned violently to the ship and to what you were doing as you spoke, shaking your head at the man smiling smugly in front of you before throwing out the tools and snatching his drink from him. 

Mando couldn’t stand to be near you, not after what he’d heard and certainly not after taking in your body language and the way Cobb was practically undressing you without shame. He stepped back, leaving the scraps where they were and heading to the cantina to take his mind off of what he’d just witnessed. He walked in and paid no mind to the patrons scattered across the room, handing the man behind the counter more credits than he cared to count and asking him for his strongest stuff. He didn’t bother to address the judgmental stare he was receiving and took hold of the bottle before walking out again. 

It was close to sunset and the Mandalorian walked until the edge of the town before deciding to continue until he reached a small hill filled with large boulders. Sliding down one of the rocks, he sighed deeply before taking off his helmet, the hissing sound instilling a sense of guilt deep in his chest. He was ashamed at feeling such an emotion towards what he based his entire life on. But he couldn’t take it anymore. His anger rose as he opened the large bottle in his hand, throwing it back until he felt the stinging drink burn his throat for a few seconds before aggressively setting it on the floor next to him. 

Mando wasn’t able to put what he was feeling into a proper string of thoughts but he did know it was an odd mixture of hurt and anger with a tiny bit of sexual frustration. He couldn’t get the image of you sweaty and heaving as you worked on his ship out of his mind, shutting his eyes and throwing his head back to meditate back on the way your muscles clenched and pulled every time you molded two metal scraps together or how they positively shined when you carried things across the sand. He’d tried his hardest to set all of these feelings and rather inappropriate thoughts aside but he couldn’t any longer. Not when there was a chance of you leaving him, and perhaps to someone like the Marshal too. 

Perhaps it was unwise to deny his heart’s desires for so long and Mando was sure that he’d met his breaking point because he couldn’t stop thinking about you. Normally, he was able to distract himself and force his mind to stray away from conjuring up the filthiest images of you wreathing and crying beneath him as he drove his cock into your heat. But he had no hold over his mind at this moment, not that he was to blame. He went from shutting his own self out to opening the floodgates, and there was no going back. 

He sighed heavily when his thoughts shifted to what you said about him and he took a long sip from the bottle before turning his attention to the setting suns. He didn’t know what he could even say if you ever approached the topic with him. You’d been wanting to leave for a while now and somehow managed to hide it from him. All those nights spent running from Moff Gideon and other bounty hunters and you haven’t complained once, choosing to keep it to yourself. He wasn’t sure if he was hurt because you felt the need to hide something like this from him or because you were awfully understanding of how these complaints could distract him. 

And then there was the whole thing with the ship. He had assumed that the two of you sort of shared it now but it seemed that you never saw it as belonging to you but only to him. And you went out of your way to fix it now when you didn’t have to. Mando didn’t notice his tears until he licked his drying lips and tasted the saltiness across his mouth. He wiped his cheeks and laughed at himself. When had he become like this? First it was the child and now you. 

He wished he could take it all back, to have never met the kid or you. His life was simple and not complicated and now, now he was faced with the prospect of losing you as well. The bounty hunter dismissed the thought as quickly as it came because he knew deep down that it was better to have had the two of you in his life, even for a short while, than to have never known you. It wasn’t ideal but since when was his life ideal?

As the suns set beneath the sky, the Mandalorian looked down and saw that the bottle was still almost full. Not wanting to finish it now, because he might actually need it later when you decide to leave, Mando stood up and slowly made his way back into town. He needed to sleep, not to rest but to put a pause on his rather depressing thoughts if only for a little bit. When he saw the town come into view, he took a deep breath and put his helmet back on. 

The town was quieter than usual and the Mandalorian found himself going straight to the ship instead of joining the others. He’d spent the past few days enjoying his nights in the corner of the busy cantina, watching as you won one Sabacc game after another without breaking a sweat while everyone groaned in annoyance at how well you were kicking their asses. But he couldn’t trust himself tonight, not around you and certainly not around the Marshal. 

Trying not to bring too much attention to himself, Mando walked past the cantina towards the ship, already thinking of how relieved he’d be once he used the refresher. Going up the ramp, he was about to walk to the small, private room near the cockpit to grab a change of clothes when he heard a loud shriek that sounded a lot like his name coming from the opposite end of the ship. Mando quickly turned around and shut his eyes in exasperation when he saw you approaching him far angrier than he’d ever seen you. He set the bottle down and turned his attention towards you, raising an eyebrow to himself when he saw your chest heaving beneath the chest band. He averted his eyes quickly, refusing to think of you sweaty and breathless under other circumstances. Maker, he couldn’t go no like this.

“Where in the kriffing hell have you been? You were supposed to bring the parts from Peli hours ago and I have to find out from some kid that you just left them on the ground and walked away to- hell, I don’t even know what was more important for you than bringing me the scraps so I could fix the ship? Really, Mando, I understand that it’s been a little weird and difficult lately but I barely ask for anything and, ugh, maker.” You held back from voicing more of your thoughts, afraid that you’ve already gone far with asking him where he was. He didn’t really need to tell you what his business was but you’d assumed the two of you have come to an understanding regarding such matters, at the very least to ensure everyone’s safety. 

Mando stood there in silence and took a deep breath before turning around and walking into his room, afraid he’d give himself away if he tried to respond to you.

You furrowed your eyebrows in frustration when he quietly walked away from you, anger rising in your chest as he came out and made his way past you to the refresher. Before you could think twice of what you were doing, you were sprinting past him and standing in front of the open door, pushing your fingers into his beskar-clad chest as you hissed at him.

“I’m not sure what happened or why you’re giving me the silent treatment right now but this is not how we deal with our problems okay.” Mando took a few steps back as you continued to shove your finger into him, trying his hardest to not grab your wrist and push you against the nearest wall. “We talk things out and we come up with a way to fix things and compromise if need be.” Mando’s back hit the wall, and he threw his head back to avoid your gaze, unable to hold back the chuckle that rose from beneath the helmet at your words. 

How ironic.

“Did I say something funny?” You narrowed your eyes up at him and wished for once that he’d remove that god damn helmet so you could gauge his reaction.

“You mean we should talk things out like you and Cobb Vanth today? Or would it be different?” Mando’s chest tightened when he noticed the surprised expression on your face, knowing very well this was not what you expected to hear from him. He was a rational man, never once letting his mind give away to such simplistic thoughts but you’d struck a nerve and he could no longer hide his jealousy. Yes, it was jealousy. As much as he hated to admit it, that’s what he was feeling right now, what he’s been feeling all day long. It was childish and unlike him but it wasn’t going to do him any good if he continued to ignore it. 

“I’m dying to know if that’s what you mean. You obviously don’t have an issue telling him about how difficult it’s been working with me and how you can’t keep doing this.” It was your turn to take a few steps back when you saw his shoulders push out and make him taller than he already was. He continued to walk towards you, throwing his clothes to the ground and almost apologizing when you tripped on your feet when he was only a foot away from you.

“How about this, let’s start with what you apparently wish you could tell me but can’t seem to find the right words to do so. What was it you said to him? You deserve more than taking care of a kid and constantly escaping the Empire and other bounty hunters? Or wait, how can I forget...it’s not fair dealing with this mess of a ship and you’re looking for somewhere else to go?” You swallowed the lump in your throat as the Mandalorian repeated back the words you voiced perhaps a little too loudly earlier today, already feeling your eyes fill with unshed tears at harsh his tone. 

“I- I didn’t…you weren’t meant to-” You tripped over your words and almost flinched when he cut you off. 

“What? I wasn’t supposed to hear you say any of those things? A little strange don’t you think, since you seemed to have a lot to say about me to the Marshal.” Mando should have stopped himself from saying the next few words but his heart was torn into a million pieces and it wasn’t fair for him either.

“Well guess what, sweetheart, the Razor Crest blew up. Moff Gideon is taken care of and the Empire isn’t after us anymore. Every bounty hunter knows better than to so much as look at me and...and the kid isn’t around anymore for you to take care of. He’s gone, I lost him. So if you were worried about hurting me, you’re a little too late for that.” The Mandalorian barely held himself back from pulling you into his arms when he saw tears rolling down your cheek, clenching his fists tightly when he noticed the way you hugged yourself and frowned at him.

“Din-” It broke him to hear you use his name, especially now of all times. He hasn’t heard you say it once in the past few months, even when the two of you were alone. It was the twisting of the knife, and he bit his tongue to distract himself from saying something he couldn’t possibly take back.

“Do what you want, I won’t stand in the way. Besides, I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to help you out with whatever it was you were telling him today. After all, you deserve more right? Deserve someone more than me...someone who’s willing to share a lot more than his name.” Not bothering to wait for a response, Mando stepped away and walked back to his room, not caring about the clothes on the ground or how hurt you must have been feeling from listening to him. 

He softly shut the door behind him and moved to his bed, throwing himself on it and hanging his head low to catch his breath. This was not how he saw the night going, not remotely. He was hoping to ask you about this tomorrow in a less hostile manner and without making it seem like he was blaming you. But something about your words struck a nerve in him and he wasn’t able to hold back anymore, not when you were suggesting things you yourself weren’t willing to follow.

