#panel two is for the monsterfuckers

[shadowtraveled]

"mithrun is the only real monsterfucker in dungeon meshi" is objectively the funniest bit you can get out of his everything, but in all seriousness i think his attraction to his love interest is deliberately overstated—and that makes sense, because romantic jealousy is a classic and digestible motive, which is explicitly what kabru was aiming for in condensing mithrun's backstory, and also because until chapter 94, mithrun wasn't willing to admit to the true nature of his desires.

but because romantic envy is both classic and digestible, it probably isn’t a unique enough or complicated enough desire to tempt a demon’s appetite. mithrun’s wish, as far as we can figure from kabru’s reduced retelling, was to have a life in which he had never become one of the canaries, and that carries like 3857 implications and desires within it. that’s delicious. his love interest acts as sort of a red herring to his motivation for making it, though. (side note: i'm saying "love interest" here because, keeping in mind that i barely speak japanese on a good day anymore, "想い人" is something i'd usually take as just kind of an old-fashioned and romantic way to refer to a lover, but in context i wonder if both the connotation of yearning and the vagueness are intentional, and i think this phrasing gets those aspects of it more effectively. anyway.)

mithrun considered his love interest to be untrustworthy. there was a minute where i thought that comment might be about a similar-looking elf (yugin, one of his squad members), but comparing the two…

the "sketchy" arrow is definitely referring to the elf we know as his love interest—the bangs go toward her right, she only has the one forehead ornament, and, most notably, her ears aren't notched.

every time she’s given a full-body depiction in his dungeon, she’s drawn as a chimera, with the body of a snake from the waist down. (side note: the “what if a dungeon has chimeras before reaching level 4?”/“then the dungeon lord is unstable” exchange just being mithrun grilling his past self alive is so funny. he’s so. but anyway) there are a couple things about this.

first, the snake part of the chimera appears to be modeled after some species of coral snake mimic

which, in the biology-for-fun manga, i… doubt is a coincidence, especially with the added context of the “untrustworthy” comment. the dungeon’s conjured illusion of mithrun’s love interest was a harmless copycat of a venomous original. for whatever reason, he felt this person was a threat and made up a "safe" version of her to be in a relationship with, and while it’s definitely possible to be attracted to or even love someone you find to be toxic and/or intimidating, when you take that into consideration alongside the configuration of her body, you get some interesting implications.

which brings us to our second point: if we assume that mithrun was not in fact fucking a snake, then sexual attraction, at least, was so far removed from his idea of a relationship with this person that he did not even bother to keep her dungeon copy human enough to maintain the illusion of the option of a sexual relationship. this is somewhat echoed in the depictions of their interactions, which also imply a frankly unexpected romantic distance. she kisses his cheek and he doesn't seem to react; she's at the edge of a narrow bed with only one set of pillows, on top of his blankets while he's underneath them.

the kiss is particularly interesting because it seems to contrast the text. kabru's narration tells us this was everything mithrun could have asked for, but mithrun is there looking unreadable to pensive, likely because this is right before the panel that makes it clear things in the dungeon are beginning to go wrong.

walking through this backwards for a minute, we have the physical barrier of his bedding and the spatial separation inherent in a bed made for one person, the emotional barrier of his mounting anxiety getting in the way of his ability to enjoy the affection he sought, and... the snake, which historically carries the connotation of temptation, yes, but also mistrust, barring physical intimacy. okay. ok. if a dungeon reflects the mentality of its lord, all of this might suggest that mithrun was not able to have any real desire for a relationship with this person. his unwillingness to be vulnerable or let another person in was insurmountable. but in that case, why was she such a focal point that she remained to the end, after his dungeon had stopped creating iterations of his friends to come and visit him? why would he get so upset over her meeting with his brother that he became lord of a dungeon about it?

well. mithrun's brother was also interested in her, probably genuinely. and mithrun had to win.

you have an older brother who your parents completely ignore, probably in part because he is chronically ill/disabled and almost definitely in part because he received a ton of recessive traits that resulted in rumors that he was an illegitimate child. you are aware, most likely because those same parents fucking told you, that you actually are an illegitimate child. but they keep you around because you had the good fortune of looking just like your mother. what can that possibly teach you but that you, like your brother, are disposable?

it's utterly unsurprising that mithrun, under these circumstances, developed a pathological need to be better than everyone around him. people don't keep you otherwise. i'd argue this is also why he says he looked down on everyone he knew while milsiril claims his dungeon reeked of feelings of inferiority—he sought out people's worst traits and prioritized them in his mind to protect his already extremely fragile sense of self-worth, and all the while he tried to be as likable and high-performing as he possibly could be. his parents disposed of him anyway, but even then he tried to keep up the performance. he was kind to everyone. he never once lost to a dungeon.

when he saw his "love interest" meeting up with his brother, what he saw was himself being replaced by a person his parents had always treated as worthless, and if that was what they thought of the child they'd kept, what value could anyone possibly see in the bastard they'd given away to die? mithrun and kabru tell the story like he wanted to win this unnamed elf's heart, but it was never about being with her. it was about cementing his worth, proving that he didn't deserve to be thrown away.

and so it's particularly cruel that his demon discarded him, too. but maybe it's also particularly gentle that, in the end, there was someone who refused to even consider giving up on him.

kui laid it out in three panels better than i could hope to.

yeah. it's love. you wanted to be loved, even when the only way you were able to understand it was through the desire to be wanted, and you wanted that so badly that the idea of being consumed felt like the promise of finally mattering to someone.

#dungeon meshi spoilers #mithrun #dungeon meshi #this has been rotating for a while but i wanted to check my evidence before getting into it thanks user angelspenance for posting that meme #half of this is just the text and the other half i'm sure has been said before but it's making my brain [radio static] so here this is #someone did for sure mention this but i do find it very cute that in his fucked up conjured world meant to portray his ideal reality #his teammates came to visit him. like part of the fantasy was then explicitly that they cared about him and were his friends. even though #he says he tried to see the worst in them. #hm it does feel important to note that i do also believe 100% in mithrun suicidality--his desire to be eaten does seem to focus a lot on #wanting it to be Over. wanting not to be left incomplete and empty anymore. #but that loops back around a bit to the hole in your heart that appears when you feel unloved. it's many things and the same thing at once #snakes #long post #severe problems #meshy

[lonelystarrs]

𝑷𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒚 𝑳𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒍𝒆 𝒀𝒐𝒖

𝐖𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐰𝐨𝐥𝐟! 𝐓𝐨𝐣𝐢 𝐅𝐮𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐨 𝐱 𝐅𝐞𝐦𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

Toji didn’t think he’d ever change for a woman again, turns out he did for a pretty little thing like you, he just wasn’t expecting it in this way —bet you really thought the joke about him being a werewolf was funny now.

Warnings 18+ MDNI seriously. Kinktober + extremely descriptive + monsterfucking + werewolf Toji + knots + breeding + size kinks + dubcon + mirror +

Tbh this was pretty rushed and basic, but let’s be honest only here for the smut when it’s kinktober 😂🫶🏻

It started over a year ago, all over a simple wound that Toji had from what he assumed was a curse at the time.

The claw marks had ran so deep across his back it exposed bone, the blood loss was life threatening but his ignorance took him towards his home, not towards help.

That’s when you came into the picture, pretty little you.

An off duty nurse who’s happened to be walking home to meet a stumbling Toji bleeding out near the building where he lived. Being ever so loyal to her duty as a nurse you helped. He remembered your eyes, your hair, how warm and soft your hands were and he remembered how you smelt. It stood out from the cold air, the smell of fresh rain and it was weirdly comforting, a clean yet sweet smell.

You’d stopped the bleeding, getting him to hospital for treatment and all you were was a memory, some pretty thing leaning over him slumped in a way that wasn’t dignifying what so ever and especially not how he usually met women.

He healed faster than expected, way faster than anything they’d ever seen before. Within two days he was healed with nothing but a large, clawed scar down his back, from his right shoulder to his left side under his ribs.

He took himself home, a bag of take out in hand as he stood in the elevator taking him up to his floor. The other hand shoved into his pocket staring mindlessly at the ceiling panel.

When it dinged and the doors opened he stepped out, colliding with someone much smaller than him and that someone was you.

Falling back into your ass from colliding with sheer force that was Toji Fushiguro, and in true Toji style he didn’t aid your fall he very much let it happen. Looking down at you and tilting his head, green eyes staring at your incredible legs long and toned leading straight up to those pretty black lace panties you had on under the shorter loose leather skirt that had rode up.

The little lace top you had on left little to the imagination, denim jacket a little ruffled from your fall, and nice black strappy heels on with red bottoms —which he didn’t expect.

Your hair framed you, thick and wavy, all done up for your little night out. Tits pushed up and face with light make up.

It was the second time he’d ever seen you and the first time he made contact with you, lazily reaching out a hand but not bending to you —he only done it because you helped him a few days ago.

You took it letting him pull you up with such force it thrusted you into his chest and he smirked, tilting his head giving you another once over because you really were such a pretty little thing.

“Oh! You’re uh- well you’re looking much better, it was only a few days ago and they’ve released you?”

“I left.”

“You’re moving well, what are you a werewolf?”

“A werewolf?”

Toji snorted a laugh at you and you laughed waving your hand around flippantly from your goofy joke. You thought he was one who those shitty dog looking things in classic old horror films?

“I was joking, y’know? It was a big claw mark and you’re out of hospital in days with a wound that went bone deep…”

“Just a real man doll, I ain’t howling at no moon.”

It turns out you lived in the same complex as him having rich parents but still studying as a nurse, once Toji found out the money he started taking an interest because even in his late thirties he wasn’t going to change.

He thought he wasn’t anyway but you made him feel something rare —and that was feeling a lil bad about taking advantage of you. He knew from past experience with his deceased wife that he maybe had a second chance of redemption, because that’s how he started feeling with her.

Your caring nature was a given, you were a nurse, so when Toji suddenly came down with a full blown fever you’d been there again, your hands feeling colder this time on his hot skin, your voice soothing him and that smell of you was lulling him. He’d pulled you in and buried his nose into you, inhaling like an animal as he started to grope every inch of you desperately, it gave him some relief.

Apparently he was changing in more ways than just seeing you as a source of money and sex, because it turned out that in fact, Toji was howling at full moons nearly four weeks later.

It started with restlessness and a mild fever, nothing too out of the ordinary in your line of work, but it wasn’t normal for Toji —he didn’t get sick. But something was crawling under his skin, his cock throbbing under his joggers and no matter how many times he fucked it into his fist he wasn’t cumming. His hand ran through his sweaty hair, pushing it out his face as he looked down at his far above average cock, an angry red and drooling precum with his hand curled around it.

It was throbbing, rock solid, he could feel the pulsing in it and he was burning from over stimulation, the rage in lack of release was only adding to the feral feeling biting across his skin as he felt his patience all but slipping.

Then his nose caught a whiff of something, something that made his cock flex in his hand and drive an instinct he didn’t know he had. Green eyes scanned the room, landing on a top of his you’d been wearing. When he lifted it to his face he moaned, eyes rolling back into his sockets and the pleasurable pulse sent to his cock was euphoric… that sweet smell of you was opening that door he was banging against.

His hips rolled into his fist, cock sliding into it smearing the overload of precum to make a wet hole to fuck into and his pace was feral, heaving in air between inhaling the scent you’d left over it. His mind too clouded to realise what exactly he was doing but chasing only a feeling.

You didn’t last a second when you returned home after your shift in work, he’d jumped on you and fucked you like you were his life line, a feral, blind pleasure that burned under his skin, only feeling it cool when you pressed against him. Burying his face into your neck and breathing you in like oxygen.

And he felt fucking incredible, fucking you felt unworldly.

Day two he’d been running such a high fever that wasn’t going down, reaching a temperature that was almost inhuman. He’d crashed into a sleep and you’d used the opportunity to shower. The towel was ripped from you as soon as your feet entered the bedroom and you were pressed against the wall, legs thrown over his shoulders as he lifted you.

But it wasn’t Toji.

His coat was so black he blended into the darkness of the room, silver teeth bared and green eyes illuminated like the full moon.

With your back pressed to the wall and werewolf! Toji lifting you on his shoulders as your thighs tightened around his head. Your hands gripping and pulling at his black fur as that long tongue worked its magic, so long it was fucking your dripping hole and rubbing against your clit at the same time. It didn’t take long for spit and cum to run down your ass and legs as he was edging you towards cumming on him again and you bucked wildly against him.

It should be wrong —holy shit this should be wrong.

But those glowing green eyes below you were feral, those jaws so large that you literally fit between them as he ate you out. His clawed hands under your thighs to prevent him from piercing you with those almost silver-white teeth.

