#but we maybe kind of suspect that the week long episodes of this happening after intense stress might be that

[thethingything]

for the last couple of days our brain has kind of felt the way it does when we've not had any caffeine and our ADHD gets really bad and we start getting distracted all the time and having racing thoughts and being generally unhinged, except we've been drinking energy drinks so I know it isn't that.

our psychosis definitely started flaring up as well because we've had the usual stress induced hallucinations we get (usually just spiders and little orbs of light. it's whatever) but also really intense paranoia over how people perceive us, but it's combined with the racing thoughts and we keep just rambling and jumping from one thing to another while freaking out about doing exactly that.

so yeah anyway if I talk to anyone and it looks like I'm typing stuff really frantically or it doesn't make sense properly, that's probably why. I just felt like this was worth clarifying in case anyone noticed and wondered what the hell was going on

#personal #thoughts #🍬 post #vent post #<- kind of? #this isn't about that infodump post just to clarify; it's specifically about when I'm messaging people #idk maybe keep this in mind if I do post like really unhinged vent posts or something? but it should be fine #also the psychosis and racing thoughts came along with suddenly feeling amazing and wanting to do loads of creative stuff #and we're not diagnosed with a mood disorder that would cause hypomania because our last therapist was like ''it's just mood swings'' #but we maybe kind of suspect that the week long episodes of this happening after intense stress might be that #so yeah I'm trying to manage that and be relatively hinged and not let our brain freak out too much #but I'm also jumping so fast between different trains of thought that it's disorienting and hard to keep track of what's going on #I don't want this to sound like an excuse for me being weird but I also think I'm probably just being paranoid about that too #I feel pretty vulnerable posting this but it's kind of that vs being even more paranoid because of people not knowing what's going on #slightly scared of people going ''oh my god you're insane. you're a freak'' because we have scary symptoms #and this specific combination of symptoms makes us feel like we've done some kind of irreversible mistake and ruined our life #even if all we've done is sit in bed and ramble to a couple of people who were very chill about it

[thebibliosphere]

so I’ve always had dermatographia, but since getting Covid for the 4th time this fall, I also am spontaneously breaking out on hives on my back a couple times per week. It doesn’t seem to do much, just kind of itches and then goes away after a half hour. I have no known allergies. Do you think this is indicative of some kind of mast cell issue? I can’t tell if this is an episode of weird body, meh, or a red flag of a huge impending problem.

There was a study released this year about long-covid and how it can result in symptoms similar to MCAS.

Let's see if I can find it... Ah. Here.

So, obviously, we won't know the full ramifications of covid for probably decades, but in the meantime, there is some evidence to suggest that long-covid patients show abnormal mast cell release of excessive cytokine (among other things), which is, well, when it fucks up, it fucks up.

That's what made the cytokine storms patients were experiencing in the early days of covid so dangerous. It's like the immune system equivalent of throwing napalm onto a housefire.

(I also suspect that's why so many front-line doctors now believe in the severity of MCAS. They were watching this shit happen in real-time.)

So, is it possible your recurrent covid infections have led to a bit of mast cell instability and causing spontaneous hives? Speaking anecdotally from the sheer volume of emails people have sent me and the MCAS forums now flooded with people who got covid and can't stop itching, yeah, it's possible.

But it's also possible it won't progress beyond that point.

I'd advise keeping an eye on it and talking to your doctor if you have concerns.

Also, maybe look into getting re-tested for allergies. Allergies can develop at any time in your life, and there could be another explanation for the hives.

Basically, don't panic, but do take care of yourself and watch for any other symptoms. Don't ignore any sudden new food allergies or gastro or cardio symptoms. The sooner MCAS is treated, the easier it is to manage. Mine had decades to run rampant on my body to get to the stage it was at. It doesn't have to be that way for everyone.

Take care, and I hope the hives stop!

#chronic health tag

[anghraine]

The best friend and I played a bunch of Mass Effect 3 over the last few weeks! The things I remember most clearly are Thessia, Leviathan, Sanctuary, Horizon, the Citadel DLC, and the initial return to [redacted].

Long ramble about all of it:

My best friend had me choose the companions for the run to the temple on Thessia, and naturally I chose our beloved Liara and problematic fave Javik. I wasn't glad to see it fall (quite the contrary), but it seemed a bit apropos that the asari leadership's various choices wrt the war came back to bite them. Still, it was really sad, esp since it's the only time we really saw it and Liara was really upset.

...all the more because we brought Javik and he kept interrupting her explanations to be like "all your religious beliefs are gifts we gave to your people's ancestors before they figured out writing." It was a lot for her, but I did feel a touch of annoyance at what seemed a bit of an unspoken assumption that this might happen to other people's homes, but not hers. Very asari, to be sure. And I like it as a subtle aspect of her character—not a criticism of the game there, just a sidenote, I guess.

Kai Leng showing up was just ... /sigh. I don't really get what his deal is beyond being Cerberus and hating Shepard a lot for some unknown reason. Eventually we do see the past!Illusive Man comparing him to Shepard (in a positive way!), so maybe it's something to do with that, idk. He feels pretty underwritten to me compared to the rest of the major cast, who are generally super vivid (I mean, I love background characters like Westmoreland!). So I'm just irritated when he shows up and disrupts interesting things.

The Leviathan DLC was a really good horror episode taken in its own right, but as part of the wider game, I'm not sure. I kind of ... didn't want to know more about the Reapers? The sequence was fantastic (especially down in the bottom of the sea!), yet the less mysterious the Reapers get, the less engaged I am by them. Whatever the hell is going on with Cerberus and the Illusive Man is a lot more compelling to me at this point.

Speaking of whom, Sanctuary was just what the fuck?! from beginning to end. I've always been suspicious of the whispers about it, but I didn't guess that they were transforming refugees into husks to experiment on, you know? Damn. Miranda was not exaggerating about her father's callousness even a little.

Speaking of Miranda, she is probably at the top of my problematic ME characters list, and ... look. Okay. I know the mechanics of the game suggest she's straight. To me she has the most intense bi energy of just about any human in the game. I love (female) Shepard/Liara, a lot, but I just feel like there's a ton of UST between our Shepard and Miranda, all the more by the end of the Citadel DLC. I'll just leave that there.

After that, it was extremely cathartic to wreck the Cerberus base on Horizon with EDI. No gods no masters <3

And then we got to finally kill Kai Leng for good. Asshole. Blahblah, more villain monologues from the younger-looking Illusive Man (/suspicion). I suspect he's in cahoots with Harbinger or something and thinks he's actually the one in control.

Then there was the Citadel DLC, which I've heard a lot of great things about. Early on, I wasn't actually sure I'd like it as much as other people do—self-referential humor and stakes-lowering banter are not to my taste in general, and there were several times in the earlier parts that it didn't quite work for me (not because it was bad, but I just don't like that kind of thing by and large). I did laugh at the "I should go" jokes, though!

We did it with Wrex-Liara and then Garrus-Liara, which felt very apropos to the storyline, since the whole deal with the clone is that she has all of Shepard's technical skills but overlooks the importance of Shepard as team player and friend. And Wrex, Garrus, and Liara specifically go way back with Shepard.

When the clone was going on her villain rants about how she has everything Shepard did, she can do everything Shepard can, I was like "but she can't do everything Liara and Garrus can ... oh. This is about the power of friendship!" And it was, in a really charming way.

I did think Brooks was suspect as hell the whole time, so that was validating.

The clone's obsession with being The Real Shepard and having the grand mystique and galactic stature and all of that did highlight something interesting to me. I'd read an argument that ME1 is actually the best ME game, and one of the reasons in that argument is that ME1 Shepard is ... cool, but not nearly the superstar legend she becomes later on.

And Shepard's super special awesome greatness is hammered in a lot through ME2&3. I'm not sure that's actually worse than being scrappier, in terms of some artistic merit kind of thing, but the DLC is so reliant on Shepard's mystique that it got me thinking again about how easily this could become really annoying.

Like, I've loved many special or chosen male characters, but the idea of male badass Shepard seems just incredibly tedious to me. I'm not sure I could buy into this except with the pretty specific scenario we have of a lesbian Shepard who came up through a hard childhood on the streets of Earth.

Anyway, I absolutely adored the end of the clone arc (Garrus and Liara pulling the real Shepard up ;_;) and then the entire rest of the DLC, except the pull-up thing with James (very tiresome mechanically and he's my least fave of the ME3 squad). Miranda and Jack semi-reconciling was really adorable and I loved all the bizarre inter-character dynamics at the party. Also, Traynor winning against an asari named Polgara made me cackle. And my absolute most hated from ME2, Zaeed, was kind of delightful. Zaeed vs The Claw was just ... jafdkk;jadfjk;a

And Glyph's little bowtie! Incredible all around.

Oh, and the little date with Liara was super sweet. I loved that it stopped where it did, just that image of them embracing. It's great.

It was nice to see them seriously together even later, of course. And we got back to Earth! I was incredibly tired at that point, so my main thought was that the imagery of the united galactic fleet was essentially what The Rise of Skywalker tried and failed to do, but it was fantastic here, especially after everything we've done to get (almost) everyone together. (We did basically tell the salarians to go fuck themselves wrt the genophage.)

London looks suitably dreadful and we'd just gone around and talked to Anderson and then essentially everyone. Pretty much everyone continually brought up how awesome Shepard is, again, which reinforced my sense that this could be really annoying but is very nice for lesbian Shepard, and in any case, it feels like it's going somewhere now. We'll see where exactly that is!

#shepard and miranda have so much ust after the party! i know it's miranda's manner or w/e but i do not accept het miranda into my headcanon #anghraine babbles #anghraine's gaming #the adventures of space redacted #long post #i should probably have a bff tag

[nickmakura]

Adult Scooby-Doo TV Show Pitch

So, the idea with my theoretical Adult Swim Scooby-Doo TV Show is to avoid any inclination this is a reimagining. I'm envisioning this is as being a sort of continuation of the concepts and story present in Zombie Island, Witch's Ghost, and Alien Invaders. But, attempting to keep up the original episodic format of "Where Are You?" and breaking some limits of what you can put these characters through.

Part of the reason "Zombie Island" works, is because these are the same characters we grew up with. But they're a little older now too. They all have jobs, they're long past high-school, they have adult expectations. But for the most part, Hanna-Barbera doesn't change anything about Mystery Inc's personality, and instead drops them into a scenario that is dark and gritty. Which makes it far more terrifying.

But another reason is Zombie Island keeps the inherent comedy without sacrificing the horror. Good stuff.

So how do you take the concepts of Zombie Island, and transform it into a monster of the week Scooby-Doo show?

Coast to Coast with Scooby-Doo!

Part I: The Plot

After the harrowing experiences dealing with true brushes with the supernatural and the paranormal, Daphne Blake is now more convinced then ever that she needs live footage of a real honest to good ghost. If they can get one on camera, and report it, this will be the find of a century.

Sticking with the original plan, Scoob & The Gang travel across America investigating real folklore and horrors, in hopes of finding something real.

Part II: The Formula

So, Coast to Coast With Scooby-Doo is kind of a mix of genres. But for the most part, I want it to be a Horror Comedy Mystery show, but it's also a road trip show. One of the things I liked about Zombie Island, is that it took place in New Orleans, and introduced us to real New Orleans cuisine. From beignets, to po' boys, crawdads, gumbo and jambalaya. But it also told us about the voodoo scene in New Orleans.

I'm now dead set on heading out to New Orleans sometime just to try the food, and I think that's something that can really help drag Scooby-Doo down to earth. It makes you really want to visit these places, and maybe investigate a haunting while you're there too.

So, here's the setup.

Spooky Cold Open, probably a Murder

Theme Song

Scoob & The Gang ride the mystery machine into town, probably with some sort of banter. Velma brings up where they're going, and Shag is like "Yo man, it's been a minute since we've been out to New York! You guys think Trinidad Golden Palace is still open? Like they had one crazy Shark Sandwich dude!" Then another member of the gang brings up they're actually looking to go to the statue of Liberty, where, by the way, there is ACTUAL rumors of buried treasure and ghosts. This changes depending on local

The gang stumble upon mystery, ask questions, find out gruesome details, meet suspects. Daphne & Fred interview some people.

They film the hauntings as they're happening, and search for clues.

Then, as the episode progresses we figure out whether or not this thing is real or fake. If it's real, the gang have to find a way to take down the monster using ingenuity and what they've found in the episode, or they have to capture the culprit and breakdown the mystery.

Small things, but I feel like having a constant bet between characters whether or not it's real or if it's fake would be something really fun actually. I think the audience would have fun getting in on the question too, and guessing along with the gang.

Part III: The Adult Part

So, this is a show for adults, but the fact it's FOR adults will not override that it IS Scooby-Doo. Which is to say, that it will have murder, swearing, mentions of sex, but it will not go beyond what you expect in terms of tone from Scooby-Doo. It's a fun horror comedy mystery show about 4 friends and their dog who investigate spooky mysteries. You can't change that core premise or you risk it no longer being Scooby-Doo and something else entirely.

So if you need a member of the gang to swear for a scene, you can, but it can't breach too far out of character for the group. Like Fred can say fuck, but he's still the leader Dad type guy who likes Daphne, and likes building absurd rube goldberg type traps. Shaggy can smoke weed, but he's still the goofy moral center of the group. He makes fun sandwiches, he cracks dumb jokes, he's scared of getting stabbed, but he sticks around for his friends. Velma can be a lesbian, but she's still the quirky smart character who loves books and science.

But most importantly you need to make sure it's still abundantly clear to the audience that no matter how much drama or crazy shit they see, Scoob & The Gang are all best friends who love working together.

#scooby-doo #shaggy rogers #velma dinkley #fred jones #daphne blake #adult swim #tv shows

[harrowharkwife]

anyone else getting such a sixth-sense, hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck feeling from these past episodes, that just seems to get louder with each passing week?

it's like the writers *know* they're playing chicken with us at this point- it's not a fourth wall break, but something close to it. a quiet tapping on the glass, a "hey, pay attention, viewers, i'm talking to you," telegraphing a very quiet, but very clear message: hang on. hang in there. you're not crazy, there is something here, it's coming, we're going to do it. but we're going to do it right. and that takes time.

-

taylor moved out eddie joined the show, what, four months seasons ago, buck? you could have replaced the couch gotten them together by now.

-

you the audience can't keep playing these guessing games, maddie writers. if you can't figure out what he wants, maybe you should tell him us what you want what's gonna happen. (‼️‼️‼️)

-

the rules are very simple. one hand must be touching a car at all times. it's a game of endurance, patience. no exceptions. last one standing watching drives home in this beauty gets the prize they've been waiting for. let the games begin!

-

our lunch date was 2 o clock, wasn't it? yep. i figured you forgot, but after you canceled the last few times, decided that I would force the issue.

-

i don't know. maybe i just don't have the patience for these movies ships anymore, you know? two people meet, you know that they're gonna end up together. and then you have to watch 'em bumble their way through stupid misunderstandings for two hours seasons. i don't know. it's kind of annoying. so you'd rather your rom-coms have less "com?" i don't know. i guess i would rather see two people overcome real problems and... still get their happy ending. that would be more satisfying. yeah, it would be. (‼️‼️‼️)

-

i don't understand. isn't this what you've been wanting? what the two of you been working towards? it is, it just feels like i'm waiting for... something. you didn't skip the morning after conversation, chim. you just delayed it. and you added a whole new complicated layer. (‼️‼️‼️)

-

we were playing hide-and-seek and he just disappeared. what, do you think maybe he's still hiding? i don't know. it's been a really long time. and i've looked everywhere.

-

we're past apologies. this is a promise. i'm not going anywhere. i'm done running.

-

but when you are, you'll know. and then you'll be ready.

-

hey, karen. it looks like i'll be home a little bit late.

-

it was significant, and we want to give the brain story time to heal develop on its own. how long will he be sedated? at least 24 hours. run more tests, then see where we are tomorrow. i have no doubt, but we don't know how he the general audience will or will not respond to the treatment this storyline. we have to be prepared. (‼️‼️‼️)

-

you knew. didn't you? i suspected. i didn't know for sure until she called 911.

-

today you learned how the element of surprise can refocus a caller's viewer's attention. [a song] was playing on his radio, and by hearing me sing it... it got him to pay attention. (‼️‼️‼️)

-

never enough time. until one day work stops, and everything finally comes into focus. you're not sure what you're looking at. what was the point of... any of it?

-

that's 'cause you were searching for something. what are you looking for now? that's what i'm gonna find out.

-

you guys are really doing it all, huh? marriage, house, and... and kids real, actual, canon buddie? kind of. we've sort of hit a snag on that last part ... nothing seems to get the job done. (‼️‼️‼️)

-

he the writers room has been lying right to my face. in his defense, science club sperm donor plot does sound kind of boring. joining was his idea. probably knew it would make a great cover. smart kid. (‼️‼️‼️)

-

half the thrill sometimes is doing something and thinking you're getting away with it. (‼️‼️‼️)

-

buck! where the hell you this storyline going? pull over! now!

-

you woke up behind the wheel with someone poking at you for gay rep, you panicked, hit the gas, and here we are.

-

i had to fight every instinct within me not to shove him their relationship in the car and make a beeline to the airport send it out into the world.

-

maybe you're the writers are overcorrecting because... because i didn't protect you the story enough. you had to grow up a lot faster than you should have. but that doesn't mean you can keep christopher a kid this story under wraps forever. you can't stop the biological clock from ticking. there a snooze button i can hit? you know, children viewers, they don't just pick up on the things we say and do. they also pick up on the things we don't. (‼️‼️‼️)

-

look, i just wanted to come by and apologize for the other night. we pretty much blindsided you, and i really feel terrible about that. that wasn't the right way to ask show you.

-

doing nothing is giving me more anxiety than trying to do everything.

-

when you're trying and you want it, and it's just not happening, it's devastating.

-

how badly do you want to be a really good doctor to make canon buddie happen? enough that i will put myself and my family through another 12 months of hell if i have to repeat this year. but i'm really hoping i don't have to.

-

i've been giving this a lot of thought. uh, thinking about, you know, wh-where i am in my life where we are in this story and what i want, and... and how this would fit in with that. uh, and honestly, i... haven't figured any of that out. i have no idea what i want. but it is clear to me... that you the audience know what you want. and one thing i do know is-is that i want to help you have that. are you... are you saying what i think you're saying? i'm saying yes. (‼️‼️‼️)

-

no, it wouldn't be enough. we need something stronger. well, you know what? this is a DIY family, so let's DIY it. (‼️‼️‼️)

-

all right, you've got 20 minutes to convince me this was a good idea.

-

han, what did you do? what needed to be done. set me buddie up on a date without even talking to me the audience about it? well, when you put it like that... that's psychopathic. listen. hen, you need to move on from eva move this plot along. you weren't gonna do anything yourself, so i just gave you a little... nudge.

-

turning in those papers the script... makes it real. well, the longer you put this off, the more you're gonna torture yourself. go talk to bobby. then we can move on to the next chapter. (‼️‼️‼️)

-

our drivers writers must be testing out programming for our vehicles. they're the ones who figure out the right sequence of maneuvers to get the robot the show, the characters, the audience to do what we want it to. (‼️‼️‼️)

-

the robot will be able to take water and soil samples audience reactions. then run tests to detect the presence of the elements needed to support life.

-

i've been working on this project for five years now. i'm telling you we cannot do that. all i'm saying is this is our future, and we're gonna get left behind if we don't do something big. (‼️‼️‼️)

-

alvin: well, maybe we should change the purpose of our mission. karen: guys, guys, we gotta lower our voices.

-

life as you know it is about to change.

-

when do you send it into space the world? not for a few more years episodes. we have to make sure every little thing about it is in perfect shape, and then we have to figure out the best way for it to complete its mission. (‼️‼️‼️)

-

you are not a firefighter anymore a writer and you're too close to the situation. i love you. now let us do our jobs. bring her buddie back to me, cap writers. guaranteed.

-

hey. i'm sorry i was late. the traffic was, you know, traffic. i was starting to think i really did get stood up this time.

-

she was afraid you might do something fool-headed and try to force your way inside that building half-ass that storyline. bobby wouldn't let me. how long have they been inside? 20 minutes. feels like forever. it'll be soon.

-

the room is a bomb and the door is the fuse.

-

when i felt like i'd lost you forever. and it scared me. to think of you being gone. never having a chance to fix things or try again.

-

i thought i'd lost you. nope. still here.

-

waiting is mind-numbing.

-

i thought it would never arrive. came a long way.

-

maybe the good luck charm's already working its magic. maybe!

-

you teased an unboxing canon buddie the other day. oh, no, no, no. i look horrible we're not ready yet. besides, i can't wait. we'll, um... we'll re-pack it get less obvious about it for now and do it tomorrow in full glam in a big poetic dramatic storyline.

-

we're gonna have to cut it apart, piece by piece.

-

so, you're really doing it? i'm really doing it. and-and i figure, if i am, i... i should do it right. you know, set them buddie up with the best chance for success. (‼️‼️‼️)

-

listen, it's a run of bad luck, but it turns around tomorrow.

-

(said in a manner clearly criticizing the 'grifters') the best grifters queerbaiters know how to play on people's the audience's desperation.

-

can we please do something about this before something else happens?

-

i know we asked a really big favor canon buddie of you. probably too big. and it's-it's okay if you're having doubts. no, guys... you understand, if you changed your mind, we understand. we just can't really handle the not knowing what's going on because, you know, we keep imagining the worst. and after everything we've already been through as gay fans, honestly, it really means a lot... guys, hey, hey, stop. listen to me. i haven't changed my mind. okay? i w-i want to do this for you. i promise. (‼️‼️‼️)

-

how long have you known? more importantly, how long you been holding out on us? oh, looks like we're here.

-

on the site, there's a little box, "terms and conditions." she checked "i accept." she should have known this would happen. y'all signed up for this!

-

you'd think that he'd the writers'd welcome the publicity. well, with publicity comes scrutiny from people like me straight audience.

-

at this point, he's all in. time for one last desperate attempt. (‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️)

-

do you need a minute? no, i don't-i don't need a minute, i just, uh... sorry, i just, i-i would really rather do this now, like, with, like... right now.

-

i mean, the longer we stayed away from the water from making them happen, the more the fear would grow.

which brings us to:

so, what'd she have to say about my future?

🤡

#911 #buddie #evan buckley #eddie diaz #911 meta #911 spec #911 speculation #long post #listen y'all i might be clowning but like. i think I'm onto smth here!!! #god i worked so hard on this post. i formatted this on MOBILE y'all are WELCOME

[starlight-time-machine]

Week in Review

05/19/2024 – 05/25/2024

Sunday

Week 15 of missing Cipher Academy

Had to head out on a day trip, but before I did I quickly read the new Undead Unluck chapter. This was mainly a set-up chapter, disseminating the information we’ve learned from the Language fight and preparing for the next arc, but wow I never expected that we’d see Fuuko’s parents… I have a feeling that the next arc is going to be pretty emotional…

Monday

Oshi no Ko 149: I think Kana and Akane should just get together instead. Seeing Akane pull her Machiavellian schemes is funny, though.

Dandadan 152 and 153: Dammit the mangaka has got me again with the tragic backstory. I think they’ve really perfected their craft in this regard – they don’t get too long-winded about it, instead focusing on presenting specific images and moments that tell a much bigger story. Seeing the myriad of stickers in the apartment on the doors and counters at kid-height was so…the place just felt really lived in and realistic, making the tragedy hit even more as Zuma’s mom begs to stay. Zuma covering his little brother’s ears was also a nice touch, and we understand right away what their brotherly relationship must’ve been like. But then the silence as his little brother loses his umbrella…and we just see Zuma’s desperation and the aftermath… His mom’s cold grip around his wrist and then those last few panels are just so so horrible, especially the one where you can see Zuma trying his best to hold his mom back… I also appreciated this thematic thread of “people placing the blame on individuals rather than the lack of support infrastructure and the ways modern society crushes the less fortunate under its heel”, it makes sense why Zuma would feel angry towards the entire world and how it’s failed his family.

Magilumiere fine. Feels like textbook final fight stuff.

Chainsaw Man fine. The narrative just feels so…aimless and vague.