Din wasn’t sure how long he sat there in silence but the hissing sound of the door opening brought him back from his haze and he opened his eyes when he heard you walking towards him. You’d never once come into his room, not even when he occasionally gave you permission. You sniffed twice before approaching the bed and standing right in front of him and he was reminded of when the child would cry to try to catch his attention. 

“Din, it was never my intention to hurt you. I was trying to do the opposite..thought I was doing the right thing by thinking about this before I could talk to you but I’m realizing now that I’ve hurt you.” Din noticed the way you were ringing your fingers nervously and held himself back from taking your hands into his to try and put you at ease. 

“I- I only spoke with Cobb because he- because he noticed the way I was looking at you. He noticed how I can never seem to focus on anything or anyone else when you’re around. He- he could tell I was having a hard time coming to terms with how I feel about you...how I’ve felt about you for a while now.” Din’s heart skipped a beat at your confessions, unable to properly register what you were implying because he could never even humor the idea that you’d have feelings for him. He raised his head and finally looked at you, frowning when he saw how red your eyes were from crying. 

“The last thing I want to do is to leave you, please believe me. But I wasn’t sure if you even wanted me around after...after everything with Moff Gideon and the Jedi. As far as I knew, you brought me on to take care of Grogu and fix the Razor Crest. We’ve barely spoken ever since the cruiser and I just thought that I was only around because you couldn’t find the time to tell me that you don’t need me anymore.” Hearing you say that you thought he didn’t need you caught Din off guard and he wasn’t able to hold back anymore, instantly taking hold of your hands and pulling you towards him until you were standing in between his legs. You swallowed the lump in your throat and maintained your gaze on his visor, hoping that he could see how truthful you were being with him and maybe respond, if only with just a simple word. 

“When I said I deserved more, I was just- I swear I wasn’t talking about your Creed or wanting to see you. As much as I wish that was possible, I would never...could never ask you for something like that. I was only telling him that I might need some time away to maybe forget how...maker, to perhaps try and set aside my emotions because the last thing you need right now is for me to lay that on you. I don’t want you to think that you owe me anything because you don’t, gods you don’t owe anyone anything, not after what you’ve been through. But I could feel myself becoming more attached to you, especially after everything that happened on the cruiser. I want more with you but I don’t want to push you towards anything you’re not ready for.” Before you could wipe the tears away from your cheeks, Din was raising his glove-covered fingers and softly skimming them over your skin, and he hadn’t realized how harsh and loud his breathing was until he felt you rest your hand on his chest.

“There’s nothing between me and Cobb. And you should know by now that he’s...friendly, with everyone.” You smiled shyly at him before leaning into the hand resting on your cheek, nuzzling further into his palm when he swiped his thumb against your lower lip. There was so much Din wanted to say but he couldn’t find the right words that would convey what he was feeling. He was having a hard time wrapping his mind about your admission and the fact that you have been returning his affection for a while now. 

Din didn’t realize how long he was quiet until you cleared your throat and let go of his hand, stepping away from him and looking around to see if you should just leave. Before you could head to the door, however, Din was standing up and moving towards you, his eyes searching your face for any signs of discomfort before he made his next move. Your chest was rising and falling a little quicker than he liked but he quickly realized it was probably because of how you were coming to terms with what you just said to him. 

You watched as he took his gloves off and set them on the small table behind you, suppressing a gasp when you felt his warm, calloused hands wrap around yours before bringing them to his helmet. He could tell you were letting him control all of your movements and found it difficult to accept just how much you were willing to give to him.

“As much as I hate to admit it, I have been thinking about this for a while.” Din smiled when he saw your eyebrows furrow in question at his words. “Taking this off.” He saw the moment you understood what he was saying, not expecting you to pull your hands away from him and taking a few steps back until your back was against the wall.

“That’s...that’s not what I- Din, I wasn’t lying when I said it wouldn’t matter to me if-” He smiled at how defensive you suddenly were and stepped towards you once more, and you found it annoying that he barely kept a foot between you two, his natural scent hitting you like a blaster to the gut. 

“I know.” Din cut you off before taking your hands into his once more, rubbing your knuckles to put you at ease as he continued. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about this and- it’s not that I’ll walk around without it now, far from it. It’ll only be when we’re alone, when no one is around.” He hoped you could read in between the lines because this would be the closest he’d come to admitting how important you were to him, for now at least.

“Besides, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.” 

That definitely snapped you out of your haze and you tilted your head to the side before asking home what he was referring to. 

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” Din raised an eyebrow at your response. Have you already forgotten?

“On the cruiser, when I- before Grogu went with the Jedi.” His hands tightened around your fingers as he said the child’s name and you were momentarily distracted before realizing what he meant. 

“Din I...I never saw you.” 

For a split second, it felt like someone had taken Din and carbon froze him before throwing him on an ice planet. 

“What?” He held his breath, unable to move a muscle until he made sure he heard you correctly. 

“I never saw you. I turned around when you reached for your helmet. I didn’t...it was a moment with you and Grogu. It didn’t feel right to look at you.” You tried to maintain a semblance of control on your voice but it cracked a few times as you admitted to him. As much as you yearned to see him without the mask, you didn’t think it proper without his clear consent. 

Din’s sudden intake of breath made you nervous and you hated how for a moment, you wished you didn’t tell him because there was now a high probability that he wouldn’t take the mask off. 

“Cyar'ika, please.” you shivered at the low tone of his voice, finding it harder to focus on anything but the touch of his skin. Once again, Din slowly brought your hands to the sides of his visor, pushing the palm of your hands on the beskar and softly nodding at you. A sudden sense of relief washed over him when he saw the slight nod of your head. 

Din found it endearing how your whole face scrunched up in focus as the two of you slowly pulled the helmet off of his head, the soft hissing sound as it unlocked making your hands dampen with sweat. As you raised the visor along with him, you couldn’t help but shut your eyes as soon as you saw the skin of his chin. Unbeknownst to you, Din was watching your every reaction and felt a little nudge in his chest when he saw how tightly shut your eyes were. When the beskar was off completely, Din took it from your hands and placed it next to him, swallowing the lump in his throat when he turned back and saw you were still refusing to look at him.

He reluctantly took your hands into his and placed them on his chest, hoping that you’d finally open your eyes without him begging you again. 

“I’m sorry I- maker, this is..this is probably more intense for you than it is for me and I’m not making it any better with my nervousness and- okay. Okay.” You took a deep breath before allowing your eyes to flutter open, unable to exhale as soon as you laid your gaze on him. Din was probably unaware of how nervous he looked and it took you a few longer seconds to realize you needed to breathe again. You weren’t sure what you were expecting, the long nights where you imagined what he could look like fading into thin air because nothing, absolutely nothing, prepared you for what you were currency seeing. 

His features were somehow soft but a little rugged, and you found yourself committing every inch of his skin to memory, filling your mind’s eye with every minute facial expression so you could dream of him when you fall asleep. It was oddly not surprising at all that he had a stubble, the scattered dark and slightly graying hairs across his jaw and above his lips making him seem older than he probably was. And you weren’t sure if he knew he was furrowing his eyebrows and then you realized he most likely didn’t because he was so used to wearing his helmet that he never had to learn how to control his facial expressions around anyone. And it was endearing how his nose flared as he continued to breathe heavily under your gaze, and if it weren’t for the fact that this was a serious moment, you would have leaned over and kissed the curved bridge of his nose and the scrunch of his eyebrows to put him at ease. 

Din wasn’t sure what he thought your reaction would be and he felt his chest tighten with every long moment you spent without so much as a comment. 

You were unaware of how long this dreadful moment must have been for the Mandalorian and you continued to study him in hopes of finding answers to questions you’ve wished you could ask him ever since he hired you. There were heavy bags under his eyes and you wished you were more persistent with him when it came to his resting schedule but he always seemed to wave you off whenever you told him he needed to sleep. Though you knew this stress had to do more with Grogu no longer being here and less with how often he slept. You had half expected to find his gaze harsh and far off but when you did finally meet his eyes, you found them filled with unshed tears and a multitude of emotions that you knew would go unexplained until he had the strength to voice them. They were a deep and beautiful shade of brown, ones you knew you’d never be able to turn away from now that you’ve had a proper look at him. And you couldn’t help but notice how their color reminded you of a Nightbloomer just after you picked it from its roots. 

All of that, however, could not compare to when you finally let your eyes descend to his lips. They were a darker shade of pink, and you swore you saw them parting as soon as you looked at them. His lower lip was trembling and you wished more than anything to swipe your thumb against it if only to feel the soft skin melt at your touch. You wished that was as far as your mind had gone but the longer you looked at the curve of his mouth, the more you wished you could lean forward and mold your lips with his. It was even worse because you had a feeling that the stubble of his mustache would cause the softest of burns on your lips. 