You couldn’t breath as your body was driven into over stimulation and he wasn’t letting up on his restless attack with his tongue.

He was growling under you, something rumbling in his chest and you could feel it vibrating on his tongue. When you tried to pull away, tried to lift yourself from him his ears flattened, his lips curled and he bared his teeth with a snarl.

The only reason you calmed were his eyes and you knew it was him, even if you wanted to fight you couldn’t but you just needed a break to breathe. He looked silly in the apartment despite how big it was, Toji was a huge man regardless but this added to the huge form that he was.

“T-Toji I ca-fuck- I can’t anymore you gotta s-stop-“

Your body thrashed with each harsh lick of his tongue, drool dripping down his chin into his coat finding the taste of your cum irresistible, the smell of you was addicting. Toji was an asshole so it wasn’t hard to ignore you begging him to stop as you couldn’t handle it anymore, he was selfish and greedy naturally but when it came to eating you out like this?

Fuck-

The tip of his tongue buried in you felt you clenching again in little pulses as you got closer, he slanted your body to one claw keeping under your thigh, the other resting on his shoulder keeping you spread open against the wall. He reached down grabbing his cock, feeling the knot forming at the base —it felt different, besides the size difference.

He fisted himself and his hips started to move in time with it.

“M’gonna cum- fuck, hah, T-Toji s’good -holy shit-“ you were slurring words that meant nothing, weightless as your vision went white and stars appeared and with perfect timing he lifted from your clit and let his entire length of his tongue fill you roughly, he looked up to see your eyes roll back and your head rolled against the wall.

“Fu-Fucking hell,”

He stroked his dick steadily as you came around his tongue, hips stuttering as your body was slack against him and the wall. Withdrawing his tongue and head he pulled back, the taste of you filling his mouth, mouth watering again at the sweetness you gave.

He literally shrugged your thighs off his shoulders, his hands gripping your ass as you slid down the wall catching you with your legs falling over his thick forearms. He angled you so his hard, upright dick pressed against your entrance, your hands gripping his biceps, lacing under the black coat and your eyes widened as you realised he wasn’t letting you catch your breath.

Regretting looking down to see he wasn’t his body that had just change but the size of his already worthy dick had doubled, pre was drooling from the slit and it was flexing angrily.

“W-wait Toji that’s too big you-“

He pressed the tip to you and pushed, panting as his green eyes watched his cock start to stretch you out and it was tight. Toji bullied his way in, his forming knot pressing against your clit, your jaw slacked and no noise left you. The stretch was painful, but with how he was pressing against your spread open clit was just enough to distract you.

Toji growled when he eyed the bulge in your stomach and he flexed inside you watching it move. Clawed hands planted against the wall behind you, either side of your waist with your legs still over his forearms, the position was awkward being wedged between the wall him like this.

“T-Toji p-please g-go easy, it’s too big I’m-“

His hard thrust back into you cut you off as your breath hitched in your throat, nails digging into his chest and your toes curled. 

“You’ll take it how it comes,”

your eyes widened as you looked up at him with worry, finally hearing him speak, his own voice mixed with something else thrown in. Your body contradicting your worry, his words made you pulse around him and he chuckled, green eyes meeting yours.

Shifting an arm to snake around your waist to hold you in place as he pulled back his cock, watching the slick glistening on it and he slammed back into you, starting a pace that was cruel. Your arms wrapped around his long nose and jaws clamping them together, pulling him into your chest hugging him and pressing your forehead to his.

“Holy shi-hah, it’s too big, it’s too- I’m gonna cum, I’mgonnacum!”

You sounded panicked but all he focused on was the wet plap, plap, plap of his inhuman dick spreading you open cause it was fucking beautiful to watch. Slick and cum coating his knot as it formed a sticky link everytime it touched your clit.

And he lost it.

You only made whimpering and strangled noises as he fucked you hard, every other thrust trying to push his knot in to plug you, failing drew a pissed off snarl from him that made him pull away along with his cock.

He threw you across the room to your bed and you tried to crawl away, his grip on your ankle slid you back down the bed and in his desperation he pinned you to it, rutting clumsily against the back of your thighs and ass trying to find your pussy.

“Stay, brat-“

He snarled into your ear and you groaned into the bed as he snarled in your ear and arched your hips back, a dull ache in your cunt from being stretched so much but pulsing to have it again.

Unhappy with the position he shifted, green eyes catching himself in the huge floor length arch mirror, he gripped the backs of your thighs and pulled you up. Your back to him you reached back to grab him to balance yourself. His cock slapping against your exposed pussy as he walked to the large mirror, spreading you out. He nuzzled his nose into your neck.

“Put it in before I force it-“

You reached down pressing your fingers to the underside of his head, pressing it against yourself as he lifted you until he felt your swollen hole, impaling you on his cock, watching the bulge appear in your stomach again and he let you watch, let you see what he was seeing.

Green eyes flickering from your face to his knot bouncing against you, begging to plug you, he could feel it resisting less in this position and when he’d just had enough he paused and forced you down to take it.

Your pained whimper only spurred him on, his thrusts switching to short but hard, your body bouncing off each thrust as you went crossed eyed, drooling with only noises leaving you as he made you watch him fucking you dumb.

He gave no warning when he came, only some whine that left his throat. His hips jolting up into you as his knot swelled locking him in you.

“S’too much- m’full, no more -Toji I can’t-“

“Cum it out then,”

You were shaking against him, your whole body struggling to keep up with him like this, but it was so hot watching him plug you, fill you up and seeing that bulge in your stomach.

So you reached down, one finger rolling over your buzzing clit and your hips jolted in reaction to how sensitive it was, your nerves burning with each circle and swipe on your clit, watching your hole clenching and pulsing around him.

You came with tears streaming down your cheeks, pushing so hard his softening cock pulled from you followed by the ridiculous amount of cum he’d fucked into you.

He nuzzled into you, gracing his teeth over your neck as you came back from seeing stars, tranced by the sight of the mess he’d made of you, holding you up like you were nothing as his green eyes glowed.

“We ain’t done, doll.”

©pharix/lonelystarrs 2023 permission is not given to repost, translate or post anywhere else.

Dividers all on my side blog for credits as per 🫶🏻

#toji smut #toji fushiguro smut #jjk toji #toji x you #kinktober jjk #kinktober Toji #toji x reader #jujutsu toji #toji fushiguro x reader #jjk fanfic #jjk x reader #jjk fanfiction #jjk smut #jjk x you #jjk thirsts #dilf toji #jujutsu kaisen toji #fushiguro toji #toji x y/n

[drunkenlionwrites]

A tale of tails

That's just me being bummed out by Dan Heng's model not having tail like Bailu does. Why is my boy devoid of tail? That's not fair. Warnings: afab reader, monsterfucking (duh), smut and fluff, bad puns, pwp, this is basically 1000 words of you getting off by riding Dan Heng's tail.

You’ve been sitting in your lover’s room for some time already. Well…the archive room, to be exact, though you never have minded that. It made you feel calm and relaxed. The interior of it being just as ascetic and restrained as Dan Heng. You loved everything about it: the dark wooden panels on the walls, the number of paper books and records he possessed. It reminded you of art deco style, though it looked and felt much cozier. The effect was made by the fact that the two walls were angled, making the room resemble a rustic attic.

Both of you were relaxing in his makeshift bed, sitting shoulder to shoulder, backs pressed to the wall, your head leaning on him, as he has been reading you the book of your choosing. It’s the first time you’ve felt at peace, Dan Heng with the rest of the crew returning from Xianzhou Luofu. That’s not pointing out the fact, that Dan Heng returned with some additions in form of horns, pointy ears and a tail, as well as the knowledge that he is not a human, but a Vidyadhara, which caused a temporary rift between you since Dan Heng once again wanted to ponder over everything and take some time to himself.

You’ve been completely absorbed in the moment, just enjoying the feeling of closeness, Dan Heng’s calming narration slowly lulling you to sleep, until you’ve felt something warm and scaly sliding up your thigh, enveloping it. Your eyes immediately darting to your legs, only to find Dan Heng’s tail curling around your right thigh, the side of it almost touching your core. He seemed to not be paying any kind of attention to that, continuing reading, then looking at you with a slight frown of his brows since you’ve become clearly distracted with something. “Should I stop reading, seems like you’re tired of listening anyway. Would you like simply to go to bed?” Dan Heng calmly asked, looking at you and noticing your slight unease. “Did something happen? Did you think of something not quite pleasant?” “No…it’s just…um…your tail…” you mumbled, being a bit flustered, feeling the strong muscle of his tail enveloping your leg and touching your pussy in passing. “Oh, my apologies. I haven’t yet gotten accustomed to it. You…hate it?” He looked at you with a seemingly calm face, yet you’ve noticed bits of hesitation and worry in his voice, which made your heart sink. “No! No, you know that I love you? That means all the parts of you. Both your body and your soul. And now…your immortality and what it entails. No pun intended” you replied softly. “To be honest…I rather…like it? More parts of you that I can touch, or maybe…um…you can touch me with?” you’ve felt antsy just straight up admitting it to him, feeling your panties getting wet at the thought, but hey, honest and straightforward communication on your part usually helped resolve any bumps in your relationship.

You’ve noticed Dan Heng’s eyes widening a little at your confession, the tips of his ears and his cheeks dusted in peachy pink. “You mean that?” he asked, to which you nervously nodded. You expected him to drop the topic and go back to reading, or start a serious conversation once again on how he’s not a regular human, but what you wasn’t expecting was him moving closer to you, his hands tossing the book to the side and moving to your hip and thigh, gently stroking you, his lips lightly brushing your ear while he whispered “You sure?” which earned him your breathy “yes” and a small shudder of your body.

“Then, would you really enjoy me doing this?” he softly asked, while uncoiling his tail from your leg and moving him down straight to your pussy, prodding you and making you lift yourself up a bit, so it could slide under you. Now you were practically straddling it, with Dan Heng slowly straining his muscles, moving his tail back and forth against your clothed cunt. You mewled and rocked your hips against him a few times, breathing out “You told me…you didn’t know how to use it yet.” He chuckled a bit at that, enjoying your already disheveled state. “I told you I’m not accustomed to it yet. And now you’re helping me practice, my love.” He said in a sly voice, pressing his tail harder against you, his pace fastening. You could swear that the wetness and stickiness of your arousal leaked and stained his scales even through your panties, the fabric doing nothing to reduce the sensation of his tail steadily stoking you. “Shit…Dan Heng, I cannot take it for much longer” you exhaled, your hips rocking against him, your hands clutching the upper part of his tail to steady yourself, your movements more and more erratic with each moment, you’ve been on the verge of orgasm in mere moments due to the previously not experienced kind of stimulation and the realization of what you two have actually been doing. Damn, do I have a new kind of kink now? You managed to ask yourself before your mind has gotten completely devoid of coherent thoughts. “Then take as much as you can” Dan Heng chuckled, with mirth in his voice, which made you grind yourself harder against him, only taking you few more minutes to feel your face and ears getting completely hot before you completely lost all your senses in a powerful orgasm recking your body. Gaining your consciousness, you leaned back to the wall, hoisting yourself up for Dan Heng to remove his tail from under you, breath still heavy, senses still heightened and pussy still fluttering.

“Since when you became so blunt and forward?” you asked. Kissing your temple and bringing your head to rest back on his shoulder, Dan Heng replied “Guess somebody rubbed off on me. No pun intended.”

If you loved the work, please reblog!

#hsr smut #hsr dan heng #hsr x you #hsr x reader #dan heng x reader #dan heng x you #dan heng smut #honkai star rail smut #honkai star rail x reader #honkai star rail x you

[beskarandblasters]

Immortal By Design

Possessed!Din Djarin x F!Reader

Main Masterlist | Din Djarin Masterlist | Story Playlist

Author’s note: I originally had this posted as a mini series, but I decided to make it a one shot instead! (｡◕‿◕｡) To see what this Din looks like, click here! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Summary: Din Djarin picks up a mysterious job at the Bounty Hunter’s Guild from a high paying client that specifically requested him. Once he tracks down the bounty, he discovers two things— you tracking the bounty for different reasons entirely and a lot more than he bargained for.

Word count: 8k

Warnings: reader is able-bodied, canon divergent (long live the Razor Crest), no Grogu in this universe, possession, cursed object, dark!Din, monsterfucking (I think), Din has heightened capabilities, dub con/noncon, restraints, reader gets captured, oral sex (M and F receiving), rough oral sex, fingering, vaginal sex, unprotected sex, creampie, mir’sheb = smart ass, character death, no use of y/n

Fic notifs: @beskarandblastersfics Fic recs: @kelbellsficrecs

Part One: Possession of Another Kind

It’s a typical day on Nevarro. Din walks through the marketplace, heading towards the Bounty Hunters Guild to pick up another job as part of his normal routine. 