Rewatched some Succession episodes just to feel something. Season 3 episode 5 will always be a favourite for the absolute chaos it brings, but this time I really enjoyed Tom likening him and Shiv to sorority sisters whose cycles have synced up…he’s so girlcoded it’s insane. And then I watched season 4 episode 7 for the satisfaction of watching Tom and Shiv’s marriage blow up – I have their argument almost memorized by now.

Tuesday

Against my better judgement, I stayed up and read The Unusual Suspects by Michael Buckley in pretty much one sitting, and was fairly underwhelmed. As with the first book in this Sisters Grimm series, I love the premise and setting of this story, but the actual writing leaves a lot to be desired. Finding out that Buckley’s writing career started in TV makes so much sense, because his book writing is so bland and uninspired. The characters are fun and have decently enjoyable dialogue, but the descriptions lack any real finesse or artistry. Things just happen one after another like a TV writer marking out a beatsheet, and the comedic bits are the kind of wacky hijinks you’d find in the platonic ideal of a 2000’s Saturday morning cartoon. At least Sabrina had a semblance of an interesting arc, I guess…? In that she has to grapple with racism LMAO? And I guess Prince Charming’s gesture and her realization that her anger/racism was literally powering up the bad guy was a decent resolution, but I do hope the narrative stresses the importance of seeing “the other” as people in future instalments (and maybe throw in a human culprit for one of the mysteries). Also, I remembered the Puck/Sabrina romance as being more of a slowburn, but here they basically fall in love with each other on the flimsiest of basis and are doing the whole bickering/flirting thing right away…I think kid me was really excited at each crumb of ship content, but adult me wishes their romance had a subtler hand.

Wednesday

Went outside and had a life event, heh

Thursday

Read a lot today, mostly just bits and pieces of various books in my search of a good one, but the only one I started in earnest was Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman. The hook was immediately gripping – a horror story set during the Black Plague – and I’m happy to find that the writing is evocative enough to match. The prose sets me in the time period and atmosphere immediately, and there are so many striking visuals that have stuck in my mind thus far. Unfortunately, in an inverse of Buckley, the dialogue writing is so bad it nears comical at points. Some of the passages literally read like bad sitcom banter, and it completely takes me out of the moment with its anachronistic tone. The only saving grace is that the conversations are usually short, I suppose.

Friday

DunMesh with leftover stir-fried lamb from a restaurant I went to on Wednesday. Episode good! Food good! Fun to see the Canaries make their anime debut at last.

I got fully invested and finished Part I of Between Two Fires. The dialogue still grates on me at times, but the wonderful prose keeps me going, as does the dreaminess of the plot – it really feels like an early canon work in how it moves between different locations and their self-contained stories, and while I saw some people say that they didn’t like the episodic nature, I think it really fits the tone. I was pleasantly surprised to see the priest join the party, I was really expecting the story to just revolve around Thomas and the girl, but the priest’s presence is welcome for how it adds another dimension to the group dynamic beyond the girl annoying Thomas with her innocent and inscrutable actions. I also didn’t expect so much gayness? I can’t tell if it’s just being used as a way to cast the priest as a sinful man (like with his drinking), but I’m going to enjoy the fujo crumbs regardless. Thomas’ fight against the river creature and the men’s stint in the illusory castle felt truly hellish, and you really get the sense that their world is pulling apart at the seams.

Saturday

I started reading She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan today because I like to have a few books going at once, and I’m becoming cautiously optimistic that some actually good adult fiction books exist in the world. After some deliberation, I think I’ve come to the realization that what I really want in a book is for things to happen. As in, I’m sick and fucking tired of the 340523rd treatise on the fucking “human condition” – I’ve been through enough human condition and I don’t need to read 400 pages of melodramatic waffling as characters talk and talk and talk but actually do very little of consequence. But if I want to find a book where an actual journey occurs, my best chances are in the fantasy or sci-fi genres…which I also kind of hate reading lol. I hate being bombarded with impenetrable names and countries and factions before I even get the chance to care about them, so I usually avoid high fantasy/high sci-fi like the plague. But She Who Became the Sun is set in historical China, which I’m already familiar with and interested in, and the fantasy elements have been fairly light so far, so I’ve been greatly enjoying it. I especially like Parker-Chan’s prose, and how they build Zhu’s inner turmoil in Part One and her struggle between identity vs body and the central thesis of greatness vs nothingness. But once again, I’m floored by just how good the writing is when compared to some of the other books I’ve tried reading this week. I used to think that maybe adult fiction as a whole just wasn’t for me, but now I’m regaining hope that there are good books out there, I just have to find them…it’s a process, to be sure, when literally no other critics or BookTubers I can find share my tastes, but I’ll keep trying…

#week in review #2024

[the-bau-quinjet]

heyyy. I know you’ve been doing marvel a lot, but if you could do one with morgan and the reader? Based on amplification and it’s the reader who gets sick instead. thanks!

Finally

Warnings: some mentions of being sick (cause... you know... anthrax), angst and fluff :)

Word Count: 2735

a/n: My first Morgan fic!! I love him so much! This one took me a while because 1) I feel like I'm not that good at rewriting episodes, and 2) I wanted to get Derek's character right. Hopefully it's not too terrible! I hope you enjoy!! :)

Masterlist

"Rossi, Prentiss head to his office. Morgan, get Reid and L/N from the hospital and check out his house." Hotch instructed as soon as Dr. Nichols was deemed a reasonable suspect.

It wasn't long before you, Reid, and Morgan were pulling up outside of Dr. Nichols house.

"It's clear so far. I'll let you know when we're done checking." One of the CDC techs said through a walkie.

"We should look around a bit." Reid started down the driveway, gesturing for you and Morgan to follow.

"Ow!" You flinched away from the rose bush, shaking your hand in an attempt to lessen the pain.

"You good?" Morgan eyed you, overly concerned about a small scrape.

"I'm fine. Promise." You winked, walking past him and Reid to check for anything out of the ordinary in the backyard.

"I don't understand why you haven't asked her out yet." Reid looked between you and Morgan. Unfortunately, Morgan was saved from answering by the sound of his phone ringing.

"Hey, princess what do you have?" Morgan greeted Garcia, glaring at Reid.

You continued to explore while Derek and Reid talked to Garcia. It wasn't until after you entered the shed-like building that you thought maybe the CDC should check for anthrax out here too.

By then it was too late.

"L/N?" You could hear Morgan calling you. "Y/N!" It was clear him and Reid were approaching the door you just walked through.

You ran back to the sliding glass door, slamming it shut and locking it before either of them could stop you.

"What's wrong?" He frantically ran up to the door.

"Get back! No, don't come any closer." Your eyes flitted between the two agents, landing solely on Derek when you muttered, "I'm sorry."

"Y/N, open the door..." Derek's typically powerful voice nearly broke as he watched you shake your head.

"I can't. I- I'm already exposed." You shook your head resolutely, convincing yourself this was the right move. "I'll look for anything that could help in here. It's the best move."

"Y/N, you need to go to the hospital." Derek put more power behind his words with hopes of convincing you.

"The hospital won't do anything for me. Nichols could've made a cure, and if he did it's probably in here." You tore your eyes from Derek, hoping Spencer would help you convince him. "Reid, tell him I'm right."

He looked conflicted, eyes flitting between you and Derek.

"She's right. The cipro isn't working on anyone infected. Her best chance is to stay in there and find something useful." Reid looked reluctantly at Derek.

"Then you better find a cure in there." Derek whispered, eyes lingering on you before he finally turned away to call Hotch.

-

"Morgan, Reid. How's L/N?" Hotch questioned immediately, forgoing any greeting.

"White powder all over the room and the air was blasting." Morgan responded quickly. He made brief eye contact with Hotch before turning to walk back to the door.

The general barked out instructions for a decontamination team and cordoning off the area.

"Get her in the ambulance." Hotch directed Morgan and Reid.

"She won't." Morgan felt his heart rate increase at the thought of you staying in there any longer. "Said she's more helpful inside than in the hospital."

"Nichols is dead, looks to be about 2-3 days." Reid added on.

Just then Hotch's phone rang.

"L/N?" He answered on speaker.

"I really messed up this time." You let out a dry laugh.

"You need to get to the hospital." Hotch tried to argue.

"I know Morgan and Reid already told you I won't go. There could be answers in here." Your stubbornness was showing. "I need to figure out who killed Nichols."

"Y/N-" You cut Morgan off before he could try to convince you to leave.

"I think he had a partner." You decided to refocus the conversation on the case rather than yourself.

"I'll get Rossi and Prentiss to ask at his office." Hotch sighed in resignation.

"Good, I'll keep looking at everything in here."

You hung up before anyone could argue further. You shoved your phone into your pocket, immediately going back to look through papers and lab equipment around the room.

As you worked inside, you could hear the CDC team setting up outside.

Watching through the windows as people in full hazmat suits prepared to enter the room you were in made everything feel more real.

You pulled your phone swiftly out of your pocket dialling the number you knew by heart.

"Hi." Garcia's voice was quiet when she answered the phone.

"No funky greeting? I'm feeling a little jipped." You tried to joke with her, but it fell flat.

"I can't be my normal, bubbly self when you are where you are." Again, her voice was quiet.

"Garcia, can you do something for me?" Your voice was steady, masking the emotion about to pour out of you.

"What? Tell me what to do and I'll do it." She frantically moved around her desk, ready to do anything you requested.

"You know how a few weeks ago, you were joking about my crush on Morgan?" You asked slowly.

"The one you swore didn't exist? I remember." Her voice was laced with confusion at your topic change.

"Well, um, do you think you could record a message for him?" Your breaths were unsteady as you thought about saying goodbye.

"But you're gonna be fine." She spoke with authority, as if saying it made it true.

"I know, but, um... just in case. I want him to hear it at least once." Your voice broke.

"Okay. Um, whenever you're ready." She listened as you spoke to Derek.

"Hi Derek. Um, I kind of have a secret to tell you, but first I want you to know this isn't your fault. I'm the idiot who walked into the lab. It's on me. I guess I just want to make sure you hear this from me at least once." You cleared your throat, thick from emotion.

"I, uh, I think I'm maybe, just a little bit, um... in love with you." You felt the tears fall from your cheeks. "You're my best friend. You've always been there for me when cases hit a little too close to home or even if I'm just having a bad day. You never fail to make me smile, no matter how hard I'm trying not to."

You wiped at your cheeks roughly, trying to focus on the message.

"I've wanted to tell you for a while, but I never knew how. I guess I'm glad I walked in here for one reason. It finally pushed me to tell you how I feel."

You chuckled again, but there was no humor in it.

"I'm, ah, I'm really sorry if this is goodbye." You paused, unsure if you had anything left to say.

"Y/N?" Garcia questioned if you were still on the line.

"Prep the victim for transfer." You could hear Dr. Kimura entering the room, preparing to begin treating you.

"I've got to go." You hung up without another word, trying to rid your face of any evidence of the tears before facing the doctor.

"How are you feeling?" She questioned once you were in view.

"I'm actually feeling okay." You nodded, trying to convince yourself it was true. She eyed you like she didn't believe you, but nodded with you anyway.

"Alright, how can I help?"

You spent the next few minutes explaining Dr. Nichols profile. Dr. Kimura set off to look for the cure while you continued trying to figure out who killed Nichols.

-

"L/N, stick with me." Morgan's voice sounded through your phone, drawing your attention away from the stack of papers in your hand. "Prentiss and Rossi don't think the partner is from work."

"Okay, um..." You went back to the bigger desk. "He's got course syllabi and outlines dating back to the 80s." You glanced around the room, eyes catching on the other desk.

"A student..." You trailed off, mind moving a mile a minute.

"Talk to me." Morgan drew your attention again.

"Derek, I think it's a student. There's two desks, different organization on both. The smaller one has what looks like a dissertation that Nichols could've been grading. He wouldn't open his lab to a scientist, but he might for educational purposes." You prattled on, more and more information fitting the theory.

"I'll get Garcia to look at science students." Morgan gestured for Hotch to call Garcia. He was about to hang up when you corrected him.

"Wait! The paper, it's more about social policies surrounding an anthrax attack, not the actual science of it." You spoke quickly, trying to hold in an impending cough.

"Okay, political science and social studies majors then." Morgan trailed off, waiting for your response.

"Good. That's good." You coughed slightly, listening to the sound of his breathing.

"Garcia's got a match." Hotch nodded to Morgan before heading toward the SUVs.

"Y/N, you got everything you could in there. Now get the hell out." He practically begged.

"Sure thing, Derek. Bye." You hung up right as Dr. Kimura walked back toward you.

"His inhaler! It could have the cure, right?" She looked to you for approval.

-

"They're checking out Brown's house." Derek watched as they hosed you down.

"Go help them." You coughed slightly, wincing at the cool water.

"They've got plenty of help. I'm staying with you." His eyes never left yours.

"Please." You looked him in the eye. "They're about to strip me naked and hose me down. As much as I know that's something you want to see, I don't think I look my best right now." You joked, watching the way he averted his eyes slightly.

"Y/N, I-" You cut him off again.

"I know." You smiled softly, gesturing for him to go. "Now go help catch him." You kept your eyes on him until he was out of sight.

Turning back to the conversation happening in front of you, you watched as Dr. Kimura instructed another hazmat team member to get the inhaler tested for the cure.

"It makes sense for the inhaler to have the cure." Your mind felt fuzzy as you thought it over. You moved to grab your head, something catching the attention of the doctor.

"Agent L/N, did you cut your hand?" You glanced at your hand, remembering the rose bush outside. You nodded, eyes widening ever so slightly at the now blistering cut on your hand.

"Let's move." You were quickly cleaned of any lingering traces of anthrax before she directed you into the waiting ambulance. "Are you still feeling fine?" She questioned while taking your vitals.

"I'm doing great. I flea foon. I fill fon." You muttered, eyes rolling back in your head.

"Driver, faster!" She called to the front of the ambulance as you started coughing blood.

-

"Are you eating my jello?" You cleared your throat as you eyed Derek sitting next to your bed.

"Yes I am." He stared directly into your eyes as he ate another spoonful.

"Well, is there more?" You pouted, eyes still lingering on the cup in Derek's hands. He laughed in response.

"What happened?" You slowly moved to sit up, eyes flitting around the various machines in your room.

"The cure was in the inhaler. The other patients are in recovery, and you are going to be just fine." The way he smiled when he said 'just fine' had your heart aching. He just looked so relieved.

"Brown?" You continued your line of questioning.

"We got him. It's over." Derek's soft smile remained, eyes flitting around your body as if he were making sure you were actually okay.

"Well, that's a relief." You took a deep breath. "There's actually something I want to tell you."

He raised a brow, a small smirk playing at the edges of his mouth.

"Oh, yeah? Does Garcia know anything about this?"

You felt the blood rush to your cheeks, eyes widening in horror that he had already heard the message. "Oh, um, I mean, technically yes. I didn't- I wouldn't have told her before you if I didn't think I might die!" Your voice was rising in pitch, panic surging through your body.

"Woah, babygirl, slow down." His previous smirk shifted into another look of concern, although he still let out a small chuckle. "She just told me to ask you about a message. That's all."

"Oh." Your mouth stayed in the 'o' shape for longer than necessary, your body's way of stalling what you were about to say. "You haven't heard the message?"

"Nope." He said with a pop. "Care to enlighten me?"

"Well, I guess I have to since you brought it up." You rolled your eyes, messing with him.

"Hey, now! You started it." He clearly had you beat, so you just blurted it out.

"I think I love you!" You threw your hands over your mouth, eyes wide now that you'd confessed to your best friend that you're in love with him.

"That's what the message said. I thought- I mean there was a strong possibility that I was going to die. I didn't want that to happen without me having told you how I actually feel."

Your eyes were focused on the edges of the hospital blanket where your fingers were twisting a loose thread.

"Can I hear it?" His question confused you, causing you to look at him with a furrowed brow. "The message I mean?"

You nodded slowly, texting Garcia to see if she could send it to you. The chime of a text coming in happened almost instantly. You didn't hesitate to hit play on the recording.

"Hi Derek. Um, I kind of have a secret to tell you, but first I want you to know this isn't your fault. I'm the idiot who walked into the lab. It's on me. I guess I just want to make sure you hear this from me at least once.

I, uh, I think I'm maybe, just a little bit, um... in love with you. You're my best friend. You've always been there for me when cases hit a little too close to home or even if I'm just having a bad day. You never fail to make me smile, no matter how hard I'm trying not to.

I've wanted to tell you for a while, but I never knew how. I guess I'm glad I walked in here for one reason. It finally pushed me to tell you how I feel.

I'm, ah, I'm really sorry if this is goodbye."

The message cut off abruptly at that point.

You could feel your heart pounding as if it were trying to escape your chest.

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize it sounded so sad." You smiled, though your eyes were watery. "I mean, I guess it makes sense since I thought you would only hear it if I died." You continued rambling, eyes looking anywhere but at Derek.

"Y/N?" He prevented you from muttering any other embarrassing words.

"Yeah?" You winced, trying to prepare yourself for his rejection.

"I love you too."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said any-" You abruptly stopped, the words you heard finally catching up with your brain.

"You- you love me too?" You whispered, eyes finally meeting his.

"I do." His smile was wider than you've ever seen, and so, so pure.

"Oh." Your mind was having a hard time comprehending the gravity of what just happened. Luckily for you, Derek knew exactly what was going on when he leaned in to kiss you.

It took a second for your body to respond, but as soon as it did you could feel the butterflies swarming in your stomach.

Despite how new it was, everything felt right in the world when you were kissing Derek Morgan.

He only pulled back when you gently pushed him away, a wide smile on your face as you sucked in deep breaths of air. The two of you stared at each other lovingly, just enjoying the presence of one another.

The sound of a throat clearing coming from the doorway shocked you out of your trance. Reid stood leaning against the doorframe, a smirk on his face. He uttered one word, perfectly encapsulating your own feelings on the situation.

"Finally."

permanent taglist:

@averyhotchner @jesuswasnotawhiteman @madewithsebstan @sebastnstn

Criminal Minds tag list:

@mac99martin @goldeng1rl8 @measure-in-pain

#derek morgan x reader #derek morgan x you #derek morgan x y/n #derek morgan #derek morgan fic #criminal minds fic #derek morgan fluff #derek morgan one shot #derek morgan angst

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E131 (March 30, 2021)

Tonight’s guests are Liam O’Brien and Sam Riegel!

Brian points out that a lot of Caleb’s greatest fears have come to pass. Liam: “It’s funny, because he’d kind of believed for a while that those things weren’t going to happen. After a while, he got complacent.” He notes that it was extra wild because everything with Trent popped up again in the midst of that complacency. And how did it feel to be defiant toward Trent? “I think Trent successfully made Caleb question if Caleb really was in control“ at the dinner party. “I feel like anything that I do is part of his plans for me, or is that just gaslighting? I’m legitimately scared of that dude.” Sam: “Of Matt?” Liam: “Sure.” He highlights the disconnect between knowing that the M9 is mechanically powerful and could possibly defeat Trent in a dice-and-stats battle, versus fearing him in a story sense and being convinced he can do almost anything.

Sam, on Luc’s death: “That was brutal, man. Matt Mercer is a-- he hates children! Clearly. He actively sought to kill a child in the campaign in as brutal a way as possible. He hates children and wants them dead. Canon. No, but to RP, that was horrible.” He highlights that so much of Veth’s arc has been about trying to get back to her family. “We had to choose something and we thought we were making the right choice. It was all Veth’s fault, and it was pretty rotten. My heart was beating pretty fast, and I certainly didn’t want to have my son die live on the stream. I don’t know what Veth would have done. That’s the end, that’s over. It’s almost worse than when your own character would die. This is something that would also kill Veth.” After the episode was over: “just shaken. I also didn’t know what to do next! That felt like a turning-point moment for my character, weirdly so close to what we assume to be the end arc of this campaign. I texted Matt later that night and was like, that’s it, Veth’s out, I’m tapping out.”

There’s an interlude in which Sam discovers a new dream to record an episode of this show from his Peloton. Dani informs him that she will not be inviting him back.

On Astrid, Liam: “I literally don’t know what she’s doing. I know that she’s dangerous, she always was ambitious, and there’s not been a moment where Caleb let his guard down with her. He’s not trying to reestablish what they had. He cares for the both of them, for Astrid and Eodwulf. He thinks about it a lot, still. He can’t tell how much she buys into everything that she experienced and is now living as a full-grown adult. He suspects that she’s bought in and is not going to change things, because she believes in the system, as much as he’d like to peel her away. He does believe that they want what’s best for the Empire, and stopping whatever wants to come vomiting out of a hole in the frozen north is good for everyone. And they’re powerful. They’re not trustworthy, obviously. But there’s enough at stake to make it worth it. He could imagine a situation where they fight each other to the death.” He was convinced Astrid was going to stop them when they left the tower and was really shocked when she held back. Sam: “Not me! I’ve trusted Astrid since day one. She’s the greatest! I sent a letter to her, she’s very nice, I think you guys would be a nice couple. I believe every word she says.”

On having to decide on Veth deciding to go off and save the world after Luc’s death. “Like I said, I was ready to be done. And then I decided somewhere in there that that’s not very D&D. So I thought I’d leave it up to somebody else, so I asked Caduceus to decide for me, essentially. She knows she’s putting her other family in danger if she doesn’t go. It’s an impossible choice, you know?” Liam: “I love watching you grapple with it, because you’re a lovely father and love your kids.”

On the Sanatorium, Sam: “That was brutal, man. Matt lulls you into a sense of complacency. We’d forgotten that Caleb was a stone-cold killer! It had been a while since he went on a murder spree. Still got it!” Liam: “I never meant for this character to be perfect sunshine.” Brian: “You don’t say.” Liam: “He’s very not-perfect, and I think in his brain, he was going in with the impression that they needed to get in and get out as soon as possible. The place is crawling with people with magic ability, and I didn’t have faith that we wouldn’t be sussed out or something wasn’t going to blow an illusion.” Everything was about getting out of there as fast as possible.

Did the conversation with Yeza help with Veth’s decision? “First of all, every conversation with Yeza is a beautiful one. Every time she talks to Yeza, it makes her feel good. In some ways, she’s gotten to the point now where she knows Yeza’s going to be supportive, she knows he’s going to allow her to do what she wants, but maybe that’s too much. Maybe she needs to not listen to him, basically, and be like, no, you need to be selfish now, dude, you need to say ‘come home, I’m sick of you leaving’. At a certain point, being supportive can turn into being enabling.”

Cosplay of the Week: Jester in the snow! (liljerbear47, photography by kairiceleste on Instagram)

On Trent’s motivations for chasing Caleb: “I really don’t know. The simplest explanation is to just hammer down the nail that’s sticking up. It has crossed his mind that all high-level wizards are in danger of their own ambition and egos, so it’s occurred to him that Trent might have the same kind of ideas that Halas had in the past, and maybe Caleb was always meant to be another body to jump into. Maybe in some sick, disgusting, twisted way, he wants him to be his successor. I am thinking of the next campaign, without getting too deep in, trying to do something that is much more ride-along. Caleb is very, very specific, and I thought long and hard about all the different pieces on the chessboard for him. For campaign three, I’m looking forward to seeing what happens.”

Dani: “Do I need to be keeping lore on your fucking ads?”

On the cursed dagger: “It was a tricky one, because in campaign one, one of the characters was under the influence of a cursed weapon, but it interacted with him and he knew what it was and what it did. And it affected his gameplay as a character. For me, Veth didn’t know what it was, ever. I as a player knew what it was doing, but Veth didn’t know at all. So it was kind of like my dirty, dark secret for many months. I knew this thing was coming perilously close to killing me, but my character didn’t know enough to bring it up to her friends. Nobody ever asked! So I was like, well, I guess this thing’s just going to kill me one day, and it’s kind of going to be a surprise.” Liam: “Sam, you love danger and self-destruction so much, you might as well be Mollymauk.”