Din could no longer take the loud silence enveloping the room and he swallowed nervously when he saw how focused you seemed to be on his lips. He had some idea of what you were probably thinking because he was thinking the exact same thing but he wasn’t sure if he should be the one to make the first move. This reluctance evaporated when he noticed the way your eyes instantly moved to his neck as the cartilage moved and returned to rest when he gulped, and he realized that you may have been having slightly more inappropriate thoughts than he originally thought.

He was about to voice his worries when he saw your hands move from his beskar-clad chest to his face and he couldn’t stop himself from looking down apprehensively at the digits moving closer to his skin. You misunderstood his nervousness for uncomfort and immediately ceased all movements, returning your focus on his eyes to look for any inclination as to what he wanted. 

“Can I- mhmm, may I touch you?” Your whispered question was too loud for the two of you and Din parted his lips to say something but noticed how dry his throat was and realized he couldn’t trust his own voice. Nodding slightly at your request, he waited with bated breath as your fingers rose to his face and found himself shaking with anticipation at the prospect of finally feeling your touch on the most intimate part of him. 

When you were only a few inches away from him, Din felt his heart thumping wildly at his chest and he immediately shut his eyes when he felt the feather-light touch of your fingers on his cheeks. The harsh yet shaky intake of breath almost made you lose control and you had to remind yourself that, besides Grogu, you were the only one to ever touch him so intimately and so softly since he was a child. As much as you wished to wrap your arms around his neck and pull him closer so you could lay as many kisses on his face as you could, you knew it would be too much for him and that he needed you to go slow with him. He was practically shattering under your attention and you hoped he would allow you to do this as many times as possible in the coming days. 

Din couldn’t put a name to what he was experiencing at the moment but he knew he didn’t want you to stop touching him, ever again. He decided that he’d spend every moment with you alone without his helmet and with yours hands skimming some part of him. The longer you kept your palms on his cheeks, the calmer his heart beat and it wasn’t until a few moments later that he realized his eyes were shut. As they slowly fluttered open, he was met with the most beautiful sight in the world: your own deep irises staring at your own thumb as it softly passed over his quivering lips. 

“You’re...beautiful.” 

It was a simple truth and you wished there was a more sincere word you could use to describe what he was to you, what he meant to you but your mind was overflowing with images of waking up next to him every day and kissing his eyes and cheeks and nose and lips and anywhere else you could reach. 

Din’s hold tightened around your waist and you watched as he leaned forward until there was barely an inch between the two of you. 

“Mesh'la, I would really like to kiss you.” The request barely passed his lips yet you were already standing up on your tiptoes and pressing your lips to his, finding them as soft and gentle as you imagined them to be. Din was afraid his heart would give out any moment now because nothing could have prepared him for the taste of you, let alone the boldness with which you were claiming him. He sighed into you, unintentionally parting his lips and pushing you harder into the wall when he felt your tongue sneak into his mouth and explore him. Din wasn’t sure what he should be doing but then you were moving your hands to the nape of his neck and tangling your fingers into his hair and he all but lost it. As you gently tugged on his hair, Din found himself mirroring your actions and before he knew it, the kiss was no longer innocent and sweet but hungry and needy. You sucked on his tongue and tilted your head to the side, wanting to commit every small detail to memory so when you shut your eyes at night, you’d kiss him in your dreams. 

Reluctantly, you pulled back for a second to allow the two of you to breathe but Din didn’t like that, chasing your mouth and molding his lips with yours once more to be certain that yes, this was happening, and that no, this was not a dream. You moaned into the kiss, finding his desperate need to claim your mouth again more of a turn on than you cared to admit. And then his hands were slipping inside your overalls and holding you against his chest, the warmth of him stretching down to where you wished you could feel him. 

This sudden intrusive thought and the harsh grasp of your hips snapped you out of your haze and you realized you should be slowing things down for his sake. Against your will, you gently pushed his chest away and tried to think of anything but the way he was heaving above you from the intensity of the kiss. When you looked at him and saw panic and hesitation etched on his face, you returned your hands to his cheeks again and lowered his head until it was resting against your own. 

“There’s nothing I want more than to feel every inch of your skin against mine right now...but- but I don’t want to push you to do something that- maker….that might be too much for you?” You pulled back and waited until he opened his eyes again before continuing. “I feel like you just made a dramatic decision by taking the helmet off in front of me and- and you’re probably feeling a multitude of emotions right now and I don’t want to make you think that I-” 

Din didn’t like what you were saying, frowning down at you as he grabbed the back of your neck and violently pulled you towards him again. You were surprised by the sudden shift of his touch, fisting your hands in his cowl as he devoured your lips once more, not really giving you a chance to say anything else. Biting your lower lip, Din abruptly ended the kiss and pressed his lips across your skin, nipping and licking at your jaw as he pulled your hair down until he had access to your neck. You gasped his name and felt his stubble scratch deliciously at your shoulder. As you moaned against the wall, Din couldn’t back anymore and bit down hard on your shoulder, smiling when he heard your breath hitch at his rough ministrations. 

“Din, oh gods, Din please.” You weren’t sure what you were asking of him exactly and you hoped he’d at the very least continue what he was doing. 

“Cyar'ika, I want to have you. I’ve spent many nights dreaming of your lips, your touch, y-your skin against mine as I-” Din hesitated and it wasn’t until you felt his fingers slipping beneath the chest band that you finally registered his voice. Fuck, how had you not notice it a second ago? You thought the vocoder was what altered it, made it deeper perhaps. But no, it only made it sound more intimidating. You weren’t sure what made you clench your thighs together, the way he spoke to you of his desires, or how strained and gruff his voice was as he whispered his secrets to you. You gulped loudly and hesitantly met his eyes, finding the soft brown irises barely visible, his dilated pupils letting you know what he was thinking. 

Licking your lips, you nodded at him and fell into a fit of giggles when he leaned down and picked you up as if you weighed nothing, quickly moving to his cot and laying you down on your back before moving away. You were about to ask him what he was doing when you saw his hands swiftly move through the beskar armor. For some reason, watching his hands expertly take off the cuirass and move to the beskar of his thighs made your heart skip a beat and you wouldn’t dare move a muscle, afraid to miss the show he was unintentionally putting on for you. So busy marveling at his deft fingers, you didn’t notice Din slowing his movements and looking at you, eyebrows raised in curiosity when he saw how hard you were breathing. 

You broke out of your trance when you saw he stopped moving, embarrassment washing over you when you realized Din had caught you shamelessly staring at him as he came closer to revealing to you more of his skin. You’d expected him to move on, or at least pretend he hadn’t just caught you licking your lips while staring at his fingers but no, it seemed that Din was very much enjoying the effect he had on you because his smile grew when he saw your eyes look past him, pretending to focus on something else behind him and not his hands. 

You never lost his attention though, and he maintained his eyes on you as he removed all of his armor and took his boots off. You tried to be a little more subtle but gave up when he leaned down over you and pushed you into his covers. You wanted to ask him why he was still dressed but bit back the inquiry, afraid he’d misunderstand and move away all together at your question. He captured your gaze and didn’t blink once as he slowly undid the buttons holding the overalls and you realized you would have preferred him to keep the helmet on because that meant you wouldn’t notice how passionate and direct his deep brown irises were. You’d expected him to be intense considering how touch-starved and lonely he was, but you never once thought he’d be this vigorous? Ardent? Maker, there wasn’t a single word that could describe the way he was looking at you right now.

Din kneeled at the foot of the bed, waiting until you finally noticed what he was doing and raising your hips before he pulled on the pants of the garment. He slipped your shoes off and finally removed the article of clothing that made his cheeks blush and pants tighten whenever you wore it. He would eventually tell you that this is how you came to him in his dreams almost every night, all spent and sweaty in that gods-forsaken fabric that gave him the perfect view of what you were wearing beneath. 

His focus shifted from your face down your damp skin and he breathed in deeply at the sight of your undergarment. Din almost choked on his breath when your legs parted for a moment, giving him a glimpse of the growing wet patch at the center of the flimsy material.

The Mandalorian wanted nothing more than to worship your body, kiss every part of you and whisper his devotion against your skin as he pleasured you over and over again. He’d spent countless nights imagining what he’d do to you if you were ever naked and willing in his arms and he was damned if he didn’t make sure you were thoroughly spent once he was done with you. He wanted to hear his name fall from your lips and he wanted to swallow your sighs and your moans as he sank into you all night long. And by the gods, he wanted to mark your neck and your arms and your waist, and nothing made him harder than picturing you doing the same to him, biting and nipping at his skin so he could wake up in the morning and watch the evidence of your lo- your touch on him. It didn’t matter that no one else would see those bruises but him and you. He just wanted you, in any way possible, sinking beneath his skin.

And then he heard his voice calling for you over the comm link just outside the room and something snapped deep in his chest. He looked up from you to the open door of his room and listened to the Marshal’s words. Your eyes widened in shock when you saw several emotions pass through Din’s eyes, the most prominent of which was anger, maybe hurt. Of all the times Cobb would ask you to join him for drinks, this was most definitely the worst of them. It didn’t help either that he was laughing over some inappropriate joke one of his friends was saying about your sabacc skills. It wouldn’t be the first time this happened and it certainly wouldn’t be the last but then Din was clenching his jaw tightly before looking down at you and you knew he wasn’t too happy. In fact, you had a pretty good idea which emotion won out and you hated how much it affected you, how wet you became as thoughts of the Mandalorian claiming you as his flooded your mind.