Typical. Normal. Ordinary. 

That is unless he steps into the Guild. 

“Mando!” Karga shouts, beckoning for him to come to his booth. He seems frantic… urgent. Before Din even has a chance to speak, Karga continues, pulling out a tracking fob and setting it on the table. 

But for once there’s no bounty poster hologram, no flickering blue lights. 

“No poster?” Din asks, cocking his helmet to the side. 

“No…  But the reward is quite large.”

“How much?”

Karga scans the room, eyes bouncing from person to person. He leans forward, lowering his voice and saying, “A million credits.”

Din can’t believe his ears. There’s no way this is legit. No one on Nevarro or in the Outer Rim for that matter has that kind of credits. 

“Sounds like a scam,” Din says, leaning back in the booth. 

“It’s not. Droid came here this morning and dropped off the fob. Said they’d back with the reward once the bounty was captured.”

“You know I don’t care for droids.”

“You can’t pass up this reward.”

“…No one else wanted this job?”

“The client specifically requested you.”

Din’s hairs stand on their ends. A shiver runs down his spine. The fact that someone did their research… Someone who knows who he is and specifically chose him for the job is suspicious but also intriguing. And the reward is too prosperous to pass up. This bounty must be dangerous if the client is willing to pay this much. 

“Fine. I’ll do it,” he sighs. He takes the fob from the table and slips out of the booth. 

“Good luck,” Karga says with a strange look in his eye.

Din isn’t one to get scared, but the circumstances here are undeniably ominous. Between Karga’s strange behavior, the missing bounty poster, and the absurdly high reward, Din has an unsettling feeling coursing through his body. He heads back to the Crest, his mind wandering with the possibilities of what exactly he just got himself into. 

He plugs in the coordinates from the fob into the control panel of the Crest. And the location is an immediate red flag…

The bounty is located on Malachor of all places. 

Malachor is a barren wasteland of a planet. Din knows the planet means bad news but he doesn’t know why exactly. Something about the Empire or the Sith. The Empire he’s well acquainted with but the Sith? The Jedi? Not so much. 

At least if it’s a barren place, the bounty shouldn’t be too hard to find, right? He’s not too worried about the potential Sith connotations just yet. Din’s a capable warrior, raised by the best of the best in the galaxy. He should be able to hold his own without too many troubles. 

He sets a course for Malachor and takes off. Nevarro gets smaller and smaller underneath him and the unsettling feeling returns. He just keeps reminding himself of the life-changing reward he’ll receive if he succeeds. 

Not if but when.

-

It doesn’t take too long to get to Malachor from Nevarro. Both are Outer Rim planets. So thankfully, the journey there was rather uneventful. 

But when he lands on Malachor? That’s a different story.

He lands the Razor Crest on the desolate surface, grabs the fob, and heads outside. Barren would be an understatement to describe this planet. It’s empty. There’s not a single soul around for miles. It feels like the planet is absent of all light sources. Thick, gray, clouds coat the sky above him. The ground beneath his feet is a rocky wasteland. It’s not hard to understand why there’s no life here; why no one comes here. All of this begs the question; what is the bounty doing here?

He follows the signal of the tracking fob, feeling like he’s walking in circles for ages. His surroundings are the same, with no identifiable landmarks or features around to let him know he’s making progress. He feels his sanity start to slip. The tracking fob keeps beeping monotonously, showing no signs that he’s getting closer to the target. It’s driving him insane. For an uninhabited planet, this bounty is a lot harder to find than he originally thought. He starts to wonder… Is this even worth it anymore? Is it worth his time and frustration?

He interrupts his own train of thought.

Yes. Yes, it is worth it. For a million credits, you’ll spend however long it takes to find the bounty, he tells himself.

Good things come to those who wait. In the distance just over the horizon line, he spots something odd. As he gets closer he can slowly make out what it is– four top-heavy, pyramidal stones situated in a square formation. The tracking fob beeps faster and louder as he gets closer to the stones. Once he’s up close and personal with them he sees just how massive they are. They tower over him and etched in the stone is a language he can’t understand, written in bright red. One of the stones is surrounded by an opening in the planet, a deep hole descending below the surface. The tracking fob only goes crazier as he draws closer to the crater. Only way to go from here is down. 

He uses his jetpack to carefully lower himself into the hole, using the lamp attached to his helmet to see where he’s going. Once he feels the ground beneath his feet, he looks around and can’t believe his eyes. 

A vast field of stones is buried underneath the surface, each of them etched with the same red lettering he saw up above. And in the center of the field is a black stone pyramid, the tip of it glowing red. He looks beneath him and he’s standing on a cliff. He lowers himself deeper into the field of stones, his hairs standing on their ends. This is unmistakably a bad place. 

Something ominous looms in the air, a feeling of dread brewing in Din’s stomach. But he persists, following the trail the tracking fob is taking him. He inches closer and closer to the temple? The tomb? Whatever that pyramid-looking thing is. As he gets closer to it, a disembodied voice calls to him. 

Come closer. 

…Is it the bounty? The voice didn’t sound like it was speaking out loud… It sounded like it was inside Din’s head. 

But how is that possible?

He’s at the opening of the pyramid and it all happens so fast. The tracking fob is ballistic, beeping, and flashing lights rapidly. Everything is a blur around him. It’s like his mind isn’t in control of his body. 

All he can hear is the fob going off and the voice talking directly in his ear. 

Come find me.  

A large box stands before him, blackened stone etched with red, just like everything else in this strange place. He’s not sure what this place is exactly but he feels like he has to be standing in some sort of temple. The box looks more like a tomb, long enough for Din to fit inside of it lying down. This place definitely belongs to some sort of religion. Maybe even a cult. Could this place belong to the Sith? What is he getting himself into?

Open the lid, the voice commands. 

He does as he’s told, lifting the heavy stone lid and revealing… an amulet. 

Put me on. Don’t be shy, the voice says. 

He looks down at the fob in his hand, the beeping is incessant. It can’t be any clearer that this… this thing is what he was sent to look for. 

Put me on, the voice commands again. 

He takes the silver chain in his hands, the red pendant glowing red just like everything else here. He really shouldn’t put this strange, seemingly bewitched object on but he feels compelled to. The voice is convincing, talking to him like this is what he’s supposed to be doing. 

He lifts the chain above his helmet pulling it down around his neck. 

Protect me. Keep me close to your heart. 

Without thinking he tucks the chain into his flight suit, feeling the cool metal contrast against his warm skin. All of a sudden he feels… different. He’s not really sure how to explain it but he feels better, like he’s more in tune with himself. He feels stronger, more alert, almost like he’s on another plane of existence. It’s exhilarating like someone just gave him the best drugs in the galaxy. 

The beeping on the tracking fob finally subsides. Could it be that he was after all this time? That doesn’t make sense. He was sent to track down… an object? No, that can’t be right. 

But it does make sense why there was no bounty poster. It makes sense why the client was so mysterious.

Another question crosses his mind… 

Why was the reward so high?

His mind swirls with questions and possibilities as to what this all means—the voice buts in, interrupting his train of thought.

It doesn’t matter how or why. It happened for a reason. 

He decides the voice is right and revels in his newfound heightened state. Listening to this voice that seemingly comes from nowhere feels right, almost like he’s complete. 

As he exits the pyramid a shout rips him from his bliss. 

“What have you done?!”

He turns around to find a woman. That woman is you, your brow furrowed and your face aghast. You storm over to him, your eyes looking past him and into the pyramid; into the open tomb.

Din’s speechless, unsure of what exactly your problem is. He was just completing a job. What’s it to you? Mindlessly, his hand gravitates towards the chain under his flight suit, almost feeling the need to protect it. 

“You didn’t put it on, did you?” you ask, turning your gaze back towards him. 

“What does it matter to you?” he snaps.

“You have no idea what you just did.”

“It’s a necklace. I put it on. It’s not the end of the world,” he deadpans. 

“You don’t know what that is?”

“…No?”

You sigh and pinch the bridge of your nose. Din doesn’t understand what’s going on, he doesn’t understand why you’re so pressed by this. It’s just an object. It can’t hurt anyone. 

“That amulet is cursed by one of the Mortis Gods… the Son.”

“…Who?”

“You don’t know who the Mortis Gods are? The Ones?”

“It sounds familiar?”

Don’t listen to her, the voice chimes in. 

“The Mortis Gods were a powerful family of force-wielders. The Son embodied the Dark Side. The Daughter embodied the light side. And the Father held the balance between them until the Son grew too powerful. And then- Actually you know what? I’m not here to give you a kriffing history lesson. The bottom line is the Son cursed that amulet you’re wearing.”

DON’T LISTEN TO HER.

“Why is that a problem?” he asks, getting defensive. 

“You don’t feel… different?”

Deny. Deny. Deny. 

“No.”

In one swift motion, you’re grabbing a dagger hidden in your boot and reaching for the cowl of his cape. You rest the flat side of the blade against the fabric, glaring into his visor. 

“So you don’t mind if I cut the chain off of you?”

Some innate instinct comes over him, the primal urge to protect what is now his. He swats the dagger from your hand, his arm looping around your neck and placing you in a headlock. His other hand reaches for the handcuffs on his belt, grabbing them and enclosing them around your wrists. 

Good. This is good.

“What the”

Leave her here.

“What’s stopping me from leaving you here?” he says, tightening the headlock.

“Be my guest. But I’ll just say this– You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.”

“And you do?”

“Yes. I’ve been researching this for many cycles now. You leave me here? You sabotage yourself.”

His grip around your neck softens and he slowly releases you, grabbing your upper arm. 

What are you doing? I said leave her here. Stop-

“Fine, but you’re coming with me.”

He bends down and wraps his arms around your thighs, hoisting you over his shoulder. Din’s always been a strong man but everything he does feels so effortless. His senses are heightened. His reflexes are swift. He feels like he’s at his peak; the best version of himself. 

You protest, banging your fists into his back but it doesn’t matter. He’s drowning out your angry shouts and listening to the voice. 

Fine. Take her back to your ship and keep her as a prisoner.  She’s nothing but a loose end. 

He makes his way out of the underground cavern and back up to the surface, completely tuning out everything you’re saying. When you try to wiggle free he just tightens his grip, keeping you firmly pressed up against his body. 

Once he’s on the surface again, he sees what must be your ship— or what’s left of it anyway. You crash landed here. In actuality, without Din, you’d be stranded here. And he doesn’t miss the opportunity to remind you that. 

“Quit complaining,” he says, cutting off your shouts of protest, “Without me, you’d be rotting away here.”

You sigh and Din feels like he could almost hear you roll your eyes. His comment worked, though. Because for the rest of the journey back to the Razor Crest, you’re silent. Only muttering a few words under your breath as he sets you down on a crate in the storage area. 

His helmet snaps towards you. He acts like he can’t hear what you said but the truth is he did. You muttered something about how he only cursed himself in the end. 

“What was that?” he asks, crouching down in front of you. 

“You have no idea what you just did to yourself.”

“And you do?” he counters, “Why is this necklace such a big deal to you?”

“Like I said before, it's cursed.”

“Cursed how?”

“It makes the wearer immortal. But if they were to take it off, they’d die.”

Don’t listen to her. It doesn't matter. No one is taking me from you.

“Did you say… immortal?”

“Mhm.”

“But… how can that be?”

“You really don’t know anything about this? You didn’t mean to put it on?”

“No. I was sent here to track down a bounty. I was expecting a person, not a piece of jewelry.”

“Who sent you here?”

“The client was anonymous.”

You lean back against the metal wall of the Crest, eyes wide and lost in thought. Din’s had enough of your questioning, though. Who are you exactly to question him while he’s just trying to do his job and get paid?

“Who are you?” he asks. 

“Does it matter?”

“It does. Clearly, you know what this is. Were you after it for yourself?”

“No! That’s not it at all. I wanted to destroy it. I-”

She’s lying. Silence her. 

Surely the voice isn’t telling him to kill you… Right? 

Even if that’s what the voice is insinuating, he doesn’t do it. Instead, he grabs you by the arm again and hauls you to the carbonite freezer. You beg and plead for him to reconsider his actions but he doesn’t listen, drowning out your voice and following his instincts again. Soon enough, you’re encapsulated in the carbonite. Without a second thought, Din climbs the ladder to the cockpit and sets a course back to Nevarro. He sends a transmission to Karga, letting him know that he secured the “bounty” that way the mysterious droid will be back with the credits. There are only two things on his mind; collect his reward and learn more about his newfound power. 

