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#saw some people arguing about lore stuff and like

2smolbeans · 2 months

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Thinking about the replacement student from that AU you wrote. Thinking about how it must have felt, to so suddenly go from mundane life to being deeply, obsessively loved. Thinking about how, to some people, that would be so /addicting/. Thinking about how they could have found out they’re nothing more than a prop, a test for MC. Thinking about how far they might be willing to go in order to feel that way again, to be loved like that again. I have… many thoughts about this lol

How the "Replacement" student felt after realising they were only a tool to test Mc

Yandere Obey Me Brothers x Mc (Replaced Au)

◇Read here for context◇

Tags: Implied nsfw, self-loathing, envy, replacement goes from hating you to being happy that they're not you, possessiveness, mentioned waterboarding, character backstory, story lore, just some light hearted stuff overall ^^

*this went unedited

__________________________

So for background, let's get to know our 'rival student'. In most of the Obey Me Replaced Aus, the rival student is always this perfect person who someone managed to bewitch the brothers and someone who wanted the worst for Mc. But this rival student, Alex, isn't what you expect. You see, Alex was your typical geek, always on her phone, scrolling, reading her books about fictional fantasy love interests, stealing away the main character into their magical world. When she was in her second year in college, she happened to come across an attractive man sitting behind a booth that showed an opportunity to study abroad. Seeing how no one was bothering to look at the table, she saw this as an opportunity! The more she talked and got to know the man, the more interested she was in this program. I mean living expenses, costs, and free money?! Why wouldn't she consider taking the exchange program? They're practically paying anyone who signs up!

So after grabbing the man's email and talking back and forth, she was able to read over the consent forms, the legal contracts, yada yada- and signed them all. After the transportation process and the whatnot, here she was at Devildom! At first, she had no idea where she was, infact she was mortified once she realised that she was in hell (or at least a certain part of it). But after the introduction and the promise of safety, especially after seeing some angels walking around- she was able to adjust! So what happened when she met the brothers? Well, she wasn't dumb. She knew these were the seven deadly sins just by seeing how they interacted with each other and hearing them bicker each others names. So, knowing the seven deadly sins, she kept her distance. She heard that there was supposed to be a human around in the house, but no matter how hard she looked - for some reason, she couldn't find you. It was like you were hidden..

As days went by, she noticed a few things. She noticed how the seven lords argued about some sort of 'schedule' that they seemed very competitive over. She noticed the way they were really..Well she couldn't explain it. But they were intense. Their aura alone was suffocating to be around. It was like they were ready to snap at any moment. They were friendly, but in a way that she knew if she pressed any further in a conversation, they would simply stare into her soul with an expression that would send her into a primal fear.

Eventually, after a while- she started to warm up to the brothers. She couldn't recall how or why, but it just happened! They connected so well that she almost forgot that they were the seven deadly sins! During this time, she had actually seen you from the corner of her eye. But if she was being honest, she was too distracted from all the exciting moments the brothers would entangle her in. She had never felt so..Loved before. The feeling of someone always validating your emotions, someone to call out to, someone to be in sync with. It was like her prayers had finally been answered! There was one time you had tried reaching out to her, but she was so entranced by the brothers and their tempting offers of intimacy- she might've brushed you off.

But of course, all things don't last forever - and I guess that's where the rose tinted glasses came off and realilty began to settle in. In reality, the brothers didn't love her. Of course, there had to be a motive behind all those gifts. Demons always have a motive, after all. And that motive so happened to be you. She was just a prop, a tool, an example to be made out of for you. Once she realised that, she grew bitter. It was terrifying how fast they were able to drop the act and reveal their true nature. She felt fooled, helpless, and pitiful. She played the role perfectly. The human fooled by sin.

So when she saw you being bombarded with the love she once had, she grew jealous of you. While you ungratefully received the love she wanted, she got the cold shoulder and mockings. While you would hide and try to blend in with the crowd, she would put herself out there and try over and over again to get their attention. Eventually, she felt the shame rush over her as she realised her desperation and pitiful attempts to win the 7 lords back. That still didn't stop her from hating you, though. She knows it was childish at first, but she despised you. What did you have that she didn't? Why were these unearthly lords so obsessed with you? Why couldn't anyone love her like they loved you..? Don't you see how lucky you are? It's not fair.

So, for a period of time, she was filled with envy. So much envy and bitterness that Leviathan himself would often feed off from her jealousy and snicker at her pathetic state.

Now, did Alex- this 'replacement student get over her grudge? Yes. But in an unfortunate way. After a period of self-loathing and wrath against you, she realised how much freedom was held back against you.

She noticed the markings of their packs littered across your body, she espically took note on how the eldest brother Lucifer would make sure to that your clothes would reveal those certain areas, even if it came off as..Exposing. She saw the way Mammon would cling onto you painfully tight. She recalled how uncomfortable you looked when his claws would push against your hip a little too hard. She remembered the time when she saw Leviathan drowning a poor angel that you talked to from one of your classes while you cried and begged for him to stop. She could remember the way he nonchalantly went on his phone while his tail wrapped around their body, pushing them up and down for long periods of time against the cold waves- only stopping when you agreed to his request with a smile on his face. There were nights where she'd hear you screaming in Asmodeus's room..Though she doesn't really want to talk about that..To save you dignity of course..She also doesn't look at Asmodeus's devilgrams as well for those reasons...Yeahh..She could go on a whole tangent about what she's seen, but she knows it's enough for her to realise that she really dodged a bullet. This was a blessing in disguise! A lesson to be learned!

So Alex stops trying to get attention on herself and continues on with her life. Learning witchcraft, magic, and the education that hell had to offer. She's still trying to get over that awful feeling of betrayal and jealousy. But the more she looks into their eyes, the more she realises how severe the situation is. Especially when one night, Belphegor had visited her dreams and gave her a nice little 'warning'. (She now tries to avoid sleeping as much as possible and has scars all over her body)

So every time you go missing and the brothers ask where you are. She'll just point to where she saw you run off and hide away somewhere to avoid seeing what happens next. Overall, when it comes to finding that love again and dealing with the losses, she copes in many ways. Either imagining scenarios in her head of what could've been or journaling in her book. But if you were to ask her if she would steal the brothers away from you, her answer would be an immediate no.

She couldn't imagine going through what you have to go through. At this point, it's a "love them, not me!" situation. So for now, please leave her alone, let her deal with her heartbreak, and just don't pull her into your circle of hungry demons.. Please.

A/N: Funfact, Mc had once snuck in a "help me" note to the replacement student. The replacement student in question ripped the note and pretended like nothing happened! It's not her fault that when you gave her the note that Beel was breathing down her neck!

Also.. Alex was given consent forms and an early notice about arriving at RAD. You? You didn't have that luxury..

Surprisingly, Satan and Lucifer are chill with her since they know that she understands the circumstance and plays by the rules. Because of this, she made a request to move to the house of purgatory in the guise of "not being in the way."

Mc tries to reach out to the replacement student because they know that Lucifer and Satan are on good terms with them..

But thanks for the ask!! If anyone has any questions or specific scenes they want out of my Yandere Obey Me Replaced Au-, let me know!

____________________________

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thefirstknife · 5 months

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Ishtar updated so some stuff is on there finally. Didn't want to spam with too many huge posts with just walls of text.

Absolutely losing it about Chivalric Fire seasonal sword. We finally have a canon reason for ornaments from each vendor. It's becuse they argue what the weapon should look like.

"It should be elegant," says Zavala, striking his breastplate with a fist.

Shaxx isn't having it:

Shaxx's firm gesture of denial drives the side of his hand into a shelf. An Omolon-branded canister falls off and rolls across the floor. "It must be an unstoppable force in sword form! It should spit fire! Also, it should be red."

And then Drifter:

"No, no," the Drifter says from the doorway. He kicks the rolling canister away without looking down. "I'm a law-abiding citizen. I pay my taxes. You can trust me. It needs to look mean. You want people thinking: 'They're madder, badder, and hungrier than me. I'm not tangling with them.'"

I'm losing it over him emphasising that he's a law-abiding citizen. It makes him least likely to be a law-abiding citizen. Then poor Banshee is like can you guys settle on a single design and they continue arguing. Absolutely incredible.

A lot of people already posted about the exotic sparrow Nostos. It's about Eramis reminiscing about her wife Athrys and their children and thinking where she might be now. And then she just basically more or less decides to go to them:

It was the same map that Eramis's mate, Athrys, had followed out of Sol. It even included the habitable zones she'd tabbed as potential landing sites. By now, Athrys might be Kell of her own settlement, living happily alongside their grown hatchlings. Or they might all be long-dead. In truth, Eramis hadn't wondered at either possibility for decades. But ever since she saw the Witness disappear into its portal, Eramis could think of little else. All her prior aspirations were made suddenly small. Eliksni solidarity, revenge against the Traveler, enmity with the Humans… they were all irrelevant. If a second Whirlwind was her fate, Eramis would suffer it as she had the first: with Athrys by her side.

Btw, "nostos" is a theme in Ancient Greek stories, about a hero heroically returning home.

Gloaming Journeyer has also been posted by pretty much everyone. It's about Drifter and Eris sharing an incredibly tender moment and finding peace with each other. Just read it.

Wyrmguard seasonal arm piece has a devastating update on Shaw Han's lore in which it is revealed that the Ahamkara exotic he wears is what he made a wish to. He wanted to have his own fireteam. At the end, he gets a call from "Caster-3" aka Cas, one of the members of his fireteam (alongside Maeve) that ended up dying to Navota. The backfire of a wish. Man.

And one more funny for the end, for Dragon's Breath. A return of Marcus Ren and Enoch Bast! They're doing fine and they're being dumbasses together with their friend, Ariadne Gris. Ariadne might be familiar to people who remember obscure lore from the vanilla sparrow lore Dinas Emrys in which Ariadne was called to the Vanguard to explain why she has a dragon symbol painted on her sparrow. She was being suspected of having an Ahamkara. Ikora found this whole thing ridiculous and Ariadne defended herself by saying a dragon painted on a sparrow was "cool."

And she's back at it again in Dragon's Breath, offended that it's called Dragon's Breath but not having a dragon painted on it. Enoch and Marcus then get a deal with her: she'll race her sparrow against the speed of the rocket. What happens next will shock you. Also, important:

Enoch says. At his side, Marcus studies the case.

Not beating the allegations that they're partners.

#destiny 2 #destiny 2 spoilers #season of the wish #season of the wish spoilers #zavala #shaxx #drifter #eramis #eris #shaw #marcus #enoch #just lore.#so many cool little tidbits

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solradguy · 7 months

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Mr. Badguy I have a question as a guilty gear lore baby. I have been told sol/ky is problematic and I do not know why I fear. Could you please explain

Oh boy. I'm probably not the best person to ask about what ships are and aren't problematic because I honestly... just don't have the energy to care about it that much, it's like infinitely easier to block/blacklist and then move on. I don't know how people have the free time to get as worked up about it as they do.