On the fight in Yasha’s sequence, Sam: “You gotta put a character in your storm giant creature. It was so fun! It was so great of Matt to involve us in this encounter. It would’ve been fun just to watch, because Matt would have made it amazing and Ashley was sweating bullets, which is always fun to watch.” Sam notes he felt guilty, but Liam was going for the kill. Liam: “Matt’s gotta be careful about giving me that kind of story beat. I do not fucking care, I just fucking flip, I’m like, well, I’m going to destroy you, and I have no qualms about it. It’s too much fun!”

The Beau/Yasha tower date was in part inspired by not being able to give gifts as easily this last year. “This thing that we do together is a gift, but I love finding these moments, like the book for Jester and the tower for Yasha and for Beau. I really just wanted to give both of them a little magic for a night. I wanted them to leave this-- we’re trying to be as entertaining as possible, but shit is having an effect on all of us too, and I wanted them to have an escape, a great place to escape to.”

Fan Art of the Week: an amazing group shot, plus Marion, Yeza, and Luc! (vocaz on Twitter)

On choosing Essek over Trent, Liam: “It would have been so interesting and awful and great! Essek and Astrid and Eodwulf are everything that Bren used to be attracted to that are terrible for him. Essek, hopefully he can with time find a way out of the hole that he dug himself into, but it was only two months ago where he was found out and his ambitions came crashing down around him. Long-term, I have high hopes for him, but I think it’s going to be hard.” In contrast, Astrid and Eodwulf are still “deep in the shit. It would have been really hard to navigate, but fun to play at the table. We made the right choice with what we went with. Essek’s just getting started, and Caleb doesn’t trust him entirely, because he was burned so hard not too long ago. He’s still more trustworthy than the other three. So it’s the better choice. While Caleb has all these ties on the other side, they’re really fucking dangerous. So if you have to choose, you choose Essek. But fuck that die.” Sam: “Veth, much like Sam Riegel, makes instant decisions about whether to trust someone or not and sticks to it forever. Astrid, 100% trust. Eodwulf, 100% distrust. Essek, completely distrust. I still don’t think he’s a good guy. Ikithon? Trust. 100%. Because you know where he’s coming forward, you know what he wants. I still want him dead, but I trust him.”

On Veth’s post-adventuring plans: “Veth is probably still too in it right now to think about what comes next. I, Sam Riegel, have a good idea of what I want Veth to do post-campaign.” Brian: “Maybe you shouldn’t tell us. Save it for the show!” Sam: “All she knows is she can’t do this anymore. It’s very unhealthy to be battle-wounded every other day. It’s fun for a while, but college has to end at some point, and she’s gotta go home.”

On Frumpkin changing appearance and returning to the Feywild: “I don’t know what I’m going to do, but the way it feels now for Caleb is that he feels too enmeshed in everything that has happened, and too much good has happened, and too much needs to happened, that that really narcissistic, selfish goal has the risk of harming everything else, which is more important. And that’s how he looks at it now. So he’s gearing towards letting everything from the beginning of the campaign, and where he started, go, and trying to figure out what use he’s going to be now and what he’s going to do if they’re not all dead. If Matt throws that shit down, I don’t know what I will do, I think about it a lot. But turning Frumpkin white and saying you’re free either way is him preparing to let go of everything he’s been holding on to for a really long time. He’s addicted to that idea that he can fix himself, and we’ll see if that hard choice gets presented, what he might do. But where he stands now, he doesn’t think that’s going to be reality, and he sees a way that he can be of use that he never really anticipated before, so he’s slowly shifting gears towards living with the pain he was trying to remove.”

On the last request scene and confidence heading into Aeor, Sam: “I feel like that’s a good request. I think all of us realized that if we die, that probably bodes badly for the world. I feel like all of us are at a point now as characters and as friends, that the first order of business would be to take care of everybody else’s shit, although we probably have different ideas of how to do that.” Liam: “I want the Empire to be healed, Caleb has all these memories of his parents and what they wanted for the world, and he wants that too. It’s clearly not in place now, the system needs to be broken and replaced. That could be a part of Caleb’s sunset. I don’t want Caleb to die, so maybe he can work on that after. As everything starts to shake out and we start heading towards our destiny, Caleb’s just free-floating. He’s not even going after the same thing he started for. So he’s looking at Veth’s family, and Luc specifically, and seeing that’s me, that’s a little boy in the Empire.”

#critical role #critical role spoilers #talks machina #talks machina spoilers #long text post

[itstimetotheorize]

Shadowmoths victory, Marinette and Adriens breaking point, the miraculous teams desperate efforts (warning, spoilers for season 4 finale)

Ever since the series began, Marinette had always been considered to be one person who would be the most difficult for hawkmoth to manipulate. And while Marinette has had some close calls such as in  “Zombizou”, “Chameleon” and “Ladybug”, Marinette had always  succeeded in avoiding being akumatized, be it through sheer will power alone or just plain luck such as when Nathalie lost her grip on all the akumatized civilians, including Marinette!. 

However, ever since  the episode “chat blanc” had revealed to us just what it would take to akumatize chat noir , many of us had  since begun to wonder what it would take to finally akumatize Marinette?

Marinettes akumatization had always been foreshadowed in previous seasons, especially season 3. Out of all the foreshadowing the show could have ever provided for a number of things, it was almost as if the show was always hinting towards some extreme event should Marinette ever fall prey to hawkmoths manipulation. An event so shocking it would even rival the time chat blanc had destroyed all of Paris. As to what this event would be and how it would come to fruition, well…that all depended on what would happen to hawkmoth and ladybug.

In terms of  hawkmoth, well, hawkmoth had always stated how despite his ongoing defeat, he knew  ladybugs winning streak could not last forever, sooner or later her luck would run out and when it did, she would make a mistake that would finally guaranty his victory. The only question was...how exactly was ladybug(aka Marinette) going to screw up? what would have happened to her that would cause her to lose the cautiousness which has helped her overcome every obstacle thrown her way?. When it comes to Marinette and her battles against hawkmoth, Marinette had always thought things through, she had always remained cautious, calm, collected and above all...she learned not to let her emotions get the better of her so long as hawkmoth was watching and waiting....then again... If Marinette were truly ever to be akumatized, something needed to happen within the show which would lead her to throw all logic she had out the window....but what?...perhaps Zag studios had already provided us with an answer.

Early in July 2021, Zag studios had revealed something NO ONE believed they would have ever considered making public at such an early stage within the release of season 4, what was it exactly? well....it was the title and synopsis for the season 4 finale! 

According to this news, the season 4 finale had been revealed to be titled, “Shadow moths last attack”!....this... was a big deal! because ever since “Timetagger” revealed to us that Gabriel Agreste would Not be the hawk moth of the future, many wondered when exactly  Gabriels time as the villain of the series would come to an end. Well, after years of waiting, it would appear as though shadow moths time WILL come to an end... in season 4!.

But aside from revealing shadowmoths possible last season, Zag had also coincidentally revealed in an interview one very important, but not all to surprising plot point of the series. Before his inevitable demise... shadowmoth will first obtain what he had worked so hard to take...ladybug and chat noirs miraculous! 

However, despite hawkmoths inevitable victory before his final defeat, its clear something of great importance needed to happen to Marinette in order to guarantee hawkmoth obtaining the miraculous of creation….but what? What needed to happen?

Looking back at all the times shadowmoth had attempted to steal ladybug and chat noirs miraculous, shadow moth had only ever akumatized every person he could get his hands on in order to obtain the help he needed to accomplish his goal.... and yet time and time again, every person he had come across would fail him, but why?...well, maybe it was always because they were never the right person for the job... maybe what hawkmoth always needed was someone who would be considered his greatest “masterpiece”...and as we have seen throughout the series, that someone...was always Marinette!

but even if hawkmoth realizes he must obtain someone like Marinette in order to accomplish his goal, how would he even go about finally akumatizing her?... well...isn't it obvious...shadowmoth never needed to wait for her to fall into emotional destress, because all he needed to do was use the one person who he knew could push anyone to far... or quite simply, cause a situation which would purposely  force large groups of people to be akumatized at the same time. Who is this person exactly? well... we all know the answer to that....its Lila Ross of course!!

Despite Lilas lack of participation within season 4, many understood she couldn't stay quiet forever, after all, Lila had always been presented as someone who was more than willing to take part in some sort of major evil event within the series, such as the season 1 finale, the season 2 finale and even the season 3 finale!!. And based on zag studios reveal of the season 4 finale description, it would appear as though Lila will once again have her part to play. Looking at the season 4 synopsis, its said:

“Having understood that her cautiousness is the reason why Ladybug is always triumphing, Shadow Moth prepares a diabolic plan which consists of creating a supervillain able to make his victims take all sorts of risks. When Marinette finds out that Adrien is leaving Paris for a few weeks with Lila, the new figure of the Agreste brand, she’s ready to do anything to prevent him from doing so; but to what point? Would she reveal her secret identity for the sake of love? And would Adrien take the risk of finally confronting his father?”

Now, despite Marinette having been displayed as someone who was willing to take risks for the wrong reasons in the past, Marinette has also been shown to improve in taking risks for the right reasons over the span of the series (such as entrusting Alya with her secret identity). However!...keep in mind we don't yet know for sure if Marinette will be the one akumatized within the season 4 finale until the studio reveals the official season 4 finale trailer. But if Marinette is truly planned to be akumatized, then its possible the studio may have already revealed to us what we had suspected all along. Just as in “ladybug”, Lila will once again be used by hawkmoth in order to attempt to akumatize the “bad influence” she claims to be following Adrien, the bad influence being of course, Marinette herself! However, considering Lilas agreement with Adrien to not hurt the people he cares about (after pulling a stunt on Marinette which caused her to get expelled) its clear Gabriel will have to devise a scheme which will place Lila in a situation where she will finally force Marinette to reach her breaking point and make her take every risk she can as she watches Lila being given the chance  to leave on a trip with Adrien! 

And considering the great lengths Marinette went through just to warn Adrien of Lila back in “Oni- chan”, who knows what kind of lengths Marinette will go through to stop Lila and Adrien from leaving together. Should this occur, its possible Marinette will begin to lose her sense of self and toss all logic she has out the window as she uses everything and I mean EVERYTHING she has at her disposal to accomplish her goal...this includes her powers as ladybug! 

It wouldn't be the first time Marinette had used her powers for selfish reasons. After all, the only reason the events of “chat blanc” occurred in the first place, was because Marinette decided to use her powers to enter Adriens room in order to leave her signed gift. This single act alone was what ultimately lead Adrien to discover that ladybug is Marinette. So then...  if Marinette were to once again use her powers for the sake of love, would her actions once again result in the one mistake she always knew would lead to disaster? would her misguided attempts.... reveal her identity to shadowmoth himself?!...maybe

If Marinettes desperate attempts really result in her identity being revealed to shadowmoth then would her frustration over Lila, piled on top of everything else she is dealing with as ladybug and guardian, finally seal her fate of being akumatized?!...perhaps....but even if Marinette were to finally be akumatized and even if hawkmoth were to finally obtain his chance to take the miraculous of creation, how would he then obtain the miraculous of destruction from Adrien?...well...lets just say Gabriel might have already had his suspicions from the very beginning, after all, aside from Marinettes akumatization being for shadowed within every season thus far, the only other major for shadowing which followed parallel to Marinette was Gabriels growing suspicion towards Adrien and the ring he had on his finger! However, even if Gabriel continues to grow suspicious towards Adrien, what could possibly happen between the two off them that will finally reveal to Gabriel his sons secrets?...unless...what if Gabriel reveals his secrets to Adrien first?...

Gabriel had always stated how much he wished he could have told Adrien about his mothers true condition and whereabouts. That despite all the cruel things he had done up to now, it was all for the sake of bringing his mother back. When Adrien had discovered hawkmoths identity and the true reason behind his actions back in “chat blanc”, we see how despite chat noirs loyalty to ladybug and despite him wanting to carry out his responsibility as a hero by stopping hawkmoth, Adrien still struggled with  the thought of being given the chance to be reunited with his own mother, even at the cost of ladybug and his miraculous! 

The frustration of his fathers true identity, the realization about his mother having never disappeared and hawkmoths words swaying him with the idea that he could have his mom back was what gave shadowmoth the chance he needed to finally take chat noirs mind and force him to be akumatized! However, keep in mind, all these events happened in a separate timeline which was later fixed through Bunnyx powers and ladybugs quick thinking to erase her name on her signed gift to Adrien. The events of “chat blanc” were sealed to never happen again so hawkmoth would never find out Adriens true identity as chat noir...but if hawkmoth were to truly obtain the miraculous of destruction then... wouldn't Adrien first give him the chance to take it all over again!?

Fans had always feared the return of chat blanc within the series, especially after seeing chat noirs growing frustration over ladybug throughout the span of season 4.

If Adrien were to discover all over again hawkmoths identity and his mother whereabouts near the end of season 4, would Adrien once again give shadowmoth the chance he needs to once again akumatize him?!...along with Marinette?! or would Adriens confusion and distress lead him to once again become vulnerable enough to make a mistake which would reveal to Gabriel what he had suspected all along... his own son.... has a miraculous! but not just any  miraculous, the miraculous of destruction he’s been fighting for!

However!, despite hawkmoth being fated to finally obtain both miraculous, there is still something even hawkmoth himself has yet to realize... something he never bothered to consider as he became blindsided with his thoughts of victory... his wish.... CAN be granted... but its comes with a PRICE!....Its just as Master Fu said, whoever wields the ladybug and cat miraculous will be given the chance to make a wish that can alter reality itself. However!, because the universe needs to maintain a balance when a wish is made, something of equal effect must happen in return. Despite Gabriels plan to use the miraculous to fix a past mistake and finally restore his wife to her former self, Gabriel might have never realized once his wish is granted, something bad will happen in return! as to what this disastrous result would be... well, your guess is as good as mine. If hawkmoth tried to just revive his wife then perhaps someone else might be forced to take her place. But if Gabriel were to go to the extreme and actually change a past event which lead his wife to be in the state she is in now, then this alone could prove to have major consequences. Its just as Bunnyx said, messing with time is dangerous, and if your not careful it could have dire consequences in the future.

 But regardless of what will happen, one thing is for certain, the end result of Gabriels wish.... will be catastrophic! and may quite possibly be to much for ladybug and chat noir to solve even if they do manage to get their miraculous back!

so, this does beg the question, should hawkmoth obtain the miraculous of destruction and creation after akumatizing Marinette and quite possibly even Adrien then later cause a catastrophic event upon seeing his wish be granted...what could possibly happen within the series to solve this mess?!... well, keep in mind, ladybug already planned ahead, after all, she and chat noir are no longer the only superheroes in Paris. Even if she and chat noir were to be defeated by hawkmoth, there is still one person hiding in the shadows, ready to take action and ready to gather all the heroes of the miraculous team in order to face this challenge. Who is this miraculous person waiting to take action should the day arrive? why...its Alya of course!

Ever since Alya had been entrusted by Marinette to act as a temporary replacement to ladybug( should anything ever happen to her) many understood it would only be a matter of time before Alya had to take charge and gather the rest of the miraculous team in order to fight the two people anyone would dread facing in battle, ladybug and chat noir!. But how would Alya even begin to figure out the proper way to handle this kind of situation even with the aid of the other miraculous heroes?, Alya only ever understood ladybugs side of things now that she knew her secret identity, but how could she possibly help chat noir when she doesn't even know who he is!....then again....she doesn't have to struggle with figuring out who chat noir is...because Luka already knows both ladybug and chat noirs identities!

We always theorized ladybug and chat noirs identities would one day be revealed to someone close to them, granted, since season 4 is still ongoing we don't yet know if Adrien will bring himself to reveal his own identity to Nino just as Marinette revealed her identity to Alya at the start of the season. But, ever since the events of “Wishmaker” revealed to Luka the identities of ladybug and chat noir, fans had wondered why Luka of all people would be set up to discover both of their identities without either of their consent?, well, after much debate, the answer may have been obvious all along... unlike the other miraculous heroes, he and one other miraculous holder carry with them a power  which will serve of great importance should Alya and the others be forced to face ladybug, chat noir and hawkmoth all at the same time. Considering the unimaginable challenge which is to be faced near the end of season 4, then its possible Luka was always one person who needed to know ladybug and chat noirs identities should he ever give the team a winning chance! 

If what we suspect is true and if  Alya and the others are meant to face their leaders in a fight, its obvious this fight alone... will be doomed to be plagued with errors and failures!, after all, this is ladybug and chat noir we are talking about, the miraculous team doesn't stand a chance against this dynamic duo to begin with, but if Alya and the other heroes ever plan to succeed then they must have someone who will proved them with a “second chance”, no matter how many things go wrong! Lukas power alone can provide the team with as many chances needed in order to change everything which could result in failure! and  with luka having already known ladybug and chat noirs identities, he will waste no time in finding a way to save their friends rather than remain in shock and confusion over the outcome which will occur in the finale. But if this were to be the teams solution in saving ladybug and chat noir, then what will they then do about the mess hawkmoth leaves once his wish is granted?

 If his wish were to truly cause a catastrophic event, would Marinettes miraculous ladybug be able to fix it even if they managed to defeat shadowmoth? we’ve seen ladybugs power repair some extraordinary things, but could it repair the effects of the two most powerful miraculous being used together? Should ladybug try to repair this incredible damage and fail, then what would she and the others do next once they’ve all failed?....unless....what if this was never their mess to help fix, because if everyone fails, then maybe it will soon be time for ladybug to call upon the one miraculous holder who had been labeled as “the miraculous of last chance”....what is this miraculous?...why...the rabbit miraculous of course!

Fans had always been anticipating the return of Bunnyx, or rather, they have always been waiting to see when young Alix would finally have her chance to use the rabbit miraculous. But considering the dangers of the rabbit miraculous, many knew it would not be used until the day it was absolutely necessary... well... if the team were to continue struggling in saving ladybug and chat noir, then perhaps Alix will soon rise up to help figure out a way to not only save ladybug and chat noir, but also help find a way to repair the incredible damage which will be caused by hawkmoths wish...but what will she do?... will she travel to the past to alter something which will fix the present?... if so, what would she even change without causing another catastrophe?... or will she travel to the future and seek the aid of someone who she knows could help her and the team solve this terrifying crises?...but even if she did, who could she possibly bring back to the present?...would it be someone she already knew and trusted just as much as her future self talked about trusting herself?....someone like...the ladybug and chat noir of the future!?...maybe...but I guess we will just have to wait and see, for now thats just a theory... a miraculous ladybug theory!

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #MLB #miraculous ladybug season 4 #MLB season 4 #MLB S4 #ladybug and cat noir #ladybug and chat noir #ladybug #chat noir #cat noir #marinette dupan chang #adrien agreste #gabriel agreste #hawkmoth #shadow moth #alya cesaire #rena rouge #Nino lahiffe #carapace #luka couffaine #viperion #juleka couffaine #tigress pourpre #le chien kim #king monkey #pegasus #max kante #kagami tsurugi #ryuko

[c-is-for-circinate]

Post-ep 123 Reaction

Wow, y’all.  What a ride.

You know, I used to do these after every single CR episode.  Every single one, 2 AM, exhausted and dazed, trying to pour out smart thinky thoughts onto tumblr because I’d be so overflowing with ideas and feelings.

I haven’t so much, lately, and I think part of that is just the fact that I have not been enjoying this Aeor arc.  I’ve hated the traveling along with Lucien in a way that’s made it unpleasant to watch, instead of fun.  (For me, personally!  Many people have been enjoying the tension, and I know the players have been enjoying the tension, and that’s fine!  Yay for them!)  Some of the ancient ruins explorations, too, have gotten just a little too creepy-horror-game for sitting alone in my apartment at one in the morning.  I’ve had less to say.  I’ve wanted to say it less.

And that’s not true tonight.  I can’t remember the last time I got excited about a CR episode like I was tonight.  Oh, there’ve been bits and moments I loved all throughout, there always are, that’s why I’m still watching live even in an arc that hasn’t thrilled me, but I loved the whole episode today, all five and a half hours of it, and god that feels good.

So in celebration, some specific bullet points:

The start of the episode, the discovery of the eyes on Beau and Caleb.  The attempts at science.  The fear, and yet, also, the glimmers of...okay but what if we could use this?  (The moment in the second half, after the Tombtakers ran off, when Beau suggests going into her dreams to ask for help to find them--yes.  Yes.  I still don’t have a lot of interest in evil wizard plotlines when you doom yourself/the world/etc out of curiosity, but the willingness to dive into this terrifying thing that might change you, might break you, because you need what it can give you in order to save a thing you love (your friends, the world) more than you need to be whole or sane or even, necessarily, alive--that is my GOOD SHIT.)     

Guys, I just loved every single minute of that white dragon fight, okay?  It was such a mess.  It was such a mess!  And look, there’s a very specific kind of frenetic energy that the table gets when they find themselves in the middle of a terrifying boss battle, and there’s a different very specific kind of wild ‘this may as well happen’ energy they get when things go terribly wrong entirely due to random chance, and getting the compound of both of those things at once is always glorious.  Nobody is prepared for anything!  Everybody is freaking out!  There’s good reason to suspect that, even if someone dies a bit, everyone’s going to make it out alive, but shit’s wild in the middle there and it’s just such a joy to watch.     

Likewise, I know that final fight was really stressful for both the cast and a lot of viewers, but honestly in so many ways I watched it feeling so much less stressed than the past few weeks have made me?  Yes, it was a horrible, horrible fight, the team in so far over their heads, so low on sleep and spells and any resources at all.  But, god, thank god, at least it was finally over.  There’s no going back to fake amity with the Tombtakers after this, no more playing along and trying to plot treason while the person you’re plotting against is probably hearing every word.  Enemies can be faced!  They can be fought, or fled, or defeated, they can be destroyed or put off for another day, but at least nobody’s pretending any more while trapped in wary uncertain fear of their own houseguests.  At least now it’s done.     

The fucking Iron Shepherds parallels.  Just.  Yes. I have hated the trapped feelings of traveling alongside Lucien and his crew, but the Iron Shepherds parallels are, while stab-me-in-the-heart painful, so fucking good.  The very best moments with Lucien have been the ones that mimic Mollymauk, not even because they bring hope that Molly could come back to us someday (although that’s there, that faint shimmering thread), but because it is always the best, worst, most glorious twist of irony. Molly died trying to save his friends, saving his friends, from the violence of a monster who was so very like him in all the ways he was terrified to know.  Lorenzo and his ragtag group of multiclassed minions, full of loyalty, arrogance, unexpected powers, here to torture and enslave.  The Nein have more power now, a little more negotiated control, they are different--but so much of it is just window-dressing as they’ve been dragged along on this pell-mell journey against their will, told when to walk and when to sleep, headed towards a place they would’ve gone anyway at the behest of someone they really do not give a shit about any more.  It’s so much the same. And the thing that is beautiful, and the thing that I love, the one thing for which I do love Lucien, is just--god, the irony.  The irony!  Because it’s not just that Lucien is like Lorenzo, that Molly turns out to be like the man that killed him after all; it’s not just Lucien, all unknowing, rebuilding old grudges and replaying old scenes without even knowing them.  It’s the fact that Molly’s death is the only reason this can happen in the first place. Mollymauk Tealeaf, murdered and buried, wanting only to protect his teammates from a megalomaniacal killer--sacrificing himself on a hope and a chance that maybe, maybe, he and his friends could all survive, and they’d all be fucked anyway if he didn’t--he died to do it.  And it worked.  They were safe, for a little while, for long enough to rescue Jester and Yasha and Fjord.  Long enough to keep going, to leave part of the world better than they found it, to canonize him in his own way.  Except now here they are again, worse and deeper into the same shit than ever before, and it never could have been like this if Molly had survived.  He derailed Lorenzo long enough to save them then, and created the forward path for the Lucien they’re facing now. It’s terrible.  It’s beautiful.  And that’s some damn good storytelling.

The start of the next episode is going to be very very hard for the Nein!  In so many ways, they’re back exactly where they were episodes ago when they first started traveling with Lucien’s crew to begin with: one threshhold crest in their possession, beat to hell and almost entirely out of spells, exhausted, in desperate need of a long rest, with a probably-pursuing enemy that doesn’t seem inclined to let them have one.  It’s as untenable now as it was then.