-

Part Two: Purge the Poison

Din lands on Nevarro with adrenaline coursing through his body. This is what this treacherous journey has been leading up to– the reward. He takes one last look at you frozen in the carbonite before leaving and heading back to the Guild. He’s not sure how this is supposed to work. He doesn’t have a bounty to deliver. He just has an object, bound to his neck that he allegedly can’t take off. He should be able to collect the credits, right?

Wrong. 

The droid never returned. 

“I don’t know, Mando. The droid never came back.”

“So what am I supposed to do?” The voice is noticeably quiet for once…

“All we can do is wait. I don’t have a way to contact the client,” Karga sighs. 

Din leans back in the booth and closes his eyes. He’s not just angry– he’s enraged. But he keeps his cool, not snapping here in the Guild. 

“You know where to find me,” he says, irritation heavy in his voice. He slips out of the booth and storms out of there, heading back to the Crest where you’re waiting for him, still encased in carbonite. 

He’s filled with so much pent-up rage that he doesn’t know what to do with himself. It’s bursting at the seams. It’s threatening to bubble up over the surface. It’s about to let itself loose and out into the world. It’ll tear him apart if he doesn’t do something about it.

I know what you can do about it. 

He internally winces at what the voice is about to suggest.  

Kill someone. Kill her. 

He can’t and he shouldn’t. For the time being you’re valuable to him. You mysteriously have much information about the strange item he found on Malachor. Where did you come from? How do you know so much about this amulet? Were you lying when you said you wanted to destroy it?

Once he’s back inside the Crest he gets to work on unfreezing you. He watches as your carbonite slowly melts away, revealing your damp and shivering form. He catches you as you fall forward, keeping you upright. You’re blinking rapidly, searching your surroundings. 

“Your vision will return,” he says curtly. 

“I know,” you snap. 

He forcefully grabs you by the shoulders and drags you to a crate. He sits you down but leaves your cuffs on. He walks to his bunk and grabs his blanket, draping it around your shoulders before crouching down in front of you. 

“You’re going to tell me what you know about this,” he says, pulling the amulet out from under his flight suit but never taking it off, “And you’re going to tell me who you are.”

“I already told you what I know about it. You’re immortal until you take it off.”

“And then what? I’ll die.”

“Yup. I’ve been researching it for a long time.”

“Why? What put you onto this?”

“I’m a history professor at Coruscant University. My thesis was on the Mortis Gods which led me to the Son’s Amulet. I spent many cycles trying to figure out if it even existed and where it was hidden,” you explain, looking past his helmet. 

“What were you going to do with it once you found it?” he asks, tucking the amulet away. 

“Destroy it,” you say, meeting his visor. 

“Beat you to it.”

“I know but now you’re the one who’s screwed.”

Don’t listen to her. Think of all the untapped potential you have. 

“Whatever, mir’sheb.”

“Huh?”

“Smartass.”

“I’d rather be a smartass than a dumbass,” you retort. 

“I am not-”

“You put on a creepy haunted necklace all because the voice told you to.”

He physically feels the blood drain from his face. 

“You know about the voice?”

“Mhm.”

Silence her. 

But he can’t kill you. 

“I bet that voice is telling you to do all sorts of nefarious things,” you tease. 

His fists clench and unclench at his sides. You and your smart mouth. If only he could take out his frustration on you. If only you weren’t so valuable to him. If only there were another way to relieve his tension…

“I’d stop talking if I were you.”

“Oh yeah? What are you gonna do about it?” you counter, mouth forming into a smirk. 

“Wipe that smirk off your face,” he answers. 

“I’d like to see you try.”

You irritate the hell out of him but he can’t deny how attracted he is to you. Between the sly smirk on your face, the mischievous look in your eye, the little droplets of water beaded up on your skin, and how you don’t seem to be afraid of him even though you should be– Maker, it all makes his cock twitch with arousal. 

It’s almost like the voice takes over with the way he swiftly rises from the floor, grabs you by the waist, and throws you over his shoulder. 

“What the-” you start.

“Talk a big game, get punished,” he says nonchalantly, setting you down on his bunk. 

You open your mouth to speak but you’re at a loss for words, face to face with his massive bulge. He undoes the fly of his flight suit, his cock springing free. You stare at its intimidating size, it's rock-hard and directly in your face. It leaves you speechless. 

“Think you can handle it?” he teases. 

Maker, he wants to grab your face and shove his cock down your throat– completely fucking your face. He can tell you want it, too, from the way you ogle it with wide eyes. 

It’s not gonna suck itself. 

He hooks a hand around the back of your head and wraps the other around the base of his cock, forcefully thrusting himself in your mouth. He lets out a deep, guttural moan at the feeling of your warm, wet mouth encapsulating his cock. 

His hands move to each side of your face as he thrusts in and out. Your mouth stretches open even wider to accommodate his girth as tears spring in the corners of your eyes. 

“Not smirking now are you, mir’sheb,” he says, your tear-filled eyes locked with his underneath the helmet. 

You moan in response and he fucks your face even harder. Tears are rolling down your cheeks now and the sight has him ready to bust. With one last thrust into your mouth, he spills his cum down your throat, holding your head in place as he finishes. Once he’s done he pulls out and to his delight but your horror, he’s still hard. It’s the voice, the curse, or the amulet– whatever this is that has him so feral. 

He has to see your body, he has to feel you underneath him. But you’re still wearing your cuffs. If he takes them off will you bolt? Will you make a break for it, leaving him here with his cock still wet? 

He leans forward and unlocks your cuffs, anticipating your next move. He expects you to run but you don’t, instead you’re sitting here with a wild look in your eye. He reaches for the hem of your shirt, lifting it over your head. He pushes you down on the bunk and hooks his hand around the waistband of your pants, sliding them off along with your underwear. 

Look at her. She’s lying here so patiently, so obediently for you. Use this opportunity to claim her as your own. 

He’s not thinking. He’s following whatever the voice tells him to do. He takes off his helmet, not even thinking about the repercussions he’ll face. He’s got two things on his mind; marking up your body and being inside you already. He sets the helmet down on the floor and takes off his gloves before hovering over you on the bunk. Your eyes widen when they meet his and a shocked expression washes over your face. But why? How do you know he’s taken the creed? Surely a history professor would know that there are all sorts of Mandalorians; ones that walk both ways. It isn’t until he looks over at the small mirror he has hanging on the wall of his bunk. 

His eyes. Maker, his eyes. They’re no longer their usual shade of warm brown. His irises are a pale purple shade, eerily glowing. It startles him for a split second before his attention turns back to you, writhing underneath him. 

He brings two fingers to his mouth and moistens them, spreading your legs apart and sliding them inside you. You gasp at the sudden girth of his thick fingers expanding your walls. He curls them against your g-spot repeatedly, your pleasure continuously building. In no time, he pulls your first orgasm from you, feeling the way your cunt flutters around his fingers. Your release soaks his hand and once he feels that you’re done, he pulls his fingers from you and soaks his cock with your wetness. In one swift motion, he thrusts inside you, giving you no time to adjust to the newfound length and girth. He plants his hands by either side of your head, locking eyes with you as he fucks you relentlessly, driving his hips into you at an unforgiving pace. 

He leans forward and marks up your neck with his mouth, nipping and biting at the soft skin. He moves up and down before switching sides, licking where his teeth just marked you. You gasp and moan at the repeated pattern of biting, licking, and kissing. Once he feels his work is complete he pulls back and locks eyes with you once more. 

You fall speechless, unable to form any real words besides deep moans and mangled sobs. Tears continue to roll down your cheeks, your mouth falling open into a soft O. He’s going to cum if he keeps watching you become reduced to a complete mess underneath him. Your walls tighten up around his cock in anticipation of a big release. He feels the way your cunt grips and releases his cock rhythmically. It draws his own orgasm from him, his cock spilling his warm cum with the head nestled by your cervix. He groans while letting out a string of Mando’a curse words that he himself can barely understand, not in his blissful state. 

He pulls out and collapses on top of you, his head resting in the crook of your neck. You’re both panting against each other and once the endorphins finally settle regret sinks in. No, not because he had sex with you. Because he took his helmet off. 

His chest heaves for a moment and he does his best to hide it, not wanting to seem weak after the power he just showed you. For some strange reason, he’s worried about what you’ll think of him– you who’s so irritating, who gets under his skin like no one else. Yes, he’s worried that your perception of him will change. 

“Mando?” you ask, voice soft and concerned, “Are you okay?”

“I… I’m not supposed to do that.”

“Cum inside me?” you tease.

“No,” he says, pulling himself off of you and sitting at the foot of the bunk, “Take off my helmet.”

“Oh,” you say, sitting up and moving beside him, “Then why did you do it?”

“The voice told me to,” he says, placing his head in his hands. 

You bring your hand to the back of his neck. At first, he stiffens up, not used to the feeling of someone’s hands there. But once your hand travels up to his hair, rubbing small circles against his scalp, he relaxes. 

“You didn’t know? That the voice could make you do things you never thought possible?”

“No,” he sighs.

“You really had no idea what you were getting into, didn’t you?”

“Did you think I was lying?” he asks, turning his head and glancing at you.

“Honestly… yes.”

“I wasn’t. I was sent to Malachor for a bounty.”

“And the tracker led you to the amulet?”

“Mhm.”

“But why would someone send you there?”

“I’m not sure. I should’ve never taken it but the reward was high.”

“How much?”

“...A million credits. I know it sounds too good to be true.”

“Did you go to collect the reward yet?”

“Yeah. The client never showed up to pay.”

You fall silent for a moment, lost in thought. His eyes search your face for some sort of answer and once again, the voice is noticeably silent.

“Do you still have the tracking fob?”

He gets up and grabs it off a shelf in the storage area, sitting beside you on the bed and handing it to you. You activate it and study the mysterious absence of a bounty poster. You turn it off and hand it back to him, asking, “Was there anything else… weird about the job?”

“The client supposedly requested me specifically.”

“Strange…” you trail off.

Both of you sit in uncomfortable silence, trying to put all the pieces together.

“Why would someone want to make you immortal?” you wonder out loud.

Din’s guess is as good as anyone’s. He’s been trying and failing to wrap his head around what he got himself into.

“Mando… I think you were set up.”

“What?! By who?!” he asks, his purple eyes locking with yours again. 

“I can’t answer that…”

“...Will you help me find out who?”

You pause, looking at him with a sort of pity in your eyes. Without saying a word, he pleads with you, his strange-colored eyes begging for help, something to save him from this impossible situation he’s found himself in.

“I really don’t want to but… You did save me from being stranded on Malachor,” you sigh, “But fine. I’ll help you.”

The two of you have to start somewhere. 

-

Part Three: Legends Never Die

“If I’m going to help you, I think I deserve to know your name,” you say. 

Do not tell her. 

For once he can’t listen to the voice. This amulet, this voice told him to take off his helmet. Something he’d never do. His creed is the most important thing to him. And this… whatever it is overpowered his respect and devotion to his creed. That just won’t do. 

If he’s going to get rid of this thing, he has to learn to trust you.

“Din Djarin,” he says with a sigh. 

You tell him your name and the both of you feel like you’re finally starting somewhere. 

“What do we do now?” Din asks. 

“Well, we’ve established you were set up but we need to figure out why. What does this person have to gain from doing this to you?”

“I don’t know.”

“I know. I’m just thinking out loud.”

“You said this amulet is from one of the Mortis Gods?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know much about them.”

“They were just an extremely powerful family of force-wielders.”

“Where were they from?”

“Mortis.”

“Oh,” Din says, feeling kind of stupid. 

He’s not familiar with this kind of stuff— the Jedi, the Sith, the Force. As far as he’s concerned, he’s just a regular person, trying to make a living in the galaxy by bounty hunting. He didn’t piss off anyone important that he can recall. 

“Can you take me somewhere?” you ask, snapping him from his thoughts.

“Where to?”

“Coruscant. I think we need to make a little trip to the university’s library.”

He grabs his helmet off the floor and replaces it on his head. 

“Let’s go,” he says, reaching for your hand to help you out of the bunk. 

He helps you to your feet, letting you get dressed while he puts on his gloves. You follow him to the cockpit, sitting in one of the passenger seats while he prepares the Crest for takeoff. It’s silent between you two, an awkward silence. He’s unsure of what your relationship is exactly. At first, you were his prisoner. Technically, you still could be. And then he had sex with you and he feels awful about the implications in which it happened. You were handcuffed in his ship and at not only his mercy but the voice’s mercy, too. And now here you are, helping him when he’s been nothing but an asshole to you. 

Don’t think like that, the voice tells him.