Before you could try and reason with him, attempt to tell him that it was just a game and that the Marshal’s friends were probably just teasing him, Din was standing up and stripping of his long-sleeve shirt, revealing his perfectly chiseled, bronze skin that had your mouth watering within moments. You noticed the few dozen scars littering his beautiful torso and wished you could kiss each one of them, the old ones and the fairly new ones, until they didn’t sting with pain. But Din had different plans for you and he didn’t give you a chance to question him as he took hold of both of your wrists and slammed them above your head. His hold was painful and it should have scared you how quickly his mood changed but you said nothing, looking into his dilated pupils as his nose flared and he growled at you.

“Keep yours hands there,” Din warns you with a piercing look and you gulp loudly before nodding at him in understanding. He removes his hand and kneels on the bed, eyes narrowing at you before they sought after your most private areas. He wasn’t sure where to begin. He’d given this much thought but now that he was here, he realized it was a more difficult decision than he anticipated. He’d longed to wrap his lips around those hardened peaks always teasing him through the chest band, lick them until you cried for him, perhaps begged him to stop because you were sensitive. But then he continued down the lines of your navel and found your parted legs much more inviting. 

Now that Din knew how you felt, there was no reason for him to feel jealous. But he couldn't stop himself, wanting to be certain that you knew as well as he who you belonged to. He hated himself for having such primitive thoughts about you. You were your own person that much was made clear early on. But he could hope at your words, couldn’t he? He could hope that you were now his, and that he was yours. Maker, he was always yours. He just couldn’t admit it to himself, his heart reluctant at opening up to another. 

Din was lost in thought longer than you liked and you moved your feet towards him, nudging his thigh in hopes of reassuring him that you were right here, in his bed, beneath him and at his mercy. Din’s eyes focused on your again and he looked down at the soft gesture, hands instantly grabbing at your ankles. You jumped at the sudden movement, trying your hardest not to whine at the painful grasp because somewhere deep inside of you, you wanted nothing more than to be marked by him. By his teeth, lips, fingers, any part of him. You didn’t care where you’d bear his touch, you just wanted to see it, touch it in the privacy of the refresher when he wasn’t around. 

Din saw the needy look you were throwing him and he knew that you were willing. Willing to go as far as he wanted, willing to completely submit your body and soul to him, willing to do whatever he wished of you.

Before your eyes could flutter closed, Din was pushing your legs wide open and falling in between them while maintaining his gaze on you. He almost smiled when your stomach shook at how feral he probably looked. Leaning forward, he closed his eyes as his mouth latched onto the wet patch forming on the soft fabric of your undergarment, moaning into your cunt as he savored the taste seeping through. You were surprised by the boldness of the action and wished for him to lick your skin instead. But there was something erotic about the desperation behind his actions, wanting to taste you so much that he didn’t care what he was licking. 

The thought was gone as soon as it appeared because you felt two fingers stretch beneath the waistband right before he ripped it off of your body, shoving the torn fabric in his nose and taking a long whiff of it before humming in approval. Your eyes widened in surprise at the filthiness of his action, hands shaking above you when he threw your panties expertly into his helmet. The thought of knowing that your scent could potentially stick to the inside of his helmet as he walked around twisted your insides and you whined shamelessly at him, wishing he could just take what he wanted. 

“Your sounds belong to me,” Din spoke with a commanding voice as he sank in between your thighs again, his tongue dragging across your folds so deliciously hard until he pulled away, leaving a trail of saliva behind. “Your arousal belongs to me,” his hands went to your thighs and he squeezed, knowing fully well there would be bruises dawning your beautiful, smooth body the following morning. Again, you fought to keep your eyes open, wanting to commit every second to memory but finding it difficult to focus on him and not the pleasure zapping down your back. “And I will be damned if this cunt,” Din let go of one of your thighs, pulling his tongue away from your core right before the palm of his hand landed a slap straight on your clit, “doesn’t belong to me either.” You cried out his name, legs shaking violently at the pain shooting through your clit. Din didn’t give you a moment to relax back down on the covers, spanking the outer folds of your pussy twice more consecutively before he replaced the harsh touch with his cooling tongue. Tears trailed down your cheeks as he fucked you with his tongue and lapped at you like you were the only source of water on this gods-forsaken planet. He rotated between soft, quick licks to long, harsh ones, occasionally sucking on your clit and grazing his teeth on the bundle of nerves until he was sure you were going crazy. 

“D-Din oh maker, please. Stop I- slow down.” His touches were far from gentle and the pleasure blurred into pain as you tried to reach that delicious peak you’ve longed for ever since you harbored feelings for the man above you. But he was making it difficult, his needy and erratic movements making it near impossible for you to dive into the lake of pleasure. You should have known that the Mandalorian was as intense in bed as he was in every other aspect of his life. You shut your thighs around his head, wanting to push him away as his teeth continued to graze against your wet folds and nip at the pulsating nub. 

“M-Mando...I can’t.” You couldn’t take it anymore, hands moving to his hair and fisting in the beautiful brown locks as you tried to push him away. As soon as Din felt the tight grasp on his hair, he snarled at you, pushing up on his knees and bending your body along with him until the only thing resting on the bed was your neck and your shoulders. You cried out for him, begging him to give you release but it only drove him mad with lust. His eyes locked on yours, daring you to look away from him as his fingers dug into your butt cheeks and pushed your cunt into his mouth. 

Din pulled away for a split second, biting your inner thighs to grab your attention.

“You will take what I give you ner Cyar’ika.” You saw a hint of darkness in his soulful brown eyes, and shivered at the mere implications of what he had in mind for you. Din sucked and licked at your folds like a crazed man, feeling your legs shaking on his shoulders. He pulled away for a second, and you had no time to beg him to be gentle as he slapped your heated core three times again, hissing when you shut your eyes and bucked against him, your juices drenching his face and chest, leaking down your back as he smiled before taking your cunt into his mouth one last time to prolong your pleasure. You were too busy trying to remain sane to realize what had just happened and Din slowly lowered you back onto the wet covers before letting go of you. You were panting beneath him, stomach fluttering from the force of your release and chest heaving as you tried to fill your lungs with air. 

When you opened your eyes and looked at Din, your eyes widened in horror when you saw his glistening skin, finally realizing what he'd just done to you. You flushed under the scrutiny of Din’s gaze, gasping as he wiped his mouth and jaw with the back of his hand as he looked down and chuckled at the wet spot beneath his knees. You quickly shut your legs and tried to crawl away from him but Din was faster, grabbing your ankle and pulling you back to him, the show of strength already making your cunt clench around nothing again.

“You do not run from me Ad’ika...nor hide from me ever again. I own your body, your skin, the cum still leaking out of this sweet cunt.” His words were filthy and you didn’t know how to react to this new possessiveness he was showing. He pushed open your thighs and fell in between him, bringing his chest flush against yours and kissing the breath out of you, not bothering to be gentle as his fingers twisted and pinched at your nipples. You clawed at his back, wanting more of him but not knowing if you would be able to take any more of what he was offering. 

He pulled away suddenly, his jaw clenching tightly as he took one look at the hands wrapped around his back. 

“Did I not tell you to not move your hands sweet girl?” He whispered against your lips, breathing in the air leaving your lungs as he pecked the corner of your mouth before flipping you over on your stomach. 

“I- I’m sorry...it was just t-too much and-” You couldn’t finish the rest of the sentence, screaming against the covers as you felt Din’s palm land on your ass. You looked back and saw him eyeing your reddening skin, looking up at you and smiling as he treated the other side with the same kindness. Four more times his hands smacked your ass and you were ashamed at how aroused his violent actions made you. When he snuck his fingers in between your thighs and swiped haphazardly at your folds, you moaned and bit into your wrist. 

“Filthy sweet girl,” Din whispered more to himself than you before he fisted his hand in your hair and pulled you flush to his chest, the slide of your dampened back against his sweaty chest bringing him more pleasure than he would have liked to admit because not a few hours ago, he was picturing your sweaty, glistening skin beneath him. And now that he had you here, he was going to make the best of it. 

“Mando, oh Mando-” As much as he loved hearing you scream his nickname in the throws of passion, he wished more to hear his given name fall from your lips. 

“My name...scream my name sweet girl. Let the stars know who pleasures you Cyare.” Din kissed your shoulder before biting into the sweaty flesh, the hand in your hair letting go right before wrapping softly around your throat and pressing you harder against him. Your hands twisted back to try and grab his hair but he immediately took your wrist and twisted it until it was behind you, between your back and his chest. 

“Ahh Din…” You wanted to beg him to allow you to touch him, tell him that you were yearning to touch him as much as he was in need of touching you. But you had a feeling that this wasn’t true, and that this was his way of being certain that you weren’t going to leave him. That you were his. 

If only he knew that you have already belonged to him. Long before tonight.