They have so much more knowledge now (was it worth it?).  They have their own connection to the city now (will it cost them more than they’ve gained?).  Maybe they have a direction.  Probably they’ve got options.  They’ve got an angel, an owl, a wooly mammoth, and a destination.  Maybe, if they’re very fast and very lucky, maybe, if Caleb uses a teleport spell or they somehow manage to navigate through the snow in their exhaustion with all their luck, they’ll make it to Essek in time to collapse almost safely.  They’ve needed backup so badly.  They’ve needed someone, anyone, to keep them safe for just a few hours so they can plan, and think, and sleep.

And they’ve been so busy trying to play nice, giving in to their fear, trying to avoid the fight they just dove into (with half the team exhausted and half their spell slots gone!), that they haven’t let themselves go and get those things.  And now they’re out the other side of that fight.  Now they know, just a bit more, what Lucien and his team are made of.

Now they can finally, maybe, maybe, start finding ways to take back their own control instead of keeling over with the fear.  I hope.  I hope, I hope, I hope.

#cr spoilers #episode 123 #critical role

[lalaith217]

This is something a little different from what I usually post, but 2x13 is one of my favorite episodes and I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this one. It's a sort of "She thinks, he thinks"-type of thing and it's pretty long, but I hope you enjoy.

Waking up

When Chloe wakes up, she feels his presence in the room before she even opens her eyes. It doesn't surprise her that he's here though, she's actually been waiting for him for a couple of hours now, wondering when he'd show up. The nurses told her that there had been "complications" and, ever the realist, she had known they had been downplaying the severity of her situation. She had seen what the professor's poison had done to the first victim and as soon as her nose had started bleeding, fear had overcome her. But now, she felt okay, still a little weak, but fine. The nap she had just woken up from had helped. And him sitting at her bedside helps too.

"Well. Look who's back. You didn't die after all. That makes one of us."

She opens her eyes and a smile plays on her lips. He's making even less sense than usual, but she doesn't really care right now. She is happy he's here, at her side, and that whatever he did to save her has worked. Does she really need to know what it was? There is time for that later, he'll probably tell her in excruciating detail anyway. And then, they'll talk about what she really wants to talk about right now. Them.

"I heard you saved me."

She puts her hand on his hands, both of them by her side as if he had been praying (which is ridiculous, she knows). She isn't sure, but, for a moment, she thinks he wants to pull back, looking down at both their hands. But he doesn't and his skin feels warm and for a brief moment, her mind flashes back to their dinner in his penthouse. She had taken his hand then, too, and he had looked at her almost the same way: a mix of surprise, disbelief and, most of all, warmth. This time however, a fourth feeling creeps in his eyes that she can't quite place. It is not a good feeling however.

"Well... much as I'd like to take all the credit, this one was a... a team effort."

She is a little surprised he doesn't want all the glory for this one, but a part of her tells her that this one hit way too close to home for him to be making jokes. She remembers his face when her nosebleed wouldn't stop and when she showed him the puncture mark that the professor's needle had left. He hadn't made any jokes then and when Lucifer stopped making comments and jokes, things were as serious as they got.

"You look heaven sent."

The last time he talked to her before things got worse, he looked more worried than she had ever seen him. He put up a front, fighting with Dan over bringing her to the hospital (which she explicitly asked him not to do), but she knew her partner. And she knew things were getting worse by the minute. When she had collapsed at that party, she had known that maybe her reluctance to go the hospital was not the best way of dealing with things. But when she saw Lucifer all worried in that hospital room, she knew things were going seriously wrong.

Still, she refused to give up and was more worried about what Trixie would think. As Lucifer always told the truth, she asked him if her being strapped to this hospital bed, tubes going in and coming out of her, would scare Trixie. He answered in his typical Lucifer fashion, making a quip, she thought, but they way he looked at her, she somehow knew he was not making a joke. Her heart skipped a beat, but the moment passed and Lucifer left. She didn't see him again, even when she was seizing, and she missed him. If things were as bad as they seemed, why wasn't he by her side? But she knew he was doing everything in his power to save her. And he had.

It had taken her a while to come to terms with her feelings for him. A few weeks, hell, even a few days ago, she had been sure that they were not going to work. They were just too different, she had thought, well, she still believes that they are very different people. But when he had sent her away and saved those college kids, she had realized that, despite that all being true, despite everything, the thought of him hurt, the thought of him not being around annoying her every day, had scared her more than she had have ever thought.

And then he had just walked down the steps as if nothing had happened, a smug smile on his handsome face, and she couldn't believe he didn't even have a scratch. But more importantly she had realized that she couldn't fight what she was feeling for him anymore. Nor did she want to. On instinct, she had hugged him tight, and, with hesitation, he had hugged her back. She suspected that Lucifer didn't have much experience with physical contact that wasn't sexual, so she didn't take his hesitation personally. How could she when the look in his eyes, full of wonder and adoration, told her everything that she needed to know in this moment. They were real, that's what she knew and damn, she wouldn't let stupid poison come between them.

"You know, this whole poisoning thing has just... really put a pause on everything that's been going on with you and I, so... should we just pick up where we left off?"

The words came out of her mouth before she could actually really think them through. She fears for a moment they might be too straightforward and he might get overwhelmed, but she is still holding his hand, his thumb drawing lazy circles on her skin and he is still looking at her with those deep brown eyes, and she just doesn't feel like holding back anymore. She has been fighting her feelings for quite some time now and she doesn't want to do it anymore.

"I think, right now, you just need to focus on feeling better, Detective."

He has let go of her hand and moves to stand up. She is surprised he is leaving right now, but she must look worse than she thought. And maybe he just needs to process. And as he said, he just wants her to get better and she can't really sleep while he's here, can she? Although... No, they have all the time in the world once she feels better. They'll figure everything out. Together.

"Would you have someone bring Trixie in?"

"Yes. Yes, of course."

He moves away from her now and she feels that so much is left unsaid. This is clearly not the time though, at least for him. But she needs to tell him, one more time, in her way, that she wants this, that she wants him. Ever since they kissed on the beach she has been struggling to tell him, in her own dorky way, how she wants this, how she wants him.

"And we'll talk. We'll talk later, yeah?"

He doesn't answer. His mouth opens, but words don't come out. She wonders why he's not really responding to her question, but maybe he just needs time to process. She still needs time to process and she is much, much better with the "touchy-feely stuff" than him. Not that that is any kind of challenge. She remembers, how he reacted the first time she told him she could be vulnerable around him. What had been intended as a way of telling him how she felt, had resulted in him acting even stranger than usual, touching her back and asking all kinds of strange questions.

She looks after him when he leaves her hospital room. She is smiling and for the first time in a while she feels better. They'll talk and figure this out, she knows they will. No more denial, no more interruptions.

**********************************

When she finally opens her eyes, his heart does a somersault. Only a few hours ago he didn't even know if she would make it and now she is looking at him with those big grey-blue eyes of hers as if nothing had happened, as if she hadn't been close to... He can't even think about it anymore. Can't think about what losing her would mean.

"Well. Look who's back. You didn't die after all. That makes one of us."

Watching her sleep, he had had time to think about what he had done. For her. Ever since he had left hell, he had been sure of one thing: he wouldn't go back to that place, not in a million years. And yet he had gone back. For her. And he would do it again. And again. But she would never know, could never know.

"I heard you saved me."

She has put her hand on both of his and, for a moment, he thinks about pulling away from her. It feels wrong for her to be touching him like this, when he knows everything she is feeling for him is a lie, a manipulation. But her hand on his feels soft and the way she looks at him now makes him feel all sorts of things. Things that he has never felt before. Things that made him go to hell for her. Literally.

"Well... much as I'd like to take all the credit, this one was a... a team effort."

Always the truth, that was what he tried to live by. Without Amenadiel, Linda, Maze and most of all his mom, he wouldn't have made it out of that place. The memory of Uriel haunts him, the way he plunged the knife into his gut, again and again. The guilt of killing his own brother kept him in his own personal hell. Only when his mom had come and reminded him of why he was down there, her, he had come to his senses.

"Chloe."

Hearing her name down there had snapped him out of his daze. The memory of her lying in that hospital bed, dying of some poison, and him being the only one who could save her, had brought him back to reality. He had to save her, his partner, his detective. There was nothing he wouldn't do to save her life.

When he had gone to her house to confront her about... nevermind... to talk to her, and saw her nose-bleed, he was terrified. They had seen what the poison had done to the student at Malibu State and the professor had just killed himself, with the recipe for the antidote in his head of course. Driving her to the next hospital was his first instinct, but when she refused to go and reminded him of how the hospital hadn't helped any of the other victims, he turned around and promised to do things her way. Sometimes she was as stubborn as she accused him of being and the annoying part was that she was usually right.

This time however, not even her refusal to give in could stop the effects of the poison on her. He was mildly surprised when she held onto his arm going down the stairs at that rich douchebag's party, usually refusing any assistance, even in high heels, but then she collapsed at the bottom of the stairs. His heart sank remembering her unresponsive in his arms, fragile, vulnerable. This could not be happening to her, not now, not ever. He could not lose her like this, not after she had kissed him like that at the beach, not after she made him feel... everything he felt.

"You know, this whole poisoning thing has just... really put a pause on everything that's been going on with you and I, so... should we just pick up where we left off?"

He hasn't even realized that his thumb has been drawing lazy circles on her skin, warm against his. Lost in thought the detective's suggestion brings him back to here and now, back to reality. A reality in which his father has put the detective into his path. A reality in which all that he has been feeling for her, all that she has been feeling for him, is a manipulation, a cruel trick his father has played on them.

"I think, right now, you just need to focus on feeling better, Detective."

He lets go of her hand and stands up, wanting to break the connection that pulls him closer to her. She didn't have a choice. She doesn't have a choice. Her feelings are not real, he reminds himself, and neither are they. But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt and it doesn't mean he would rather stay here, with her, by her side, until she felt better. With her eyes always looking at her the way she does now, full of... emotions. Emotions that aren't real, but still emotions that she feels. And so does he.

"Would you have someone bring Trixie in?"

"Yes. Yes, of course."

Right, the urchin. Probably worried about her mother almost as much as he was. A visit from her will distract her. He has almost reached the door of her hospital room now. He'll be finally able to breathe again without her looking at him with those eyes. He will be able to remember that all of this is nothing but a bloody manipulation and not real.

"And we'll talk. We'll talk later, yeah?"

His heart does that stupid thing again when it skips a beat. She sounds so sincere and hopeful, he almost wants to turn around and kiss her senseless. He wants to tell her what that moment at Pasadena State meant to him, when she hugged him, just like that. When he could see in her eyes that she felt the same way as him. When he felt, for a few blissful hours, that they could make this work. That he... that they could be happy. He had felt invincible.

But he doesn't turn around and he doesn't tell her. He leaves her room without looking back. He has to leave, get out of here now, and he doesn't just mean out of this hospital room. How can he stay around her, when every time she looks at him, he feels like this. Feels the betrayal and the pain and... that other feeling he now pushes down, way down, as he walks along the hospital hallway, straight to the exit.

#deckerstar #Lucifer #lucifer rewatch #lucifer x chloe #Lucifer 2x13 #lucifer fanfiction

[twdmusicboxmystery]

TWD 11x06: On the Inside - Analysis

Okay, how did everyone like this episode? I loved it! It might be my favorite episode of the season so far. Partly because of all the horror movie vibes and jump scares. I thought that was delightful. And Lauren Ridloff did an amazing job. But more than that, it's because of all the symbolism and what I think this represents. Seriously, I think I might have like fifty-six theories come out of this one episode, LOL. Not brand-new theories, but just connecting symbols in a way I haven't before. For now, let's talk about the broad arcs here and what they mean.

***As always, spoilers abound below for 11x06. Don’t read until you’ve watched! You’ve been warned!***

Basically, we’re following two storylines in this episode. The first is Connie and Virgil. The second is Daryl, Leah, and the Reapers. I suppose you could call Kelly and Carol looking for Connie a third story line, but given that they're searching for Connie, it's really just a subplot of Connie's arc.

Connie and Virgil:

There are a lot of people saying that they might be setting Connie and Virgil up as romantic partners. I think that's probably the case, for a lot of reasons. They were very purposely put together in this house. After the episode, Angela Kang talked about how Virgil basically had to suppress part of his heart in order to get through the death of his family. That's why he seemed a little bit villainous when we first met him with Michonne.

Actually, we're seeing a major theme here that we've seen with other characters. Near the end of the episode, Virgil tells Connie, "I lost myself for a long time." It's very reminiscent of what Michonne said to Carl in 4x14. It's a theme we see where the character goes through some kind of trauma, and the aftermath of that trauma is very much a PTSD thing. They lose themselves to insanity for short time, but then someone is able to bring them back. We see this with many characters over the years. And this is something they're doing with Virgil. So this was Virgil kind of coming back to reality. Michonne gave him the chance to come back first, but he also says that her giving him that second chance led him to Connie and he sees that as Providence.

So basically, A.K. is saying that Virgil lost a big chunk of his heart when his family died, but he's rediscovering it here with Connie. And that's very important. I can't imagine them saying that, or him having this kind of arc, if there isn’t going to be a romance between them. Which, for the record, I think is cute. I totally ship it. (Totally objective over here. As always, of course. ;-))

But the big question is, what does this foreshadow? I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count.

I think this is a foreshadow of Beth and Daryl. I'm sure you're shocked to your toenails. I'll give you a moment to recover. Good? Okay.

A lot of us got Alone vibes from this episode. Just the two of them in house together. The undercurrent of possible romance between them. There's even a hug at one point.

Actually, the white, plantation style house with the white pillars immediately struck a cord with me. Back when they were filming the missing scenes from S5, they filmed in a house just like this one. it wasn’t the “white cabin” as we always refer to the house Emily was seen going into. But it was next door to that one and had a sign up about not mowing the lawn because it would be used for filming. 

I don’t know if this is actually the same house, but I’m willing to bet that this will end up having parallels to something we see when we finally get those missing scenes.

Once they get inside the house, we see Connie holding the door shut against walkers. It's very reminiscent of Daryl doing that at the funeral home in Alone.

The thing is, I don't even think callbacks to Alone are the big cheese. (For the record, we also saw them around Kelly, but I'll get to that in a minute.)

Because more than being a call back, this is a foreshadow. It represents some time in the future when Beth and Daryl will be together inside the CRM and trying to escape. Remember that “No Exit” sign in Beth’s cell?

We have a situation here where Connie and Virgil are trying to get out and there's literally no exit. All the doors are locked, they’re being trapped everywhere they go, they get separated. Even when Connie is in the wall, looking at Virgil, she wants to warn him of things, but she has no way to get into the room with him. There's literally no exit for her.

There are so many parallels to Beth and Daryl.

They emphasize the fact that Connie is lost. After getting out of the cave and walking around for walkers for so long, she clearly lost her bearings and doesn't know where she is or which way to go to get to Alexandria. It puts me in mind of the scene from 6x10, where Carl was talking to Judith and said if she was ever LOST and needed to find her way HOME, she should use the North Star. This is another way in which Connie is being paralleled to Beth. She's lost and needs to find her way home.

Virgil talks about wanting to get Connie HOME. To get her back to her family (which just so happens to be her sister). Of course there's the undercurrent of romance.

I also couldn't help but notice outlets throughout the episode. This house is very dilapidated and dirty. There's grime and rust and darkness everywhere. But we can very clearly see the outlets on the walls, as though they’re brand-new. I believe that's to draw our attention to them. Outlets suggest power, which suggests lamps or batteries.

Remember how I said that the whole battery theory is about resources and that it indicates the CRM? This is why I think this house represents the CRM. And I'm not at all saying that at some point, we’ll see Beth and Daryl running through a house together, as Connie and Virgil do here, trying to escape some threat. I think this represents a much bigger arc of them being inside the CRM and trying to get out. It will probably span a lot of episodes, maybe even multiple seasons.

At one point, we see a red coda pendant hanging in the window behind Virgil. Remember that, via the Matrix theory, red represents the outside world that TF is currently unaware of, and of course Coda suggests Beth. That’s a big part of the evidence for this template being a foreshadow of Beth and Daryl.

I’ll go over all the background details tomorrow, but pretty much every detail I found suggests what I've laid out here. I'm going to do completely separate post on the awake/asleep theme as well as the mailbox theme. That one stemmed from last week's episode (11x05), but I haven't gotten a chance to post it yet. And of course we saw the mailbox feature prominently in this episode as well.

We also have a situation where Virgil basically tells Connie to go on without him and that it’s very important to him that she gets home. And then he gets stabbed, and she not only saves him, but pulls him out of the house. We’ve always said that we think there will be a time when Beth will save Daryl. I think this is a foreshadow of it.

I think we'll have a situation (again, much bigger than what we see here in the single episode) where Daryl will be willing to sacrifice himself, his life, to get Beth back to Maggie. Of course she's not going to allow him to do that, but he'll probably be hurt very badly.

(And for the record, I think we've seen foreshadows of this and other arcs. Daryl getting hurt when fighting Alpha was probably a foreshadow of the same thing. I'm sure we could identify others.) I think he will be hurt and Beth will save him, and that will happen as they’re figuring out how to get out of the CRM.

To touch on Kelly’s side of things, we see her find a camp that Virgil and Connie had previously been at. She finds Connie’s stuff there, and the orange backpack that Virgil must have left behind. The thing that jumped out at me here is that, in the foreground, we saw ropes around the camp with cans attached as an alert system.

That was featured very prominently in Alone, both because Daryl set up something like that at the funeral home and also because the other half of that episode was about Maggie/Sasha/Bob and they did the same thing in their camp. So again, major callbacks to Alone, and to what this is probably foreshadowing.

But my favorite thing about this was connections that I made. Things that kind of confirm events we’ve suspected in 4B, but have never been able to prove. Let me explain.

First, there’s the reunion between Connie and Kelly. And this really jumped out at me. Not only because it's two sisters reuniting, but because of the way it was shown.

When approaching Connie, Kelly is crying and says, "I'm sorry." And that's out of character or out of place in any way. She’s sorry that for what happened to Connie and that it took them so long to find her. All that is completely understandable. But at the same time, Kelly has no reason to feel bad about what happened to Connie. It wasn't her fault, and she's been a dutiful sister looking for her intensively ever since.

But I think the “I'm sorry” will make a lot more sense if we hear Maggie saying it to Beth, given everything that's happened, and especially what happened in S5. I mean, Beth did get left behind.

The other thing is that when they see each other and then hug, the background music almost sounds angelic, like a choir. I mean, they really wanted this to be a big deal, the reunion between these two sisters. And not that the Kelly and Connie's reunion isn't a big deal. It's very sweet, but I feel like this a foreshadow something much bigger. And what other reunion between sisters could qualify for something like that except Maggie and Beth, who didn't get the reunion in season five?

We’ve always said that Connie was a proxy for Beth, and that the cave-in, followed by her being missing was a parallel to Beth’s arc. So, this arc ending in Connie finding someone she’ll eventually have a romance with and then finding her sister is makes me very hopeful for what we'll see when Beth returns.

I have to say that this is kind of a relief to me. Because of Daryl's line back in Still about how, "you ain't never going to see Maggie again," I’ve gone back and forth about whether Beth and Maggie will actually get a reunion. Yes, there are plenty of ways to explain away that line, and I don't disagree with any of them. But I’ve still been really back-and-forth about whether this is going to happen. After seeing Connie and Kelly really reunite, I have no doubt that eventually will see a Beth/Maggie reunion. Yay!

Next, is the fact that Virgil and Connie talk about how the people living in this house lured them into a trap.

This is talked about very much anymore, but was always but what happened in Alone was always so wonky to me. I know it was supposed to be, but the whole thing felt like it was orchestrated somehow. I mean, what happened to the dog? We hear barking, but we didn't actually see the dog again, because when Daryl open the door all the walkers were on the porch. But how did that many walkers get up to the porch without them hearing it?

When Beth and Daryl sat in the kitchen staring at each other, they heard the cans rattle and then at the dog bark. I think that the idea was that Daryl thought it was the dog moving the cans and that's why he was going to open the door and get it to come in. He didn't understand that there were walkers there. But why didn't they hear the walkers? More importantly, why would that many walkers go up to the door if they couldn't see any humans on the inside? It's completely weird behavior for walkers. And then when Beth leaves the house, she just happens to be picked up by a car?

Like I said, I just always felt like the whole thing was really orchestrated, but even at Grady, we were never told that it was. Gorman suggested to Beth that they happened upon her accidentally. Of course, Gorman is the opposite of trustworthy, but we also understand better now the way that these episodes are often approached. We sometimes see things from one character's point of view over another. Clearly, Slabtown was seen from Beth’s point of view, so if she couldn't see the truth about what happened, that's why we couldn’t neither.

My point is, in this episode, Virgil says that he and Connie were herded there like prey. These feral people apparently went to the camp (Kelly says the left in a hurry and something was very wrong, and I think she's right. Given that Virgil and Connie left all their stuff behind; Connie would not have left behind her slingshot on purpose). Which means the creatures came to their camp, scared them away, chase them toward the house, herding them that way, in order to eat them.

Now, I'm not saying that's specifically what happened in Alone, but I think it kind of proves that what happened was an orchestrated trap that was set up to capture Beth.

And we do get the sense from what Noah told her that Grady purposely left the strong behind and took the weak. So, I'm not sure if Beth and Daryl were actually herded toward the funeral home. From what we saw, it really was more like they happened upon it. But I'm wondering if once there, someone observed them, or observed them approaching, and decided that they would be optimal targets. Given that Beth was injured (which they would have known if they saw Daryl giving her the piggy back) obviously it would always be her that was taken, while Daryl��obviously the more survival-oriented of the two—would be left behind.

And I love this connection because it proves (as far as we can prove theories 😉) that there are things they haven’t shown us, not just in S5 with the missing 17 days, but reaching all the way back to S4.

The other thing that's just kind of cool to consider is that, as I said before, the other half of the episode was about Maggie/Sasha/Bob, right? There are a lot of things that their sequence foreshadows as well. And in the episode, Maggie is specifically looking for Glenn, not Beth. However, given that this episode with Connie and Virgil also featured Kelly, Connie’s sister, looking for her, it just doesn't seem like it could possibly be a coincidence that the other half of Alone was Maggie searching for someone. What I’m saying is that both Alone and this episode, 11x06, foreshadow what will happen when Maggie and Beth reunite. I'm sure I could go into the details of Alone find a lot of connections, but I don't have time to do that right now. Maybe during the hiatus. Maybe. ;-).

Daryl and Leah:

Okay, I guess we need to talk about Daryl and Leah’s part of this episode as well. I don't have as much say about the symbolism for them. This is really more about where this is going.

Daryl tortures Frost, which I'm sure some people are going to have a problem with. But A.K. said that this is really about Daryl wanting to stay on the inside with the Reapers. As I said after ep 4, Frost is smart and he understands what Daryl is doing. A.K. said he did exactly what Daryl wanted to do him to do here. Daryl wanted him to give them a basic location but not an exact one. In other words, to tell them the neighborhood but not the exact house. And that's exactly what Frost did. Angela says Daryl did this because he was trying to save Frost’s life. Unfortunately, by the end of the episode, we see that didn't work out so well. But he was attempting to save him.

You have to watch the details closely to pick this up, but the first house that Daryl, Leah, and Carver go to is not the house Maggie is in. That's why Daryl says they should stick around and look around for things, because he knew Maggie wasn't there and wanted to give her time to escape. But the second house we see them go into is where Maggie and co are hiding under the floorboards.

At first, it seems to be empty, but when Daryl comes downstairs, he sees the place where they might be hiding and slides the rug over it. In the end, Carver sees it and checks, but Maggie and the others have already made their escape.

I had to stop and think about that for a minute. Since Beth wore yellow and we think yellow equals life and escape, I would have thought the yellow house would be where Maggie and the others were hiding and then escaped from. That would've made more logical sense. But actually, the yellow house was a decoy.

It gave me a whole new insight into the meaning behind the color yellow in TWD universe.

I still think yellow represents escape, among other things. But it also represents looking for someone in the wrong place. Even if you think about Rick’s mini death fake out in 7x12, there was probably only 12 feet between where Michonne thought he was (right side of the screen being eaten by walkers) and where he actually was (left side of the screen coming out of the yellow carnival car) but still, she was looking for him in the wrong place and assumed he was dead because of it.