Anyway. So, Ky's age before Missing Link (the earliest in the timeline of the games' stories) is generally the biggest problem. He was 20 in ML and a teenager through the Crusades. I think he was probably at least 18 near the end of the Crusades right before Sol left but that's pushing it. Anything with Ky and Order Sol's bad weird. I won't argue that at all, Ky was a kid and Sol was very much an adult, on top of the physical and mental power imbalance between them. Not good. Luckily, I really only see HOS/Ky stuff from the really early fandom (<2006) and IIRC their ages were still pretty vague back then so I'm just gonna chalk it up to no one knowing, especially in the EN fandom where it was a lot harder to find/get official information.

Between Missing Link to like late GGX/early GGXX I don't see what the problem with shipping them then is; they were both adults at that point and there wasn't even the power dynamic between them that there was during their Holy Order days. This, I think, really just comes down to personal reasons for not liking it. Which is fair.

After GGXX it gets... complicated.... Ky marries Sol's daughter but it's vague on when exactly Sol pieced it together that he even had a kid and that it was Dizzy, of all people. Ky definitely did not know she was Sol's kid until at least like partway through Xrd, when they both kind of put the pieces together and had a crisis over it. So shipping them after this point, between the timelines of Overture through Strive, you've got the issue of Sol now being Ky's father-in-law.

But the canon never straight up says Dizzy is Sol's kid (it is VERY HEAVILY implied though) and Sol and Ky both end up being dads together for Sin...?? It's like ASW is playing gay chicken with whether or not Sol and Ky are still shippable from an ethical standpoint lol Whatever that saying is about having a cake and eating it too, etc.

I saw the email for this ask this morning and I presented the Sol/Ky situation to my mom as if they were real people (she doesn't know anything about GG) and she was like, "That's a hell of a love triangle but I guess if the guy (Ky) and the daughter (Dizzy) got divorced and the daughter is alright with it, and it's consensual between the men, then it's weird but it's not as bad as some other relationships I've seen."

That's kind of how I feel about it too...? It's messy as fuck lmfao But I guess if there's a way to like write it so that Dizzy doesn't end up needing lifetime therapy then like... go for it....? I guess....???

I don't ship Sol/Ky because I think their dynamic is WAAAYYYY more interesting keeping them as rivals-turned-friends, and I like Dizzy too much; there's too big a chance of her ending up getting completely devastated by it. But as far as "problematic" Guilty Gear ships go, Sol/Ky's in the like... "People are wasting time arguing about this?" tier, imo. It being Thee biggest GG ship throughout the series' entire history is something to be considered, too. It's unavoidable, even the official art contributes sometimes. I often wonder why they decided to make it weird by throwing Dizzy into the mix because I know that, from digging through old forum archives, that change made a lot of people furious hahah

Disclaimer because the reading comprehension on this website is abysmal: I DON'T SHIP SOL/KY. IT'S FUNNY AS A JOKE BECAUSE IT'S AWKWARD BUT I DON'T SHIP IT IN SERIOUS CONTEXTS BECAUSE IT'S JUST NOT THAT GREAT A SHIP AND THE FATHER-IN-LAW THING MAKES ME A LITTLE UNCOMFORTABLE.

#asks #Sighing as I yet again walk into the lion's den posting something like this

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rawliverandgoronspice · 9 months

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Ok so weird thing: Puppet Zelda. I mean, it was pretty obvious as a player Imo? But what I don't get: The tears show her ONCE! and it's the scene right before Ganondorf gives Sonia a backbreaking back massage. It's alluded to that she (he) did some other weird stuff to mess up for Sonia and Rauru, and it's not expanded upon at all. I was so put off by that, because it feels like that would have been a big chance for ACTUAL character development for ALL the characters from the past. What did P-Z do? Where was Ganondorf? Was he hidden, or was he inside the castle? How did Sonia react to it? How did Rauru react to it? How did Sonia catch on? Why was it only Sonia and Zelda confronting P-Z? Why wasn't Rauru somewhere hidden as well? I doubt Rauru would have dismissed such a serious accusation. Sonia confronts P-Z, Zelda comes out, then Rauru lies in wait to check for extra danger. The time it takes for Rauru to arrive also kinda makes me think he wasn't that far away? P-Z is a cool concept, but I'm still just so baffled by the absolute "non-story" they built by alluding to her bullshit.

Okay so. Yeah. I completely, 100% agree, and I want to use the opportunity to air out a very particular complaint I have not really seen a lot of people talk about, because I just rewatched that scene and I am shocked all over again.

The teacup scene, after Ganondorf submits, is, in my opinion, horrendous. Like not because of secret Problematisms (though yes also this, we just saw them asking their enemies to kneel and the very next scene they're having a little tea party with cake between royals while armed guards protect them and it's not supposed to be a red flag and it's wild to me), but because the actual writing, at a craft level, reads like a first draft at best. There are three narrative information beats that matter in this entire scene:

The war has stopped

Zelda wants to help her ancestors and not only return to her own era (??? okay, she already did and the problems are technically over already as far as they know??? and it's not a choice she's making since she still can't master her powers and never learn to btw)

Rauru learns Link's name

I'd argue the only real important thing is that Rauru learns Link's name, and it could have been done in a much more interesting and dynamic way.

Instead the scene just goes on and on with lore dumps that never go anywhere, reiterations of the bond between Zelda and Sonia we had already established, dialogue that is... shockingly bad...

Actually, let's examine just one case: "Ah. I can see that you have absolute faith in him."

Like, just, general pro-tip: if you use "I can see that X" in dialogue and it's not ironic or used as de-escalation and just there to reiterate what we have just immediately established, cut that line. It's doing nothing, it's dead weight, it's just grinding the pace of a scene to a halt for no reason (unless you want it to be about stagnation, like I could see a David Lynch dinner scene where every character restate each other's actions by saying "I can see that you really like the gravy." over and over but it's not.... very applicable to more generic situations). This is writing 101, and the scene is full of these nothing sentences that go nowhere and establish nothing about the characters or the world and set up nothing and pay off nothing and it's driving me wild!

(also it does my least favorite thing in game writing aka the game praising the player character for an unreasonable amount of time, but I realize this is a pet peeve and not as important but it always makes me roll my eyes incredibly hard when it's not earned and it wasn't earned or useful here, the fact that the scene ends on everyone being like yaaay link!!! is... completely disconnected from the actual story happening in the past and shouldn't be the focus of the characters at that moment --it would be more powerful if Zelda used Link as an image of strength to inspire Rauru after Sonia's death later, for example)

It's a scene that completely undermines the tension built in the previous memory, makes the timeline of events confusing, and it leaves a ton of questions open, like: where the hell is Ganondorf? What is he doing? What did Rauru mean by "keeping him close", if he isn't actually close? Do they think he returned to the gerudo lands while he actually stayed hidden in their palace to do his Puppet Zelda shenanigans? I don't know! There is no way to know, because we're being told about teacups and how Link is amazing instead of anything relevant to the plot!

So yeah. Would have *gladly* done away with that teacup scene and focused more on a very tense moment of Sonia and Puppet Zelda where she acts very suspiciously and maybe aborts a first attempt at stealing the stone that goes nowhere, and this is when Sonia catches on that something is off? Honestly, I would also have killed for an actual scene of tension between Zelda and Ganondorf where they, like. Talk to each other. Instead of this actual current version of the story where they never do. And maybe this is how he realizes that she has a special connection with Sonia and it's how he tries to get her.

But yeah. Sorry, I kind of hijacked the ask into a "this damn teacup scene!!!" *shakes my first at clouds*, but I think it mirrors the thought that priorities were not given to the actual tension points laid down in the story. Puppet Zelda inherently calls upon ideas of fear of imposture, of abuse of power, of insecurity, of a twisted version of what Hyrule *could* be, which is so interesting and ripe with conflict and counterpoints.

I would have done unruly things for a Zelda arc where she is struggling to be a ruler and she's still very insecure and wrecked by guilt over the Calamity thing and feel disconnected from the land because of the whole "being locked 100 years away fighting a demon" thing and her daddy issues, and this is this insecurity that Ganondorf picks up on and preys on by trying to dismantle Hyrule using her very image as he plans his Big Comeback, and our role is to unite all of Hyrule against this weird nasty caricature of her created by an envious man who was furious to see his rule rejected and his rebellion considered less important than peace, then go to her acknowledging the immense and unjust sacrifice she made becoming a dragon and being like "hey Zelda we all love you and we will all fight for you because we made the choice to believe in the future you want to build" and it would have been soososo powerful and I would have perhaps shed a tear or two or ten. ;_;

#asks #thoughts #totk #totk critical #totk spoilers #when will my brain return from the imprisoning war...#zelda #writing #thanks for the ask!!! sorry my brain went Places with it #but yeah I just.... I'm sorry but I don't understand people who defend the writing of this game #you don't have to buy into the “it falls into pretty nasty imperialist storytelling patterns” to be like “this is just written badly”#that teacup scene is just a prime example of how.... amateur it feels #this is why I don't think Nintendo realized they were doing weird imperialist parallels with this one if THIS is their standard of quality #which it usually isn't! it's usually not that bad!#botw was not high art when it came to its writing but #it was not *that* egregious

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sillygoofyart · 1 month

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The CDN lore i guess

First of all, characters

Vladimir-protagonist

Rosario- we have no idea their gender since they treat rosario with both he/him and she/her pronouns, we only know they #slaybitch (protagonist's sibling)

Benito- asshole

Damián- Vladimir and Damián so gay for eachother fr fr

Those are the principals

Anyway brief explanation of lore

Vladimir's dad is fired from his job by none other than this guy named Hernández (which is also Benito's dad) in 1992 (middle of a winter storm)

Vladimir's dad is about to die of hypothermia but OMG Damián's dad saves him and they both became friends

Eventually, Vladimir's dad introduces his son to Damián's dad, which introduces Damián to Vladimir

And they became gay/j (jk they also become friends)

But then all of a sudden Vladimir's dad does the self unaliving and DEAD

The police finds his suicide note and it says all the names of the people that was "responsable of his pain" one of them was Hernández

Now Vladimir's plan was to become Benito's friend to eventually confront his almost abscent dad

It was only after 4 years of pure pain in the ass and doing illegal stuff that Vladimir gives up on his quest

TIME SKIP!! Adult time (i mean as in the characters are now adults, not sex time)

Vladimir's life going well until his sibling tells him Benito offered them drugs

#whatthehell

#fightwithbenito

#benitobrushesitoff

#wtf

Sues benito for all the past stuff and what It just happend

Benito somehow wins (and by somehow i mean he has lotta money) and Vladimir loses

He decides to give up again

One day, working as a mailman he slips when walking down stairs and he Hits his hair

#braindamage

He goes on a insane spiral and suddenly remembers benito

This time he AINT gonna resolve this the lawful way

*buys chainsaw*

LET THE GAME BEGIN

Damián eventually finds out Vladimir tryna KILL benito and he doesnt like the idea of his lover *cough* i mean friend being in jail again so he tries to stop him

Vladimir starts losing his shit very quickly (mainly because he's insane now) and Damián is getting anxious (mainly because vladimir's insane now)

They argue until Vladimir is starting to get a lil bit violent

AND SUDDENLY

Out of rage, blinded by the Madness Vladimir punches Damián in his eye, leaving him on the ground and in a puddle of blood

This would make some scrumptious angst wow

Anyway, Vladimir is shocked from what he did but he has to leave Damián behind before he tries to stop him so he runs away

When he enters Benito's House he completly trashes it with the chainsaw and reminds benito (Who was hiding somewhere, bc he saw vladimir though the cameras) all the bs he has done

When he finds benito he tries to cut him in half with the chainsaw but benito "blocks" It with a lamp and runs away jumping from a window

ANDD..... Im still in progress with the story (aka theory) so i cant tell you the end

damn this story is fire🔥🔥🔥

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kyberblade · 2 years

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Back To You (Din x Reader) - Part 10

A/N: Well, here we are. We get explanations, more questions, and lots of just fun stuff in between. Oh! And Mando’a. (Translations at the bottom.) We have some show dialogue again, but not too much. Also, once again, there is some lore in this that @writerlyhabits wrote in a fantastic short, and I loved it so much, I asked if I could use it.