You felt each breath leave your lungs as Din tightened his grasp around your throat and you parted your lips to moan his name, only to feel his tongue shamelessly licking into your mouth. So distracted by the desperation in this kiss, you didn’t notice the fingers trailing down your chest and digging into your skin until the palm of his hand softly cupped one breast. Din teased you with feather light touches, flicking at one nipple before moving to the other and circling around it until it hardened. He continued to swallow your noises, sucking on your tongue to quiet you as he pinched your nipples. You twisted in his arms, wanting to reach for him again but knowing that he would probably pull your hand away. 

When Din pulled away to allow you to breathe, you panted and finally opened your eyes, not daring to look away as he kept you motionless with his gaze. Din watched as you tried to form a coherent thought, waiting until you parted your lips to speak to him before reaching down and cupping your quivering cunt as he broke the silence.

“This belongs to me,” your breath hitched when Din pressed the palm of his hand against you, not quite applying pressure on your clit but just enough to hold your focus. “Only I get to touch you, kiss you, watch you as you come undone in my arms.” You nodded briefly at him, continuing to hold eye contact as he began to increase his actions. “No one else will ever have you Cyar'ika. No one but me.” He slipped two fingers past your wet folds and rubbed against your walls, humming in approval when he felt you flutter around him the harder he shoved his fingers inside you. 

“I’m yours Din, y-yours. Whatever you want, oh gods please more...need more, Din you make me f-feel so good.” Din keened at your words, curling his hand until his palm was passing deliciously over your clit as his fingers picked up the pace. 

“That’s right sweet girl, you’re mine. Mine to fuck, mine to take whenever I want...mine to-” Din hesitated for a second, unable to voice his heart to you even though you’ve bared your soul for him. “Pal'vut at kar'taylir darasuum...kriffing gods you’re wet, so wet for me. Come on, cum for me again ner Cyare. Show me how good I make you feel. Show me how needy this little cunt is, fuck- I...can’t want to have you wrapped around my cock little one. Can’t wait to sink in this pussy, my sweet tight cunt, mark you with my seed, over and over again...fuck a load in you all night long till you can’t feel anything but my cum dripping down your thighs. Shit, I need you to cum, now!” Your mind became foggy with pleasure, unable to focus on anything but the words whispered into your ears as his thick fingers fucked into you. You grabbed the wrist of the hand wrapped around your throat, digging your nails into his skin as you came around his fingers. You almost fell forwards but Din held you flush against him, continuing to drive his digits into you and rub at your clit with this thumb until you were sobbing in his arms. 

“Beautiful,” Din kissed your shoulder as he slowly inched his hands away from you before laying you down slowly. His eyes took in the flushed, wet skin of your back, chuckling with pride when he saw your legs shaking as little sobs escaped your lips. Your breaths came in shallow and quick, and you tried to silence your whines by biting into your wrists but then you felt Din slide his hand back and forth on your back as he laid next to you and you shivered under his touch because from the way he was moving closer to you and touching you, there was no way he was done just yet. 

“You’re all I think about, every waking moment. It’s difficult to focus on anything else when you’re always in my mind Cyar'ika. I- I burn for you, for your lips to caress mine every moment, your eyes to never leave mine as I brand you, your skin against my own as you mark me with your touch. I- maker, I cannot think of a life without you here, with me…” Din thought he would have to force himself to say such things but he found it remarkably easy now that he had you here, responding so openly and shamelessly to him.

“Din,” you turned your head and shifted towards him, kissing the hand resting between the two of you before leaning your forehead against his and shutting your eyes. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here, for as long as you’ll have me.” Din ceased all movement at your words and he looked away from where he was stroking your back, meeting your eyes and furrowing his eyebrows before you felt him grab your arm and pull you on top of him. You surprised gasp died in your throat when you felt Din wrap his arms around your back and bring you against him until you could feel his chest hairs tickling your nipples. You could feel his cock jutting against your core through his pants and as you rested your hands on his chest and looked to him, you saw the frown ease from his expression, replaced with something akin to reverence. 

“I will have you until my dying breath Mesh’la. Let me show you how much I want you.” The force of his declaration hit you instantly and you pressed your lips against his just as you felt him rid himself of his pants. Din’s hands were roaming your back and you felt bolder with every caress, combing your fingers into his hair and pulling on it as he squeezed your ass and bucked into you. The growl emanating from his chest shot straight to your core and you raised yourself from him for a moment.

“Din, I want you. Crave to feel you inside me. Please, do it fast and don’t- don’t be gentle. Show me, show me how much you lo- want me.” Din’s heart skipped a beat at your words and he wasted no time, taking hold of his cock and teasing your clit with his leaking tip before slowly inching inside you. You shut your eyes and dug your nails into the back of his neck as he continued to sheath his dick deeper in your cunt. You could feel every ridge and pulsating vein dragging against your inner walls, finally allowing your lungs to breathe as you felt him nudge and twitch against that soft, spongy spot in your core. 

Neither of you moved for a few moments, with Din trying to wrap his mind around finally becoming one with you and feeling you clench so sweetly around him. He was torn between fucking up into you without mercy and taking it nice and slow until he pushed you over the edge again. But then you were gyrating your hips and sighing his name on his cheek and he knew what he wanted. 

Planting his feet on the damp covers, Din held you flush against him with one arm while resting his other hand on your thigh, nuzzling into the crook of your neck as he snapped his hips up before sinking into you again. You let out a surprised sob and rested your forehead against his shoulder, whispering more pleas against his skin and begging him to move. 

The usually quiet man breathed the sweetest wishes in your ears, thrusting up into you with immense force that made you clench tighter around him. “Ni copad gar an te ca'nara Ad’ika, ni vercopa be gar anay ca. You have made a home for yourself inside my heart.” Din felt your shaky breath blow on his neck and it drove him mad with lust because he wanted to have you reacting to his touch so wantonly every minute of every day. His grip only tightened around you and he prayed you wouldn’t mind the bruises that would surely color your skin in the next few hours. He wasn’t planning on being gentle tonight, perhaps later, but not tonight, and he was going to ensure his touch would be visible for anyone that would speak with you tomorrow. Thoughts of the Marshal passed through his mind’s eye and he growled, pumping his cock into you harshly for some reassurance. You cried out his name over and over again, feeling your skin heat up at the declarations of love he was peppering on your skin because even though his words were gentle, his touches were far from it.

The squelching sounds of your cunt flooding Din’s thighs as he drove himself into you should have embarrassed you but you could tell he enjoyed knowing how wet you were for him from the way he continued to quicken the pace just to hear your juices flowing over him. His grip on you was becoming more painful the more you moved against each other but you couldn’t find it in yourself to let him know. He was letting go, showing you how much he wanted you, how hard he was for you, and you weren’t about to make him feel conscious over his affection.

“Maker...oh Din, Din I- you feel so good inside me. Filling me up like no one else. Could feel you so deep, gods, could feel you everywhere Din please- don’t stop. Don’t fucking stop, I need it. Need you, want you- want you to mark me, d-do whatever you want with me.” You had no hold over your own speech and weren’t sure if you were making any sense but Din moaned each time you praised him.

“Good girl, sweet girl...taking my cock so well, kriffing hell. Your- your pussy is squeezing the fuck out of me..could feel every tight inch of you stroking my cock Cyar’ika. Ah pfassk...you’re- you’re perfection.” Din moved the hand around your back up to your neck, pulling on your hair and pressing his lips with yours as his cock throbbed inside you. You whined as his tongue roughly swirled around your own, barely able to breathe as he continued to snap his hips against you and suddenly feeling a rush of relief as his navel rubbed at your clit until you came around him. Din broke the kiss, screaming expletives in his tongue as the force of your orgasm pushed his cock out of you. You shuddered as you gushed on his dick, wrapping your arms around his neck when he forced his cock into your tight cunt again. 

You were so overcome with emotions, so lost in Din’s scent mixing with your own, and his touch leaving bruises on your skin, that you didn’t notice the faint sounds of footsteps coming up the ramp and halting in the middle of the ship right in front of the door. But Din noticed, managing to look up just in time to see Cobb standing in the middle of the ship and staring with wide eyes at the scene unfolding in front of him. 

Something completely otherworldly took over the Mandalorian and he quickly sat up, expertly moving the two of you around until he was kneeling on the covers with you straddling his thighs. He smiled against your shoulder, allowing your hair to hide his face as he grabbed both of your hips and fucked up into you. 

He could vaguely see the Marshal and was surprised that he hadn't dropped the bottle of drink in his hand just yet. You wailed into the night air, arms keeping you stead in Din’s arms as he forced you on his pulsating dick over and over again. 

“Tell me...tell me Cyare, tell me how much you love it when I fuck you. How much you need my cock like the filthy little cockslut you are. Go on sweet girl, grind that little clit on me. Fucking tell me ner Ad’ika.” Din smacked your ass twice, chuckling when your moans grew more lewd with every touch he laid on you.

“I- I- ahhh love your cock...oh maker, no one fucks me like you. N-no one makes me c-cum like you. Fuck me harder D- ahhh,” Din bit down on your shoulder to prevent you from saying his name, looking through the mess of your hair and watching as his audience remained incapable of moving. 