I also thought of the Glenn situation in S4. Maggie looked for him on the school bus (yellow). And in both cases, it was because that’s where Rick/Glenn were last seen, but what was UNSEEN was how they ESCAPED. So, TF was looking for them in the wrong place.

And I’m sure something similar will happen with Beth during the missing 17 days. It doesn’t really change what we believe happened with Beth, but it makes me want to re-examine every yellow reference we’ve ever seen on the show, which is probably hundreds by now, lol.

At one point, Carver is coming down the stairs and Daryl runs over to him and starts talking really fast. He says that they (Maggie’s group) will not to come back here, that it wouldn’t be smart, etc. The first time I watched it, I remember thinking that Daryl was being really obvious. It made him seem nervous and like he was hiding something. And he probably was somewhat nervous. The reason he ran over Carver right then, is because he didn't want Carver to see the hiding place where Maggie and the others were (because Daryl himself noticed it when he was coming down the stairs).

But the other thing to remember is that Daryl knows Maggie and the others are down there. He was using this to give them information. He talks about how the Reapers have walls and weapons, twenty people inside their town, etc. That is also him getting Maggie information so she would know what they're up against. It was actually very smart on his part, even if it kind of tipped Carver off.

By the end, they returned to Pope and find that Frost is dead. I thought it was super weird and creepy that Pope started laughing when Carver said they had lost Maggie's group. That's very out of character for him. Angela Kang said Pope was purposely playing mind games to make Daryl and Leah paranoid, but even so. That laugh was just maniacal.

So, not sure exactly where this is going, or what Pope's plans are. He kind of suggests that maybe Frost turned on Daryl and sold him out before he died. I doubt that's true, but Pope also strikes me as the kind of guy who, if he's decided Daryl is an enemy, doesn't actually need proof of it. So, we'll just have to see where this goes.

Okay, that's it for today. I'll do details tomorrow. How did you all like the episode?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

[dramajib]

Things I loved from this week’s episodes of Dali & Gamjatang:

1) He don’t take no shit.

2) She don’t take no shit.

3) They don’t take no shit.

I love that our couple just talk to each other. They share their feelings. They discuss business when it needs to be discussed. They’re not trying to protect each other by hiding things. They believe in each other’s abilities and capabilities. The mutual respect and affection is killing me and I really hope we can get through the rest of the show without having to deal with any of that rubbish pining-caused-by-misunderstandings-and-unnecessary-silence nonsense (why no, I’m not at all traumatised from watching My Roommate is a Gumiho, why would you ask?)

I even kind of love Chak Hee - Moo Tak shatters any illusions she may have, and she seems like she’s done conniving for things to work her way. I am hoping that I will love any reluctant friendship that grows between her and Dali as they share a bed next week. I had been hoping for that relationship to develop with Gong Ju, but I suspect we won’t get to see it after all. I do wonder who’s beat her up, hopefully not her louse of a father.

And by that last her, I mean, Chak Hee, not Gong Ju. I am loving that Gong Ju was beaten up by the angry goshiwon resident who was a victim of dumpling theft. To be honest I would not put it past Gong Ju to have actually stolen those dumplings.

Speaking of Gong Ju, why do I get the feeling Dali was adopted, and that’s why Gong Ju resents her so much? I hope it’s not true, it feels like a cheap cop out to evoking emotion, when the show already has so many great things to dump into my emotions box and rummage around in. 

(I’m also really not looking forward to the introduction of her uncle. The cousin has been my least favourite part of the show, and I feel like his father can’t be much better.)

I appreciate that so far the show has moved the politics/drama aspect of things right along, because honestly I am not paying attention to any of it. I’m like, bruh, just sell the building the gallery is in if it’s causing SO much hassle and buy another one and continue your gallery work there. Unless there’s some reason she’s emotionally attached to the building on top of the business itself, who knows.

Circling back to the first scene I shared in this post - the drama does a lot of things that leave me unsure if I’m meant to interpret the way I do. That scene struck me as very atypical of what happens in most shows, by which I mean it’s usually the guy who’s fumbling around and trying to get a girl to listen, and the girl has just refused to listen to excuses and left. 

But in this case not only are the roles reversed, it’s not even really a case of excuses or not explaining things or giving someone an opportunity to explain. Like Moo Hak says when he finally gets home - there is nothing he’s done that requires explaining. And Dali apologising or expecting anything isn’t fair. (Admittedly that crack about getting money out of Tae Jin by sleeping with him was extremely uncalled for but I’m going to chalk it up to being out of character and hope he doesn’t say anything half as problematic again).

But - I don’t know if that was the intention of the show. Just like I don’t know if I’m supposed to believe that the relationship between Ki Cheol and their dad is actually as tenuous as Ki Cheol says it is. Does Ki Cheol really believe that, or is he just a sneaky bastard using it to manipulate Moo Hak? I mean stepmom is clearly just your cookie cutter power hungry jealous step mother who wants her son to get all the benefits Moo Hak has even though he didn’t actually do any of the work of building the business... but is Ki Cheol the same? Is their brotherly affection actually genuine? How long have they even been brothers?

And that’s what I mean when I say there’s so much in my emotions box - all these relationships are so interesting, and so much fun to think about. Well, maybe not all. The villains are pretty meh. But the secretaries, for example, or even Moo Hak and his dad - every time we cut from a yelling DonDon family scene to the two of them walking and having a calm, gentle conversation... there’s so much love there to be explored, I really don’t need any blatant sob stories to keep me invested.

#dali and gamjatang #park gyu young #kim min jae #yeon woo #song ji won #lee jae woo #lee je yeon

[thebookreader12345]

750 Followers Celebration - Q&A

Thank you so much for supporting me through this journey! You guys don't know how much this means to me. Every single one of you is amazing.

Below the cut are my answers to the questions that you all submitted.

Q: Do you think Jay is going to become Sergeant this season? A: There has been a lot of debate over this question because of the past few seasons and all of the "Easter eggs", like the sergeant exam poster hanging in the background of the show. In my opinion, I do not believe Jay will become Sergeant. Yet. I think it won't be until the beginning of next season because, if this is a possible storyline, I would expect that the producers and writers would make the finale of season 9 about Voight stepping down/getting promoted, etc.

Q: Did Chicago Justice deserve more episodes? A: I'm sort of split with this question. I loved the fact that there was a big episode involving Kevin, and they always included people from Med, Fire, and PD in some of the episodes. However, the whole plot of the episodes was kind of slow because it wasn't like they were police officers and could go out and chase suspects and arrest people and what not. Their job was just to gather the evidence and then present it in court. I think for many, the show fell flat because there wasn't much action, and part of me does agree with that, but the whole idea of the show itself was kind of cool.

Q: What would make you stop watching each Chicago show? A: This is a tough question because I've only ever dropped one show that I can think of, and it was only because the plotline got really dumb. Maybe if some major characters died in each show I'd stop watching it? But then again, I love the One Chicago universe so much that I don't think even that would stop me from watching. So yeah. I really don't know.

Q: Do you believe in magic? A: As much as I would love for magic to be real, I don't believe it is. But I feel like everyone thinks that way. Cause lets be honest, Harry Potter and Disney make magic look so cool. However, we all know deep down somewhere that it's almost impossible for certain things to be real, and magic just so happens to be one of them.

Q: Are you superstitious? A: I'm not the most superstitious person out there, but I do somewhat follow a few superstitions. Whenever I find a penny on the ground with heads facing up, I pick it up because I believe I'll get good luck. Doing the whole "fingers crossed" thing is something I do a lot. I believe you shouldn't open an umbrella in the house or else you'll receive bad luck. Broken mirrors are bad omens. Those are the top 4 I believe in, but other than that, I'm not really too superstitious.

Q: Is your perception of yourself similar or the same to how others perceive you? A: I mean, I would hope so. I appreciate my level of smarts, and whenever my friends acknowledge them or compliment me on them it makes my day. However, with that, people think that I'm always only doing things to boost my intelligence. For example, I love to read. So whenever I say that I didn't do much over the weekend, people always assume that I read a bunch, when I really didn't. Or that I always study for tests or do homework like a week before it's do. That is not the case. But for the most part, I believe my perception of myself is the same as how other people perceive me.

Q: Who is your favorite couple on each One Chicago show? A: Okay, so for Med, there aren't really any couples at the moment besides Maggie and Ben, whom I love but they aren't my favorite, so I'm gonna pick a past couple. When I first started Med, Manstead was my prime ship, so I'll choose them. Will had been pining after Natalie for so long so I was glad when they finally got together. For Fire, it's gotta be Kelly and Stella. They were literally made for each other, and they support each other with everything. Also, they are so cute together and all of Firehouse 51 ships them as well! And for PD, while I do love Burzek, Upstead is my favorite ship at the moment. I've seen the connection between Hailey and Jay since season 5. You don't understand how angry I was in season 7 when Hailey was so close to confessing her feelings. So season 8 made me very happy when Jay and Hailey finally got together.

Q: Jay and Lindsey or Jay and Hailey? A: I respect everyone's opinions on this matter, so hopefully you all respect mine. I thought that Erin was almost toxic in a way for Jay. She continuously broke his heart when all he wanted to do was help him. But what really does it for me is that she left Chicago without telling him goodbye. Hailey, on the other hand, has pushed Jay to seek out help when he needed it, like when she recommended he take seeing a therapist seriously to help with his PTSD, and she is always there for him, no matter what. That's why I believe Hailey and Jay are the better pairing.

Q: Which character death got to you the most? A: There have been too many sad deaths in the One Chicago world. But if I had to pick one, I've gotta go with Otis on Chicago Fire. Otis was always one of my favorite characters, even way back when I watched Fire with my dad when it was first coming out. He was witty and funny, and his friendship with Cruz was everything. So, when I watched the episode where he died, I was full on balling. I had to pause the episode for 10 minutes because I couldn't stop.

Q: Who is your favorite character on each show and why? A: I'm gonna do favorite male and female character because I've got too many favorites from each show. On Med, my favorites are Will and Natalie. Will has been my favorite since day one, and I like that he will go out of his way to help patients, even if it means he could get in serious trouble. Natalie, even though she's not in the show, always pushes for the best of care for her patients, and whenever she dealt with kids it was always the sweetest thing. On Fire, I like Kelly and Sylvie. Kelly is so headstrong and driven, and he will do anything to protect the other members of Squad 3. Sylvie is such a hard worker and you can tell she is passionate about her job. I feel so bad that she's had to go through so many partners. On PD I love Jay and Hailey. Jay has not always been my favorite male character. Back when I watched the show for the first time, I adored Adam. However, I love that Jay has such good morals and is always pushing to do the right thing even when Voight disagreed. Now, it took a few episodes for me to warm up to Hailey, but after seeing her be so badass, it was hard not to like her.

Q: Where do you get inspiration for your stories?/How do you get inspiration when there's not a request? A: This question is always hard to answer because I really don't know. Most of the time I'm fulfilling requests sent in by you guys and I just write what comes to the top of my mind. If there are requests that are not requested and I come up with them on my own, chances are I saw the plot somewhere else, like in a book or show or movie, and I just tweaked it a bit to fit the One Chicago universe. Either that happens, or while I'm trying to fall asleep, I make up random scenarios in my head, and if I find one that I really like, I'll make a note of it on my phone so I don't forget it, and then I'll write about it.

Q: Do you think Brett and Casey are endgame? Why or why not? A: I'm gonna go with yes on this one. Now, Brettsey is not one of my top ships in the universe. However, they are cute together, and I've been expecting them to get together for a while. The two of them, even when Gabby was around, had a great relationship and always cared for each other. Plus, Matt jumped out of a firetruck to go help Sylvie when the ambulance flipped. He was willing to risk an injury just to make sure she was okay. And now that they are officially together in Chicago Fire, you can see that they really love and care for each other.

Q: What inspired you to start writing? A: I always seem to get this question whenever I do a q&a, but that's okay because I don't mind talking about it. I first got into stuff like this as a reader. Basically, I went on to Wattpad and Tumblr to read other people's stories. I had no intention of creating my own. And then, one day, I started imagining myself in some of the fandoms I was apart of, and I thought, "If I'm imagining myself in these fandoms, chances are others are too," and I began creating stories that followed the plots of movies and shows exactly, just adding Y/n in it. However, that got tiring after a while because I wasn't able to have much freedom because I was following a set script, and that's when I remembered I had a Tumblr account I never used. So, I revamped my account just a little bit and started posting story ideas I had that I couldn't post on Wattpad because either they didn't fit with the stories or they were for someone I didn't write for on Wattpad. And now, here we are. For anyone interested, I've posted this before but I'll post it again, my Wattpad handle is @Writer_Reader05.

Q: Jay or Will Halstead? A: I'm sorry, but I really can't choose between the two of them. I love them both so much. Will and Jay are two of my favorite characters in the whole One Chicago universe. While they do have some qualities that I'm not the fondest of, at the end of the day, I adore the both of them, and I could never choose between them.

Q: Who would you rather date: Jay or Will Halstead? A: Why do you guys do this to me? I love them both so much! But, if I have to choose, I'm gonna pick Jay. The only reason is because I like the characters in PD more than Med, so if I'm dating Jay, chances are I'm friends with Hailey and Adam and all of Intelligence. Will is just as awesome as Jay though and I feel like sometimes people sleep on that.

Q: Which of the requested fics you’ve written is your favorite? A: I think I'm gonna have to go with a Jay Halstead x reader I wrote titled Two Becomes Three. Something about the plot just makes me smile. And to think of Jay being a father......So yeah, while I have so many amazing requested fics thanks to you all, that one has to be one of my favorites.

Q: What’s your favorite series you’ve written so far? A: I love all of the series I have written. Something about creating a whole story that's more than just one part is always fun. If I have to pick one series, I'm gonna pick On the Loose. It was the first series I wrote on Tumblr and the plot of it is something I'm really proud of. However, From the Big Apple to the Windy City, Identity Loss, and Difference of Opinion are all amazing! The first two are finished series and the last one still has a few chapters left to go. Go check them out if you haven't already.

Q: What's your favorite imagine you've come up with and why? A: I don't have a lot of fics that are solely my ideas. Most of my stories have plots that were sent in by you all. However, if I had to pick a favorite out of my stories, it'd be Back Home for Christmas, a Halstead Sister fic I released when I was somewhat new to the platform. Something about writing sibling fics always makes me happy because I get to express the familial side to the characters.

Q: If you had to be roommates with 5 of your mutuals/fellow writers, who would you pick and why? A: I love all of my fellow writers/mutuals so much! I know how much work we put into whatever we post, and most of us are very active on this site. As for who I would pick to be my roommates, I'd choose @hereforhalstead @fighterkimburgess @halsteadlover @resanoona @sylviebrettsey because I feel like we'd all have great conversations, mainly over One Chicago. And every Wednesday night we'd all watch the episodes live together and experience them as a group and then freak out over what happened..........Now watch me fantasize about this all day.

Q: Do you listen to music when you write? A: It depends. On some days when I plan that I'm gonna write, then yes, I do put on some music. When there are days that I have a few minutes to spare, I don't put on music just because I'm only writing for a few minutes and I don't want to waste time. But mostly when I'm writing I do play music in the background.

Q: Do you know how your fics/stories end before you finish writing it? A: This is a really interesting question. The answer is no, I do not know how I'm gonna end a fic before I finish writing it. The only story I had a set ending for was my series On the Loose, but that one wasn't even fully planned out until I got a chapter or two in. Obviously, if I get a request that includes a set ending, like two characters get together or something like that, then I know what the ending will be. Otherwise, I have no clue.

Q: Have you ever met someone who had a very similar personality to your own? Did you get along? A: You know, I can't say that I have. Everyone is different in their own way, and that's what makes us all unique. I would imagine if I did meet someone with a similar personality we'd get along because we'd basically be a carbon copy of each other, but who knows. Maybe our similar personalities would cause us to clash.

Q: Do you hold yourself to higher standards than you hold others? A: Not really. I know myself more than anyone else so I know what my limits are and when I've reached them. With people, on the other hand, I always feel like they can be doing more with themselves and their lives. So I do not hold myself to higher standards than others.

Thank you to all of you who sent in questions! I never thought I'd reach 750 followers on this platform. The only reason I have is all thanks to you wonderful people out there!

@winterberryfox @maximeevansblog @scarletsoldierrr @i-like-sparkly-things @dreamingmanip @soph0864 @ryliegh8 @lorenakaspersen @wanniiieeee @nevertoofarfromivar @securityfriendly-jay @pinkbay-love @stephie123

#one chicago #q&a time #q&a session #question and answer #750 followers

[scaredyships]

Renegades (Din Djarin x gn!Reader) | pt. III

summary: Mando picks out the planet Sorgan for the three of you to lie low on. Things get complicated, Reader gets a glimpse of how hectic Mando's life can be as a bounty for hire, and everybody is confused about feelings.

word count:  14.5k (...help)

author’s notes: Good LORD I was stuck on this for way too long. Between my creative focus being elsewhere and just being completely stuck as to how I wanted some scenes to play out, it took a lot for me to do more than a sentence or two at a time and then forget about it for days or weeks at a time.

This was also hard to write bc I am very uhhh put off by Omera and her original role as the possible love interest and I was trying very hard to remain believable/respectful about her. Cara Dune was also hard to write because of certain actions by her actor, so she's got a little bit of a lesser role.

I'm saying this now, with future chapters I am not going to be going episode-by-episode like I originally intended. I might jump around and have some "filler" things, I may completely skip over some episode happenings, I may diverge from canon here and there, but generally the outcomes will be the same as the show. I cut out the actual battle of Sorgan too bc this is already too long and I am terrible at writing action scenes. :v

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 (you are here) // ao3 link

---

It had been a couple days since you’d set yourself up a space in the hold. At least, it felt like a couple days. You weren’t accustomed to space travel and dealing with the lack of solar cycles to indicate the passage of time, so it was difficult to tell exactly. It didn’t really matter, in the end, but it was still a little annoying.

In that time, you spent most of your time getting to know your way around the Razor Crest’s small layout, what panels and buttons did what, and making sure the child on board was cared for and didn’t get into anything he shouldn’t. Easier said than done, as that kid was surprisingly sneaky and far too curious. He seemed well-behaved, right up until you weren’t looking, and the next thing you knew he was doing something like rooting around in a pile of netting and getting hopelessly tangled, or trying to put things in his mouth to teethe on.

Right now, the kid was up in the cockpit with Mando. Even though you were on board to help out, Mando still seemed to feel better when he was in the same room as the kid versus you being the one supervising, and to be honest it was nice to have a break from babysitting. You had never wanted kids of your own to begin with, and though this kid wasn’t exactly your standard child, it reinforced that at the end of the day, the factor of being able to give the child back to their actual caregiver played a large role in just how tolerant you were of them.

The entire ship suddenly jerked to the side and sent you crashing into the hull wall, your shins narrowly avoiding smashing against the edge of one of the crates lying around. To say you were shaken was a bit of an understatement, despite not a moment later, the normal smooth flight pattern returning and the ship righting itself. Did Mando hit something? Was some part of the ship on the verge of breaking down completely? You did a quick sweep to make sure none of the weapons lockers were damaged and that nothing was in danger of going ogg. You swore, this man had far too much firepower on board and one day it was going to come back and bite him.

Fortunately, everything was where it should be and the only things really out of place was your now-askew space, and your frazzled self. Huffing, you sped over to the ladder and clambered up to the cockpit to see if you could find out what was going on. On your way up, you could hear the low, modulated voice of Mando speaking, very likely to the child with the tone you could pick up.

“Ready to lay low and stretch your legs for a couple months, you little womp rat? Nobody’s gonna find us there.”

“Nobody’s gonna find us where?” Your head and shoulders were poking out of the ladder hatch, arms folding over the edge as you gave the pair a pointed look. You weren’t about to let Mando decide where you were going to camp out for months without you giving some input.

The Mandalorian turning to face you with the child in his lap was almost comical, like they’d been caught doing something they weren’t expecting to be called out on. You didn’t see any sign of concern over whatever had shaken you down below, so you figured you could bring that up later.

You could see a holomap beyond Mando, though it was too far for you to make out any of the text on it. You dragged yourself the rest of the way into the cockpit, righting yourself and coming to a halt just far enough that you could read the screen.

“An outer rim planet.” He leaned aside and let you read the screen’s details. Sorgan, huh. You vaguely remember that name from when you were compiling planets for Mando back when this whole mess started. The details past that escaped you, though. You squinted as you read on. No populations outside of small settlements to speak of, no starports or anything industrial… and it was one of those planets made up of a single biome - swamp.

To be honest, you weren’t thrilled at the idea of actually camping out for so long in such a place. You were so accustomed to being in places that had somewhat larger settlements, and absolutely more tech than this planet likely had, not just for business but simple things like staying entertained. But you were even less thrilled at the fact that this was a  swamp  planet. You knew not all swamp planets were the same, but the simple holomap readout didn’t indicate any further details about what kind of swamps it was made up of.

You hope above all things it’s not a bog planet like Nal Hutta. Gaseous atmosphere, skies choked by sickly green clouds, brown water, hardly any land to speak of.

You turned and gave Mando a look. “No information about the biome past ‘swamp’?”

He shook his head in that slow, deliberate way of his. You exhaled through your nose.

“Not a fan of swamps?”

“You could say that.” You turned back to the screen, like staring at it might make it give up more information.  Maker , you missed your database.

“How far away are we?”

“Not very, maybe an hour or two.”

You stepped back and fell unceremoniously into one of the passenger seats further back in the cockpit. The child, who had been watching you through this whole exchange, seemed to lose his interest once you sat down and went back to looking curiously around at the controls laid out in front of Mando. You could almost see the cogs turning in his head, and you started to suspect he had something to do with the ship going sideways earlier. Probably got a hold of the controls somehow.

“I guess I’ll have a better idea of where we’re going once we get a look at the planet.”

The Mandalorian nodded, and turned back to the controls to pilot you all there.

You had been closer than you anticipated, though it was still not a very short journey. Instead of going back down to the hull, you opted to stay in the passenger seat and simply wait. Jumping to hyperspace was something you had yet to get used to, but after so long of the smooth traveling with the smears of light streaking past the windscreens, you found you could relax a little and rest your eyes.

A jolt in the ship as you exited hyperspace shook you awake. Blinking and sitting up in your chair, you peered out the window at the planet taking up the view.

Deep green. Streaks of blue. White cloud cover. You breathed a sigh of relief and slumped back against the chair back.

“Acceptable?” There was a hint of amusement in Mando’s voice. You smirked at him.

“Yeah, I’m fine with it.” You actually were looking forward a little to seeing just what kind of plant life was on this planet. You could see a fair amount of tree coverage, which meant forests. It had been far too long since you’d seen proper forests, let alone been out in one. You had tried to replicate it with your plant corner back home, but it was never the same. Some time amongst real trees would do you good.

The descent had you watching out the window the whole time, surveying the landscape as its features came into view. It had its marshes and rivers, but equal amounts of coniferous forests and solid land. This place could almost pass for an arboreal biome planet in places. You spotted very few settlements on the way in, too, and what you did see looked to be the most basic of small villages.

Mando landed the Razor Crest some ways away from a small market, hidden amongst ample tree coverage. He locked down the controls and lifted the kid with one arm, removing a small silver ball from his clutches to attach to one of the levers in the array.

“I’m going to go out and find us some lodging. Wait here with the kid. Don’t let him touch anything. I’ll be back.”

He passed the child off to you, with such surety that you’d take him that he nearly dropped the little one on you before you could respond. You grabbed him with both hands in a slight panic, thinking he was about to fall, and in doing so your fingers gripped into the gloved ones already supporting his weight. Even with the barrier between skin-to-skin contact, it was awkward and had your face heating with embarrassment that you’d accidentally touched the bounty hunter. He, however, made no indication of any such reaction, damn that helmet making him unreadable. His hands withdrew once it was certain the child was in your grasp safely.