He can’t listen to it now. His own guilt is louder than the voice. 

Once you’re in hyperspace he turns to you and says, “I just want to say… I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“For capturing you. For… what we did earlier.”

“You’re apologizing about the sex?” you ask with a smirk.

“I wasn’t sure if it was okay.”

“It was.”

“It was?”

“Stop overthinking it.”

“…Really?”

“You’re acting like I didn’t enjoy it.”

“You did?”

“Was it not obvious?”

“Yes. I mean no. I just…. I don’t know anymore.”

“Hey,” you say, leaning forward and grabbing his hand, “I know you have a lot going on in your head right now. And I’m sure a lot of it is confusing but I’m here to help in whatever way I can.”

“But why? Why do you want to help me even after I was so terrible to you?”

“I just… I feel bad. You had no idea what you were getting into. You didn’t deserve any of this.”

“Thank you,” he says softly. 

“Of course. But don’t get sappy on me.”

“Got it,” he says, spinning around in his seat and facing the control panel again. 

It doesn’t matter what you find, or what you research. You’re stuck with me. 

All he can do is close his eyes and try to drown out the voice. 

-

He’s walking side by side with you towards the university, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. He’s anxious about what you’re about to find. But what’s his place from here on out? Is he supposed just to drop you off and reunite with you when you’re done? However long that will be…

Standing in front of the library, he prepares to bid you goodbye, confused about why he’s got a pit in his stomach. 

“I guess I’ll see you when you’re done?” he says, mentally wincing in anticipation of your response. 

“What? Why?”

“I just assumed-”

“You can stay.”

“I can?”

“If you want. I’m not sure how long it’ll take and it might be kind of boring but… you’re more than welcome to stay here with me.”

He pauses, thinking about what you said. He’s welcome to stay but do you want him to?

“Do you want me to?”

Kriff, he didn’t mean for that to actually come out. 

“I do.”

“Okay then,” he says, walking into the library with you. 

The library is packed with students and as you walk through the aisle picking books off the shelves, they turn their heads when you pass them by. He’s used to it but for some reason this time it makes him self-conscious, as if they’re piercing into his soul and aware of the secret he’s harboring. 

After you have your collection of books you bring him to one of the study nooks in the back of the library away from all the prying eyes. He watches how your brow furrows when you’re lost in thought, scanning the pages for anything to help him out of this mess. He feels a bit useless, watching you pour yourself over book after book for hours on end while he sits and does… nothing. 

You put your elbow on the table, resting your head in your hand. As you lean to the side, your neck becomes exposed and Din’s eyes settle right on a spot that looks like the perfect place to sink his teeth…

Stop, he tells himself. 

But he fears the voice has taken over and he’s no longer looking at you with adoring eyes, but lusting ones instead. 

Take her here, now. Bend her over the table. Who cares about anyone who sees?

His cock twitches in his flight suit and he doesn’t think he can take it anymore. 

“Din?” you ask softly, setting down your book. 

“Hm?”

“Do you want to go somewhere else?”

“What do you mean? I thought you had to do research.”

“Well, yes but I can just continue researching in my office,” you say, eyes looking past Din and scanning the library. 

“Why? Are you worried about people looking at us?”

“No! No, that’s not it at all. I just wasn’t sure if you were-”

“Who cares? But if you want a little more privacy then why not?” he says, standing from his seat and gathering the books. 

He shuffles them to one arm and grabs your hand, proudly leading you out of the library without a single care in the world about who may be looking at him. 

“Where to?” he says, turning to look at you once you’re outside. 

“Across the quad in the North Tower.”

He nods and grabs you by the hand again, not caring about the people stopping to stare, many of whom are your students. You keep your eyes on Din, on the sunlight bouncing off his helmet, watching as his cape billows in the wind with his confident stride. 

He lets you take the lead once you’re inside the building, walking up a grand staircase until you arrive at your office, a large room with high vaulted ceilings and towering bookshelves. Floor-to-ceiling windows draw natural light in and a long wooden desk sits in the center of the room. He sets the book down on one of your chairs and grabs you by the waist, setting you on your desk. He grabs the waistband of your pants and practically rips them off of you. 

“So much for researching,” you say smugly, looking up at him with a grin.

“Gonna have to do something about that smart mouth of yours, mir’sheb,” he says darkly.

His hands gravitate to the bottom of his helmet. A look of realization flashes in your eyes and you reach your hands out, trying to stop him. But he’s stronger than you, grabbing your hands and forcing them by your sides. He pulls off his helmet, revealing the same matted curls and piercing purple stare. He spreads your thighs apart and kneels on the floor, face hovering over your cunt. He licks one slow stripe up your cunt before flicking his tongue around your clit. His strong arms lock around your thighs, keeping your cunt flush against his face. His eyes don’t leave yours, looking up at you as he slowly eats you out. The eye contact is intense, almost too much to bear. But when you try to look away he stops, starting to pull his face away until you look at him again. With one last swirl of his tongue around your clit, you cum against his face, thighs shaking against the desk. He laps up your release, moaning at the taste until you’re done. And now he just has to have you. 

He stands up and pulls out his cock from his flight suit, stroking it a few times before gathering some of your release with his fingers and slathering his cock with it. He reaches forward and swipes away the contents of your desk, pushing you down so you’re lying against the wood. He thrusts into you in one slow motion, staying still inside you for a moment before drawing his hips back and slamming into you repeatedly. He pulls off one glove, tossing it on the floor and bringing his thumb to your clit. One hand grips your hip while the other rubs circles around your clit. He glares down at you, his body towering over yours as he rails you against your desk. You cum around his cock, eyes locked on his once again. The sensation of your cunt gripping his cock pulls his orgasm from him, warm cum spilling inside you with a grunt. He pulls out of you and sits in your desk hair, holding his head in his hands. You scramble off the desk and reach for his helmet, kneeling in front of him and lifting his head. He looks at you with the same look in his eye like last time, like he just let himself down. You replace his helmet on his head, cupping the hollow part where his cheeks would be.

“It’s okay,” you say softly.

“I know,” he sighs, “I would just like to do… that without feeling bad.”

“About the helmet,” he quickly adds.

“I know,” you chuckle, “I’m not offended. I get it. But I can’t lie and say that the eye contact wasn’t hot.”

“It was?”

“It was. But it would be hotter if it were your choice, not the other way around.”

“Right… Thank you… for understanding.”

“Of course,” you say, rising from the floor and grabbing your pants, “But back to business.”

“Back to business,” he agrees.

-

Months go by with Din glued to your side, helping in whatever way he can with the research. You think you might have found some sort of motive behind why someone would do this to him but the question of who is still a mystery. 

“To travel to another galaxy?” Din asks.

“I think so. It’s just a theory.”

“There are other galaxies?”

“You think we’re the only one?”

“I guess not. But why?”

“That I still don’t know. And I’m just assuming about the traveling to other galaxies thing, too. The planet Mortis was said to be in a different realm.”

“Interesting…” he trails off. “How much longer do you think?”

“I’m not sure. If you think you have to get back to Nevarro, I understand.”

“I don’t want to leave you. But maybe I’ll go check the Crest for any transmissions.”

“Okay, sounds good. I’ll be here,” you say, looking up at him from your desk. 

He caresses the side of your face, his gaze lingering on you before he leaves, walking through the campus and back to the docking yard where the Razor Crest is parked. On the way there, he thinks about his time here and how one good thing came from this… you. If he’s forced to be a monster all his life, at least he has someone that understands. But then there’s the other thing… He’ll be a monster all his life, until the end of time, outliving you and anyone else he may care about. He tries not to think about that. 

Once he’s inside the ship he sees that he has a transmission from Greef Karga, which could mean one of two things; Karga’s got bounties and he’s wondering where Din is or the droid actually returned.

He presses the button for the transmission to play and listens;

“Mando! I’m not sure where you’ve been but the droid from that strange bounty returned… It didn’t bring the reward, though. It said his client will meet you where you captured the bounty in the first place. Strange request, I know. But supposedly the client will have the credits. Just be careful.”

Back to Malachor, it is. 

He bolts from the Crest, anxiously heading back to you to tell you the news. You’re where he left you, of course. 

“I have news.”

“Oh?” you ask, looking up from your book.

“I received a transmission from Karga. The droid returned. It said to meet the client on Malachor.”

“Really?”

“Yes… So what do you want to do?”

“We go to Malachor,” you say, rising from your chair.

“Let’s go,” he says, with a tip of his helmet.

As you’re sitting in the cockpit of the Razor Crest, you grab his hand as he’s preparing the ship for takeoff.

“Whatever happens… I love you, okay?”

He stops, turning to look at you, stunned by what you just said. He feels it, too, but it breaks his heart knowing that this love will end in one of two ways; he’ll outlive you or he’ll choose to take off the amulet. And both choices make him unsettled.

“I love you, too,” he says, squeezing your hand before turning to face the control panel.

This is it. Months of research have led up to this. 

-

The familiar sight of Malachor comes into view. He lands the Razor Crest by the same pyramidal stones he saw months ago. So far, no sign of anyone. Surely they’re waiting for Din in the Sith temple, ending this where it all started.

He takes you by the waist, holding you as he lowers himself down to the temple underground. He gave you a blaster before you left the Crest, turning to make sure you have it drawn before proceeding further.

As you head towards the pyramid, someone from behind you clears their throat. You both spin around, blasters drawn and ready to aim at whoever’s there. It’s a man, someone neither of you recognizes. He’s wearing all black and his hair is gray. There’s a lightsaber attached to his belt but he hasn’t drawn it… yet.

“I’ve been expecting you,” he says, glancing at Din, “It seems you brought a friend.”

“Who are you?” Din asks.

“A Sith,” you say in disgust.

“Not a Sith,” the man says, looking over at you.

“Then why did you lead us here?” Din asks.

“Din Djarin,” the man says, “Do you know the significance of that amulet you’re wearing?”

“It belonged to one of the Mortis Gods.”

“Very good. And do you know why I sent you to find it?”

“You want to use him to travel between the galaxies.”

The man looks at you again, taking a step closer.

“Clever girl,” he says, “But do you know why?”

“I know you,” you say, looking at him and the way his face is illuminated with red light from the temple behind you.

“Do you?”

“You’re… You’re Baylan Skoll.”

“Clever, clever girl. Look at the two of you, both so smart. But neither of you have answered my question… Why?”

“I don’t… I don’t know. What could you possibly be trying to find in another galaxy?” you ask.

“Mortis?” Din adds.

“So close yet so far,” Baylan tuts, “Forget about Mortis. I’m searching for Peridea.”

Din looks at you, searching for answers but the truth is… you don’t have any. 

“What do you want with Peridea?”

“To bring Grand Admiral Thrawn out of exile,” Baylan says.

“...Who?” Din asks.

“You’re funny,” you snort.

“I’m being serious. With the Mandalorian’s immortality, nothing is going to stop me.”

“Why Din?” you press.

“He doesn’t have the reputation of being the best bounty hunter in the Galaxy for no reason.”

“I can’t let you bring Thrawn back to the Galaxy,” you say, raising your blaster.

Baylan draws his lightsaber and ignites it, a vibrant orange hue emitting from the blade. Din raises his blaster, too, and a fight ensues. It doesn’t matter how much you shoot at Baylan, he just deflects all the blasts with his saber. He inches closer towards you, deflecting your blasts faster and faster as he corners you against a stone. He knows he doesn’t have to do anything to Din and he just assumes the voice will take over, forcing Din to join Baylan’s fight against you. 

Join him and kill her. Join him and kill her. Join him and kill her!!!

But Din doesn’t. 

Instead, he raises his blaster at the back of Baylan’s head. Baylan turns around, getting ready to defend himself against Din but it’s no use. With one blast to the head, Baylan falls to the ground. It turns out the urge to protect you was stronger than the voice’s pull to get him to join Baylan. 

Din rushes over to you, putting his blaster back on his hip and pulling you into his arms.

“It’s… over?” he asks, feeling your racing heartbeat.

“I think so,” you sigh. 

“But you’re stuck like this,” you say, pulling back and looking at him.

He knew it could end like this, with him living out his days without you once you pass. 

Or… There was a third option all along.

“What are you going to do?” you ask, snapping him from his thoughts.

He fiddles with the chain around his neck before saying, “Take this off when the time is right.”

You nod, leaning against him just a little bit longer before leaving the temple together, hand in hand. 

Mando dividers/support banners by @saradika-graphics !!!