(This takes place right where the other one left off and goes into the first part of episode 2x4/12, The Siege.)

I do not own Star Wars or it’s characters. Sadly. But I carry them in my heart. Does that count for something? My soul says yes.

Warnings: Tooth rotting fluff, Grogu being the cutest thing you ever did see, and Din is once again a warning in and of himself in this one. Space swearing. Mando’a.

Word count: 10,045

As always, thanks to @grippingbeskar for encouraging me, looking over this for me, and being the one to introduce me to Din fanfiction in the first place, getting me hooked. You are fantastic and I always love our chats.

Previous | Series Masterlist | Next

Xxx

Bathed in a purple glow, you stared wide eyed at the beam of light as it stood proudly before you. The whispering had stopped, nothing swirled at the back of your mind, there was nothing left to taunt you. ….Except what you had seen in flashbacks.

Brown eyes stared back at you, soft and kind, long before they ever swore a creed or made a promise to stay hidden. Now they haunted you, teasing you with something you’d never see again, playing on a loop behind your eyelids every time you blinked.

How had you seen that?

In all your years reading any and all information you could get your hands on about the Jedi and their training, you had encountered things that came about rarely, some people having particularly strong powers and the ability to see things when touching an object, but that was things tied to that object.

Looking to the hilt in your hand, you disengaged the saber, the silence of the room surrounding you as the gentle hum stopped. Bringing it closer to your face to inspect in the dim light, you could find no reason this saber was connected to the memory of Din. And in the memory of the child, there had been no purple glow defending him, though you had been in the Jedi temple, but that connection was loose if any.

You’d heard stories of younglings and their journeys into the kyber caves in search of the crystals to power their weapons. They would call out to the young Jedi, test them, torment them even. That all made sense with what you had gone through. This wasn’t your hell, it was your test. Though it could be argued they were one and the same, you thought smugly, you decided to look at it as a passing of a trial, a success.

Staring into the dark recesses of the closet absently, your eyes darted all around as you searched your mind for any sliver of information that might help.

You scrunched your eyes tight, hand darting up to cradle your forehead as a wave of pain washed over you, throbbing behind your eyes. Clutching the hilt tightly in your other hand, your new leather gloves creaked against the metal. Moaning softly, you tried to focus when voices started to fade into your consciousness, a fuzzy version of reality slotting into view behind your eyelids.

You didn’t recognize anything. Not the space, not the people, nor the time. Was this the future? Was it the past? Was it happening right now?

Then you saw him.

You saw Din, looking exactly like he had when he walked out of this closet however long ago, time an abstract concept when you were lost in these visions. Other Mandalorians. Voices you didn’t recognize. Everything got sharp, clear, as if you were there with him, except something that laid at his feet. Something small and black laid on the ground and blurred when you tried to look at it like your eyes were bleary with sleep. No matter how much you blinked or rubbed your eyes, it still stayed hidden from your view.

Sucking in a sharp breath when you realized what words had been exchanged, you blinked and the closet came back into view, as if you’d never left.

Pushing the glimpse of a possible future out of your mind for later, you rolled your shoulders back, massaging your temples as the pain dissipated. Turning to the kid, you saw him wide awake, staring at you with curious eyes, his head tilted in that very Din-like way, making you smile.

“Hey, little one. When did you wake up?”

You made your way back over to the crate you had been seated on, lowering back down until you sat cross legged in front of him. His eyes landed on the saber, and he let out a soft squeak in question before he looked back up at you.

“Ah, so you’ve seen my new toy, huh?” You held it out slightly for him to see better. “You know what this is, don’t you.” It was a statement, not a question. His little head straightened in answer as he held your gaze.

A sad smile found its way up your face. “I saw what you went through on your last day at the temple, kid.” His ears drooped at your soft words. “I’m so sorry. That must have been so scary.”

One of his little three clawed hands reached out toward you, and you met him in the middle, only one of your fingers fitting in his grasp. His eyes fluttered shut, and suddenly you were back there, but you were seeing everything from his perspective.

You saw the troopers, the Jedi fall, then suddenly a shadow overhead. His gaze drifted up to find the source, and your breath caught in your chest when you were staring into your own eyes. You were wearing the clothes you had on now. The saber in your hand was on your hip along with your blaster and knife that glinted with the fresh mudhorn. Your beskar. But how? You quit pondering the how, just grateful it was when a sense of peace washed over you from the child, a sense of relief and protection.

You had done that.

You had covered him, sheltered him, and made him feel safe decades ago, before the two of you even knew the other existed.

The vision faded, the dim light of the closet coming back into view, and you swiped at an errant tear tracking down your face.

The child released your finger, smiling up at you as he blinked heavy eyes slowly.

“Thank you,” you whispered, the side of your mouth quirking up.

“I don’t understand any of this, but I think that’s the point.” You rose to your feet with a sigh. “Does it ever get any easier, kid?” He squawked in what you took as a ‘no’, making you chuckle. “Gee, thanks. I can’t wait.”

Scooping him up, you fastened the saber onto your hip, closed up the bag you’d come in with, and slung it over your shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go see if we can find your dad. This place is making me claustrophobic.”

The child let out a little squeak.

“I’ll keep you safe. If anyone tries anything,” you lifted your arm up like you had seen Din do many times, grinning, “I’ll roast ‘em.”

Xxx

Din POV

“Easy. Easy.”

This had been one big kriffing disaster.

The controls of the ship rattled in his hands, shaking like it wanted to burst apart at the seams. Pulling up with a firm hand, glancing to his side to make sure Reeves was doing the same, Din focused back out the viewport, watching the surface of the water careen closer.

At the last possible second the ship stabilized, pulling up to just skim over the surface of the water, beginning it’s ascent once again at a gradual incline.

Panting, Din released the controls, stretching his hands out as far as they would go, fingers spread wide. He’d had some close calls in the Crest before, but he doesn’t think any have ever had him gripping the controls that tightly.

Reaching out he presses a few buttons on the control panel as a soft alarm still blares about their low altitude, faintly registering Bo-Katan talking to the Imp in the corner. Suddenly the sound of electricity crackles through the air, and he whips his head around to find the source, only to see the Imp convulsing and falling to the floor motionless.

Suicide capsule.

He narrowed his eyes at the Mandalorian who had held a blade to the captain's neck and spoken in harsh whispers. What had she said?

“We have to go. He sent a distress signal,” Reeves said.

“Clear the atmosphere and prepare to jump.” Bo-Katan sounded upset, glancing down to the Imp one more time.

That was Din’s cue. Rising to his feet, he walked brusquely toward the exit of the cockpit.

“Are you sure you won’t join us?”

Bo-Katan’s voice at his back made him pause. There had been a time when all he’d wanted was to find more Mandalorians, coverts. More of his kind. But now…. Now he wanted nothing more than to find the Jedi for his foundling. To do right by you, by the kid. By his clan.

Turning back to face her, he kept his voice even and calm, despite how frustrated he was with her for all the things she’d pulled once aboard the ship. “There’s something I need to do.”

“The offer stands if you change your mind.” She hesitated. “Your little warrior didn’t seem to know the true significance of the blade she carried.”

“That’s not your-”

“As a woman and a Mandalorian, I think I hold an authority on the subject. Tell her. The longer you wait, the worse it will be.”

He hesitated. “I didn’t forge the blade, technically-”

“Technically nothing. Get your helmet on straight and just tell her already.” She tilted her head at him curiously, her voice softening further. “If you’re worried she doesn’t feel the same, I can assure you, you’re wrong.”

Din sighed, changing the subject. “Where can I find the Jedi?”

The mechanism hissed as she removed her helmet, holding it under one arm. “Take the foundling to the city of Calodan on the forest planet of Corvus. There you will find Ahsoka Tano. Tell her you were sent by Bo-Katan. And thank you. Your bravery will not be forgotten. This is the Way.”

Din nodded once, his voice cracking slightly. “This is the Way.”

As he strode out a side door, the wind whipping his cape around violently, he only had one thing on his mind. He had to get back.

Not even hesitating when he reached the railing, he took it in one hand, planting his right leg firmly and pushing off the edge into a free fall, his jet pack activating after a few seconds.

The dull city came into view below him as he passed through the clouds, and he accelerated slightly at the sight.

He had people waiting for him.

Xxx

Regular POV

You’d quickly realized you would need to conceal the lightsaber on your hip as you made your way from the inn. You didn’t see people looking at you directly, but you could feel stares following after you.

Slinging a satchel over your shoulders so it would cover the weapon, you tucked the kid into the little makeshift seat as added coverage, looking down into his bright eyes as they sparked with mischief, his gaze boring into your own. If you had to guess, he was saying something like, Understood. Mission accepted. He turned to look at the people passing by curiously, letting out soft coos as you went.

Finding a small market nearby, you found a stall that had a lightweight cape, flowy and breathable. With multiple shades of grey flecked together into one material, it resembled the overcast skies above. It came just above your knees in the front, dipping a little lower in the back, and had a spacious hood. You debated finding a robe with actual sleeves, but decided against it at the thought of your new vambraces. You chuckled under your breath, softly shaking your head as you pictured the smug tone Din would have as he said, “I told you so,” his arms most likely crossed over his chest as you both stared down at the smoking remains of a robe with sleeves that nearly cooked you alive with it.

Rolling your eyes, you paid for the cape, grabbing the other robe on principle - it could be altered, you justified to yourself, plus, the likelihood that something was going to catch fire at some point made you want to prepare just in case - and stuffing it into the satchel with the kid after you paid for it.

Ducking into a little alley, you pulled the bag off your shoulders, setting it on a crate, and pulled on the cape, feeling much better once you knew the saber was concealed. Throwing the satchel back on, you went back out on the main roadway, still getting the feeling that people stared at you as you passed by, almost keeping a wider berth from you than usual.

Reaching up to touch your cheek, you knit your eyebrows. “Do I have something on my face, kid?” You arched a brow as you looked down at him, chuckling at the squeal he sent your way. A glint caught your eye, and you looked down, realizing it was your beskar catching a brief ray of sun as the clouds broke for just a moment.

Realization dawned on you. People were staring at the beskar. They were avoiding the person wearing it. Your face melted into something neutral, your mouth beginning to curve downward as the thought kept circling your mind. Is this what Din felt like all the time?

Shaking your head at yourself, you strode towards the edge of the dock, the large ship Din was on high in the sky above. Leaning against a light pole, you kept your eyes on it, opening a ration pack for the kid and handing him pieces absently.