You and the child stared at each other as you held him out before you, like you weren’t sure what to do with him now. He looked back at you with a similar expression, and you swore there was a hint of some sort of mischief underneath it. Oh, he had definitely  been the one to make the ship go off-kilter, no doubt now. And knowing your luck, he was going to do more of the same once Mando left. You’d already experienced him trying to eat trash despite you actively watching him, you knew he was capable of more.

Mando descended the ladder into the hold, and the sound of the ramp opening up reached the cockpit. You looked out the windscreen, watching as the Mandalorian appeared in your field of view just as the sound of the ramp closing itself back up sounded.

And that was all it took.

The child turned into a complete nightmare the instant it was clear Mando was gone. It didn’t matter what you did - first he fussed and squirmed to be let down, so you did, and the second you turned your head he had somehow managed to get into the pilot’s seat and was attempting to mess with the controls. Every time you picked him up, he fussed again, wriggling and whining loudly, and whenever you set him back down he went straight for whatever he knew he could get in trouble for. You tried to keep this up as long as you could, which proved to be a pathetic five minutes or so. It was like having an extra-smart, extra-naughty loth cat with thumbs on board.

“Okay, kid. We’re going down to the hold. You can’t accidentally start the ship up down there.” You snatched the kid up under his armpits, and though he continued fussing, it was much less, like perhaps he wanted to be in the hold. You knew that the hold had just as much, if not more, for him to get into trouble with, what with the armory down there, but it was better than possibly starting up the engines and taking off.

You awkwardly climbed down the ladder with one arm latched around the child, and once you reached the floor you set him down, hoping he’d behave a little more. How wrong you were. It was like the kid instinctively knew where the controls for the ramp were, because he made a beeline for that panel - knocking whatever he could out of the way just to accentuate his point - and reached his-far-too-short arms into the air like he could possibly reach it if he just tried hard enough. No amount of you trying to redirect his attention or picking him up to set him down elsewhere worked, he would cry and go straight back to the panel and give you repeated looks with big, desperate eyes, like you were a monster for not understanding he wanted to open the door.

“Mando told us to stay here. So we’re going to stay here until he gets back.”

It was when the loud crying started that you knew you had lost the battle.

That alone was one of your top reasons for not desiring children - you couldn’t handle the noise that came with an upset child. Not for any good parental reason like not wanting to see them sad. You genuinely couldn’t stand the screaming, it set you on edge and made  you want to scream in turn. And here one was, cries bouncing off the hull walls and drilling into your eardrums with far more force than you could have imagined possible for something so small.

You rushed as fast as you could towards the control panel and slammed the button to open the ramp.

“OKAY!  Okay, okay, you win, we’ll go find him.” You glared down at the kid, whose clear face and perked ears indicated the crying had all been an act. You sighed heavily. He’d only known you for maybe a few days and he already knew how to get you to do what he wanted.

“He’s not going to be happy, you know that, right.” The child just tilted his head at you, smug little face seeming to say “no, he can’t get mad at me”.

You wandered back to your area not too far off to get some of your outerwear on - your belt, your ear piece, your blaster, whatever you might need in the immediate future. The neck gaiter you loosely wore got pulled up to securely cover the lower half of your face - it made you feel more secure, somehow, when you were venturing out into strange places. You picked the kid up and awkwardly shifted him to one arm, making your way down the ramp, and hoping you wouldn’t get into  too  much trouble with the bounty hunter. The kid, meanwhile, happily burbled in your grasp.

With a deep sigh and a roll of your eyes, you marched out onto the planet’s surface in the direction you had seen Mando go.

-

You were right. Mando wasn’t happy at all.

He had been trudging along, lost in his thoughts about what kind of lodging he should be looking for now that there wasn’t just him, but you and a child to account for, but still attentive enough to his surroundings that when he heard what sounded like distant footsteps crunching through the undergrowth he paused.

It was when he heard the sounds of the child babbling and you calling out to him to wait that his wariness turned to mild panic, and he rushed towards where he could hear your voices, hand staying within reaching range of his blaster. What had happened? He told you to stay back at the Crest and yet here you were, with the child. Had you been discovered, and just barely escaped? Was the Razor Crest captured?

He came to a halt just a few feet from you, surveying you and the child for any signs of distress or damage, stance wary and ready for a fight.

“What happened?” His tone was terse, apprehensive.

You looked wryly down at the bright-eyed child in your grasp, and back up at the bounty hunter. Or rather, somewhere in the general vicinity of him, as you found you couldn’t look directly at him.

“He, uh. Was very upset at you leaving without him.”

Mando’s defensive posture deflated and he tilted his head in a way that you  knew  he was giving you a disbelieving look.

“I told you to stay put, and the kid throwing a fit is all it took for you to leave?” He didn’t miss the way your mouth tightened into a thin line and your brow furrowed.

“He wouldn’t stop trying to be destructive, and when I tried to move him he’d just scream and go for the ramp! Look, I  told  you I wasn’t the best out there with kids.” You snapped, glaring into the blank visor.

Honestly, he could tell you were disappointed in yourself for caving so easily, and he probably wouldn’t have fared much better with his own lack of experience with children. But you could have been followed, and now the ship was unattended. The child, however, looked content as ever, his plan having worked. He sighed. It was what it was at this point. At least he was still in range that could lock the ship up remotely with his vambrace controls, which he set to doing immediately.

“Come on, then.” He motioned with a hand as he turned back to the direction he had come from, cape swirling around his form dramatically. You exchanged a tired glance with the smug kid, having half a mind to set him down and make him walk the rest of the way to wherever you were going.

“You’re lucky you’re at least a little cute.”

By the time you get to civilization, you’d let the kid down to walk - just beside Mando, and you just behind the child. Two unlikely bodyguards for an equally unlikely “dignitary”. The towering trees thinned out on the edge of the small market center, man-made structures beginning to appear. The buildings were small, mostly made of wicker and wood, with very little in the way of tech. The people were equally simple, their dress and presentation reflecting their rural occupations.

With the interest of the child in mind, Mando led the three of you into a common house, the busy sounds of kitchen work and the smell of grilling food easily reaching you before you even got to the entrance. It would have been more welcoming, if it wasn’t also accompanied by nearly everyone turning their eyes to your odd trio and whispering amongst themselves. On one hand, you couldn’t completely blame them, as the three of you were like the lead-up to a bad joke come to life. But it still made you very uncomfortable, knowing without a doubt that you were being watched and discussed. You hated the feeling. You self-consciously adjusted the fabric masking your face and furrowed your brow to try and give off the most “do not approach” energy you could, glancing around at the tenants. Not many of them returned your gaze, save a few, including one woman who didn’t at all look like she was from there. Strong, wearing armor and weapons - not to the extent of the Mandalorian, of course. But you could still feel that she wasn’t to be messed with. You averted your gaze quickly.

The child, meanwhile, was bright as ever with this new place he was in. He looked around the establishment, taking in the new scenery and the light filtering in through the gaps of the woodwork with his big eyes. You in turn watched him, as Mando located a table for the three of you. You followed suit and sat at the table, and as you turned to see what the kid was up to, you noticed the little one had locked eyes with a tooka cat beneath the chair of a nearby tenant. The child was curious, but you knew enough about tooka cats to know that the way it was looking back meant it was interpreting the child’s staring as threatening to its peace. Very few animals took maintaining eye contact as anything but a challenge, and this was no different.

“Leave it alone, kid.” You murmured just loud enough that you hoped he’d hear. Your words were too late, as the cat’s lips pulled back and revealed its enormous maw of teeth in a menacing hiss. The child flinched back with a frightened noise, and next thing you knew you were snatching him up by the ruff of his oversized coat and plopping him in the seat beside you.

There was barely any time for any of you to exchange glances when a proprietor approached the table, face weathered but welcoming.

“Welcome, travelers. Can I interest you in anything?”

“Bone broth, for the little one.” Mando motioned with his hand towards the child. You suppressed giving the armored man a skeptical look for ordering the most basic of things for the kid, when it was obvious they had more substantial food in this establishment. It was fine, you told yourself, he had the final say and this wasn’t the place to call him out on his decisions.

“Oh, well, you’re in luck. I just took down a grinjer, so there’s plenty. Can I interest you in a porringer of broth as well?” Mando shook his head. The proprietor turned her gaze to you expectantly.

“No, thank you.” You put your palm out in a placating gesture. Even though the aroma of food filtered through your face covering and had a tempting quality to it, somewhere as public as this was absolutely not somewhere you’d be comfortable trying to eat at. If you could take it to go, maybe. But you had no idea where you’d even be staying at this point, or how much longer you’d be looking for such a place. No, you could wait.

The proprietor nearly began to speak again when Mando cut her off. “That one over there, when did she arrive?”

So, you hadn’t been the only one to notice the intimidating woman across the room. Well, it wasn’t that difficult, with how much she stuck out amongst the residents of the planet. You three were equally as noticeable, and you didn’t miss how the woman was still watching you, though she was trying to be discreet about it. There was wariness coming off of her, you could feel that much.

The proprietor glanced towards where Mando had indicated the strange woman to be, seemingly confused. “Uh, I’ve seen her here for the last week or so.”

Mando continued pressing her for answers she didn’t have. “What’s her business here?”

“Business?” The proprietor looked as confused as ever. “Well, there’s not much business on Sorgan, so I can’t say…” The sound of credits clinking onto the countertop reached in your ears as Mando casually tossed some onto the tabletop. You were too busy watching the woman out of your peripheral vision to pay too much attention to what he was up to. The proprietor mentioned the woman not being a log runner, and offered complimentary spotchka before she left to retrieve the order.

The moment the woman stood and moved to leave the common house, you discreetly rapped your knuckle against Mando’s vambrace. The black T of his visor turned towards you, and you vaguely twitched your fingers in the direction the woman had been moments before. “She’s leaving.” You murmured as lowly as you could so Mando could hear but others couldn’t. You didn’t get any impression of real danger or malice from her, but knowing that the three of you had prices on your heads, you had a feeling the bounty hunter would try to follow her and make sure she wasn’t about to report on your whereabouts to anyone.

Mando stood from his seat, gaze trained on the doorway to the establishment. “Stay here with the kid. I’ll be back.”

And there it was. You exhaled through your nose and looked down at the kid, comically small in his chair and watching as the beskar-clad man made his way to the exit and out of sight.

You wondered how often he went out of his way to pick possible fights like this.

The proprietor returned to the table and placed a small bowl in front of the child, breaking you from your thoughts. The complimentary bottle of spotchka made an appearance, too, but you didn’t pay much mind to it. Alcohol was never something you liked, between it being an acquired taste and dulling your thoughts. You still nodded appreciatively at her before she left to tend to the next table.

Before the kid could finish picking up his bowl, the faintest of sounds reached your ears. While you normally wouldn’t pay much mind to such things in a public place, there was some notion in your mind that it was the buckethead getting into a fight with the woman from earlier. You looked over at your tiny companion, who looked up at you over the brim of his bowl and towards the doorway Mando had left through moments earlier.

“He doesn’t need our help, we’ll just get in the way.”

The kid seemed to take that as a challenge, and hopped down from his seat and began to toddle off.

“Hey, no, we are  not going out there-” You jumped up and tried to herd him back towards the table, and you almost succeeded, but the little green thing was surprisingly determined and avoided your awkward movements, both of you caught up in a ridiculous dance. The tenants were watching you and your face heated with embarrassment. You finally scooped up the rapscallion with one arm, narrowly avoiding some of the broth sloshing from his bowl and onto the floor.

“Fine, we’ll go see what’s going on. Just stop trying to run off on me.” You pointed meaningfully at the kid with your index finger, peering into those big dark eyes and hoping he actually listened. He looked back at you with those big bright eyes and perked ears in a way that somehow told you he understood.

You carefully set him back on the ground. “Stay close.”

Exiting the establishment and turning the corner was as far as you needed to go to see just what you suspected - Mando and the woman scrabbling to get the upper hand against the other. It was almost comical, in a way, even though blasters were involved and the situation could very well turn dangerous.

And it nearly did just that when the two fell on the ground with blasters pointed at each other’s heads -  causing you to pull your own blaster from its holster - except everything was interrupted by a very loud slurp from the child as he watched from beside you, bowl of broth clutched tightly. The slow turns of their heads and prolonged look from both of them was enough of an announcement of a stalemate as any. You snorted and shook your head slightly at the scene.

“I take it you don’t actually want to kill each other, then.” You slightly lowered your blaster from where it was aimed at the woman. You didn’t miss the way Mando paused in a way that you imagined he was rolling his eyes under his helmet. He turned his attention back to the woman he was still vaguely pointing his blaster at.

“Would you like some soup?”

-

You all returned to the table you’d had back in the common house. The woman - named Cara Dune, you learned - told you her story. She was a former shock trooper for the former Rebel Alliance working on Endor, with no additional support, and as soon as the ex-Imperials were gone the politics got out of hand and she found herself working to “keep the peace”. Beating rioters and favoring delegates wasn’t what she’d signed up for, so she left, and now had a price of her own for desertion. She recognized Mando as being part of the Guild and suspected he’d come looking for her. She kept glancing curiously at you throughout her explanation, like she wasn’t sure what to make of you tagging around with a Mandalorian bounty hunter and why he was even letting it happen. Sure, the child was an equally puzzling factor, but she seemed to sense he was a touchy subject.

She eventually turned to you after her explanation was finished. “So what’s your story?”

You shrugged, idly adjusting one of your wrist pieces. “He got my house blown up and put me on a wanted list, so this is his way of dealing with the guilt.”

Cara visibly bites back a laugh and tries to hide behind her own cup of broth. You glance over at your companion, whose stiff posture tells you he’s not sure how to react, but he’s definitely embarrassed to some degree.

The ex-trooper downs the last of her broth, and stands from the table. “Well, this has been a real treat. But unless you wanna go another round, one of us is gonna have to move on, and I was here first.” She gives you all a curt nod, and walks away.

Mando leans back in his own chair and looks between you and the kid, who’s working on his second helping of broth. “Well, looks like this planet’s taken.”

-

The walk back to the Razor Crest was a somber one for you. Now that you had spent some time on the surface, you’d actually taken a bit of a liking to the place. But Mando was right - as remote as this planet was, it could likely only handle one fugitive at a time. Looked like it was back to the ship directory to root through whatever systems it could access. You tried not to let your mind wander off to mourn your lost database again. This was exactly why you compiled lists of multiple options, in case something like this happened and one of those choices fell through.

A tug on your pant leg dragged you from your mulling. You looked down and were met with the concerned face of the child looking back up at you.

“I’m okay, don’t worry about me.” The kid burbled quietly at you in response. That seemed to catch Mando’s attention, as he was now looking questioningly back at you.

“Something wrong?”

You exhaled through your nose, trying to come up with a brief answer that wasn’t too revealing. You weren’t big on talking about your feelings, and you got the impression that neither was Mando, so between the two of you it would be better if it was kept to a minimum.

“Feeling a little useless on the front of hunting for a planet, that’s all.” It was the first time you’d felt this useless in a  very  long time, to be honest, but you weren’t about to let that part out.

Mando turned back to continue the trek back to the Razor Crest. “We’ll figure something out.” His tone was superficially dull, but you could tell he was trying in his own way to sound reassuring. That counted for something.

Once you made it back to the Crest, which was safe and sound amongst the trees, the two of you got to work - the Mandalorian using the dying daylight to look over the ship for maintenance, while you took up the task of sifting through the planetary database for your next options. Originally Mando wanted you to take the child up with you so he’d be better contained, but after a pitiful look from those big, dark eyes, it was over and decided that he’d watch him. The “watching” very quickly turned into “put the kid to bed”, thank the maker.

It felt like you’d had barely any time to really start your search when you saw what looked like lights on the ground from your view in the cockpit. You slowly stood, watching the lights as they drew nearer. That couldn’t be anything good.

You clambered your way down the ladder and into the hold just as whoever it was pulled up. It was a small cargo sled, one that barely seemed to be holding itself together, with two men of seemingly modest origins on it. Mando wasn’t the least bit concerned about it, as he continued his repairs and ignore them as they tried to get his attention.

“Excuse me, sir?”

Mando didn’t stop working. “There something I can help you with?”

You slowly made your way towards the ramp, taking care to accentuate the sound of your boots hitting the floor and make your presence known, Mando could take care of himself, but if they knew you were here they were less likely to try anything than if he were alone. You shot them a warning glare when they glanced at you, but watching their already-anxious expressions deepen almost made you regret doing so.

“Uh… yeah… raiders.” “We have money.”

You raised an eyebrow at them.

“You think I’m some kind of mercenary?” Mando still made no indication he was going to stop his work for them.

That was enough to get them stammering. First about how they’d read about Mandalorians, and how they thought he was one based on his armor, and if half of what they read was true then they could recruit him for help. One emphasized again, that they had money.

“How much?” Mando had paused his working, turning more attention to these strangers.

“Everything we have, sir. Our whole harvest was stolen.”

“Krill… We’re… krill farmers.” “We brew spotchka. Our whole village chipped in.”

You don’t know what else you were expecting from locals of the planet, but the coin purse one of the men held up as proof of payment was sad to say the least. Krill farming and spotchka brewing didn’t strike you as a very lucrative business anyways, but if that was all they could muster…?

“It’s not enough.” And there was Mando, confirming your suspicions about what his rates were. You didn’t recall him being picky about his bounty, but thinking back, he did go for higher bounties more often than not. It looked like he still held onto that standard despite no longer being part of the Guild. Hell, if you were going by your own rates, what they appeared to have on hand wouldn’t even cover half of your cheapest services.

Mando finished what he’d been doing and made his way up the ramp towards you. The men following him up the ramp was unexpected, but not frightening. They were desperate, and you were getting a better sense of just how much.

“Are you sure? You don’t even know what the job is.” One of them tried to look to you for support. You stared back apprehensively.

“I know it’s not enough. Good luck.” Mando brushed past you, using your form as a barrier between him and the strangers as he retreated further into the hold.

“This is everything we have! We’ll give you more after the next harvest!” You stayed where you were, crossing your arms and staring the men down. You knew you should feel bad for them and try to convince Mando to do something, but with the last time you extended help ending with your entire life up to that point being destroyed, you were too wary to do so.

The two men looked between each other and your standoffish presence. Defeated, they slowly turned to return to their sled, talking to each other as they did.

“Took us the whole day to get here. Now we have to ride back with no protection to the middle of nowhere.”

Mando had only made it a few feet past you by then, so he was definitely within earshot of their conversation. He stopped and turned on his heel, coming up behind you and stopping just behind your shoulder. It took everything in your power to appear unbothered by just how close he stood.

“Where do you live?”

The men paused, turning back to look at the man that had just dismissed them.

“A farm, weren’t you listening? We’re farmers.” The hurt was apparent in the man’s voice.

“In the middle of nowhere.”

“…yes?” The confusion was palpable. You knew where this was going and you weren’t sure you liked it.

“You have lodging?”

The men started to realize where this was going, too, and jumped to provide answers he wanted to hear.

“Yes, absolutely.” Mando briefly glanced at you, as if he was about to ask what you thought. Unfortunately for you, that never happened and he made the decision on his own.

“Good.” Mando motioned to them. “Come up and help.” He motioned to you as well, and began pulling out cargo crates to have them start loading.

You approached the man, once the other men had carried one of the crates far enough that they’re out of hearing range.

“Mando, I don’t know about this. Middle of nowhere or not, Dune’s right, this planet can’t handle more than one fugitive at a time.”

Mando continued moving crates to the ramp. “If it took them all day to get here, they’ll be isolated enough.”

“That kind of distance from civilization, however small, hasn’t stopped bounty hunters before. You of all people know that.” You glared into the T-shape of his visor. You also knew that all it took was enough time for word to get out about sighting a certain beskar-clad Mandalorian traveling with a green child to reach interested ears. For all you knew, it could be happening right now.

Mando stopped his actions to turn and face you fully.

“We can always move on after the job if it doesn’t seem right.”

You sighed heavily through your nose. That seemed to be him trying to tell you he wasn’t about to change his mind. He  had  been doing this longer than you, you supposed. You glanced towards the closed door of his bunk, where the child was sleeping.

“…fine. But I’ll hold you to that.”

You briskly moved to where your makeshift corner was and started gathering up your own things for whatever sort of stay you were in for. Behind you, you heard Mando exchange a few more words with the men as they loaded the last of the cargo he’d pushed on them onto the sled.

His heavy footsteps approached you. “I’m going back into town for a while.” You turned, and noticed the pouch of credits that one of the men had shown you earlier clutched in his hand. “Stay here to keep an eye on them and the kid. I’ll be back.”

You stared at him for a moment, then nodded slightly. “At least he’s not awake to make me come chasing after you this time.”

You swore you heard a slight snort from beneath that helmet.

-

He’d returned some time later with Cara Dune in tow, and after rousing the kid the four of you joined the two men on their journey back to their village. The cargo sled, thank the maker, was the only part of the ride, no connections made with another transport like a boat like you were fearing. You didn’t like boats much, the swaying made you anxious. Five people made it a little crowded and awkward, and try as you might to sit as far as you could on some strapped-down cargo, to try and preserve some sense of personal space, you found yourself nearly falling off one too many times.

“That’s a good way to fall off and get left behind.”

You narrowed your eyes as you stared at the beskar-clad man that had basically just talked to you like a parent.

“It’s fine. I don’t want to get in anyone’s way.”

The way he tilted his head was enough for you to practically see the skeptical look he was no doubt wearing on his hidden face. The kid, sitting beside him, watched you intently.

“Nobody’s doing anything but waiting out the ride.” He pointed to a spot on the cargo just in front of him, where there was definitely enough room for you to fit, though it meant if you tried to stretch your legs out they’d be right alongside his. Clearly, he didn’t care about that if he was doing this.

You stared at the spot like it was a trap. Almost as if to prove a point, the sled went over a particularly pronounced piece of terrain and jostled you. You very nearly fell just like Mando had said you would. The only thing that kept you from going completely overboard was your grip on the cargo’s ties, but you still flopped embarrassingly around. You saw the man’s head tilt to the side as if to say “see?”

Defeated and embarrassed, you clambered down into the open area. Thank the maker Cara Dune had decided to try and get some sleep earlier, and the two farmers transporting you were busy navigating. You didn’t think you could handle having them involved in this, admittedly silly, exchange. You kept your gaze down, not daring to even look up at the Mandalorian. The kid, however, earned himself something between a glare and a smirk when you heard a small giggle come from his direction.

You drew your legs up into your new space, both to keep from invading even more of Mando’s space, and to keep out of the child’s space as well. Mando could handle an accidental kick if you absent-mindedly shuffled; the little green one probably wouldn’t fare so well.

Once you’d settled, you leaned back onto the cargo packed behind you and tried to get as comfortable as you could manage. Which wasn’t much. Mando, however, seemed capable of doing it, as he slowly fell backwards and folded his arms behind his head. You didn’t realize how  broad he was until now, seeing up close how much space he took up just by doing that. And all over again, you felt like you were in his space, and needed to get out of it out of respect. But there was nowhere to go.

You had to snort to yourself when the child mimicked the bounty hunter and tipped backwards onto his much-softer surroundings, peering up at the dark sky with equally dark eyes. At least he was content to do that.

The sled ride stretched on for the duration of the night and into the morning, the farmers switching shifts partway through. You’d never really fallen asleep all the way, just dozed in the same position you took when you initially settled in. Your eyes had closed, and you became somewhat less aware of your surroundings, but the slightest of unusual sounds or movements still drew enough attention that you’d crack an eye open to see what was happening. All through the hours of darkness and through the light breaking over the land. So when the sled began to approach the village, you could hear it. The sounds of people working, distant voices. Opening your eyes and pushing yourself upright, you turned to look up ahead. In the distance you could see the beginnings of some sort of settlement.

You shifted your attention to the others on the sled. Cara Dune was still sleeping, though you didn’t know how. Mando and the child seemed to be out, as well. It was harder to tell with the bounty hunter because of his helmet, but the way he laid there was convincing.

Reaching over, you lightly grabbed one of the child’s clawed feet and shook it to get his attention.

“Get up, kiddo.”

He blinked awake, eyes squinting in the morning light and mouth working to remedy having gone dry while he slept with it open the night before. His big eyes shifted around to look for his Mandalorian guardian, body relaxing once he located him.