Thank you to @pedgito for beta reading, reassuring me that this was any good, and helping me plot this all out 🖤

@pedrostories

#din djarin x reader #din djarin smut #din djarin x f!reader #din djarin fanfiction #pedrostories #star wars fanfiction #din djarin #the mandalorian #the mandalorian fanfiction #pedro pascal character fanfiction #ppcu fanfiction #pedro pascal characters #the mandalorian smut #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x female reader #the mandalorian x you

[bookgeekgrrl]

My media this week (19-25 Feb 2023)

📚 STUFF I READ 📚

🥰 Or Be Nice (charlottemadison) - 151K, Good Omens human AU, enemies-to-friends-to-lovers/boyfrenemies; love the characterizations and the dialogue/banter is A+++

🥰👂‍ The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings #2) (J.R.R. Tolkien, author; Andy Serkis, narrator)

🥰👂‍ Lavender House (Lev AC Rosen, author; Vikas Adam, narrator) - '50s set historical mystery with noir vibes but hella queer. I quite enjoyed this; I liked the characters and the melodramatic noir-ness, and would happily read another of Evander Mills' adventures if any are forthcoming.

😊 Cinderfella (GoldenTruth813) - 43K, Sheith AU, Keith has a crush on YT'er Shiro, then there's a chance meeting, attraction, angst and finally getting together

💖💖 +195K of shorter fic so shout out to these I really loved 💖💖

The Ghost of You (min_T) - Stranger Things: Steddie, 15K - solidly good ghost/monsterfucking fic

(After)life (AidaRonan) - Stranger Things: Steddie, 4K - reread; my fave ghostfucking fic!

thats what i want series 1-3 (BelmotteTower) - Ted Lasso: Roy/Keeley/Jamie, 44K - fantastic TLot3 series

📺 STUFF I WATCHED 📺

Interview with Sarah Gailey (discussing American Hippo) [Romancing The Gothic]

Queering Heyer (My Poor Devil Panel with Rose Lerner, Olivia Waite, Cat Sebastian & KJ Charles) [Romancing The Gothic]

Queering Jane Eyre: Author Visit with Rose Lerner [Romancing The Gothic]

Hot Ones - Anna Kendrick

Hot Ones - Bryan Cranston

Hot Ones - Lenny Kravitz

🎧 PODCASTS 🎧

⭐ Vibe Check - Welcome to the Deep End

⭐ ICYMI Plus - Tumblr Revived the Welcome to Night Vale Fandom

Ologies with Alie Ward - Environmental Toxicology (POISONS + TRAIN DERAILMENT) with Kimberly K. Garrett

Switched on Pop - Five years later, the legacy of Nipsey Hussle's "Victory Lap"

99% Invisible #526 - Orange Alternative

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - The Gankutsu Hotel

Shedunnit - The Death Of The Country House

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Jadeite Cabbage

Lost Women of Science - Of Chestnuts, Cherry Trees, and Mushroom Catsup: Flora Patterson, the Woman who Kept Devastating Blights from U.S. Shores

⭐ Into It - The Wave Returns to the Ocean (Plus: What Are Michelle Buteau and Jordan Carlos Into?)

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Thomas Merton's Hermitage

Twenty Thousand Hertz+ - Golden

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Newtown Creek Nature Walk

You Must Remember This - 1986: 9 ½ Weeks, Mickey Rourke & Zalman King (Erotic 80s Part 9)

Endless Thread - Aftershocks Online

Hit Parade Plus - The Bridge: Losing Hootie’s Religion

🎶 MUSIC 🎶

'80s Rock Ballads

Tapestry: '70s Queens

Yacht Rock Classics

#sunday reading recap #bookgeekgrrl's reading habits #bookgeekgrrl's soundtracks #lotr #the two towers #lavender house #fanfic ftw #here for all the monsterfucking #romancing the gothic #hot ones remains one of my fave interview shows #vibe check podcast #seriously vibe check will transform your wednesday mornings! #hit parade podcast #atlas obscura podcast #99% invisible podcast #switched on pop podcast #ologies podcast #shedunnit podcast #into it podcast #20k hz podcast #icymi podcast #lost women of science podcast #you must remember this podcast #endless thread podcast #'80s ballads #'70s queens #yacht rock

[grave-avis]

Cedar and Bohemian Waxwing for Death and Ramona!

omg fresh meat with my F/O list lets gooo

Cedar waxwing: What do you like most about your partner that isn't part of their physical appearance?

With Death tbh it's a lot of personality traits that the fandom either ignores or never noticed?? My absolute favorite line of his is during a scene at the end of the film where Puss once again drops his sword out of reach, and while Death moves to give it back he just

'tsk tsk, you really gotta stop losing that.'

To be honest the main reason other than,,,, y'know,,, that he ended up on my F/O list is because of his dry and kinda snaky humor, he made me laugh so many times and NOONE talks about his jokes. With Ramona it's a very similar thing. She is very deadpan and has an unintentional dry sense of humor. The main difference between the two is she's usually not trying to be funny. She kinda just, speaks her mind.

She doesn't play into the meta humor as much as other characters. She's serious and seems very apathetic but there are so many moments that shows her feelings?? Like the scene where she and Kim are on casual hangout to get coffee and jus,,, gals bein gals? Having a good time and chatting? (Would put the scene in here but I cant find it.)

And a less positive example that's honestly more of an art note is the reaction she has when Knives tells her Scott cheated on the two of them. UGH SUCH A GOOD PANEL.

^^^ this one with the double linework effect

Bohemian waxwing: What do you like most about your partner that is part of their physical appearance?

Okay well. Honestly I am unapologetically a kinky bitch and with Death,,,

monster type design?? omg?? monsterfuckers rise up??

Teeth are a central part of his design and OMG teeth. ugh. love teeth.

Ramona isn't a romantic F/O or anything, she's just my roommate but I love her sense of fashion and how she dyes her hair, in my self ship she gets my S/I into hair dye. In my real life she gives me the confidence to go ham on my outfits and makeup, the other day I wore cheetah themed makeup with Liquid gold spots! Wild!

these are a few of my faves, she has way to many looks across all 6 books we will be here all day.

#whispers in the library #🏜 lives flashing before your eyes 🐺 #🌃 roommates VS the world✨ #puss in boots spoilers #kinda #just to be safe with the screenshots #scott pilgrim spoilers #kink mention #cheating mention #ask to tag #long post #Echo echo echo…

[land-of-brains-and-chocolate]

Rec list for Eddie and Symby being vaguely to very gay?

I'm sorry for coming to you with my monsterfucker agenda 😔👊 (no I'm not)

i mean, i probably could’ve seen this coming.

venom is dominated by two opposing narratives. let’s call this the “relationship narrative” and the “control narrative”. they’re not perfectly separated, like, you’ll definitely get elements of one in the other, but generally one of them describes what the story, at its core, is using the symbiote for.

now comics are an endless tug-of-war at the best of times, much less the gayest and slimiest of times. there’s a neverending backlash and backbacklash going on between these two takes. what you want is the relationship narrative.

everything very much started out with that take. eddie and the symbiote are two characters who forge an evil alliance because it lets them do what they wanna do (kill spider-man, more or less) and they have the same kinds of neuroses and complexes and syndromes. lots of early comics are also very fun about the merged consciousness, merged identity deal. that’s kind of the textbook relationship stuff.

personally i absolutely think the original stories (venom was created by david michelinie) have romantic undertones, even starting in the villainy days. eddie describes their first meeting as “a shadow moved, caressed me.” he takes the rejection of the symbiote still being “in love with” spider-man really hard. he sobs his eyes out when he thinks it’s dead and promises to avenge it bare-handed. they totally expect to live happily ever after on a deserted island together.

then there’s venom: lethal protector, which is cute on its own, but if you’re reading for slime romance, i very specifically recommend the novelisation. i won’t even spoil it. and then, planet of the symbiotes is the first comic that i would say has outright queer themes, intentional or not.

so all those recs until now are collected in this post.

we're trucking along through the 90s, we explore elements of one take and then the other and sometimes we ignore the symbiote completely, but not too much changes, overall. the next BIG stop in Gay Venom is, of course, the hunger.

miniseries by len kaminski, just venom: the hunger. plenty of people have written their essays on it, but what’s always important to me is that it DID NOT come out of nowhere. as said above, it expanded on themes that were there, it references michelinie venom very explicitly, like you get your SECOND “tenderly touching the green glass tube” scene.

but yes this one is specifically about, like, stigmatisation, otherness, mental illness, meeting all those things with care and empathy and optimism, tentacle sex. again, many essays. a venom comic that can go “look at the twisted deviance of this relationship” and then turn it around into “but how are you looking at it” is good. god how good would it be if they also did that to eddie more. anyway.

a few years later you get the first MAJOR fucking backlash, culminating in the SECOND story titled the hunger. spectacular spider-man: the hunger, from 2003. completely reboots venom and retcons their motivations and backstories, makes very spiteful references to planet of the symbiotes and the hunger, like it is not also called that by sheer coincidence. literally starts out, in a comic that wants to tackle and redefine venom, with the line “the PROBLEM is that you guys are like an old married couple”. so the new status quo is that the symbiote only ever used eddie to be with spider-man, and eddie only ever used the symbiote to not die of cancer.

the “control narrative” that really kicks in here uses the symbiote as, you know, a thing to control, eddie’s demons personified or even a completely foreign force to torment him. if eddie is evil, it’s not because of what he thinks and believes and wants, it’s because he couldn’t control the symbiote and gave in to its inexplicable bloodlust.

this is an unambiguous downgrade in terms of complexity, in my humble opinion, completely fucks up eddie’s responsibility themes, and is also a pretty clearly petty reaction to venom’s absolute oversaturation in the nineties. the bitch was everywhere and most of it wasn’t good. so there was LOTS of “look at this creepy loser” content by writers cringing themselves into self-awareness at the time. the 00s were going to be GRITTY and MATURE.

this of course means that we get to see eddie slit his wrists and bleed to death on panel after selling the symbiote to supervillains as an attempted act of redemption???

wild fucking times! it’s not exactly worth recommending as ~shippy~, but the first real backbacklash to this first round of retcons comes from dan slott, who just kind of ignores it all in new ways to die. drags eddie back to the land of the living and relevant, makes the symbiote refuse to let its new host kill him, telling that host, and reestablishing, that it loves eddie. and then, to keep him living and relevant, slott makes eddie anti-venom.

don’t even worry about it. anti-venom is essentially eddie seeking redemption with symbiote powers, but without the symbiote, except he pretty much acts no fucking different at all, just keeps on being a murderous vigilante with cracked ideas about innocence and guilt. people still act like he’s better now because, in its metatextual ways, the hunger was right.

then fucking uuuuuuhhhhhhh. agent venom. symbiote goes to flash thompson and the us military, and the writer, rick remender, goes really, really, really hard on the control narrative. the symbiote becomes a substance flash is addicted to, gives a voice to his past abuse, it’s dark times all the times.

people very much do like that narrative for flash, like at least from that perspective it was worth it. i don’t like it much for the symbiote. for the symbiote, representing everything fucked up with flash and forcing him to murder kill bite all the time is resolved via the good guy avengers literally lobotomising it so flash can wear it without further resistance or input. imagine doing that to a human person. you’re uncooperative so we’re gonna turn off your higher cognitive functions and wear you like a meat suit. happy ending for everybody! truly we’ve conquered our demons this day.

then! at the same time, there’s a cartoon coming out, it’s called ultimate spider-man. THAT one does the control narrative take with harry osborn, but then does the relationship take with flash, making it the only cartoon to outright redeem the symbiote and let it find friendship and be valued as a person.

and people loved it! so brian michael bendis gets it in his head that he’s going to redeem the symbiote and make it partner up with flash. and he does redeem it by the highly fucking questionable means of having it be “cleansed”, aka brainwashed and relieved of its memories and personality. not that it matters for long. nothing fucking matters in comics. take this with you if it’s the only thing.

so then for fun friendship times you get venom: space knight, flash and the symbiote’s adventures in space! and then that gets cancelled. eddie is off somewhere being toxin and hunting carnage (2016). many good comics but you did not ask for them.

and THEN.

it is time for the next MOTHER of backlashes.

flash gets literally discarded at fucking roadside to put the symbiote back on eddie and turn back time on their relationship to RIGHT before the FIRST backlash happened. you know, all those 2003 retcons. gone. ignored. no more. venom’s themes are now those circa 1996 again. full fucking on relationship narrative. ROMANTIC relationship narrative, and that after the symbiote was turned into eddie’s evil shadow, after he hated it and spent a LONG time seeking to eradicate all symbiotes (and not even for the first time).

the COSTA run. venom (2016). reviled and beloved.