You felt the stares grow, the envy of some clouding underneath. Others feared you, while most were just curious. Darting your eyes around, you began to feel paranoid, and anger began to roll just under your skin. Why can’t they just mind their own business?

You didn't even realize you were doing it until the light on top of the pole at your back burst, making you and everyone in the vicinity duck away, hands rising overhead protectively, turning to look up as sparks rained down.

No. Not again.

The raw surge of power had flown from you to the closest nearby source, overwhelming it instantly. You winced as another small flash of sparks erupted before falling to the dock below. Glancing around, people were lowering their hands, approaching cautiously and staring up at the light in bewilderment.

Brushing your palms down the front of your cape, you tried to mimic their curious looks before ushering the kid a few feet to the side where you leaned on some large crates. Slumping back against them with a huff, you closed your eyes for just a moment, trying to center yourself before it could happen again.

You’d read some documents once upon a time from deep in the belly of Coruscant’s black market on the various colors of kyber crystals and what they meant for the wielder. Some represented strength, others wisdom, but purple, purple was rare and sometimes a topic of dissent, as its glow represented both that of strength and the dark side. It could be argued that it indicated one was truly balanced within the Force, both light and dark choosing to coincide in one blade, but it often indicated one had a soul of conflict.

Opening your eyes to stare at the large ship that contained your Mandalorian as it cruised through the sky, your mind continued to wander.

You’d never had this conflict before, this tug of the dark side pulling so strongly on you. The only thing you could figure was the crystal was trying to speak to you, manifesting in ways you wish it wouldn’t. You felt slightly better, knowing it wasn’t just you that was suddenly having lapses, but rather an outside force just trying to be heard. You could work with that.

The ship suddenly started to dive, making you push off the crates behind you and stand up straight. You faintly registered the child letting out a questioning squeal from the satchel as you walked to the edge of the dock, staring at the large vessel. A band seemed to tighten around your chest the closer to the water it got, and you weren’t even breathing when it pulled up at the last second, mere feet between it and the water.

You let out a sigh, your eyes fluttering shut in relief when it started to ascend again, the child beginning to babble from the bag at your hip. Moments later you saw a glint as something shiny flew off the side of the ship, the signature trail of a jet pack soon following behind it, making you smile.

Soon, Din landed on the dock beside you with a gentle thump, his momentum carrying him forward the last few steps left between you, closing the distance quickly. He stood so close that you were sure a deep breath would be enough to bring you together. Your head tilted back to look up into the dark T of his visor as he looked down at you.

“Hi,” you said softly, smile trying to fight its way up your face.

“Hi,” he echoed, his tone light. Reaching out after a moment, he pinched the fabric of your new cape between his index finger and thumb, rolling it back and forth slowly. “This is new.”

You nodded, looking down to his hand as you swallowed roughly, suddenly feeling nervous to tell him what you’d found. “Had to get something to cover this.” Lifting the edge back just enough to show him the saber on your hip, he took a step back to look, his head tilting to the side as he stared at it.

Looking around you noticed people starting to pay attention to the beskar again, so you grabbed his hand, dragging him into the alley you had ducked into to put your cloak on. It was small and narrow, and didn’t leave much space between the two of you, but that wasn’t any different from how you had been standing on the dock with loads of space all around.

“What is that?” Din asks, staring down at the spot where your saber was safely concealed.

“It’s a lightsaber. A Jedi’s weapon.”

“How-”

“It’s a long story,” you sighed, bringing your hand to your forehead to rub in frustration.

“We’ve got time,” he said softly, leaning his back against the wall opposite you, letting out his own sigh as he did.

You let your hand fall back to your side with a slap as it hit your thigh. “This isn’t exactly information for a dim alleyway, Mando.”

He didn’t respond, his visor just leveled on you expectantly.

“Let’s wait until we’re on the Crest-”

He let out an agitated huff as he pushed off the wall, grabbing your wrist and beginning to exit the alley.

You dug your feet in, making him jerk to a stop, turning to look at you. “Where are we going? The ship won’t be done for a few hours yet….”

Closing the distance between you, he pulled you close, his forehead coming to rest against yours in a gesture you were coming to understand meant more to him than simply what he had said. It was intimate, yes, but it was also a way of grounding you both. You weren’t even sure he knew he was doing it. But it worked like a charm.

“Do you trust me, mesh’la?”

You groaned. “I hate conversations that start like this.” He chuckled. “Why do you smell like smoke and explosives?” He was silent. “Wait. Never mind,” you rolled your eyes before looking up into his visor through your lashes, the beskar still cool against your forehead.

“Let’s go see our temporary passenger and her newest family member. We can talk there while they watch the kid. Whatever happened obviously has you on edge-”

“How did you know-”

“I know you.”

Your hands found their way up into his cowl like they had been before he left, twisting the material tightly in your fists, your eyes studying the weave of the material.

“Thank you,” you whispered, eyes swiftly flying shut before any of the tears that suddenly started clouding your vision fell.

“Come on, cyar’ika.”

Pulling away slowly, you both exchanged a look, the corner of your mouth darting up just slightly before you followed him out of the alley, hand firmly held in his as he led you down the dock toward the Frog Lady’s house.

Xxx

“And that’s how I ended up with this,” you concluded with a sigh, flipping the lightsaber in the air and catching it in your hand. Relaxing further into the wall at your back, you stared at the hilt in your palm before lifting your gaze up to Din’s visor.

Tentatively he held out his hand in a silent request to hold it. Leaning forward slightly, you placed it gently in his glove covered grip before collapsing the few inches back into the wall. He studied it intently from his spot across from you, looking almost comical, his large frame in the tight living quarters.

“And you’re going to keep it?”

You stared at him slack jawed for a moment. “Of course I’m going to keep it! It called to me, the kyber crystal inside that saber called to me, and made me endure the weirdest trip of my life. It’s coming with me.”

Din held his hands up beside his head as if in surrender. “Fine, fine!” He began examining the hilt closer. “Explain the visions one more time….”

You sighed again, looking over at the kid as he played with the newest member of the Frog family. “The first ones I wouldn’t really call visions, per say, more like….” You studied the floor in front of you before lifting your gaze back to his. “Glimpses. Glimpses of someone else’s past.” He nodded for you to go on.

Closing your eyes tight to try and remember every detail you could, you scratched your temple as you began. “I saw you, first, in the arms of your father, running on the streets of your home planet. The droids, the war…. I saw it all.” You took a deep breath as you tried to steady your nerves, eyes opening to watch him carefully. “The cellar where you hid, I went in there, too-”

“Why?”

Your jaw snapped shut, nose scrunching up in thought. “I don’t know. I just felt like I should. And I….” You tried to keep your features as neutral as possible, your voice as calm as you could. “Din, I saw you.”

He froze, lightsaber held up by his face as he examined it, slowly lowering down to his lap, forgotten.

“I saw the fear on your face, the longing for your parents…. But most of all, I saw the love echoing back from your parents’ eyes as they made sure you were safe.” He didn’t move. “They truly loved you, Din. They were doing the best they could in a really terrible, awful situation. And it worked - you lived. That’s all they were hoping for. They’d be so proud of who you’ve become.”

You looked over at the child as he squeaked, playing with the baby, and smiled. “And I think they’d love the kid, too.”

“I’m pretty sure you’d be on their list of favorites, too, mesh’la. Probably higher than me.”

Turning back to find him already looking at you, your eyes flitted back and forth, searching for purchase you knew they weren’t going to find. “I’m sure I would have loved them, too.” Finally settling on one spot, your voice barely came out above a whisper. “You have beautiful eyes….”

His visor tilted slowly in question.

Clearing your throat, your gaze fell to his chest, unable to hold the weight of his stare any longer. “In the vision, er, glimpse, thing…. I saw your eyes.” Finding the courage, you looked back up quickly, finding his head straightening, his shoulders stiff. “Only for a second,” you added as if it helped. “Only for a second, and technically it was before you swore the creed, so it was just like if I had actually been there that day.”

He sat straighter still, every part of him rigid and stiff. “The girl.” His voice sounded almost bewildered, distant, as if lost in a memory.

You hesitated. “What?”

He shook his head slowly, looking down to his lap before looking back up at you, head tilting to the side as his shoulders hunched forward just slightly. “I always thought I imagined it. When they were taking me away, when I looked down, I could have sworn I saw a girl and she…. She looked a lot like you.”

The two of you stared at one another for a long moment.

“How is that possible?”

“I don’t know,” you sighed, extending your hand for the lightsaber back, taking it gently when he held it out to you. “If you had asked me yesterday I would have said it wasn’t possible, but now…. I don’t know. Even just a few hours ago.” You cradled your face in your palm. “So much has happened in just a short time.” Moving your hand so it held the side of your face, you braced your elbow on your knee to support your head. “And I didn’t even tell you about what I saw right before I left the inn to go outside yet.”

“There’s more?” Din’s incredulous voice made you groan, a soft chuckle chasing it out into the open as you nodded, your eyes falling shut, exhausted at the mere thought of going on.

Suddenly the kid let out a wail, tugging on your bag across the room, and looking at you with humongous eyes.

Rising to your feet, you turned toward the bag. “Hang on, I’ll-”

Din put a hand on your shoulder, stopping your movement, and the kid’s cries of frustration crescendoed again when he saw. “I’ve got it.”

“No, really I can-”

“Hold that thought,” Din said, holding one finger up close to your face, “and don’t move.”

“What am I, a bounty?” A small bobble of his head as he walked away made you grin, knowing he probably was rolling his eyes.

“If you were a bounty, you’d probably be the first to convince me to let you go.”

“Why, because of my good looks?” You batted your eyelashes mockingly as he handed the kid a ration pack, the crying instantly stopping, and made his way back over to you with a snort of laughter.

“No.” You scoffed at his answer, a snicker making its way through his vocoder. “You just have a way with words, cyar’ika.”

He stopped in front of you, head tilted slightly down as yours hinged slightly back to let your gazes meet somewhere in the middle.

After a long moment you turned with a groan, walking towards where he had been seated before, stopping and staring at the wall with hands on your hips. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

“Going to?”

You whirled back around at his teasing tone, leveling him with a glare as he chuckled.

“Come on. Please tell me.” His arms crossed over his chest, his weight shifting to one leg. “I promise I won’t think you’re too crazy.”

“That-”

“I won’t think you’re any more crazy than you are, or any crazier than I already do.”

“Just…. Stop talking.” You held up a hand to silence him before returning it to your hip, your other hand going to massage between your eyes as they closed tight. “You're giving me a headache.”

“I’m sorry. What did you see, mesh’la?” He asked quietly.

“I couldn’t tell at first.” You lowered your hand to your side, eyes darting around the room as you recalled the vision you had right before you left the closet. “I would definitely call this one a vision, it felt like it was something that hasn’t happened yet.”

He nodded for you to go on. Taking a deep breath, you fixed your gaze on his signet as you continued.

“I heard you. You were talking to another Mandalorian, a woman. She asked if you had ever removed your helmet. …..And you said yes.” You looked at him straight on. “She said you were no longer Mandalorian.”

His chest rose and fell rapidly, but no sound passed through his modulator. He finally stumbled back a step, his footing unsteady, as a quick anguished breath slipped past the vocoder. He looked off to the side, gently shaking his head. “That-” he looked back to you. “That would never happen.” He took a step closer, closing the distance he’d stumbled back. “It won’t.”