You weren’t going to try and use touch to see if  he was awake, though. That could get you stabbed or shot, what with the combination of his reflexes and waking up in a strange place.

“Mando.” You raised your voice, hoping volume alone would do the trick. Fortunately for you, it did. The man shifted and groaned like he had just come alive, his helmet shifted ever so slightly and you could tell he was looking at you.

“We’re there.”

The armored man slowly drew himself upright into a sitting position. As much as he’d tried to get comfortable, he knew he’d be fighting with a back ache for a while after sleeping like he had. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t already dealt with before, with his longer bounty hunts taking him far from his ship and civilization and requiring him to put comfort to the wayside. You, however, had probably not had to relegate yourself to such circumstances. You looked like you hadn’t actually slept, bags present beneath your eyes and a subtle, narrow-eyed scowl he hadn’t seen before on your face. You probably didn’t even know it was there.

The approach to the village was quickly noticed by the villagers, and before you knew it there was a crowd forming to welcome you.

And a lot of them were children.

You could see and hear them immediately. You squeezed your eyes shut and exhaled through your nose for a moment to steel yourself, both for the crowd and the large percentage of it being so young. You hadn’t even had a chance to really get used to the green child you were tasked with helping out with. And these kids could  talk .

The sled came to a stop, the slight jarring motion shaking Cara Dune awake. She looked around, mind working to remember the circumstances that landed her in a strange vehicle with equally strange company.

The first thing the children of the crowd did, was fixate on the child companion of yours in the sled. They were all murmuring and giggling amongst themselves, and the kid looked back at them with equally curious intent. None of you had any idea when he was last around anyone of his mentation.

“Looks like they’re happy to see us.” You heard Mando’s voice crackle through his voice modulator. Cara Dune smiled, but all you could do was blink tiredly. You weren’t ready for this.

One of the children, a girl,  broke away from the crowd and got closer to the smaller, green child, greeting him personally. You watched the interaction carefully. She seemed to notice, as she quickly made eye contact and ducked away back into the safety of the other village children.

With that, everyone disembarked the sled and began unloading cargo. You slowly rose from your spot, knees protesting from staying folded for so long and making you grit your teeth. You grabbed the pack you’d brought with you, slinging it over your shoulder and hobbling off of the sled to join the others, who were carrying their respective luggage. The child had been surrounded by the village kids, the curiosity on both sides still strong and outweighing the apprehension of the strangers with him.

It was time to be shown where you’d be staying, though. Without any words exchanged, Mando shuffled over to gather up the child, kids scattering, and you, Cara Dune, and he were led to your accommodations.

The village was modest, but cozy. The huts all had a distinct charm to them, with the same woven look as the common house, and reminding you of fishing baskets. Smoke rose from some, and in the distance you could make out man-made ponds where they likely farmed their krill.

You were all led to what appeared to be a building other than a hut. There’s a woman there, apparently putting the last touches on preparing it for guests. When she sees you approaching, she stops fussing with the blinds and turns to face you. You don’t miss how she’s focused in on the Mandalorian, with some sense of hesitation, like she wasn’t anticipating how meeting a Mandalorian in person would be. You couldn’t blame her, honestly.

“Please, come in.” You let Mando lead, watching him walk in and put his cargo down onto the floor. The woman turned and seemed mildly surprised when you entered as well, like she hadn’t really seen you before when you made your approach. Again, you couldn’t blame her - if you’d never met a Mandalorian before, it would be hard to notice anything else. That, and it made sense that should word get out in the village about a Mandalorian arriving, the last thing anyone would talk about would be his companions.

“I apologize… I didn’t realize how many guests there would be.” She glances briefly at you and the child individually. You began to feel guilty about being there at all. Of the adults that were there, you were by far the least useful for the job involving the raiders, and of the resources available for guests you felt like it would be better to distribute them amongst the others before you. The child, too, you felt deserved things before you did. You didn’t miss him looking up at you with his big dark eyes, as if he could sense your discomfort.

“Is, uh, there anywhere else available—“

“This will be fine.”

You give the beskar-clad man a perplexed look when he cuts you off. You were attempting to give the man his space back, surely he would like that better than having you hole up in the same small building?

“It’s not any different from the ship. We’ll make do.” He was looking back at you through that dark visor as if he had heard your thoughts. You blinked.

“Are you sure?”

The curt nod he gave you told you the conversation was over. Well… as long as he was okay with it.

The woman took that as her cue that she could speak again. “I’ve stacked some blankets over there, I can get more should you need them.” She indicated the area she meant. You nodded appreciatively at her.

There’s a very slight sound from the doorway, and both you and Mando turn to see the girl from before that had been talking to the child. She attempted to hide behind the doorframe, bashful about being noticed, but the woman goes to gently pull her back into sight and gently hold her to her side.

“This is my daughter Winta. We don’t get a lot of visitors around here, she’s not used to strangers.” That explains the extra feeling of being watched you’d felt on top of the village at large watching you, this girl must’ve followed along. The woman turned to face her daughter. “This nice man and his friends are going to help protect us from the bad ones.”

Winta looked shyly at you and Mando, and politely whispered a thank you. The woman took her daughter by the hand, leading her outside. “Come on, Winta, let’s give our guests some space.”

Just like that, you were left alone with your usual companions.

You glanced around, seeing that it was essentially just one open room. That wouldn’t do. Whatever Mando told you, you knew he would appreciate having a space to himself. You, also, would appreciate some semblance of privacy.

Speaking of Mando, he hadn’t moved to unpack at all, he continued to stand in place as he tried to process what he’d gotten himself into. He’d done plenty of jobs, with plenty of clients, but he wasn’t at all used to being treated like a “nice man”, as the woman had put it. He didn’t know how he was supposed to fee about it.

His buffering was briefly interrupted when you pushed past him into the barn, and began to root through the blankets that had been left and other supplies that had been pushed off to the side to make space.

“I’m going to build some sort of divide for the room. To at least make it feel like there are two rooms instead of one.” You began draping things over your shoulders and arms as you found them, and looking up at the ceiling and the walls to see what you had to work with. Part of him wanted to tell you to just sit down for now, since he could tell you weren't rested at all from the night before. But he also felt like he wouldn’t be able to stop you from your current activity until you’d finished it. He resigned himself to getting his cargo unpacked.

What he doesn’t know, is you were also trying to distract yourself from your own thoughts. You had noticed how the woman had briefly paused in the doorway as she left to look back - at Mando, and only Mando. You didn’t know why, but something about it bothered you. Was it a look of apprehension and were you offended on his behalf? No, that wasn’t it. It was some other expression that was subtle and layered and happened too fast for you to read. But it still bothered you. You tried to brush it aside and get to working on your new project instead.

-

Before long you had constructed a simple set of walls from various things you’d found around - you’d taken some sheets from the pile of blankets, and used them in conjunction with some netting and poles to fix them to the walls and ceilings similar to what you had done with your space back on the Razor Crest. A crib had been provided for the child, and you moved that onto the “half” that you’d designated Mando’s space - the larger section, and the one with the window. Your “half” was more like your “third” of the bar’s interior. Really, you didn’t mind. Mando had been busy unpacking and reconvening with Cara Dune to offer any input until it was done, anyways.

Later in the day, you’d more or less finished unpacking what little you’d brought, and Mando was tending to his rifle. You sat on a crate, idly fussing with the settings on your blaster, musing to yourself if you could possibly bother the bounty hunter in the future for something more substantial.

“Knock, knock.”

The woman from earlier stood at the door with a tray of a few plates of food in hand, her daughter in tow. You could see them, but their attention was turned to Mando and the child, who was standing in his crib. “Come in.” Mando’s voice sounded from beyond the divide in the room.

The woman entered, setting the tray down on a nearby surface and picking up a plate from it. Winta stepped forwards shyly, asking if she could feed the child. Mando wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, but he didn’t see a problem with it. “Sure.”

You watched from just around the edge of the divide, as the girl first knelt to feed the child, and then asked if she could play with him. Mando seemed just as fond of dealing with kids as you, hearing his sigh and flat “sure” in response. You smirked at that.

Once Mando had set the child on the ground, Winta immediately darted out the doorway with the child in tow. Mando started to protest, but the woman held him back. You didn’t know why, it was such a simple thing and she was coming from a place of experience where he had none, but for some reason… it made you bristle slightly. You felt like she was overstepping her bounds somehow. You shook your head briefly. She didn’t know any better, it was fine.

The woman then reached for one of the plates of food, to set on a surface closer to where Mando had been maintaining his rifle. “I brought you some food, I noticed you didn’t eat out there. I’ll leave it here for when I go.” Mando awkwardly thanked her, and moved to turn away.

You were hoping she would leave, then, but she didn’t. Instead, she asked if she could ask Mando a question. With his approval, she continued.

“How long has it been since you’ve taken that off?”

Oh, the helmet question. That was bound to happen sooner or later, honestly. You hoped she didn’t say anything too intrusive or insensitive.

“Yesterday.”

“I mean in front of someone else.”

The air felt heavy. You couldn’t quite see from your position where he was looking, but you saw him motion through the window towards what might have been the child and Winta, and other children based on the sounds of play you could hear.

“I wasn’t much older than they are.”

The woman sounded almost horrified that he hadn’t shown his face to anyone since then. The bounty hunter protested, saying that after his parents had been killed, the Mandalorians had taken him in and cared for him as their own.

It’s not like you knew what his past was, or what you expected it to be, but hearing it like this was like a punch to the gut. It was a horrible thing for him to have gone through at all, let alone as a child. You arguably had only just been getting to know him, but the fact that this woman he had never met before was able to get this fact out of him at all, let alone such a personal fact, stung. He had told you earlier that he’d trusted you. That should’ve been enough, and should’ve stopped you from having your thoughts run loose like they were.

“...I’m sorry.” The woman sounded genuinely sad.

“This is the way.”

“Let us know if there’s anything you need.”

Finally, she left. It did not escape you, though, that she hadn’t stopped to see if you had been there to let you know that she had brought you some food, as well, as you also had not left to go get food since arriving. That hurt a little bit, but with the way the prior exchange had gone it probably just slipped her mind. It wasn’t her fault. She was being a good host, she still brought it, didn’t she? You could swear, though, that she seemed to feel some sort of draw towards the bounty hunter and was acting on it in small ways. And you could not figure out why it bothered you.

Once she had left completely, you quietly crept out from behind the divide to retrieve your own plate. Mando was still standing before the window, watching the kids playing with the child. The woman now approached the crowd, no doubt to supervise and make sure they weren’t being too rough. You felt his eyes turn to you slightly.

“I uh… I’m sorry. About what happened in your past. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t not hear that part.”

Mando inclined his head for a moment, and then looked back up at you. “It wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have told you if it had come up.”

That lifted your mood a bit. Plate in hand, you wandered over to stand before the window, not too close but beside where Mando stood, to watch the kids.

“Looks like he’s having fun.” Mando hummed in agreement, arms folded.

You don’t notice, but the Mandalorian had turned his head ever so slightly to look at you without giving away that that’s what he was doing. He’s usually not the best at reading people, but he could tell that something about the interaction he had just had with the woman had upset you somehow - he also had not missed how she had left after speaking with him and hadn’t tried to see if you were around to speak to you, as well. This was a different kind of upset than what he had seen when you were first on his ship, after your home had been destroyed. He didn’t like it then, and he didn’t like this now. He realized didn’t like seeing you upset, or to be linked to the reason you were upset.

The two of you stood there for a few more moments, watching the villagers and the child play. You cleared your throat.

“Well, I still don’t like eating around others. I’m going to my ‘room’.” Mando felt a small smile flicker on his face at that, as you left and went back to your area.

Once you were there, you had been about to pick up a piece of the food when you heard the tell-tale sound of Mando’s helmet being removed. You didn’t know if it was the closer proximity or the conversation that had just happened, but you retreated even further into your area until you were as far away as possible, like somehow even being too close while his helmet was off was just as bad as seeing his face.

-

The job turned out to be much more complicated than any of you had thought. Surveying the woods showed that the raiders were in possession of an Imperial AT-ST, a formidable weapon to have even against trained troops, let alone a defenseless krill farm. Cara Dune was especially off-put by it, having seen the mech in action and barely escaping to tell the tale. Mando, blunt as ever, tried to tell the village’s occupants to just leave and find another place on the planet to farm, but that went over horribly - everyone was angry, saying that he’d agreed to the job and that he should keep to it, that they had lived there for generations and it took so long to even get the farm established, and so on. They insisted they could be taught to fight and help take on the raiders, stubborn in not wanting to leave their homes. Somehow, their desperation won over the bounty hunter and ex-shock trooper, and it was decided that the entire village of twenty-odd people would follow Cara Dune’s instructions to modify the village grounds into a battleground to take down the machine, and the raiders in turn.

The biggest hurdle was teaching the villagers how to fight to begin with. Nobody knew how to deal with hand-to-hand combat. None of them - except the woman, whose name was Omera - knew how to fire a blaster.

That also meant that Mando’s entire arsenal he’d brought along with him would be put to use arming everyone.

While Cara Dune was working with melee training her half of the adults, Mando was overseeing the target practice. You were more familiar with firing a blaster than you were with physical fighting, so you were attempting to help in that department, as well. You had certainly fired off your fair share of one-in-a-million hits in the times you’d even had to use your blaster, but you had no idea how you were able to do it. It was just… an instinct, somehow, that kicked in right at the moment it was needed, and would vanish just as quickly before you could even try to comprehend it. Still, though, you could try.

They were terrible.  

Shots were flying and only a small fraction were landing anywhere, and of those, even less were hitting their intended targets. Except for Omera. Every shot she fired landed square in the middle of her target, one after the other. You could see Mando watching her closely, nodding when she turned to look expectantly at him with a slight smile.

It makes you grit your teeth and you don’t know why. He’s allowed to be impressed by someone from a backwater planet being good with a blaster. He was allowed to be impressed by her tenacity to defend her village. He was allowed… and whatever this strange feeling was that you had, wasn’t allowed to get in the way. That was up to him.

You had been walking between the villagers, giving them pointers on how to better aim, but once you’d noticed what you had with the widow and Mando, something shifted in you. And unbeknownst to you, Mando was watching you, probably more than he had been watching Omera. Your eerie accuracy with your own blaster when you fired off and hit the targets, the way you went from person to person to curtly correct their poise, the way your eyes flashed as you stood back and looked from trainee to trainee with a calculating, concentrated look to determine who needed fixing where. This was a new side of you he hadn’t seen. It was intimidating… but in a good way. He caught himself being confused by his own thoughts, and reminded himself sternly that he needed to concentrate on training everyone and getting things ready.

That night, the plan would be executed. Luring the raiders out, having the villagers go hand-to-hand with the raiders while Mando and Cara Dune took care of downing the AT-ST. You hoped it would work.

-

In the weeks following the successful defeat of the raiders and destruction of their AT-ST, you stayed put in the village. You and Mando and the kid didn't have anywhere better to be, and Mando still stood by it being a good place for waiting out the hunt going on for the kid. Unlike Mando, though, you didn't feel completely safe. You still felt like it was only a matter of time before someone came looking. The raiders didn't all get killed, and though they probably hadn't laid eyes on the child, let alone the village's children in general, it would have been difficult for them to miss the beskar-clad man that they went up against. Word was going to get out.

Mando wasn't convinced. There was nothing besides your sense of unease to indicate that sort of thing would happen, and he needed more substance than that to act. And so, you were stuck there for the time being.

So you tried to make do with living during that time.

Mando spent his time being the quiet watchman of the village, keeping his weapons he'd brought along in top condition just in case. It couldn't hurt to stay vigilant. And it helped you be more at ease to know he hadn't completely shrugged off the possibility of danger.

And when he wasn't cleaning his weapons for the millionth time, or making sure the child wasn't getting into too much trouble with the village children, he was watching you.

He noticed the way you'd go sit out at the far edge of the village clearing, by the edge of the water beneath the shade of the trees, scribbling things in the odd flimsiplast book you'd brought along with you. He got curious one day and wandered over to where you were, making the excuse that he was patrolling the perimeter and just happened to be passing by you on his way. He got to see what it was you were doing - you were sketching the huts and ponds, as well as the trees and animals, making notes beside them. You didn't limit your note-taking to sitting out on the edge of the village, either, sometimes you stayed amongst the buildings and watched the locals and made notes about them.

There were more than a few times that the child would break away from the village kids and watch you, too, and there were times you'd tear a page out and let him scribble on it alongside you. It was endearing to watch, though he'd never admit it, how intensely focused the little one would be on mimicking you during those times. He saw you do your best to be social when the rest of the kids would inevitably crowd around the two of you and watch what you were doing, and begin asking questions. They did that to him, too, with his weapons, and he would try to tell them stories he remembered hearing as a child himself. You didn't seem to tell them stories, so much as just facts about how this or that worked, or how things are different on other planets in this or that way. They still seemed to take it in just as well.

When you weren't note-taking, or trying to avoid being swarmed by curious children, you'd be in the village kitchens, taking advantage of having proper cooking facilities outside of the makeshift space on the Razor Crest and trying out local ingredients and recipes. The child was frequently your taste-tester, and he loved every bit of it. There were times that he'd take a bite of something you'd made, and instead of downing the rest of it, he'd look around for Mando, and upon spotting him he'd hurry over with the food in hand, waving it up at him as if to say "try it". He would, of course, wait until he was in the privacy of his own space, but he'd always try it. He had to admit, though he knew the locals had been working with the ingredients for generations and were by no means bad cooks, there was something about your cooking that he liked better. He knew you'd brought along some of your own spices and that you put your own spin on things, but it was deeper than that and he didn't know why.

 He notices that though you try to converse with the locals when appropriate, you frequently retreat to be in his presence and just sit quietly. It starts as you just going back to the barn and him happening to also be there, but over time it evolved into you actively seeking him out in moments where he was apart from the others, wherever that may have been. It was… nice.

 It was also nice that, on some nights where neither of you could sleep, you would wind up quietly talking about this or that through the makeshift wall in the barn that divided your sleeping areas. The conversations were about mundane things, never lasted long, and were always quiet because of the sleeping child nearby. But it was a new thing for him that he found he liked. For so long he had traveled alone and in complete silence, and while there was still a degree of silence and separation between the two of you, it was different.

 The villagers seemed to act like you would just stay there forever. Names were learned, bits and pieces of life stories were swapped, some degree of familiarity was established.

 There was absolutely no way anyone could miss how attentive Omera had become to ensuring you all were still tended to, but especially in regards to Mando. He was civil in return, and you swear he had started to open up to her and go beyond just being polite. You, also, did your best to be civil towards her, but it was difficult for some reason. It was not your place to decide who was allowed to be friends with who, or how they responded to such actions. Not your place to feel put off by another person getting close to arguably the only person you knew beyond vague acquaintance-ship.

  And this didn’t just feel like someone building a friendship, either. You did not know why it bothered you as much as it did. But here you were.

 One day, you, Mando, and Cara Dune were all on the porch of the barn, lounging for lack of a better word. Cara Dune sat reclined in a chair, you on the edge of the porch, and Mando casually leaned back against the wall of the barn. He looked very relaxed and it took you a little more effort than normal not to just stare at the rare sight.

 And then Omera appeared.

 She had been in the barn doing some tidying up, as hosts do. As she exited, she handed a cup of spotchka to Cara Dune, who thanked her, and then she turned to Mando.

 “Can I set you something in the house?” She briefly turned her vision towards you, to indicate the offer was extended to you as well, but it went right back to the bounty hunter before you could answer.

 “Uh… thank you. Maybe later.” He mumbled his answer, awkward as ever. The woman looked back at you, and you shook your head to her offer, not daring to try and open your mouth. She seemed satisfied with that, and turned to watch the village children playing with the child. He’d captured a frog, and wasted no time in stuffing it into his mouth and trying to swallow it like a vine snake. The children laughed and groaned in amused disgust. The frog turned out to be too big for the little one and he spat it out, and everyone cackled as the frog hopped away, no doubt startled by nearly being eaten.

 “He’s very happy here.” Omera’s voice broke the silence on the porch.

 “He is.” The bounty hunter’s voice responded.

 “Fits right in.” And with that, the widow walked away. You watched her leave with narrowly-disguised distaste on your face. The kid was still a target for all you knew, and that little comment implying he should continue to stay just made you realize how little they understood about the consequences that could come their way should the hunters find him. Being able to actually be a child was good, yes, but not at the expense of having another event similar to the raiders, one they wouldn’t have time to plan for.

 Apparently, Cara Dune had some thoughts of her own.

 “So what happens if you take that thing off?” She nodded at Mando, indicating his helmet. “They come after you and kill you?”

 Your distaste turned to her next.

 “No, you just can’t ever put it back on again.” Cara scoffed at his answer. She looked at you to see if you thought it was as ridiculous as she did, a smirk on her face. You narrowed your eyes at her, and her smirk faded a bit. You’d known, and you respected his cultural beliefs not to badger him like she was trying to do.

 “I was gonna say, if that’s it, it wouldn’t be any trouble at all for you to just slip it off and take up living here, raising the kid and sipping spotchka.” She motioned in the direction Omera had left with her glass.

 “The beautiful young widow would be more than happy to help with that.” She looked back at you. “Am I right?”

 Your skin felt like it would scramble right off your body.

 Somehow, hearing Cara Dune confirm that she, too, had seen Omera’s interest in Mando made it all too real in your mind. And she wouldn’t be making such comments if she didn’t think Mando had similar feelings, either.

 Why did it bother you so much?

 You heard your name, realizing she was actually waiting for an answer from you.

 “Yeah, sure.” Your voice was quiet and clipped, a poor attempt to keep your feelings veiled. Cara Dune finally noticed your tense posture, the discomfort very apparent in the line of conversation she’d started up.

 She immediately regretted her teasing about the widow. Unlike you and Mando, she was actually able to read people. Mando may have been oblivious to it, but she could see now that you were more fond of the bounty hunter than she initially thought. She’d sensed some sort of dislike towards Omera from you, with how brief you kept your interactions with her, but this made it make sense. Kriff, you were probably oblivious to it, too.

 Mando’s modulated voice brought her back to the present. “You know, we raised some hell here a few weeks ago. It’s too much action for a backwater town like this. Word travels fast. You might wanna cycle the charts and move on.”

 You leaned your head back, rolling your eyes. “Finally.” You’d only been trying to convince him to do that the moment you’d chased the raiders off. “I thought it was going to take bounty hunters actually showing up to get you to make that decision.”

 You swiveled where you sat to look at the man pointedly. He shook his head lightly. You could almost hear the good-natured smirk under his helmet. You couldn’t help but quirk the corner of your mouth yourself.

 As forward as Omera was with hinting her interest towards Mando, Cara Dune thought, you weren’t too bad of a companion choice for him, either. You might not be the worse of the two, either, as far as the dynamic between you. As long as the buckethead wasn’t alone.

 She looked back to where the kids were all playing. “I wouldn’t want to be the one who’s gotta tell him that it’s time to leave.”

 “I’m leaving him here.”

 You and Cara Dune stared at him.

 “Traveling with me… that’s no life for a kid. I did my job, he’s safe. Better chance at a life here.”

 No. You weren’t going to let him decide that easily.

 “Mando. Do I need to remind you that the kid is being hunted as much as you are?” He started to protest, but you continued, standing up from your seat to face him fully, crossing your arms. “And, like you said, the fight with the raiders will have drawn attention. We sure didn’t kill them all, some got away. ‘Word travels fast’.”

 Mando stared back, at a loss for words, and looked to Cara Dune for backup. She only shrugged, indicating you had a point.

 “...if anyone was going to come, they would have done so by now.”

 You dropped your arms to your sides, an incredulous expression on your face. Really? Really?  

 “Mando-”

 He held up his hand to stop you. Such a simple motion shocked you enough to derail your thoughts. He really wasn’t changing his mind, was he…? Was he that ready to leave the kid behind?

 Was he that ready to be rid of you …?

 Leaving the child here meant your current “job” would no longer exist. It meant having to figure out where to go next, how to start next.

 You weren’t ready for that.