like this comic is fucking ANGRY about symbiote treatment. i HAD to tell you all of that so you’d understand ANYTHING it’s doing. the first thing it does is flip it completely around, puts the symbiote on a military guy who’s making IT do bad things, makes his ability to control it horrifying and abusive instead of heroic and admirable. one of the later things it does (in the follow-up venom: first host) is outright feature a villain who lobotomises symbiotes, ending on a symbiote serving him swift and sweet payback by doing the same thing TO HIM. it’s exactly as unsubtle as the hunger (2003) was about its hang-ups.

comics... are a conversation.

flash remains a symbiote friend but still got fucked over big time by it all, symbiote-focused writers slott and costa also kind of use him to literally, in case anybody hadn’t caught on, literally spell out the REAL story that’s been going on in the writer's room for the past THIRTY YEARS:

you’ll notice i didn’t actually list any of the Gay Shit for you, you’ve probably already seen it or you’ll get to see it for yourself. yes, they are deeply in love, yes, it’s fucked up and flawed, yes, it is real and taken seriously and has ultimately redeeming potential. yes the concept of that nearly knocked me off my feet and in front of the subway at one point. yes there’s mpreg

it’s also fucking riddled with events, which spin off into other comics, so either ignore those and rely on the recaps OR click yourself forward through the “next issue (story)” button on marvel wikia to know what to read.

and after that must of course come the backbackbacklash, as certain as death or taxes. in the next run, we retcon everything once more, eddie just needs to control his darkness, the symbiote was an evil abuser all along, nothing on earth is ever new.

i’m not gonna go through it, i’m just gonna point you to the backbackbackbacklash issue that came out during this time: venom annual volume 2 number 1 - it’s confusingly named, it’s the one that has a blue-skinned space lady on it. this one ignores the backbackbacklash going on very pointedly and goes “it’s not ABOUT control” again, it’s pretty explicitly romantic.

and then there’s also marvel comics presents (2019) #5, which, oddly enough, does not particularly feature the characterisation you’d typically see in the relationship narrative? but it does feature eddie and the symbiote literally fucking, so you’d want to know about it.

that’s the overall, like, frame of eddie and the symbiote being in a relationship (nuh uh) (yeah they are) (NUH UH) (YEAH THEY ARE)

some stuff that’s smaller but still notable, uh.

nova (1999) 6 - 7, that’s the “we’re space married”

venom: dark origin, that’s an ALTERNATE (!!!) take on the character, don’t expect a likeable eddie but it’s very darkly funny and gay so what can i say.

venom: the end, which i would absolutely fucking hate to be canon, i think its characterisation is quite regressive, but the symbiote sure is in love, i guess.

venom: separation anxiety, the dawn of the control narrative but eddie’s characterisation did not have to go so wrong from here, like if they’d just figured out AT THIS STAGE that he's STILL acting like venom without it... i digress. it has the symbiote going eddie eddie eddieee

venom: sinner takes all, this is the first she-venom comic so that’s. hm. interesting. healing symbiote blanket

don’t read venom: license to kill just look at this panel with me

if i think of more comics worth adding i’ll add them.

the subtext slash text is heavy enough to be present to some degree in literally every cartoon adaptation of eddie brock. spider-man: the animated series goes FULL control narrative, in fact it started the “the symbiote corrupted peter” take that we to this day cannot escape, but the first few venom episodes are VERY playful about their relationship.

in spectacular spider-man it’s canon, but horrible. eddie’s in love with it, but eddie's a good boy and the symbiote is played very, very, very abusively. i think this is an evil symbiote adaptation that works well enough, at least it’s an actual meaningful character instead of just a malevolent force to resist.

in marvel’s spider-man, the only venom episode worth watching is venom returns.

i’ve actually got every symbiote-relevant episode listed right here from when we did our communal watch-through.

also watch truth in journalism. idk if it’s exactly shippy just do it

#venom #symbrock #tl;dr i wish i could tl;dr this #no off-site links to please the gods of tagging

[ladyfl4me]

Hi please yell about boyd and stern in TCOS and TMWCIFTC :D!

Anon, THANK YOU for enabling me, you have my fucking life in your hands

I’ll preface all of this by saying that everything in this post is related to my long-form Amnesty works, The Moth who Came In from the Cold and The Children of Sylvain. If you haven’t read those, then you’ll be pretty damn confused, so I guess now is as good of a time to plug them - and the series - as any. A heads up: I started it back in 2018, and everything in TCOS is just… very VERY loosely associated with Amnesty canon at this point. Same root premise, same characters, but back in 2018 even I couldn’t predict where arcs 4 and 5 ended up going. TMWCIFTC was written as the logical progression, in my head, of an alternate arc 4, and everything that happened in TCOS is based off of that progression. It’s got almost no connection to the actual canon at this point. I’ll be recapping some of the more important plot points for context, though.

Here’s hoping the read-more works. This was 7 pages long in the google doc I prepared this in, so I apologize in advance to everyone on my dash if this got fucked up. Spoilers for TMWCIFTC ahead, as well as general vague spoilers for Amnesty.

So everything’s coming up roses. Fantastic. Let’s start with the biggest thing: how the characters of Agent Stern and Boyd Mosche have changed from canon to this AU.

Boyd’s Changes:

We’ll start with Boyd, because this motherfucker is UNRECOGNIZABLE from canon. On god, that is all Griffin’s fault. Pretty much all of Boyd’s character was concentrated in arc 4 of Amnesty, and honestly? He was a fantastic character there. Loved him as a counterpart to Ned. He gave off an air of “the ends justify the means” in almost everything he did - especially how he was willing to do anything, including blackmail Ned to hell and back, to get back to England - which I’ve grafted into my version of him. The angst-loving part of my brain seized on the tragic possibilities of his relationship with Ned and was bumping “No Children” by the Mountain Goats every time they interacted. Great stuff, interesting complexity, was genuinely surprised when he kicked it.

All that happened after I introduced him as a character in TMWCIFTC. My version of him retains the smooth-talking Britishness of him, with the aforementioned “ends justify the means” logic for everything; I’d probably sort him as a chaotic neutral, with basically all of his points in wisdom, charisma and strength with very few in intelligence. I tried to work with that for the start. We knew nothing about Boyd at the time I was writing TMWCIFTC, so my brain wanted to fill in that blank for jokes and giggles and haha funny’s and was like, “Yo what if Boyd was a Sylph this entire time? Wouldn’t that be fucking hilarious?” 

And that’s what I did. What happened to make this version of Boyd was a bit of a random “perfect storm” of influences and choices, which really only got sharpened because of my one-shot The Devil Went Down To Georgia. That one’s the main source of all Boyd lore, even though I barely reference it these days because he’s gone so far off the rails it’s a miracle I can keep him straight. 

I’ve talked about The Devil Went Down To Georgia a lot in relation to Boyd on here. TL;DR, I decided to make him two things: a violinist and a Sylph/cryptid, specifically the Jersey Devil. Yes, he is still British. I chalk it up lore-wise to a few things: the original Jersey Devil is more of a distant relative, Boyd crossed over from Sylvain and ended up in Britain sometime after that, and just willingly chose to keep up the British persona Bastard. I don’t think about it too much. He’s been a criminal from the very beginning; he’d been in prison on Sylvain, went through some shit there that made him steal a crystal and book it, and he continued to do crime on Earth to survive.

The violin thing is mostly me desperately wanting a character to have that background, because I played for seven goddamn years and want to put that knowledge and catharsis somewhere. Boyd probably either picked up a Sylvan instrument that was similar, or learned it in the early 20th century when he came to Earth, and just held onto it. He held onto the skills and got good - good enough that he could have gone professional, and tried in 2007, but that didn’t go super well, as anyone who’s read TMWCIFTC can attest. 

In terms of the type of cryptid he is, I’ve made the Jersey Devils a subspecies on Sylvain that takes cervids (deer, moose, etc.) or bovines (goats, antelopes, cows, etc.), as well as canines/felines of any shape and size, puts them into a gashapon machine with pterodactyl-style wings, awful teeth, and a snake’s tail, and calls it a day. You can get a tiny Jersey Devil that’s a combo of a tiny cat and a dik-dik; you can get a jacked nine-foot-tall terrifying amalgam of a lion and a moose, with a fucked-up mouth of multiple rows of teeth and huge claws.

That last one is Boyd. Don’t call me a monsterfucker for this, I have no defense.

So where does that leave him in relation to the Lodge? Back in 2018, before I started developing the lore that factors into TCOS about Sylph communities outside the Lodge (namely the Manhattan Sylphs that Leo worked with when he was a Chosen One), I figured that it’d be funny if every single cryptid kinda just… knew each other, or hung out near the Lodge. As you know if you’ve read TMWCIFTC, he got into some trouble in 1967, which Barclay, Indrid and Mama “bailed him out of.”

Once they found out he was a fellow Sylvan, though, it became less about “report this guy to the authorities” and more about “we have to make sure we keep an eye on this guy so he doesn’t get himself, or other Sylphs, in trouble” thing. He basically became Mama’s mostly-socialized half-feral cat, slinking through the halls of Amnesty Lodge, eating random food, falling asleep wherever, sitting in rooms where people are doing interesting things and just watching them. And everyone... kind of likes him. Sure, he doesn’t have a sleep schedule, and they have to get soundproof panels installed in his room at the Lodge because he’ll stress-practice violin at 3 in the morning, and he keeps shoplifting stuff from local stores to give to people like a cat bringing back dead mice. But he’s a good man. And he’s getting better every day.

Then he got got by the Ashminder in ‘98. He bolted, completely forgot everything about the Lodge but had the address of a former Lodge resident on his body after his memory was wiped, found a still-alive but memory-wiped fellow Lodge dweller, and fled to that address. Boyd lived there for years, trying to clean up his act and try to anchor himself a bit. Then in 2007, something on his path went wrong, and the stress break he went through after that made him run from that place. That’s when he met Ned, and they had a few years together before Boyd ended up in jail.

Then, once they killed the Ashminder and the memories it had eaten came back, Voidfish-style, Boyd remembered everything: the people who’d taken care of him, the friends he’d made, the love he’d found, the time and effort he’d put into getting better, the rewards he’d reaped because of it. He remembered fighting monsters and defending them. He got hit with it all at once, and missed them. His parole date was coming up; he could bide his time until he was released, and run down there.

But then, at the start of TCOS, Something Happens that makes all Sylvan disguises and spells shit the fucking bed; his disguise spell, which has been hiding a nine foot-tall jacked demon out of hell, flickers, and the invisibility spell that had been put on his disguise item to hide it failed. Boyd knew he was fucked if the jail folks found out he was a Sylph, so he decided to fucking Kool-aid Man out of there, becoming a wanted man in the entire state of West Virginia and getting a bit roughed up in the process.

But hey. Whatever it takes to get home, right? 

Stern’s Changes:

Stern’s changed too, though, and here’s how. It was relatively simple to tweak him, because so much of him was a blank slate to begin with. First: that name. Garfield Kent Stern is his full name: Garfield for the cat/Deals Warlock, Kent after Kent Mansley, the irritating dipshit FBI agent antagonist from the classic animated movie The Iron Giant. Poor bastard. He started as a walking meme who I was going to kill off; I came up with that name long before we got his real name in canon, and didn’t want to retcon it out. 

I’m a sucker for secret connections and familial ties, too, and back in 2018 the headcanon gashapon gave me “what if Stern was a cousin of Duck’s, but there was family drama that made their parts of the family split when they were kids, so now 30 years later they don’t remember each other?” 

And that’s exactly what I did. Gary is Duck’s first cousin on Duck’s mom’s side; their mothers are sisters. Gary’s uncle Arnie was a Secret Service agent who tangled with an Indrid trying to stop the Kennedy Assassination once, and he keeps telling that story at Christmas, much to everyone’s chagrin. Gary remembered those stories, and even received Indrid’s old disguise glasses - knocked off his face during his uncle Arnie’s chase - and carried them with him for a long time.

He didn’t start off as a baby cop, though; he was more interested in hitting the books, finding out the logic and doing the research to figure things out. I have him become a history major, getting a PhD with a few bits and bobs here and there that I haven’t worked out yet. Whatever the case, he spent a LONG time in academia, from undergrad starting in 1996 to graduation in about 2005. 

Things weren’t as peachy as he thought they’d be, though. Gary wrote and published his thesis, like a good little PhD candidate, but someone was watching him. In his thesis, he’d been trying to cobble together various cryptid-related legends across the word and making connections between them, among other things. He’d managed to link up and explain something that Unexplained Phenomena had been trying to figure out themselves. They immediately intercepted his thesis, kept it from being disseminated anywhere else, erased all copies of it after graduation, and reached out to Gary independently to bring him on.