“Maybe it was out of your control. Maybe-”

“It won’t.”

He took one large step forward, his figure looming over you, menacing and broad. Now you knew how his bounties must have felt, as you took a step back out of instinct, your spine sealing itself along the wall behind you. You had to tilt your head back just slightly to maintain eye contact, he was standing so close to you. You weren’t afraid, but you’d admit there was an inkling of fear curling just under the surface at the mere air of menacing he was giving off in waves.

The kid let out a questioning squawk from the table on the other side of the room, the Frog Lady trying to shush him quickly. Something about that sound shook him from his rage, and he hung his head with a gentle shake, apologizing.

“I’m so sorry. I would never hurt you, you know that-”

He went to take a step back with a heavy, sad sigh, but stopped when you reached out a hand to place over his that had gestured hollowly in front of him.

“I know you,” you said quietly, mimicking his words from earlier, effectively cutting off his rambling, and stopping his movement away from you. He let out another heavy sigh through the modulator. “I know,” you added softly.

Reaching a hand out to place on the side of his helmet where you assumed his cheek would be, you must have been right, because he quickly let out the rest of his breath on a quiet hiss and leaned into your touch, the weight of his beskar cradled in your palm.

“This is the way,” you said barely above a whisper, smiling at the small huff of air that left his vocoder.

His helmet in your hand, his weight melting into your palm, the child squeaking happily somewhere behind the two of you…. This is what you were referring to. This is the way.

Din’s voice sounded almost sleepy as he nearly burrowed further into your palm. “This is the way.”

Xxx

You bid your goodbyes to the Frog family, Din holding tightly to the child when he began to pitch a fit as your little party of three headed for the door. “No, I have enough pets.”

Walking slowly up to where the Razor Crest sat on the landing pad, you all came to a stop, surveying the rough looking ship skeptically.

It looked…. Better than it had when you’d landed. Barely. If you squinted. And didn’t even look at it.

Opening your mouth to say as much, you’re stopped short when Din cuts you off, his voice low and unamused. “Don’t even say it.”

Snapping your mouth shut, a small smile tugging up the corners slightly, you nod once, turning to look back at the Crest.

“I gave you a thousand credits, this was the best you could do?” Din hisses to the Mon Calamari attendant. Unphased, the mechanic simply holds out his data pad towards the Mandalorian, who presses the appropriate buttons to complete the transaction with a sigh.

Turning and making his way towards the ramp of the ship, he holds out his hand towards you and pauses, waiting until you fall in stride with him, where he places his hand firmly on your lower back as you move forward together. He’d been much more…. Possessive? No, that wasn’t right. Protective? No, that wasn’t it, either. Closer. He’d been much closer ever since the crash landing on the last planet.

Especially since he gave you the knife. Looking up at his visor with a soft smile, you studied the angles of the beskar as they somehow shined despite the overcast day. You figured it was just something to do with Mandalorians, their culture, and their focus on families and tribes.

Striding into the Crest as a unit, all three of you looked around the interior to inspect the repairs. Ropes. Ropes were everywhere. The ship was held together with twine. Walking up to one particularly tight strand nearby, you reached out a finger and plucked it, the string vibrating with a low hum, the frequency rattling into the metal of the ship on either end and making it sing its own low tune. Something off to the side groaned, like metal on metal, protesting the song selection.

Looking over the side of your shoulder at Din, he just stared at you silently before making his way to the cockpit, making you snicker.

The doors to the cabin whirred open, their once smooth hiss now a jolting swish. They moved at half the speed they normally did, making Din do a double take, and you had to turn your head to hide your grin in the massive hood of your new cape where it pooled on your shoulder.

Setting the kid in his chair to the right before sliding into the pilot’s chair, Din reached around the strands of twine pointedly, flipping switches and pressing buttons with unneeded aggression. “Mon Calamari,” he huffed, shaking his head as he attacked a few more buttons. “Unbelievable.”

Pressing the lever forward, the ship began to rise slowly, shaking and rattling like it was in the grip of an angry rancor. As the ship continued to shudder, you opened your mouth to say something about it, but without even turning to see you, Din cut you off just like on the dock, grumbling this time. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Smiling, you looked over at the kid as you fastened your safety belt. Creeping down from the ceiling was a small cephalopod creature like had been in the chowder you had been served your first day here. Remembering the way it plopped into the bowl made you shudder. The kid watched it intently, cooing as it got closer. You weren’t too worried about it, if anything, it could be a snack for the little carnivore, but he was tired after a long day, and you didn’t want to set off a fit just because he was so tired.

Reaching for your knife, you’re just about to draw the blade and stab the creature when it let go of the twine it clung to, dropping quickly toward the child with a hiss. Before you can react, Din has reached his hand back, catching the creature just above the child’s face, making the kid giggle.

“I finally know where I’m taking you,” Din’s voice is light, the first time since leaving the Frog’s house. Which, admittedly, wasn’t that long ago, but you always preferred when he was happy. He turned back toward the viewport, controls tight in his grasp with one hand, and you took the small aquatic creature from his grip so he could put both hands back on the steering. The ship continued to shudder violently. “But it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.”

“Isn’t it always?” You muttered under your breath, watching the city below shrink through the viewport as the ship rose higher and higher.

Turning back to look at the kid again, he caught the tail end of a tentacle being slurped into his little green mouth, his hands coming together in front of him, his eyes darting away, wide in innocence. Turning to look at you, Din tilted his helmet as if to say, really? and you only shrugged.

“What?”

With your hand tucked under the long flowy front of your cape, you slowly rotated your pointer finger, focusing on an object across the cockpit as the kid looked at you with scheming eyes.

Mimicking his words from earlier, you tilted your head to the side, smiling. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Din shook his head at you, turning to face the front right as you directed your pointer finger in a straight line, steering the small ball you were manipulating straight to the child’s waiting grasp behind him.

He reached to do something on the control panel, stopping when he noticed the ball missing. Turning slowly to look at the kid, the child simply looked back up at him and munched on the ball happily, his eyes darting over to you after a moment. Din turned your way, moving even slower, only to find you a perfect mirror image of the kid after he ate the creature - hands in your lap clasped together, head turned to look slightly to the side out the viewport, eyes wide and innocent as you stared at the stars crawling by.

“Have me turning in kriffing circles,” he mumbled, turning his chair back the other way to unwind the small circle he’d made. “Great idea. Make the pilot dizzy.”

He pushed on a control and hyperspace streamed around the cockpit, dancing off of every reflective surface. Looking down to your vambraces, you get a little lost in the streaks as it looks like part of your arms are made of stars, swirls of blues and silvers whizzing past, painting the beskar in glowing shades of starlight.

“Think you could help me with some wiring, you little delinquent?”

Looking up at his visor, the T an inky stripe that sat in the mass of reflected starlight from the rest of his armor. “Considering that’s the only thing I know how to do so far, yeah I guess I could help.”

He snorted a laugh. “I’m going to focus on getting these ropes out of here.” He plucked one like you had earlier, something on the deck below crashing a bit belatedly, making him sigh a heavy, heavy sigh. “I’ll watch the kid. The panels down below need the most attention, by the carbonite storage.”

You nodded, then shuddered, shaking your head when he tilted his head at you in question. “Nothing. Just…. Remembering that one time you chased a bounty into my bar- what was it you told him? ‘I can bring you in….’”

“I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold.” He answered instantly. His weight shifted to his other hip where he sat in his chair out of habit, his hand coming to rest lightly on his blaster in preparation for a fight. Realizing his movements, he relaxed into the chair after a moment.

“That was it!” You said with a smile. “Do you say that often, like is it a tactic, or was it just-”

“No, it was just something off the top of my head,” he cut in, brushing the statement away with one hand.

“Right,” you said after a moment, nodding once before making your way to the doors, their jerking swoosh making you chuckle. “So by the carbonite?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, turning to the controls at his side. The door shut behind you, and he slumped forward, his shoulders rounding in his seat as he let out a heavy breath. Turning to the kid, he paused. “What?” He questioned the foundling as the child stared up at him with suspicious eyes, narrowed accusingly, a soft unimpressed grunt coming to meet the expression.

“She doesn’t need to know that’s my line,” he said offhandedly, turning to examine some of the ropes more closely.

The child began to babble, gesturing between the door and Din as he spoke, making Din chuckle.

“Okay, okay, you little womp rat! I’ll tell her later. You happy?”

Arms falling down to his side, the kid let out a humph as he plopped back into the chair, sitting and munching on his ball as he watched his caretaker get to work.

Xxx

Surveying the interior of the ship as you twisted a bundle of wires together, you chuckled softly, shaking your head as you took in all the ropes and fishing nets holding it all together.

You’d slipped your cape off, but left the saber on your hip. You’d only had it a short time, but it didn’t feel right anywhere else.

Directing your attention back to the panel in front of you, it's quickly pulled away again by the sound of Din dropping down the ladder in one go.

“Everything okay?” He asks after turning to face you.

One corner of your mouth twitched up. “Well, I haven’t decentigrated your ship with my flamethrowers yet, so I guess that’s a yes?” Closing up the panel, you walked over to meet him halfway, wiping your hands off on the front of your pants. “Did you need something in particular?”

“Just came down to get a tool,” he said offhandedly, striding over to the toolbox near where you had been.

Taking the saber in your hand, you felt its weight in your palm. “I wonder….” Taking a deep breath, you tossed it up in the air, watching it flip end over end before you caught it behind your back, a brilliant smile climbing up your face.

“What are you doing?”

Snapping your head up to look at Din, you found him staring at you curiously.

“I just needed to stretch a little bit after doing all that hunched over,” you gestured toward the panel with the hilt. “I got to thinking-”

“Uh-oh, that’s dangerous.”

You pulled a face, mocking laughter at his joke. “Oh, ha ha, you're so funny.”

“Thanks,” he teased, making you huff.

“I got to thinking,” you continued pointedly, “if it was anything like when I flip bottles behind the bar. Same principles, same basic shape…. I don’t know, my mind just went there so I wanted to try it, and it worked.” You did another flip in front of you, catching it easily, then a more complicated one, flipping it then making a full circle before you caught it, smiling up at him when you were done.

“How,” he began after a moment, dragging out the word. “How can you do that with a laser sword and not have a problem, but you tripped on the ramp twice the other day?”

“There was something in my way-”

“It was perfectly flat,” he deadpanned.

You scowled at him. “I tripped on air. It’s a thing that happens.”

“Happens to who?”

“People!”

“It doesn’t happen to me.”

You snorted. “Yeah. Okay, Mr. I tripped and fell in Peli’s hangar but didn’t think anyone saw me.”

Silence hung between you.

“That was one time.” He held up one finger for emphasis.

You held up your hands in surrender, smiling smugly. “I believe you. I didn’t even see it. The pit droid told me.”

He just stared at you, his hand holding firm to the single digit extended.

Suddenly the ship lurched, throwing you and Din into one another, alarms blaring from the cockpit. Scrambling to keep on your feet, both of you ended up clutching the other close in a tight grip, your gaze getting lost in the T of his visor inches from your face.