“I own this pretty little pussy. Pffassk- ride me harder Mesh’la. You’re such a good girl, could feel your cunt drenching my thighs, the smell of you is driving me mad. Fuck- keep that pretty mouth open to me when I’m fucking you, let me hear you scream for me.”

“Please- please...fuck me harder, ruin my pussy. Gods- I..I’m so close please. Tell me you own me, tell me I’m you’re sweet girl. Please- I want to be good for you, want you to cum inside me Din...cum inside me. I need it, need you to fuck me like you own me and mark me, make me yours Mando. Cum in me, please-” 

“Ah fuck you’re my sweet little girl aren’t you? Wanting me to fuck a load in you, cum in you all night long and keep my seed in that tight cunt? That’s it sweetheart, I’m so fucking hard for you. Could feel you clenching around me...be a good girl and cum again ner kar'ta. Fuck, yes yes you feel so good wrapped around my cock Cyare you’re going to make me cum. Spill my seed in that tight, wet pussy, fill you up till you can taste it in your throat. Shit, and- and I’m going to keep fucking you sweet girl, till my cum is sliding down your thighs. My little fucktoy- come on, come on love, cum for me. Cum on me, drench me again. Mix your juices with me.” Din watched as Cobb finally had the mind to leave and he almost laughed at how the man almost tripped on his own foot as he sprinted out of the ship. He pushed you on your back and spread your thighs open, resting his weight on the arms around your head as he thrust in a few more times before he felt you clench around him. Leaning down, Din took a pert nipple in his mouth and sucked on it, growling into your skin as he came deep in your pussy, painting your walls with long strings of his seed until he couldn’t breathe. He’d never cum this hard before and was sure to tell you when you had the state of mind to pay him any semblance of attention.

Din continued to lazily push into you, your words from earlier replaying in his mind as he felt you quiver around his softening cock. You were still coming down from your high and twitched occasionally when you felt him throb inside you. There was a pleasant kind of warmth washing over you and you sighed happily when you realized he was still bucking against you to push his cum in your belly. 

“D-din...you’re filling me up so good. Feel so full ah- gah.” He laughed when your body shook, wrapping his arms around you and flipping you around until you were laying on his chest. You kissed his jaw and his neck, moaning in unison when you felt his dick rub against that sweet spot inside you. 

“That’s because I’ve never cum this hard sweet girl. You’ve milked me dry Cyare. Could feel you sucking my seed out of me.” He was amazed at your obvious embarrassment, wanting to tease you about it but choosing to wait for later instead.

Din rubbed at your back, kissing your forehead as he whispered sweet things in your ears and smiling when you nipped at his neck some more. 

“Promise me you’ll never leave.” Din’s quiet voice broke the silence and you pushed up to look into his eyes as you responded. “I’m not going anywhere, even if you tell me to go. I’ll stay here, always. I promise.” You kissed him gently and felt his pulse beneath your fingers calm at your words. 

Not much time has passed before Din had you on your knees in front of him, fucking your mouth and shoving you down on his cock until you gagged and his seed slipped from the corner of your mouth, mixing with your spit as it fell down your breasts. You lost count of how many times he brought you pleasure, and you made a mental note to ask him how he managed to fuck you all night long. You weren’t sure it was possible for a man to cum this many times over the course of one night but you had a feeling Din was not like anyone else. A man who has been touch starved for almost three decades must have had a lot of pent-up aggression that he needed to release. And you would gladly help him in any shape or form through that. 

And when he wasn’t pumping your cunt full of his cum, he was nuzzling into your neck and laying kisses across your arms, making sure he caressed every inch of your skin. You shouldn’t have been surprised that Din loved to snuggle with you but you did find it hilarious that such a big and scary Mandalorian whimpered when you licked down his neck as you nestled into his arms. You wouldn’t tell him just yet but besides his rough grasps and his filthy words, you loved to taste the saltiness of his skin and from the looks of it, the feelings were mutual because at some point in the night, he’d told you of all the times he had to lock himself up in the refresher and try his hardest to not think of your sweaty limbs entangling with his own as he kissed you.

By the time the two of you made it outside the following day, the twin suns had already been in the middle of the sky, scorching rays of heat on everyone across Mos Pelgo. You tried your hardest not to walk too funny, mostly because it made Din apologize every now and then, but it was difficult when you could still feel traces of his touch on you. You told him you needed him to stop making it obvious but realized he was apologizing out of regret not out of humor. It took you all of the afternoon to convince him that you were feeling more than okay and that you’d asked him for this. And when he didn’t seem to stop, you teased him and told him that you knew he secretly loved watching you wobble from side to side. 

This all, however, peaked when you walked into the cantina and tried to play Sabbac with Cobb Vanth and the others. You could tell that the Marshal was avoiding all conversation with you, going out of his way to pretend you weren’t even sitting on the table, let alone the room. You hoped that Mando hadn’t spoken with him or anything and decided to call it quits earlier in the night. When you did make it back to the ship and saw Din cleaning his weapons, you made sure the ship was secure before moving to sit on the bed across from him.

“Did you talk to Cobb today?” You gauged his reaction, already sensing that something was wrong when you saw him nervously clench his jaw before rubbing furiously at the beskar weapon.

“No, why do you ask?” Din wished he hadn’t already taken off his helmet because as soon as he responded, you knew he wasn’t telling you the whole truth.

“Din?”

He looked up at you and cleared his throat before speaking.

“He- he saw us...last night. I- I must have forgotten to raise the ramp and-” Din took a deep breath when you shot up from the cot and began to pace back and forth. 

“HE WHAT?”

“We were...I couldn’t- there wasn’t a chance I could…you felt too good around me Ad’ika I- I couldn’t stop. Not when you were clenching around me so tightly. Now when you were finally in my arms. I-” He stood up and walked towards you, taking your hands into his and kissing both of your wrists. You flushed at his words and looked up at him, only to find him blushing under your gaze. 

“You did it on purpose didn't you? You wanted him to see...to watch as you- as we...as I said-” Din didn’t let you finish the sentence, leaning down and molding his lips with yours as he walked you back to his bed. He pushed you down on the covers still holding your scents, his hold hardening the more you moaned against him. Before he could strip you of your clothes, you pushed him off and stuck out your finger in warning.

“Oh no you don’t. Go raise the ramp.”

“You’re giving me orders now Mesh’la?” Din raised an eyebrow at you as he got off of you and walked around the bed, halting at the doorstep to look back at you.

“Never…”

Translations:

Ad'ika - Little one

Mesh'la - Beautiful

Cyar'ika - Darling/Sweetheart

Cyare - Beloved

Ner - my/mine

Pal'vut at kar'taylir darasuum - mine to love

Ni copad gar an te ca'nara - I want you all the time.

Ni vercopa be gar anay ca - I dream of you every night. 

Ner kar'ta - my heart

when Logic twists: an analysis of Logan, cognitive distortions, and a future Side

spoilers ahead! this is a little deep-dive into some foreshadowing in the latest Sanders Sides episode, and what i believe the team are going for in terms of Logan’s arc. just some thoughts i had after the episode - i hope you enjoy, and would love to hear your thoughts too :) tw for discussion around mental illness, trauma, abuse, intrusive thoughts, therapy, etc. 

so, we all know that Thomas does a marvellous job portraying difficulties with mental health. he uses interactions between his Sides to carve out fun stories that dramatise the the internal struggles which come with facing complex situations, including those which arise from your specific history and mental illnesses. the writing behind Sanders Sides often uses consideration of real symptoms and therapeutic techniques in order to impart useful advice to the audience who may be struggling with similar issues. with all of this in mind, i thoroughly believe that a good chunk of you are correct about this new Side (foreshadowed in Logan’s eyes) being Wrath, or some variant of Stress or Anger, and here’s why: 