Make no mistake: he went willingly. Despite the whole thesis coverup, Agent Gary Stern wasn’t coerced into being a government stooge, and he wasn’t blackmailed - he was given an offer to work with the cryptid cops, and he enthusiastically took it. Government benefits were decent, he’d heard; post-grad options were looking slim, especially going into the recession. In his mind, there was a bit of allure to it all, too. A secret government organization looking into suspicious and possibly supernatural things all over the nation? Fantastic. More opportunities to do research. He was in. Gary accepted their offer and started basic FBI training in 2007 - the same year Boyd had that mental break and went AWOL, returning to his life of crime and meeting Ned.

Biggest mistake he’d ever made. But then again, if he didn’t take them up on that, he wouldn’t be here, would he?

So he joins UP, goes up the ranks. They had him researching and charting the Bigfoot case for a while, and he was the only one who was willing to work on it at all because… well, Bigfoot sightings weren’t as sophisticated as some of the other projects that were out there for UP. (See: Area 51. We don’t talk about Area 51. Nobody talks about Area 51. Definitely nothing shady and unethical going on in there, no experiments on anyone or anything, no sir.) 

Gary’s diligent, though, and doesn’t like to back down from a challenge. That’s all hunting Bigfoot was: a challenge. No personal stake, no empathy. It was a job to get done, even though an entire person’s life was at stake.

And he got so caught up in this challenge that, when he went to Kepler, he EASILY got attacked by the Ashminder and destroyed within an inch of his life. He got the very memory of his job and intent in Kepler torn out of his head; once the Ashminder died, and those memories came back, they didn’t feel like his anymore, or like they’d been part of his life plan to begin with. Overcome with confusion and guilt, he decided to clean up his act and try to work against the FBI, with Mama’s blessing. 

His goal? Quit the FBI, get them off the Lodge’s back, and then see what happens next. Maybe he’d go back to academia, or teach, or something - just get as far away from the FBI as possible, as far away as he can be from hurting people. But he’s got to bide his time, because if he bolts now, they’re going to get suspicious and put the Lodge in even more danger. And that’s where he is now.

So why have they changed?

Simple answer? I don’t want to rewrite them to fit with canon. I just don’t. I don’t want to make Boyd human; I don’t want to change Gary’s name to Joseph and make him a Bigfoot groupie. I don’t want to rewrite hundreds of thousands of words of work to fit last-minute decisions made in the end times of Amnesty’s canon. My fic has diverged so much from canon that the canon versions of the characters don’t belong here anymore. Besides, Stern was such a background character in arcs 3 and 4 that he barely mattered, making his reappearance in arc 5 a bit of a clumsy follow-through, and Boyd was a one-act wonder. A little expansion couldn’t hurt. Making Gary something other than a direct antagonist made the narrative load a little easier, too, at least on my end. I hate giving a cop screen time, but it’s easier to justify his existence by rewriting his backstory and making him slog through the hell of a redemption arc. He’s had that coming. 

This leads us to TCOS, though, where the arcs of our player characters turn a bit more towards the plot, as opposed to the emotional fulfillment they got in TMWCIFTC. Characters like Gary, Mama, Boyd, and Alexandra take center stage for emotional and backstory development, while the original player characters take a temporary backseat. Alexandra’s a key linchpin of the story as a whole, both emotionally and narratively; Mama gets lore expansions and has personal things to settle; and Gary and Boyd are… here. So:

How do these two work with each other in TCOS?

It’s great. It’s fantastic. These two are my favorite to write in TCOS because their conflict is just so fucking FUN. On the one hand, you have an almost-ex-FBI agent who’s been taken in by the Lodge, is related to a Pine Guard member, is trying to keep his coworkers off the Lodge’s back as sneakily as possible without drawing suspicion, and is desperate not to screw up this second chance he doesn’t think he deserves. On the other hand, you have an ex-con who got a second chance from the Lodge, sees them as his last best option to be safe as long as nobody reports them, and wants to keep them safe out of a sense of familial obligation he’s reluctant to admit to, even to himself.

That’s two people with questionable morals, with a semi-familial attachment to a place that gave them second chances, each seeing the actions of the other as a threat to their - and everyone else’s - safety. Claws come out almost immediately.

At the start, Boyd and Gary go together like apple juice and toothpaste. Boyd sees a narc who’s threatening the one safe place he has left; Gary sees an impulsive, selfish threat, a domino that - if it falls - threatens, you guessed it, the one safe place he (and other people, sure) has left. Boyd breaking out of jail means the entire state of West Virginia, and probably the whole East Coast, is on high alert looking for him, and if that attention comes anywhere near the Lodge? They’re fucked.

Neither of them believe that the other is capable of change or anything but selfish, malicious harm. Boyd has more of an argument than Gary because Gary is still actively reporting things to the FBI, but in Gary’s defense, the moment that he stops reporting anything to them, they’re going to suspect things and might end up sending more people to the Lodge. The Pine Guard can’t afford that, so Gary has to play by the rules until he’s in a position where he can quit. I’ll pull a specific argument they have from TCOS that I feel really exemplifies this:

"I don't want you to get caught."

Boyd scoffed. "Something tells me you're not worried about me."

"I'm not."

"Well, thanks."

"I'm worried," Gary went on, "about someone seeing you, and connecting you to the Lodge. You just used the hot springs as your personal landing strip, in broad daylight. We're on the upper half of the mountain. And I don't know how big your Sylvan form is, but -"

Boyd grinned. It looked more like a snarl. "Oh, plenty big enough," he said.

Gary ignored that. "Big enough for someone to see you from down the mountain?" he challenged. Boyd's lip curled, and he looked away. "Yeah, that's what I thought. I'm just thinking ahead. What if someone came beating down our door looking for you? What if it was a cryptid hunter? What if it was the cops?”

"Yes, yes, fine, alright," Boyd snapped. He threw his hands up. His eyes were hard and cold. "It'd put us in danger. I get it. But you're still here. I think the damage is already done."

A knot of cold rage formed in Gary's stomach. "I'm trying to keep this place safe, Mr. Mosche," he spat. "I've got a responsibility to keep."

Boyd scoffed. "Oh, you have a responsibility? To Amnesty Lodge? That's fucking rich."

"You've got one, too! It’s about time you started keeping it!"

They’re both very, very set in their ways and their ideologies, and they take a long time to get to middle ground. 

One of my friends described it as middle child syndrome in overdrive. Gary thinks Boyd’s the Lodge golden child, come to replace him in the Lodge inner circle. Boyd thinks Gary’s the Lodge’s new redemption-arc fixer-upper, come to replace him. And both of them feel thrown off by that, because they both thought that the Lodge was accepting them completely into the inner circle. It’s unfamiliar, it’s confusing, and when the Lodge as a whole regards them both with suspicion/unease (Gary) and polite detachment due to the passage of time (Boyd), it makes them both feel on the outside.

And when you’re in the same shitty canoe, you’ve gotta row it or sink. So that’s exactly what they do. 

Ultimately, they get faced down with bigger and worse foes that snap them out of their spat, because their common interest is “keeping the Lodge safe” and uniting will help them get there. When they do start to have each other’s backs, though, that’s when they reluctantly start to get to know each other. Gary feels like something’s off about Boyd and eventually suspects - thanks to some comments from Haynes and some digging of his own - that Boyd had something to do with the fire that burned down Aubrey’s house, but it remains to be seen what he’ll do with that information. (The Gary of November 2018 would have turned Boyd in to the FBI. The Gary of almost six months later, though… a different story. It’ll be interesting.)

The kicker is, they’re both really similar, at the heart of it. Both of them were the Lodge’s fix-em-up pet projects, brought into the fold in an emergency and protected/cared for as long as they swore to clean up their act. They see each other and feel a bit out-of-place, though - something contributed to by the way the Lodge treats them.

Gary’s still held at a distance by many, despite being Duck’s cousin and a mostly-valuable member of the team, because the stench of the FBI is still on him - how he dresses, how he walks and talks, how he acts. And Boyd has just swanned back to the Lodge after 20 years gone, with all his memories of the Lodge from back in ‘98 driven back into his mind - and part of him is expecting the Lodge to be the exact same way it was when he left. But it’s not. You can’t go home again. The Lodge has moved on without him, which he never expected, and coming back to them is… awkward.

It’s simple. They don’t know what to do with a version of Boyd who’s missed the past 20 years of their lives; Boyd doesn’t know what to do with people who have changed from the folks he knew 20 years ago. He’s lost, floating, and alienated, like going to a high school reunion after not having spoken to a living soul since graduation. It sucks for him. And the only wholly unfamiliar face there, other than the main Pine Guard - who he’s mostly fine with, except for Ned - is Gary, and he can’t help but be irritated with him. That changes, though.

What I essentially want to do is set these versions of the characters up as foils. Similar characters, similar pasts, similar situations that got them to this point. All that’s different is how far in their respective arcs they are. So I’m going to have them be friends. Give each other a chance in the face of a bigger threat, open up a little more, have conversations, talk about things with each other because they’re the only ones around to listen. The Lodge gave them second chances when they needed them most. Maybe they can do that for each other.

This is also to say, I would be a massive fucking liar if I say I haven’t considered having that unfold into a rivals-to-lovers arc. Yeah, I said it. I’ve considered it, at length and in serious detail, since I started drafting the arcs for TCOS. In fact, that’s what I’m probably going to do. I’ve gotten too hooked by the possibility to give it up. I outlined hypothetical futures for the whole cast after the final battle in Sylvain and, given the things I want to happen in that battle and the messy post-war fallout, it makes sense that these two would gravitate towards each other.

It makes a lot more sense in context, believe me. They’ve got a long row to hoe before they trust each other enough to become friends, or even push the envelope towards a romantic relationship - they’d have months and even YEARS to wait to pull that off. Whatever I end up doing with them, they are easily my favorite part of TCOS to unravel, mostly because I  - and, honestly, everyone else - probably never saw it coming.

Thanks for the ask, anon. This made my week. So sorry for the long response, but I have so many thoughts on what I’m doing with these idiots, and putting them down on paper was really fun. Any other questions or comments about this? Fire away, I’d be more than willing to answer! 

#asks #anon #tcos #if tumblr fucks the formatting and bombards you all with a long-ass post i am SO SORRY #tagging anyway #long post #taz amnesty

[typinggently]

(I turned off my laptop and switched to my phone so I can’t edit the ask and put this in the tags but: I honestly thought I was a lone weirdo for thinking about Bruce getting railed by Bane so this whole thing was really nice.

Also my main source of comics is our local library and one of the first comics I read there (they replace them if they don’t get checked out regularly, it’s a disgrace) was something on the joker causing chaos with some toxic rain or something? I don’t recall, I think I was too young to read at the very beginning?! Which, looking back, is kinda bad, since they also had the killing joke and that comic I’m talking about rn has a scene where a bunch of soldiers abuse their authority to frisk (=undress) Harley time and time again and she actually cried in one picture while still being drawn in a sexy pose and that deeply disturbed me

But.

What I’m getting at is that there was a scene from Arkham and in one or two panels. Just some background thing that had NO consequence for the rest of the story but I ZOOMED IN on that shit. There was a tank in the background. And inside was this HUGE guy with a shark head or something. Pretty sure it was a shark, so it wasn’t croc. But I saw that and went “ohhhhh wow that’s intriguing...I love him”

Tiny me was already a monsterfucker and that’s that on that.

So needless to say. This was FUN.)

#also my brain upon the venom film release immediately went ‘we should make this a sex dream’ #which...is a lot to admit on the internet. and i also had no clue who venom was. i didnt even think about it much. #my brain saw big black goo w sharp teeth and long tongue and made wrapped up a little surprise dream for me #ok i think im shutting up now this is getting out of hand #talks

[madameocotillo]

Man, despite talking at length about being an admitted monsterfucker, I have barely posted any art of my own characters 'n pairings.

Welcome to Rapture was always intended to be short, sort of a crash course to test the waters in what kind of style I wanted to use, how quickly I could produce pages, upping my technical skills in panel framing/dialogue, etc., before I started in on totally original content that I view as being higher stakes than a fancomic.

I have six other comic storylines, and all of them at minimum have at least a full character cast, and a rough outline with beginning/middle/end & major plot points. Four of them take place in the same universe, the other two are stand-alones, but in total FIVE of them are in my favorite genre, Horror/Romance/ActionAdventure, and feature, you guessed it, monster-human central pairings.

While I don't want to get too distracted working on details for stories that won't made for a few years at least, character art & development is always fun, and I do wonder if people coming across a pairing of mine they like will make them more likely to read my other content. P:

Tldr: I'm gonna start making more of an effort to draw ocs other than the WtR folks, even though I love them and you will still see them plenty, in addition to copious fanart because that's how I roll.

#ohkotalks