Over the blaring of alarms you could now hear the shrill sound of the child laughing heartily from the cockpit, obviously the source of the chaos engulfing the ship. Both of you scrambled up the ladder as fast as possible as the ship teetered back and forth unpredictably. You gripped his cape to stay upright once you made it to the top, peering over his shoulder to see the kid gleefully running along the length of the console, crunching whatever buttons and switches were unfortunate enough to be underfoot.

You surged forward as a unit, Din scooping up the child and handing him to you in one motion, your firm grip ready and waiting to contain the monster as he squirmed in your arms. He continued into the pilot's chair without missing a beat, correcting all the things the kid had messed with, the alarms stopping one by one, silence quickly growing in the cabin. Once everything was settled and the ship had stopped shuddering violently, you and Din turned stern gazes onto the child who just looked between you both with a wide grin.

A soft alarm began to go off right as Din took in a deep breath to say something, making him turn back to the console, flipping a forgotten switch, and instantly a shower of sparks and a loud bang erupted from down below.

Your lips drew into a tight line as you stared at the stars inching by through the transparisteel. “That was the panel I just fixed, wasn’t it?”

“I think so,” he was quick to answer.

“Take him, please,” you said quietly, extending the child to the Mandalorian who took him in one arm.

Turning, you made your way down the ladder quickly, a loud “Dank farrik!” coming along behind you after a small shower of sparks flared light up into the cockpit. “I’m fine,” you added, sighing, the loud clang of the metal panel landing on the floor as you began the repairs again.

The cockpit doors closed, leaving Din and the kid in silence aside from the sound of tools clanging around dully below.

Looking down to the kid, Din shook his head. “What am I going to do with you?”

The kid babbled something to him before turning his gaze back toward the cockpit doors.

Xxx

You leaned against the frame of the cockpit doors as you watched Din flip various switches. The engines sputtered and revved pointlessly before dying.

Some black grease smudges were on the tips of your fingers where your gloves didn’t cover from all the wiring you had been doing, a few on your vambraces, and no doubt one or two on your face where you’d forgotten and gone to brush your hair out of your eyes. Grabbing the scarf Vanth had given you back on Tatooine, you began to wipe the grime from your skin and beskar.

“I was looking through some spare parts you have down there, and I think you have pretty much everything I would need, but next port we get to, I’m going to check out a few junk shops.”

“What are you talking about?” Din spun his seat around to face you, helmet tilted in question.

You sighed. “We talked about this earlier.” One hand went to rest on your hip. “I want to build a training ball like the Jedi used to use. I have the diagrams in my bag, I got them off of someone back on Coruscant just before we left. They were mixed in with a handful of other documents…. Anyway. It hovers and shoots small blaster shots at random, and you have to reach out and connect, to feel in order to block it.”

“Wouldn’t that just make you extremely tired extremely fast? Like the first time you shot the blaster?”

You smiled softly. “No, but that’s why I need it. Using the Force makes you drain your batteries faster, being in tune with it doesn’t. That night I wasn’t very in tune.”

“You seemed pretty in tune to me,” he chuckled. “I was watching.”

“Yeah?” You spoke softly, grinning as you went back to wiping your hands.

“Yeah,” he returned equally as soft.

After a moment he turned back to the console to press more buttons. Reaching up overhead he flipped some switch, making the engines rev again. “All right, let’s try this again. Okay, did you…. Do you have the wire?”

“What?”

“I wasn’t talking to you.” An alarm started beeping softly before a series of button pushes turned it off. He turned to the console on his left, a few more buttons and switches. “No. Nothing.” He sighed heavily. Pressing a button repeatedly as if maybe the seventeenth time would have a different outcome, he finally stopped. “Hey….” He looked over his left shoulder toward the back of the cockpit. “Oh.” Clearing his throat, he got to his feet and went to a small little opening in the back wall you hadn’t noticed.

A loud coo was heard from inside as Din knelt down in front of the small hole, and your eyes went wide.

“Din…. Where is the kid?”

“He’s helping,” Din said simply, not looking at you, instead keeping his gaze forward on the child.

Crouching down beside him, you pushed his shoulder to move him and get a glimpse down the small shaft, making him grunt at the impact. Sure enough, at the end of the little tunnel was the tiny green baby with two wires in his hands, grinning at you like there was nothing wrong with the world.

Sighing, you let your weight slump down onto your heels, letting Din softly nudge his way back in front of the space. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Of course.”

“Does he?”

There was a moment of hesitation before he answered, making you roll your eyes when he finally did. “Yes.”

“I could help with the wiring,” you wiggle your fingers to emphasize your hidden meaning, implying you could use the Force to reach these hard to get to areas for him instead of sending the kid on a mission into the depths of the Crest. “I just learned how to recently, but I’ve been told I’m very good at it. A close friend taught me. Had to save his ass after he crashed his ship on an ice ball, but I’m pretty sure all that wiring was messed up before impact.”

“Is that so?” Din snorted. “That much effort would put you in a coma for a month.” A smile quirked up your cheeks. “The Crest is in too bad of shape, there’s no way you’d last long enough to even do half of it.”

“Your confidence is overwhelming,” you teased, turning to sit on the floor, leaning your back against the cockpit doors.

“I just admitted my ship is falling apart after all the times you’ve said the same thing, and you turn it into something about you?”

“You’re right, I’m sorry. Your ship is a mess. Let’s talk about that.”

He grunted before turning back to the little cut out the kid was perched way back in.

“Okay. Did you get the wire out? The red wire?” His tone was a new one for you, like he was talking to a child, which he was, but he never talked to the kid like that. Slow and easy, calm at every turn. He usually talked to the child like he was an equal, but this simple teaching voice made you look at him and smile.

“Huh?” The kid squeaked a reply from deep in the bowels of the ship, making you snort a laugh as it echoed slightly.

“No, no, no. No, the red one. Show me the red wire.” You tilted your head back against the doors behind you, watching the scene unfold with amusement. “The red one.”

A soft coo sounded.

“Yes, good. Now, you’re going to plug that red wire where the blue wire goes in the board.”

A slightly confused sounding coo was next, and you rolled your head to look out the viewport, closing your eyes with a sigh.

“Put the red wire where the blue wire goes in the board, okay? But don’t let them touch.”

Another coo, this one you swore sounded like “Huh?” and made you roll your head back to face Din again.

“There has to be another way, Din.”

“There isn’t.” His voice was calm, but there was something underneath that hinted at frustration.

You scoffed softly. “And electrocuting the child is better?”

“He’s not going to get electrocuted. I asked if he wanted to help and he said yes.” He sounded dismissive, one hand waving the comment off as he kept eyes on the child.

“He said yes.” It was a statement, not a question. And an incredulous one at that, your face a deadpan as you stared at the Mandalorian.

He tossed his head gently side to side as if deciding what to say. “He made a sound that sounded like yes. ….And I told him I would give him a cookie after we were done. He couldn’t get in there fast enough after that,” he chuckled.

You huffed out a breath, massaging between your eyes as they screwed shut. “That’s not much of a choice, is it? And after all the times you’ve gotten after me for bribing him,” lowering your hand to look at him again, you tisk at him before looking back out the viewport from your perch on the floor.

Din shrugged. “I think he’s getting it.”

The kid cooed again, drawing both of your attention back.

“You see where you took the blue one off? Yes, now put the red one….”

The kid grunted, the sound of a wire being plugged in following shortly after.

“No, don’t put the blue one back. Put the red one where the blue one was. And put the blue one where the red one was. But be careful.”

Cradling your face in your hands, knees pulled tightly to your chest holding your arms close, you slowly rolled your head back and forth as if scratching a deep itch. “This is painful….”

Din scoffed lightly, not looking away from the kid.

“I don’t think he’s getting it, Din,” you said into your hands, your words muffled and almost unintelligible.

The child cooed, the sound echoing around the small space, his voice so utterly confused.

“They’re oppositely charged, so keep them away from each other. Make sure you hold them apart from…. No, hold them apart. Oh!”

The sound of electricity made you sit up straight, rolling back over onto your knees and crouching beside Din to see down the opening.

“Oh…. Are you okay?” You slowly turned your head to look at Din after he asked.

The child coughed before whining softly, otherwise totally fine.

Din sighed. “Well, it was worth a shot.”

You stood, brushing off your pants as you spoke in a mock serious tone. “What we learned from this is I am always right, and you should listen to me always, especially when it consists of matters concerning your…. What’s the Mando’a word for son?”

Din froze, staring at the kid as he slowly made his way forward in the little opening. “Ad is the literal translation, but ad’ika is also acceptable, more of a broad, endearing term for children of all ages. Ade is a more general term. Any of them would work for him.” He looked over and up at you, watching your face morph into something soft.

You swallowed roughly. “With matters concerning your ad,” you finished. After a moment, you continued softly. “Will you teach me Mando’a?”

Din let out a breathy chuckle. “You’re still learning Huttese, and you have most of the Tusken language down, but that’s a lot all at once.”

“I don’t care,” you responded instantly. “I wanted to learn those to communicate with people we encounter, but I want to learn how to communicate with the most important person I’ve come across. You.”

Holding your gaze for a long moment, Din finally responded with a simple nod. “This is your first lesson, then. Gar cuyi ner aliit. Ni kar'tayli darasuum gar. Gar cuyi ner mir'sheb bal gar utreekov kar'tayli darasuum gar, cyar’ika.”

The way the words just poured out of his mouth with ease, each sound something beautiful and sweet like honey. You almost zoned out a little as he spoke, the lilt in his voice something hypnotic as you tried to focus on each word and commit it to memory. You hesitated. “I only knew one of those words.”

Din sounded like he was smiling. “Then you better get learning, mesh’la.”

Xxx

You sat on the end of the bunk, cradling your small bowl of soup.

Sitting a few feet in front of you, their backs to you, Din and the kid were perched on crates, nursing their own bowls of soup.

You’d offered to turn completely around for him so he wouldn’t be uncomfortable lifting his helmet, even just enough to take a sip before lowering it again, but he’d said no, it wasn’t something he was too concerned about. He trusted you. He’d insisted you stay in the lower area with him and the child instead of going up to the cockpit. In fact, he tried to get you to sit with him and the child, but you opted to stay back behind.

He sat in such a way that his face was angled just slightly in your direction, enough that if you really wanted to look, you would see him. But he didn’t seem to mind. He made no effort to move, and you were sure he was aware of just how much you would be able to see. The thought of him being so open and carefree about it made your breath catch in your chest.

You tried not to look, but you found your eyes darting up to catch a glimpse involuntarily. That same tanned skin you’d seen in the vision, a strong jaw, and the shadow of facial hair. He was backlit so you could barely make any of that out, most of it hidden in shadow. But every time you closed your eyes, just like before, the image was burned into your eyelids.

The child made little slurping sounds as he ate his soup, soft coos of contentment following each gulp, and a small sigh of satisfaction.

“There’s no way we’re making it to Corvus in this shape.”

Din reached up to disengage the lock on his helmet, tilting it back just enough to take a sip from his small bowl. The kid tilted his head and leaned forward as he looked up at the Mandalorian, trying to catch a glimpse of the face underneath the beskar. You smiled as you watched the interaction, your lips pulling tight around the rim of the bowl you held to your mouth. Lowering his helmet back down, the mechanism hissed as it sealed, a sigh passing through the modulator.