Logan is the side of Thomas which is constantly needing to pick up the slack. not only does he spend a good deal of his time de-escalating conflict between the other Sides, he is constantly letting his own dreams (and consequently, needs) fall by the wayside to comfort, validate and assist Thomas' overall desires. we even literally see him benched during the court case with Janus - his input is considered unimportant unless he is deemed as the voice of reason. with this understanding, Logan is viewed by the other Sides as a Side who doesn’t need help. He’s Logic, so they believe he always knows what is appropriate, and how to control himself - or even that he doesn’t need to control himself at all.  yet i don’t believe this to be the case, and i think ‘Working THROUGH Intrusive Thoughts’ foreshadows this in an intriguing way: by utilising the dynamic between Logan and Remus. for context, i am speaking as an individual who suffers from Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), a form of PTSD. whilst the Thomas we know in the Sanders Sides universe is of course somewhat sanitised and simplified for the easier imparting of moral lessons, we know that this Thomas suffers from issues with intrusive thoughts, low self-esteem, and high anxiety. whether or not these can all be attributed to an underlying condition is irrelevant, but what is intriguing is whether these symptoms are being exacerbated by traumatic, triggering or otherwise stressful events affecting Thomas’ life - which, based on the direction ‘Working THROUGH Intrusive Thoughts’ went (using the relationship with Nico as a conduit), i think is true. when you experience a number of traumatic events or an acute amount of stress, your Logic can become faulty. let’s think about Logan not as a super-genius who just knows what is the correct thing to do all of the time: his knowledge comes from a bank of information and experiences, which he constantly uses to provide a ‘rational’ stance next to the more ‘emotional’ traits of each Side. yet Logic relies on evidence in order to build up this ‘rationality’. let’s think about a scenario wherein you are told every day by someone that you are ugly. now, if this occurred later in life, your Logic might have already rationalised that this is not the case - that you are beautiful just as you are, that this person is seeking to hurt you, that they are projecting, etc. your Logic would make those reasonable counterpoints based on past experience. however, if you were told by multiple people throughout your life, every day, that you are ugly - say, from caregivers, or close friends - you would internalise ‘i am ugly’ as part of that internal Logic. in the first scenario, you would be able to accurately evaluate the thought, ‘i am ugly’ as a cognitive distortion. however, in the latter scenario, you may be unable to, because you have this bank of ‘evidence’ that other people perceive this as reality. even if those people are abusers, or have an ulterior motive, the notion will be internalised and become your reality - so your Logic will say, ‘i am ugly, based on all of the evidence.’  i find this interesting because in this latest episode, they specifically had Logan call attention to cognitive distortions. we must remember that Logan is a part of Thomas. this is Thomas attempting to rationalise with himself, to implement mindfulness and CBT techniques which he knows to be successful, because they have worked in the past and he has it on scientific authority that they help with intrusive thoughts. but this leads us to a question: what happens when you experience so many traumatic events, or so much stress, that your Logic turns against you and begins to validate your intrusive thoughts?  imagine for a moment Logan’s awesome rational power - but levied in support of all of Thomas’ deepest fears. in my own experience with CPTSD, a horribly thorny mental trap is the one you fall into when you start down the path of ‘i must be a horrible person, just like they said. i must have deserved everything done to me. look at all of the evidence.’ these thoughts often appear rational due to the intense nature of the sufferer’s pain, particularly if that pain is repeated or prolonged. i believe that Logan’s outburst, paired with Thomas’ fretting over not receiving a call back from Nico, are supposed to represent the building stages of this mental trap. such thoughts are difficult to emerge from, but they become even more difficult to deal with when met with a powerful emotion: Rage. if you have cause to think thoughts of the ‘i am a disgusting human being’ variety thanks to trauma, stress or similar negative events, often there is a good deal of pent-up Rage stored alongside. justifiable Rage, one might say - it certainly feels so in the mind of someone who has suffered so terribly. if one is prone to hating themselves, feeling inadequate or other fertile breeding ground for intrusive thoughts, they may also sometimes snap into the opposite extreme - becoming infuriated by everything that has happened to them, and that they are still needing to deal with yet more pain in the present. this is something i have suffered from personally: when mixed with trauma, it is equal parts emotional dysregulation, and being triggered by something. you might be enRaged by the idea that you were ever ‘passive’ as a victim of something terrible, and want to ‘fight back’. in other words, the emotional state of your Rage will feel justified - and this can cause you to engage in some deeply destructive behaviours. this is why i believe this new Dark Side will be Rage (or an equivalent). Logan’s ‘STOP IGNORING ME!’ speaks of a breaking point brought on by years of fixing other people’s problems, only to receive very little in return. there’s a misconception that people who are ‘good’ at handling stress or fixing other people’s problems (i.e., not showing much of the strain) are simply less stressed as a whole, and therefore should be saddled with yet more stress. Logan’s screaming at Remus, and Remus’ delight at Logan’s response, shows us that Logan is exhausted from all of the hard work that he’s had to do in order to fight Thomas’ intrusive thoughts and cognitive distortions, alongside the massive amount of stress in his life. likewise, by giving into his impulsivity and opening up more opportunities for further stress, Thomas has allowed Logan - and his Logic - to become vulnerable to Remus and intrusive thoughts. Logan may have successfully been able to dispel the intrusive thoughts which had no basis in reality (for instance, a murderer hiding in Thomas’ closet) - but what happens if Thomas is given validation for an intrusive thought? in other words - what if Logan feels he has reason to listen to Remus? i believe this Rage has been simmering within Thomas for a long time, and his debut is going to be explosive. there are lots of ways this debut could be written; some have theorised that Logic and Rage will be a kind of antithesis to the Creativitwins, wherein the two are fused as Thomas has internalised his Rage as having a Logical root. this would have Rage not as a separate side, but a kind of version or alternate mindset for Logan, a bit like how he was when in Virgil’s room. i would not be surprised at all for this episode to include both Remus and Janus - Remus, revelling in the intrusive thoughts which Logan/Rage is now allowing to fly free, and Janus, delighting in Logan/Rage’s validation of destructive behaviours, which may well include Deceit. i could also see Virgil being drawn in by this irresistible combination of Anxiety-fuelling thoughts - intrusive thoughts inspiring inadequacy, Deceit inspiring fear of being found out, and the terror of Logic being twisted to validate every fear Virgil has ever had for Thomas. you know when someone has hurt you really badly, and so in your head you come up with countless (awful, unrealistic, hurtful) ways to ‘get back at them’? that’s what i think the next Sanders Sides episode is going to be like.  of course, like Anxiety, Intrusive Thoughts and Deceit, Rage will have his uses too. i believe, if any of this theorising is correct, that the next Sanders Sides episode will follow a narrative discussing if Rage is justified when one is hurt to a massive extreme, and what Logic can one follow when it backs up every destructive impulse. are you being Logical if you are full of Rage? basically, i think Logan (influenced by a breaking point and giving over to Rage) is going to do everything in his power to be destructive, under the idea that it is the only Logical thing to do. i believe he will fall to the horrific power of cognitive distortions and mental illness, and that the other Sides will need to use their strengths to bring him back. anyway, that’s all my thoughts! my apologies for any inaccuracies, or if anything in here was upsetting. i’d love to hear what you think about this, and your own theories! :D take care 💏

Pilot/Episode 1: Patching Things Up With Pastiche & Fanfiction

Hi, hello, and the wait is finally over! My name is Blessie, and welcome to the first episode webisode log installation I've decided to call these things an episode for now because why not also let me know what do you actually call these things episode of The Science of Fanfiction, where we take a closer look into our beloved works of fanon because we've all got plenty of time to spare till Season 5. Before I continue, I would like to thank everyone who's liked and reblogged the last few posts before this one. It means a lot for a small and growing Tumblr user like me, and your support is something I cherish more than my modules. You guys rock!

Anyways, like with most things, we have to talk about the boring and bland stuff before we proceed with the fun stuff. For today, we are going to settle the difference between a couple of things: first being the confusion between pastiche and fanfiction; then the distinctions between tropes, clichés, and stereotypes, which we'll tackle the next time. It's important for us to establish their true meanings in order for us to really understand what fanfiction truly is, even if it's merely just a work done for the fandom. I know – it's boring, it's something that shouldn't be expounded that much, but I believe that all forms of writing (unless it's plagiarised) is a work of art — and fanfiction is not something we always talk about. I hope that by the end of this, you'll learn about what they really are as much as I did. Let's begin to talk about the—

[Image ID: A flashback of John (left) and Sherlock (right) finding an elephant (not in the screen) in a room in The Sign of Three. End ID]

. . . I did say that this GIF will always have to make an appearance here, didn't I?

So, just as with Sherlock Holmes, all other works of fiction have their own pastiches and fanfiction, and many more original works out there have taken inspiration from them to create their own books. Although they've gained popular attention, this will not be possible if they did not have taken inspiration from the materials their writers had at the time.

[Image ID: Various actors as Dracula. Jeremy Brett in 'Dracula' (1978) (upper left), Adam Sandler in a voice role for 'Hotel Transylvania' (2012) (upper right), Gary Oldman in 'Dracula' (1992) (lower left), and Bela Lugosi in 'Dracula' (1933) (lower right). End ID]

For instance, Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' (the second most adapted literary character, next to the consulting detective himself) has been portrayed on the screen over 200 times — from Gary Oldman to Adam Sandler — and has spawned off numerous books and pastiches of its own such as Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot'. Its cultural impact served as a basis of how we see vampires today, since some characteristics of the Count were made by Stoker himself. Stoker's creation is the brainchild of his predecessors and inspirations.

[Image ID: Vlad the Impaler (left) and a book cover of 'Carmilla' by J. Sheridan Le Fanu (right). End ID]

Other than the ongoing hysteria over dead back then and the existing vampire folklore, Stoker also took his inspirations from the published books on vampires he had at hand. He is said to have taken inspiration from Vlad the Impaler, a Romanian national hero known allegedly for having impalement as his favourite method of torture. He is also said to have been inspired by the J. Sheridan Le Fanu's 'Carmilla', a Gothic lesbian vampire novella that predates Dracula by 26 years. I could go on, but hey, we're going back to Sherlock Holmes now before I deviate any further. However, if you want to know about Dracula's literary origins, I suggest you watch Ted-ED's videos about the subject matter such as this one or this one.

Very much like Stoker, ACD didn't just conceive Holmes on his own. He took his own inspirations from what he had available at the time.