 You looked down at the wood flooring of the porch. You couldn’t figure out how to argue back in a way that didn’t sound selfish. Defeated, you turned away from the beskar-clad man and faced away, looking at the children playing again.

 Mando truly felt like this was the best option for the child at this point. He wasn’t anywhere near an acceptable parental figure, and per your own admission you didn’t do well with kids, either. The kid needed other kids to be around, adults that were willing and happy to raise him. You needed to be able to actually settle down somewhere you could rebuild. This tiny village, with its lack of technology, wasn’t it, and it wasn’t on his cramped ship with his stubborn self, either. You deserved better. He didn’t want to say goodbye to the kid, or to you, but it wasn’t about what he wanted.

 The three of you solemnly watched the child play with the other village children.

 “It’s gonna break his little heart.” Cara Dune muttered.

 “He’ll get over it. We all do.”

 You didn’t want to agree with him, on that last line. But he was right.

-

 Everyone had finished packing, all that was needed was for it to be loaded onto the cargo sled. The air felt weighted, and it wasn’t from the humidity of the surrounding swamp.

 For you, the air got even more oppressive when you saw Mando approach Omera and lead her slightly away from the others to speak to her. You knew he was just asking her to watch after the child. But you could see the way she was looking at him. You could see Mando fidgeting, almost shyly. You could feel your face get tingly. Why was this so hard for you? It wasn’t about you.

 You couldn’t hear the exchange, but you could tell Omera was saying something back at him, and the way her expression changed, you almost felt like she was asking him to stay, too.

 But then, pulling you from your wallowing in self-pity, you felt the same thing you’d felt back at your old home, just before the bounty hunters broke through and your life as you knew it ended. The intense, physical feeling of wrong, of something in your head thrashing about telling you to run. Telling you to grab the kid and run.

 They were here.

 You sprinted towards where the village kids were, focusing in on the child, drawing your blaster.

  "Mando!”  

 Whatever had been happening between Mando and Omera was forgotten, the widow spinning around to see what the shouting was, and Mando falling into a defensive stance, hand going to his blaster handle.

 Your timing couldn't have been better. As you skidded to your knees to grab the frightened child, the village children scattering in confusion and fear, blaster fire rang out and a scorched blast marked the earth right where he had been sitting. You ran in a crouch to hide behind the nearest barrier you could get to, in this case some of the cargo that had yet to be loaded. The child whimpered and clutched at your clothing, and you clutched him closer, blaster raised in your other hand in case you needed to peek around and return fire.

 You heard chatter from the other adults, and peering around the corner of the cargo, you see Cara Dune and Mando rush off int the trees. Omera is quickly herding the children to safety. You stay where you are, slumping against the back of the cargo, knowing Mando won't let whoever's out there get away. You look down at the kid in your grasp, who is looking back up at you with those dark eyes you'd gotten used to.

 "I told him it wasn't safe here."

-

 Just as you had warned him, the shots had come from someone carrying a tracking fob for the child. Cara Dune had seen to the demise of the hunter, and the tracking fob was destroyed. If it had been a different situation, you would have been more smug about being right.

 But as it currently stood, you needed to get out of there as soon as you could.

 The cargo sled was fully loaded, with additional supplies beyond what you’d brought with you, and the child was seated up where he could see out. You sat close by, not wanting to chance having to make a dive for him again. You hadn’t anticipated being so protective, but here you were. The village gathered around to see you off. Cara Dune offered to escort you back, but the decision was made to completely bypass going through town and just go straight to the Razor Crest. For once, you agreed with this decision.

 “Well then, until our paths cross.” the two exchanged a firm handshake. She looked back and nodded at you, and you returned it with a raised hand. It was good to know you had an ally out there now.

 You’d anticipated leaving by then, but when Winta rushed forward you had to suppress a groan. You were so ready to leave behind the other kids and yet here they were again, prolonging the goodbye process. With little regard for any sense of personal space, she wrapped her arms around the child in a hug. You leaned away a little to give them room. You didn’t expect her to release the child and give you a hug, too.

 “I’ll miss you so much.”

 You were frozen, your mind having drawn a blank and your body unsure of what to do. It took you a few moments to regain your senses, and you awkwardly put your hands on her shoulders.

 “Uh… us too.” She pulled back and gave you both a shy smile, and scampered away back to stand by her mother.

 Omera smiled and nodded at you in farewell. You tried to do the same, but you couldn’t guarantee your smile looked anything other than awkward and forced. You were terrible at this.

 “Thank you.”

 Mando nodded at her as well, and finally, he boarded the sled, and you left the small village.

 It was strange, you’d only been on the Razor Crest for a few days before the stay on Sorgan happened and took up the following few weeks of your life, but somehow the ship felt more like home than the village had.

 The three of you all sat in the cockpit area of the ship, Mando at the controls, you sitting in one of the chairs with the child in your lap, you idly letting him mess with your hands.

 Now that it was just you three, your curiosity was getting the better of you.

 “So, Mando… what was Omera saying to you before the bounty hunter attacked?”

 Mando flipped a few more switches and dials on the controls and sat back in his chair. “She was suggesting we stay, too.”      You mean she was suggesting    you      stay,     you thought to yourself.

 “...if the hunter didn’t show, would you have?”

 He turned to look at you. “Would you?”

 You huffed. “I liked being in the trees, but… too remote for my taste. Too closely packed. Too many kids trying to see what I was doing.” Too much of Omera trying to be friendly with the Mandalorian. You didn’t say that part, though.

 He turned back to face the windscreen. “If I had wanted to settle down somewhere, I would have done it years ago.” He folded his hands over his stomach. “I’m not interested in living the sedentary family life.”

 Somehow hearing him say that took a huge weight off your mind. But that still didn’t answer the selfish, nagging question you still had.

 “Did you like her?” You still didn’t know why you cared so much. But while your courage was up and you were on this train, you had to get it out. Mando’s head tilted in your direction slightly.

 “She was… nice. But I don’t think I liked her at all the way she liked me.” He turned back to look at the expanse of space before the ship. He didn’t want to say it out loud, but he was glad that you all got out of there before he had to tell her that. He wasn’t as oblivious as some thought, he could definitely tell that the widow was harboring some kind of affection towards him. He just didn’t feel the same way back, though. He never did. Besides, even if he did, his idea of how to live was so different from hers that it just wouldn’t work. Living on a farm, having and raising kids, staying in one place? Absolutely not.

 You looked down at the child in your lap, tugging on his claws that clutched your fingers, trying to hide the little smile of relief on your face. He perked his ears at you and babbled, seeming to sense you weren’t as weighed down as before.

 “You could’ve been free to go start your infochanting back up somewhere, though.” You looked up, a little surprised at the slightly quieter tone to Mando’s voice.

 He had come to appreciate your company, but he wasn’t about to directly admit it.

 You shook your head and huffed. “Honestly? I don’t mind.”

 You looked back down at the kid, gently grabbing the ends of his long ears and fussing with them, making him squeal.

 “I’m kind of glad to be back on this bucket of bolts with you.”

 You hadn’t made any indication of it, but Mando liked to think you were talking to him just then, and not just the child. Hearing those words stirred something in his chest, and though he couldn’t pin down what it was, he wouldn’t mind feeling it again.

#the mandalorian #din djarin x reader #mando x reader #gender neutral reader #din djarin #mando #reader insert

[cybernaght]

Guardian rewatch: episode 12

We start the episode in the Snake Tribe territory, which is supposedly still somewhere within the confines of the Dragon City. It is baffling that it took citizens of this place so long to figure out that there are mysterious beings and demi-humans living among them, it truly is.

While the scene is mostly centred around the conflict between Zhu Hong and her tribe, and the ominous warning of the war brewing, it also does a really lovely joy of showcasing, yet again, the fierce loyalty not only she, but Guo Changcheng have to the SID. This boy remains the most precious muffin of a human.

At the SID, Sang Zan is learning to write under a loving watchful eye Wang Zheng. The once fierce and ruthless warlord is now the softest archivist. On a separate note, I am not sure how good of an archivist he might be considering that he is evidently illiterate.

Anyway, it’s heart-warming to see those two happy together. I sure hope nothing terrible happens to them in the future.

Our actual power couple, on the other hand, have done a full reversal into the relationship they had in the beginning; only it’s somehow even worse now. Shen Wei, who properly messed his cover up during the last adventure, has his guard up as he is being questioned in relation to a case. Zhao Yunlan, who grew to see this man as a friend and partner, is no longer amused by secrets, nor intrigued by them. He is now furious at their existence, upset at what he must perceive as lack of trust on Shen Wei’s part.

Shen Wei serves Zhao Yunlan a cup of tea with a side order of avoidance, hoping that by ignoring the subject of himself it will go away.

When in the previous scenes together they were always across the desk from each other, or next to each other, leaning in closely, body language open, there is now a rift between them. It’s awkward; neither of the men want to be here, but their needs are the opposite to each other, and neither of them are willing to back down.

Shen Wei goes on explaining in great detail his connection to the case and to the victim, despite Zhao Yunlan’s attempt to change the subject with a very unsubtle, “your body surely recovered fast”. The latter then proceeds to stubbornly talk about Shen Wei’s archaic ways, which earns him an incredulous “Are you even listening to me?” from the professor. The incredulity is wonderfully misjudged, considering the circumstances.

“I only want to hear you tell the truth”

We rarely see Zhao Yunlan open and vulnerable. I can’t off the top of my head remember him ever being open and vulnerable with anyone who is not Shen Wei. Zhao Yunlan operates on false bravado, aggressive charm, weaponised smiles. But with this man, he purposefully lowers his guard. I trust you, he seems to say, and I always have. Why can you not trust me?

Shen Wei gulps.

He then continues talking about the case, which is the last straw for Zhao Yunlan, who explodes, smacking his palm hard on the desk.

Shen Wei startles, looking hurt. I just… don’t understand what he was expecting. Once again, this is a man who, from Shen Wei’s perspective, has unmasked him on the first day they met. This is a man who has been poking and prodding him for weeks. And I get that it is hurtful when someone you care about does not respect your boundaries, I do, but truly honestly hoping that the same someone will just accept the relationship terms that have never even been discussed is a little bit unrealistic, especially when Shen Wei is not divulging anything.

Shen Wei is bad at communicating. Which is, I suppose, not news to anyone.

“It seems that Chief Zhao still hasn’t given up on suspecting me.”

“Not suspicion, but lack of understanding.”

Zhao Yunlan is trying very hard. He is trying to close the rift between them: by pulling the chair over next to Shen Wei’s and settling down on it, by reminding Shen Wei how much they have been through together, by telling the man that he is being perplexing. Shen Wei, on the other hand, has raised his barriers all the way back up, smoothly explaining that he is just a normal man who ends up being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He has got a polite smile playing on his lips, his mask fully in place.

Zhao Yunlan does not even pretend to have believed Shen Wei, he gives up on the conversation with a dejected “Fine, forget it.”

He makes his excuses and pulls his phone out to make a call to Wang Zheng to check up on the rest of the team. Just as that happens, the SID gets attacked by the magical sound waves, and Zhao Yunlan sprints into action.

Shen Wei calls after him, and then asks to come with. Considering they have just spent some very awkward time together, more or less fighting about Shen Wei lying an awful lot, Zhao Yunlan would be well within his moral rights to reject help. He doesn’t, however. Even now, the trust he has in Shen Wei  - in his good intentions, in his friendship - is unwavering.

At the SID offices, Tan Xiao is using his sound device to get past the two ghosts energy beings, and break through the safety measures protecting the Hallows. In other news, apart from being susceptible from curses or poisons slipped through the letter box, the SID HQ also does not have anything that might stop a human from breaking into it. How those people survived for this long is a mystery.

A point of complete diversion from me: I am currency watching a contemporary drama entitled To Dear Myself. It’s about young professionals in Shanghai who get their lives broken in about ten different ways; Zhu Yilong’s the leading man; there will definitely be a lengthy think-piece on it here. But the reason I’m bringing that up here is that it also has Chen Weidong, the actor who plays Tan Xiao, as a contextually neurodivergent rich boyfriend of one of the protagonists.

It’s kind of surreal seeing him here; there’s only been about two years between the filming of those two shows, but he looks so different. Oh, and, he is very  good as well.

Back in the world of Guardian, we see Sang Zan shaking off the sound attack and attempting to stop Tan Xiao. He does not succeed as such, but manages to pull a string which activates the Indiana Jones-style set-up with loaded crossbows. It’s very silly; I kind of love it.

While evading the arrows, Sang Zan flings the Awl up in the air, Zhao Yunlan catches it. How close is the University to SID? He took about five minutes to get here! The chief gets a barrage of premonitions which include Zhu Hong knocked out in the future, as well as in the present, and a little sneak-peak into the Disaster Wedding incident.

He then proceeds to pass out into Shen Wei’s slow motion embrace.

There is nothing wrong with this. This is beautiful.

Shen Wei checks on Yunlan briefly, but Tan Xiao goes on the offensive, which deserves him: a) a shot of dark energy right into his chest, which flings him across the space, b) the meanest of Hei Pao Shi’s death glares. This is the moment Tan Xiao earns an uncharacteristically rough treatment he’s going to get at the end of this episode.

She Wei carefully places unconscious Zhao Yunlan next to the wall, calling out his name. We can only presume that the lab has a second exit, as Tan Xiao manages to get away despite the two men currently being more or less in the doorway.

An indeterminate amount of time passes, and Zhao Yunlan wakes on the sofa, Da Qing in human form miaowing at him, his team and Shen Wei nearby. The team goes into a full debrief mode: Wang Zheng reports that she is generally able to repel sound waves, but was taken by surprise; Da Qing and Lin Jin speculate about the shield being affected by the waves as well, since an apparent Undergrounder managed to get through it.

Zhao Yunlan notes that the sound waves ability seems to be doubled, and used for both attack and suggestion. He notes that the powers can be numerous, while grinning conspiratorially at Shen Wei.

Shen Wei quietly despairs. He probably genuinely thought that this conversation was truly over. He takes a few seconds to come to terms with Zhao Yunlan actually teasing him about him maybe being an Undergrounder, before composing himself and stating that compound abilities don’t actually exist.

Da Qing, who doesn’t necessarily pick up what this conversation really is about, but does note that *something* is up with those two, comes to his own conclusions, asking Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan to stop flirting.

Lin Jing comes up up with this.

“Comrades!”

Thank you, Viki subbers, for notifying the audience that the word “Comrade” is also a slang for “gay”.

Lin Jing springs to his feet, saying that he needs a sample test of a human consciousness - presumably to create that clever brain chip of him which would make one immune to the wound wave powers. Zhao Yunlan very theatrically feigns a big scary headache to see whether Shen Wei would volunteer to take the test in his stead to spare him the pain. It’s an underhand move, but it works nonetheless.  

We briefly return to the Snake Tribe, or, more specifically to Zhu Hong’s Fourth Uncle asking whether she is still mad at him, while she is forcibly restrained and bound to a pillar. What is it with this show and binding people to pillars? In reality, the one bound to a pillar is actually Guo Changcheng, which the Fourth Uncle doesn’t pick up on even through Xiao Guo is not actually wearing the clothes Zhu Hong arrived in. Zhu Hong springs the trap, plies her uncle with the same wine, and then goes to regroup with the others, leaving Xiao Guo behind for the time being, because, I guess, it makes more sense for Zhu Hong to be alone when she gets hypnotised later in the episode.

Honestly, it’s easier to not think about too much about this scene, so let’s return to the main characters.

Lin Jing is just finishing the experiment on Shen Wei, who is lying on the lab bed in his undershirt, seemingly asleep. I would assume that Shen Wei has gone into some kind of a meditative trance to try and affect the way his own brain works and emulate the human activity. He does not stir when Zhao Yunlan walks over, and call him.

“Shen Wei? Professor Shen?”

Having received no response, Zhao Yunlan leans in to…

... Count this man’s eye lashes? Admire the effects of his skincare routine?

Oh, no, sorry. Here’s the excuse.

Thank you, Guardian, for this moment.

As Shen Wei wakes up and rises, he lets Zhao Yunlan know in no uncertain terms that he did see through his ruse.

“You don’t have a headache anymore?”

This snaps Yunlan out of gazing at Shen Wei with barely contained lust to pretend that his head indeed still hurts. Considering that Shen Wei does not look concerned, and knowing that Zhao Yunlan’s health and well-being is his number one priority in life, we can conclude that he did know that a headache was just an excuse to get Shen Wei out of his shirt check Shen Wei’s brain activity. Our professor collects his things and leaves with a brief goodbye.

Lin Jing is staring at the readings, checking that the computer has worked properly. Noticing that something is wrong, Zhao Yunlan asks, “Did you see live pornography in his head or something?” Not that I blame his for his mind being the gutter, but also, wow Zhao Yunlan’s mind is in the gutter.

Lin Jing dismisses the idea of mind reading as a whole, and shares his findings that Shen Wei’s consciousness was unwavering, like a dead man’s. Unfortunately for Shen Wei, whatever it was that he did to appear human has not worked well at all.

Zhao Yunlan smirks.

Outside of the SID building, Shen Wei is still frozen in place, contemplating his future actions as he is thumping the Pendant of Pining.

“Should I tell him after all?”

Yes, Shen Wei, you should.

“If I tell him, will that put him in danger?”

I am afraid the the good ship Zhao Yunlan Being In Danger sailed the day Zhao Yunlan became Lord Guardian and Chief of the SID.

(Am I again getting unreasonably frustrated with a fictional character of a show that aired several years ago? You bet I am.)

What follows in the episode is a brief interlude of Zhu Jiu being horrible to Tan Xiao, and making inappropriate comments about him and Zheng Yi. We also learn some of Tan Xiao’s backstory, which expands on his character and explains that the reasons he felt so protective of the little girl was because she reminded him of a sister he once had.

Back to SID offices.

Zhao Yunlan is doodling Shen Wei and the Envoy as he tries to reconcile the two in his mind.

It does sound like he still has doubts that the two are the same person, despite the overwhelming pile of evidence that made him draw to this conclusion in the first place. If anything, it is quite surprising that it took him this long to figure out that the enigmatic mysterious handsome professor and the enigmatic mysterious handsome Envoy are the same person. It is also curious that he seems to think the Envoy is much taller.

Da Qing watches his friend’s mental agony in absolute bewilderment.

Very shortly, they will get a ping for the sound wave energy from somewhere close to Zhu Hong’s home and rush to the scene to find that Zhu Hong has, indeed, been put under mind control, as she attacks Chu Shuzhi.

Here’s another piece of fight choreography for me to tear into.

Okay, good things first. I really like that the actors are doing their own fighting. Jiang Mingyang is generally looking good in combat, and his reactions continue to be on point. Gao Yuer is very flexible, and her kicks are great.

The fight itself however, is another example of the time/money constraints.

The opening punch is… fine. They do lock arms for a split second, which indicates that Zhu Hong properly swung that in rather than stopping the energy, but they are also out of distance, so safety-wise that’s okay-ish, and at full speed it looks alright . But the way Lao Chu is sticking his thumb out and then wraps that around Zhu Hong’s wrist just gave a full body shudder. This is how one gets they thumb dislocated (which I have never done myself, but I hear is very painful) and/or gives their partner a nasty bruise. For anyone out there who needs to hear this, if you ever perform a fight, please tuck your thumbs in line with your fingers and avoid hurting yourself and others. Doing otherwise adds nothing apart from a small but completely avoidable risk of injury.

Then there is this kick-punch-kick combination.

The three moves in isolation are good, but they don’t flow together, at all. I think, and this is pure speculation, that the sweeping punch in the middle was actually meant to follow the previous two moves, then the kick would come next, leading into Chu Shuzhi restraining Zhu Hong. That first kick (which is the same as the third kick, shot from a different angle) just does not belong there as a follow-up to the two punches. I can speculate that it was cut there because it looked cool - which it does - but it also sacrifices any hope this fight had for coherent storytelling.

Then there is a capture and a swivel, very similar to the finishing move used in Zhu Jiu/Sang Zan fight in episode 11. Zhu Hong gets pressed against the tree, and the team shows up to sedate her and bring her back to the headquarters.

Tan Xiao and Zheng Yi watch this scene unfold at a distance, as Zhao Yunlan appears behind them. The SID chief calmly lets Tan Xiao know that he’s been abandoned by Zhu Jiu, and the other man offers no resistance to being captured.

The narrative brings us to the boxing ring, introducing us to it as Zhu Jiu’s energy farm, and then briefly cuts to SID, where Chu Shuzhi realises that they have not retrieved Guo Changcheng. The puppet master springs into action, leaving Lin Jing to wonder since when his friend is so protective of the rookie. If he paid attention, he would have noticed that Chu Shuzhi was protective of the rookie since day one.  

We then move to the interrogation of Tan Xiao, which is happening in the hospital set, with Zheng Yi tucked into the hospital bed, even through it was never established that she would need medical attention, and, considering that she would have no issues walking out of the hospital very shortly, she clearly does not. Here, we see some more flashbacks, detailing Tan Xiao and the girl’s backstory, the abuse she suffered, and the bond the two forged. The young man is admitting to all the crimes he had not committed to protect her, and Zhao Yunlan is honestly moved. He sounds almost regretful when he lets Tan Xiao know that he will still be persecuted for his crimes.

Right on cue, Hei Pao Shi portals in.

Zhao Yunlan greets him with a customary “long time no see”, but the most acknowledgement he receives from Shen Wei is a side-eye which does not even focus on his face.

In fact, the Envoy is doing as much as he can to avoid even turning to Zhao Yunlan. He simply announces his purpose to the room in general and teleports Tan Xiao away. It’s easy to see what he is doing. In Shen Wei’s mind, the less communication he has with Zhao Yunlan as Hei Pao Shi, the better are his chances to separate his two personalities in the eyes of the other man. That said, showing an abrupt and uncharacteristic change of behaviour is the opposite of suspicious.

Even Da Qing notices the change Hei Pao Shi.

“Lao Zhao, what did you do to upset him? You used to do small talk, not anymore?”

Zhao Yunlan smirks, replying that he knows the reason why. He then notices the little girl crying, and goes to comfort her the only way he knows how, with a lollipop. When that does not work, he gestures for Da Qing to leave with him, and returns with a familiar black cat and an adorable “ta-dah”. It’s so sweet it makes my teeth hurt.

As this is going on, Hei Pao Shi is being his glorious over the top avenging self. For one, he is actually floating above Tan Xiao, which I don’t think he ever seen him do before. He then proceeds to throttle the young man, lifting him in the air and throwing him back on the ground.

He does so in order to shake the sound wave equipment out of him, sure, but it is easy to assume that Tan Xiao also brought the Envoy’s wrath onto himself by his misguided attempt to hurt Zhao Yunlan earlier that day. It’s deliciously petty; we know that the best way to earn Shen Wei’s ire is by threatening his companion. And, to be fair, Shen Wei had a bad day: this is as good a way as any to get some of that ancient anger out of his system.

As Hei Pao Shi realises that the man he arrested is a simple human armed with some clever technology, and the real homicidal Undergrounder is the girl he is protecting, so does Zhao Yunlan. Even miles away, even when they are having arguments, their analytical brains still work in sync. And, as plot twists go, this one is neat, albeit not entirely unpredictable.

Unfortunately, realising that the girl is dangerous, brings along a realisation that Zhao Yunlan left his friend in her care. He rushes to the hospital to check on Da Qing, finding the ward empty. If this was Zhu Jiu’s plan all along, it’s a good one: having access to a brainwashed SID member would also spell easy access to the headquarters and the Hallows - which is exactly where Zheng Yi leads Da Qing, taking the Hallows and leaving the Yashou to go into a berserk mode as he imagines or remembers Zhao Yunlan/Kunlun saying “I will abandon you”

Next up, episode 13: The Disaster Wedding.

——

Notes.

Every time Shen Wei lies my brain supplies me with Why You Always Lying song. Every. Single. Time. Which means I sing it a lot around the flat, to my partner’s great chagrin.

Whoooo boy and I thought the Episode 10 recap was the crackiest one I’ve done.

#guardian #recap #rewatch #zhao yunlan #shen wei #now with gifs #sometimes my brain is like this #I'm not sorry