“You know, I think we need to visit some friends for repairs.” The kid tilted his head again as he studied Din, his forehead wrinkling adorably in confusion. Turning to look down at the foundling, Din’s voice grew almost playful. “So, how would you like to go back to Navarro?”

“Huh?” It was the one word the kid said clearly on a consistent basis, and it never failed to make you laugh.

Tilting his helmet back again, both him and the kid took a drink at the same time, and your smile around your bowl of soup seemed like a permanent fixture.

“But first, we need to make a little pit stop.”

Xxx

Not long after you all had finished eating, Din had returned to the cockpit to punch in the new coordinates. He wouldn’t tell you where you were going, he only said, “You’ll see” teasingly.

The child sat in the chair to Din’s right, sound asleep after eating all that soup, and you sat in your spot to his left, arms across your chest, watching the stars crawl by outside.

“While we’re waiting, how about you teach me some Mando’a?”

“Gar copaani hibirar Mando’a?”

“Din-”

“Nayc, gar copaani ibic, gar hibira ibic yust.”

You stared at him, mulling over the many responses flying around in your head, most of them not nice. “You’re so annoying,” you finally landed on, turning back to stare out the viewport.

He chuckled. “Bal gar cuyi mesh’la.”

You snapped your head back to look at him, finding his helmet tilted at you in amusement. “Hey, I knew that word at least.”

“At least,” he agreed, turning back to the controls when an alarm began to softly go off. “We’re here.”

Looking ahead of you, an almost red colored planet came into view, growing larger and larger the closer you got. It looked barren and dusty. “And where is ‘here’?”

“Arvala-7.”

Xxx

Translations:

Ad - Son

Ad’ika - Little one, son, daughter, of any age

Ade - Children, sons, daughters

“Gar cuyi ner aliit. Ni kar'tayli darasuum gar. Gar cuyi ner mir'sheb bal gar utreekov kar'tayli darasuum gar, cyar’ika.” - “You are my family. I love you. You are my smartass, and your idiot loves you, darling.”

“Gar copaani hibirar Mando’a?” - “You want to learn Mando’a?”

“Nayc, gar copaani ibic, gar hibira ibic yust.” - “No, you want this, you learn this way.”

“Bal gar cuyi mesh’la.” - “And you are beautiful.”

Xxx

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suffarustuffaru · 7 months

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hey so not too long ago, i saw a post from rz twitter that said that during the first loop where subaru meets otto, when subaru met the witch cultists and were chanting something to subaru before they left, that these cultists left because some outsider (who's therefore an enemy to their witch and its prophecy) was nearby. And the tweet said how that "nearby outsider" was actually otto who stayed behind because he was worried that subaru, (whom he met only as a customer in that loop and otto had already fulfilled his job) would succumb to danger. And despite frufoo's warnings, it's heavily implied that otto had in fact died in that loop waiting for subaru to come back. And the replies were saying that it's common knowledge?

First of all, is that true? I can see how one would come to the conclusion that the cultists left because otto, an outsider, was nearby. But i haven't seen proof of the implication that otto died from that loop. Secondly, with this perhaps being true, does that confirm that any loop in which otto was nearby and subaru is in danger, that otto risked his life for him? Some ppl say "but the whale incident!" But like you said way earlier, otto came back to him after pushing him off, and it's implied that he died trying to save subaru. There's no loop i can recall otto leaving him to the dust, even when he doesn't know who subaru is. And thirdly, Otto get some self-preservation skills, you barely knew the guy and already risk your life for him. What the fuck.

HAH anon your ask intrigued me so much i immediately went to the anime to try and confirm this. and bc the anime is the closest bit of info i got wjdndn i dont have arc 3 ln or access to arc 3 wn (i do not understand japanese either, sadly) but!! while the anime doesnt explicitly confirm otto died in that first loop his character debuted in, i think its definitely a possibility that he died to the witch cult there. (if anyone knows the lore on this for sure though feel free to add?? yeah)

also regarding about whether this is common knowledge or not—id argue its kind of not, at least in certain circles, bc im gonna be completely real i had to double check the anime to see how well i remembered it bc its 1. been a while since i’ve watched season 1 in full and 2. when i was looking at it on my first watch i was focused more so on what the hell was happening to subaru, rem, emilia camp rather than otto, who at the time seems like just some random guy who wont appear ever again. but also maybe im a little too used to people misinterpreting rezero over on reddit ajfbdnd bc some people STILL completely forget that otto went back after pushing subaru off the wagon. and some people still forget ottos died for subaru even though its super obvious in arc 4?? so i dont think ottos involvement with subaru across loops is really common knowledge? or at the very least its not common for Certain portions of the rezero fandom bc i see ottos whole fixation on subaru gets glossed over at times. but i do genuinely think moments like the first loop with otto are probably easy to sort of miss if youre not paying attention. but also again i might be a little bit brainwashed by rezero redditors misreading things bc the amount of people that forget otto went back for subaru in the white whale loop made me doubt my own memory of that scene to the point where i rewatched it in the anime just to be sure wkdndnd. i dont really see any english rezero people talk about this loop in particular too unless theyre referring to you know, rem arlam and emilia camp dying. but anyway moving on for now…

alright!! lets go over this scene i suppose. the anime doesnt go into like. Specifics, like how the tweets you mention do anon, but it does have some interesting stuff.

in the anime, the first loop with otto happens in episode 14 to about the beginning of 15, but the focus is of course more so on subaru, rem, arlam, etc, bc rem left for the mansion and subarus trying to get there quickly so he pays otto to do that. otto takes the time to warn him before they even set off, not only for his own sake but also for subarus:

but you know, bc ottos desperate for money bc hes in debt, he takes up the job. but once otto and subaru actually get to the road leading up to arlam and the mansion, otto stops bc frufoo’s frightened and shes warning them of danger—

but subaru being subaru jumps off anyway and leaves. he says this quickly before he goes:

otto replies by trying to call out to him desperately as he runs away:

your point about ottos self preservation is super interesting anon because otto DOES have self preservation skills. he almost kind of prides himself on it, sometimes—as a merchant, especially from a merchant family, hes been raised to treasure it. to go for things that work in his favor. especially with his bad luck fucking him over too. and he can be slightly morally ambiguous at times, so he is Very aware of self preservation and staying out of trouble. but at the same time, leaving behind innocents does kind of weigh on him bc. well hes still human. that and the further into rezero you get, the more clear it is that ottos self preservation skills just get thrown out the window the moment he sees subaru. like otto takes a significant amount of time on screen to complain about danger or trouble hes found himself in, or go on and on about how the moment he sees danger, hes just gonna turn around and run—but its just COMPLETE AND TOTAL BULLSHIT SOMETIMES. he has plenty of chances Every Time to turn around and run and the moment subaru enters the picture, he doesnt take it. the only exception to this was him leaving subaru in greed if, but thats because he saw that subaru didnt give a shit about him and even then. he made that choice FOR subaru’s sake too, bc he recognizes that greed if subaru is just gonna micromanage everything and deal with it on his own. otto knows he’d just be another burden to subaru, so he leaves to lessen the load.

main route otto though? yeah youre absolutely right his self preservation is way beyond dead at this point. his self preservation is absolutely gone when it comes to subaru. this first loop is an example of it—while of course ottos you know treating subaru like a stranger bc thats what they are, he goes out of his way to warn subaru repeatedly. at first it looks like its mostly just for his own benefit bc hes Also in danger here, but then he says that he cant just accept taking subarus money and items. he talked about how hed accept subarus payment just a few minutes before this?? and we know in retrospect that he desperately NEEDS money bc hes in debt??? and subarus giving him an out right now to just leave and not look back but he still hesitates and frantically tries calling after subaru??? he has EVERYTHING to gain from just taking the money and subarus things and just leaving, but we dont actually see him leave on screen.

and then right after this, we cut to subaru running to arlam. of course, the witch cult stops him, and in the anime, all they do is circle him, then bow (to foreshadow how the witch cult + petelgeuse think that hes one of them, im assuming), and then they disappear without saying a single word.

its interesting to note though that when they leave, they run towards the direction subaru just came from. which is where otto was.

and then subaru keeps continuing on to arlam and the mansion where he finds out that the witch cult Basically wiped everyone out there. episode 15 continues this loop and then quickly ends it bc subaru is having a mental breakdown finding everyones corpses and then he promptly proceeds to die to puck (iirc?) inside the mansion. and thats all the details the anime gives about the ending of this loop. so no clear hint like the white whale loop that otto Died from this, but i think the implication is definitely there if you choose to read into it. (again, im not sure if the ln adds more details to this or not, but iirc the anime doesnt touch on this much.)

its strange that the witch cultists that find subaru just. up and leave in the direction where we Know otto likely is, bc 1. the cultists move Fast and 2. only a couple minutes passed at most, so its likely that otto is Still There, even if he did start trying to leave. even then though, i think its in character for him to still be there and try to wait for subaru. or, at the very least, otto waited there debating with himself on whether he should just leave or not. waiting there satisfies both his self preservation and the guilt he’d feel if he just abandoned subaru—he doesnt go any further to minimize the danger to himself and frufoo, but he doesnt completely leave just in case subaru comes back or if otto decides to move forward and check on subaru or something. but then we see subaru find everyone at arlam and the mansion dead, and we the audience know the surviving witch cultists left in the opposite direction (where otto is) after killing everyone at arlam, so—i think theres a connection there. as in: yeah. if otto was still there, hes probably dead.

additionally, of course later in arc 3 we see that otto gets captured by the witch cult. this time he was captured bc the witch cult caught him hurrying to get to another location for its job offer, so the witch cult captured him to interrogate him on what exactly he was doing iirc?? so in that sense yeah he was caught by the witch cult for being an outsider getting into witch cult territory while they were in the middle of doing shit (and he likely wouldve been killed if ricardo and the others hadnt rescued him) o.O

but yeah thats all the animes got regarding the first loop (aka ottos official debut into the main story as well)!!!

“There's no loop i can recall otto leaving him to the dust, even when he doesn't know who subaru is." also anon youre so right for saying this bc. yeah i cant recall any loops either bc every time otto is there near subaru. hes risking his life for subaru. hes so incredibly ride or die that its concerning. it kind of boggles my mind that some people overfixate on how he pushed subaru out of the wagon in the white whale loop and YEAH that was fucked up, but not only does he feel bad and die trying to go back for subaru later, but when you watch that scene in the anime and think about it from ottos perspective. yeah some guy you just fucking met is yelling at you about how you apparently forgot about some person youve never heard of in your life, hes yelling at you to go back and TOWARDS THE WHITE WHALE when all youre trying to do is save both of your asses, he starts trying to wrestle with you while youre both being hunted down by the whale, and then he starts rambling to himself about how maybe its his fault the white whale is chasing after both of you while you keep hearing the white whales deranged thoughts in your head the whole time bc of your dp??? its a miracle otto didnt push subaru out of that damn wagon sooner and its a miracle otto even decided to go back for subaru after all that T^TT any person in ottos shoes would be RUSHING to push subaru out of that wagon.

but like. once you think about it - yeah Every Time in the main route that ottos been near subaru and theyve gotten into danger? otto actively puts himself at risk for subarus sake. and he doesnt always die or get hurt for it, but we know that he ALWAYS goes out of his way to help subaru. hes been like this since his debut in arc 3, practically, regardless of whether or not he actually died there. bc he still Lingered around and tried to warn subaru not to leave.

so what im saying is that so much of ottos screentime is spent helping subaru in some way.