[Image ID: Dr Joseph Bell (left) and Edgar Allan Poe (right). End ID]

As we all know, ACD's biggest inspiration for Sherlock Holmes was one of his teachers at the Edinburgh University, Joseph Bell. He was famous for his powers of deduction, and he was also interested in forensic science — both characteristics which Holmes is greatly known for. He also drew inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe's sleuth, C. Auguste Dupin ('The Purloined Letter' & 'Murders in Rue Morgue'). As ACD himself has said at the 1909 Poe Centennial Dinner: "Where was the detective story until Poe breathed life into it?" Some other writers he took after are Wilkie Collins, Émile Gaboriau, and Oscar Wilde.

Now, what does this say about us Sherlockians/Holmesians (depending if you're the coloniser or the one that was colonised)? Basically, ACD laid the groundwork for us with Sherlock Holmes: his humble abode 221B that he shares with his flatmate Dr. John Watson, his adventures, memoirs, return, casebook, last vow, and all that. Now that we have this material at hand, we can now make our own versions, takes, or even original stories featuring the characters of the Canon. Our inspiration comes from ACD's Sherlock Holmes, and we now get the chance to make our very own stories/conspiracy theories about them.

As I have mentioned earlier, Sherlock Holmes is the most adapted literary character in history. He has been adapted in over 200 films, more than 750 radio adaptations, a ballet, 2 musicals; and he's become a mouse, a woman, a dog, even a bloody cucumber. On top of all that are numerous pastiches and fanfics, and finally, we have arrived at the main topic of our post!

Fanfiction and pastiche are often confused together since they have three common elements: they take after the original work, they usually use the characters in that original work, and more often than not do are they set in that same time frame/period or not long after that. The common misconception is that pastiche are printed fanfiction, which is only partly true. While pastiche is definitely fanfiction in some ways and vice versa, there are fanfictions out there that aren't necessarily classified as pastiche that have been published.

Let's get on with our definition of terms to clear up the confusion a little more. Pastiche, according to Literary Terms, is:

. . . a creative work that imitates another author or genre. It’s a way of paying respect, or honor, to great works of the past. Pastiche differs from parody in that pastiche isn’t making fun of the works it imitates – however, the tone of pastiche is often humorous.

A good example of a pastiche is Sophie Hannah's 'The Monogram Murders', which is her take from Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot.

[Image ID: A book cover of 'The Monogram Murders' by Sophie Hannah. End ID.]

Although this was a commission from Christie's estate, it's still considered as a pastiche as:

It's takes after Christie's writing style;

It is set in the early years of Poirot's career (1929), which is still within the time frame that the author wrote him in;

It features Poirot and;

It pays respect to Christie in a sense that it stays true to her (Christie) characters and way of storytelling.

Meanwhile, our good and slightly unreliable friend Wikipedia defines fanfiction as:

. . . is fictional writing written by fans, commonly of an existing work of fiction. The author uses copyrighted characters, settings, or other intellectual property from the original creator(s) as a basis for their writing. [It] ranges from a couple of sentences to an entire novel, and fans can both keep the creator's characters and settings and/or add their own. [ . . . ] [It] can be based on any fictional (and sometimes non-fictional) subject. Common bases for fanfiction include novels, movies, bands, and video games.

To avoid any copyright infringement issues if I ever use a popular fanfic in the fandom, we'll use my (unfinished and unpopular) Sherlock Wattpad fic, 'Play Pretend'. You can read it here.

[Image ID: The second self-made book cover of Blessie/shezzaspeare's 'Play Pretend'. End ID]

Why is it considered a fanfiction and not a pastiche?

It takes after an adaptation of Sherlock Holmes (BBC Sherlock) which is a TV show, not the ACD canon itself;

The author (in this case myself) uses her own writing style and does not take after the original story's style;

Although it is set well in modern-day London and after Season 4, it also features scenes decades before the actual fanfic is set and outside of London;

I added a considerable number of characters, i.e. siblings to canon characters;

I had my own take some of the canon characters' personality especially after the events of Sherrinford;

It is written by a fan – myself. It is a work of fan labour and;

It is only a work of fanon, and isn't likely going to be considered by the show as its writing style is different from the actual show.

To put it simply, you can have more freedom in a fanfiction as it does not necessarily restrict you to follow or take after the original stories. Alternate universes (AUs) such as Unilock and Teenlock are perfect examples of this thing.

So can a pastiche be classified as fanfiction? Yes.

Can a fanfiction be classified as pastiche? Not all the time.

What's the difference? While yes, they share the basics, pastiche is technically leans more onto the original work's fundamental elements whereas fanfiction is a broader range of works inspired by the original work but doesn't necessarily follow all or any of its fundamental elements.

In order for us to understand it more, I'll give another example.

[Image ID: The 'Enola Holmes' title card (upper left) and Henry Cavill as its Sherlock holmes (upper right). Underneath it is a a scene from the opening titles of BBC Sherlock (lower left) and Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes in A Scandal In Belgravia. (lower right) End ID]

Most of you are familiar with these 21st-century adaptations of Holmes: the 2020 adaptation of Nancy Springer's Enola Holmes books and BBC Sherlock, which needs no further explanation – but for those who don't know, it's basically Holmes and the gang if they were alive today. I specifically chose these two as they are the ones that I believe would get my points across best. Though both are considered as wonderful pastiches with a well-rounded cast and awesome visuals, if we break them down bit by bit, we'll see which one is more of a pastiche and which one is more of a fanfic. (Yes, I know they're both screen adaptations. However, as Enola Holmes was based on the books and BBC Sherlock's fanfiction has the show's scenes written out in most fanfics, hear me out.)

They share these characteristics of a pastiche:

They feature characters from the Canon (Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes, and Lestrade);

They have additional characters added by the writers (Including but not limited to Molly Hooper, Eurus Holmes, and Philip Anderson for BBC Sherlock while Enola Holmes has Lord Tewkesbury, Eudoria Holmes, and Enola herself) and;

They pay respect to the original Canon as their stories are based on the cases (BBC Sherlock) or simply what was going on around them (Enola Holmes).

They also share these characteristics of a fanfic:

They are made by enthusiasts of Sherlock Holmes (Moffat has called himself and Mark Gatiss 'Sherlock Holmes geeks', while Nancy Springer's Enola Holmes books are not just one or two but six);

They follow a common trope (we'll discuss these tropes in the following episodes) that goes on in the fandom (Sherlock's Sister & Modern AU)

They are based on a fictional subject (Sherlock Holmes);

They used characters and story elements that are copyrighted by the author/author's estate (fun fact: prior to the production of Enola Holmes, the Conan Doyle Estate filed a lawsuit against Springer & Netflix over Sherlock's emotions since he was more 'sympathetic' than he was portrayed in the Canon – this was later dismissed by both parties) and;

Their writing styles don't necessarily follow ACD's.

Despite these similarities, there are very obvious differences between the two that separates them from being a pastiche and a fanfiction.

Enola Holmes embodies pastiche more as it doesn't stray far away from the original elements of the Canon. It's still set in Victorian England. While Springer added characters of her own and definitely twisted the Canon to suit her series, she didn't necessarily place them out of the social construct that was going on around the characters. It follows ACD's writing style more as Enola Holmes' setting still remains within the Canon's original setting.

Meanwhile, we can safely say that BBC Sherlock is a work of fanfiction. While it did give us The Abominable Bride, the main series focused on Holmes and Watson in 21st-century England, which is drastically different from Victorian England. There are phones, black cabs, and cellphones — things which ACD Sherlock Holmes doesn't have. It also diverted from the Canon in the characters themselves, which is mostly seen in the names: Henry Baskerville became Henry Knight, Charles Augustus Milverton became Charles Augustus Magnussen, the H in Dr Watson's name stood for Hamish and Sherlock's full name is actually William Sherlock Scott Holmes. They also changed the personalities of some Canon characters: Mary was actually an ex-assassin, Mrs Hudson was an exotic dancer who drove a kick-ass sports car, Irene Adler is a dominatrix, to name a few. Moffat and Gatiss created a world of their own featuring the characters of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which is really what most of us fanfic writers do with Mofftiss' rendition of Holmes.

In conclusion: while pastiche and fanfiction could have been the same thing, they're actually not. There's more to them that just printed fanfiction or pastiche e-books, and we all should take some time to see and observe them in a closer perspective.

And that's it for our first episode! I hope you enjoyed it. It was a lot fun for me to write this, especially now that I'm only starting. I would also like to note that while intensive research has been done on this series, some parts of this comes from my own observation and opinion, which may vary from yours. I am very much open to criticism, as long as it is said in a polite and civil manner. I'm still young, and to be educated as I go is something that could really help me with this series.

Like and reblog this you like it. It helps out a lot. Be sure to follow me as well and the tags underneath if you want to see more of TSoF.

See you soon!

Blessie presents – The Science of Fanfiction: A Study In Sherlock (2021) • Next

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SOURCES • Pinterest, Google Images, Wikipedia, Literary Terms, Conan Doyle Estate, Definitions, The Sherlock Holmes Book, and Google