#rezero #ask #otto suwen #natsuki subaru #ngl if otto was a girl literally no one in this fandom would be ignoring how fixated and concerningly ride or die he gets about subaru o.o

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maskthesimp · 5 months

Text

Okay, so I played Resident Lover

Cass' route. Duh.

[MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD SO MOVE THE FUCK ON!!]

AND I GOT THE BAD ENDING 💀 Or one of them

I assume there's a few bad endings and a few good ones for each route. I got the one where we get blood spilt on us, and she uses me as a sacrifice (or is implied to cuz the game ends when she pins me against a wall after getting that crazy look in her eye and talking about a fourth sacrifice for the ritual)

Here's the thing, though. I'm afraid of upsetting people. So, of course I ignored the fucking shadow and decided to get on with the show instead CUZ I FIGURED IF I INVESTIGATED THE SHADOW, IT'D DELAY THE SHOW AND PISS HER OFF!! BUT NO!!

TIP IF YOU WANNA GET A GOOD ENDING FOR CASS, INVESTIGATE THE DAMN SHADOW BEFORE THE PERFORMANCE!! UGH!! SORRY I THOUGHT OF YOUR FEELINGS, BABE, I DIDN'T REALISE EMPATHY FOR YOUR INTERESRS AND WELLBEING WOULD RESULT IN MY DEATH 🙄

It's fucking fine I reloaded the game and investigated, then told her what I saw and shit turned out fine and she fucked me in her dressing room >_> I'll take it but that music and the art of her going all crazy-eyed saying she was gonna basically kill me is gonna leave some trauma, babes, I'm ngl

Istg I genuinely was unsettled and freaked out over it. The music does a lot for the game, and the composer(s) did a great job at making me piss myself in fear. Made me feel genuine anxiety and fear. Also, because I couldn't do anything about it, it made it so much harder to watch. Feels like Subnautica without the water. Or sea creatures. Or space ship. Or anything except the overwhelming sense of "you fucked up" that I get when I hear the music after getting drenched in blood, or the "approaching ecological dead-zone" message. It's the same vibe that makes me wanna cry from anxiety, and I applaud any game that evokes that reaction from me.

I'll definitely play through the other routes, probably Belas mostly, and I'll try to get some other results from Cass' route. I didn't investigate the 3rd floor because it pissed her off when I did it, so I reloaded it (don't judge, I'm a people pleaser) and chose to wait for her. Idk what other endings can come from her route. I know I can reject her and stuff, but I don't wanna. That's my wife motherfucker.

I'm most interested in Bela and Cass' routes in this. I like Daniela, but she's not as interesting as I kinda hoped she'd be. I like skater girls, but for Dani, she's too chill. I like the switch in making Cass more of a momma's girl and making Bela more argumentative with Alcina. Whereas in RE8, that'd be the opposite with them.

Cass is the rash child not doing what Alcina wants, and Bela has to pick up the slack and suck up to mother (or at least that's the vibe we got from the lore). And Dani is just...Dani. She's chaos incarnate. But I like the switch of having Cass now be the one who decided to follow in her mother's footsteps, whilst Bela is apparently arguing with her so much.

Btw, I'd adore if there was a mutli-romance option. I'd fall head over heels so easy XDD speaking of, is there any way to meet Bela in Cass' route? She never showed in my playthrough outside of a name drop from her sisters. I've seen screenshots of Bela and Cass in Y/Ns dorm together, I'm not sure what route it's from.

Overall, I'd say I had a lot of fun. I liked the stakes, I liked the romance. Some character depictions could've been better, but maybe they would be if I play again and choose Dani's option during a later playthrough. Maybe I just didn't get enough of a look at her character. Will definitely play again :3

#self ship #self shipping #self shipper #resident lover #resident lover spoilers #cassandra dimitrescu #resident lover cassandra #dimitrescu sisters

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greetingfromthedead · 2 months

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C11: Laundry Day

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Series Rating: 18+ / Explicit

Chapter: 11/84

Words: 1.9k

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It's been a week since the two of you escaped the town. You hadn't come across any other settlements, but now you have reached a bigger town where everything seems calm. You reach it late in the afternoon and book a guestroom at the local inn. You take a slightly bigger room than last time and agree that since you don't really need sleep, there's not much point in taking two rooms. Vash agrees with sharing a room but still occasionally insists that you should sleep. Over the last week, you gave into his demand once after keeping watch five nights in a row and allowing him to have peaceful rests. He felt so guilty over it, no matter what you had told him, that on the sixth night he couldn't even fall asleep and told you that he would keep watch. You had argued back for a bit, but then gave up, thinking maybe sleep would help you calm down the voices in your head that had surfaced once more and don't seem to be soothed completely even by Vash's presence. You had woken up in the middle of the night to swap with Vash and had to admit that while sleeping felt nice, the voices in your head were just as loud.

The week has gone by quietly, just the two of you and the tomas tracking through the desert; neither of you really revealed much of your lore to the other. Instead, you spent more time talking about No Man's Land. You told Vash what you had seen 100 years ago, and he told you what had become of those places now. He told you about towns that were erected after you went to sleep and his adventures in them. Every time you wonder how he has seen so much and gotten out of it alive, especially since you have seen how he is, but you didn't touch that subject, too afraid to push him away, you were willing to wait forever for him to truly open up as long as he would put up with you, his presence removing the loneliness you had always felt.

The bathroom door opens, and you turn your gaze away from the window as you sit on the wide bed, your legs pulled against your chest. You see Vash exiting the small room, his hair still damp, but he wears a clean change of clothes. You can see a pile of dirty laundry on the floor behind him. He looks a bit more cheered up from the refreshing shower.

"Okay, your turn. I'll deal with my laundry later. I hope you don't mind it being on the floor." He smiles awkwardly.

"Only under one condition... You have to do me a favor." You feel weird for what you're about to ask him.

"Anything," he assures with a neutral expression.

"Uhm. I... I need a change of clothes, and I... I don't... well, you know... I don't want to go speak to people... on my own." You add the last part solely because you don't want to sound like a complete wimp.

"Oh, no problem!" He sounds like a cheerful puppy. "Well, one problem. I saw the place where they trade clothes, and the woman has already closed shop. I was thinking that you might need some extra stuff, so I kept my eyes open."

"Oh well, guess I'll just be nude then while my clothes dry," you say quietly, knowing what reaction this would get out of him. And you are completely right: he turns bright red in the face.

"While I have nothing against it at all, I think I have a spare shirt in my bag that I kept clean for emergencies." He mumbles out. Too much of a goody two shoes to leave you in a situation where your options were to wear dirty and torn clothes or to be naked. He digs through his bag, throwing more dirty clothes into the bathroom, and finally pulls out another black turtleneck. He gives it a sniff and then throws it at you. "No pants, though; not that they would fit you well anyway."

"Thank you." You catch the shirt and smile at him. You know his shirt is big and long enough for you to wear it as a short dress. You keep it against your chest like a treasure when you get up and grab the other stuff the hotel provides for your wash. As you pass Vash, he gives you a gentle smile, and you see it in his eyes too.

You lock the bathroom door and throw off your dirty clothes. The wounds in your stomach and chest are all gone; there are not even any scars pointing at where they used to be. You get into the shower and turn on the water. You try noticing the temperature, but it barely registers with you. Something deep inside you wants to feel the cold, but as you change the temperature, it leaves you unsatisfied; even the lowest setting doesn't give you the sensation you seem to yearn for. You let out a sigh and start to clean off the dirt and dried blood that is left on your skin in one form or another. It feels nice to be clean, and your hair detangled and free of debris. With the towel still around you, you see that the shower pan is quite deep, and you find a plug for it. You throw all the dirty clothes into the pan and fill it with water before drying yourself off completely and pulling Vash's turtleneck on. Everything is too big on you, and it makes you chuckle. Vash doesn't look like a large person under his coat, but he has wide shoulders and a muscular physique, not to mention he is tall with long limbs. You roll up the sleeves to your elbows and pull down the shirt a bit more; this way, it's halfway to your knees. You feel the thick fabric against your skin and smell the collar. It is clean, but it still has a faint scent that you are used to smelling on Vash; it brings you peace and calms the raising voices in your head. It gets harder every day to ignore the screaming and buzzing; the voice is so familiar, and the memory is so close.

Instead of lingering on the discomfort in your brain, you unlock the door and step out. The room is lit by the sunshine coming in from the window; the brightest spot is the table underneath it. Vash is sitting there and has taken apart his gun to give it a clean. His supplies are scattered around the work surface. He turns to look at you when you step into the bedroom and lets out a whistle, starting with a high note and lowering it quickly.

"I'd have offered you my clothes a lot sooner had I realized how well they suit you." Vash's voice is joyous and almost too innocent. He stands up to come closer. You don't move and only look at him with curiosity. As he stands toe to toe with you, he looks at you for a moment longer before taking off his sunglasses and turning them around to place them on the bridge of your nose. "Great, you're only missing my coat, and then you can go off and be Vash the Stampede."

"Funny man," you reply, voice neutral, "I'm missing a few key characteristics... like the desire to get shot."

"Your words sting, woman!" he says with a hurt expression and a condescending tone, but you feel the chuckle behind them.

"Even so, I'm sure "Vash the Stampede spotted running around with no pants on!" would be a catchy headline." You look at him through the orange glasses. He and the whole room appear sunnier, happier, and filled with warmth.

"No, don't think so; it didn't turn many heads last time, but with you, things might be different." He laughs with a genuine smile on his face, and it makes your heart lighter. It feels good to see him like this; every moment he seems happy makes you proud, and you want to squeeze him tight as a sign of it. He hasn't told you much about his past, and he doesn't need to. You know he has suffered a lot and still does; the pain of it is painted on his face when he thinks you can't see it.

"You are a ladies' man, aren't you? A womanizer, a skirt chaser if you will," you say while looking up at him like you blame him for something.

"What makes you say that? Are my charms working on you?" He seems almost too proud of it, and you slowly shake your head with a sigh, a smile lingering on your lips. "What? Are you too embarrassed to admit I have game?"

"You are a tease. Probably the most un-serious person I've ever come across." You look him in the eyes, "And somehow, also the most serious, unshakable soul. You are an intriguing contradiction."

"Is it so hard to admit a simple truth?" He has a very playful expression on his face as he leans closer; you don't think you have seen him like this before.

"I'd rather die than admit something like that." You joke, not shying away from him.

"You were dead when I found you."

"Yeah, that shows how far I'm willing to go." Your arms yearn to reach out to him, to pull him closer, but instead you step around him, one of your arms nudging his as you pass, and go to sit at the table to look at the weapon on it. You haven't seen it this closely before. You pick a piece of it up; you aren't even sure where it would go. Never before have you held a gun in any form; they make you feel uneasy, how they are able to take a life from afar.

"You call me unshakable? You're more stubborn than a tomas." Vash says quietly right behind you, his breath moving your hair and sending a shiver up your back. He lets out a laugh as you turn around, one hand over the spot where his air had tickled.

"You're so annoying," you blurt out, still looking at him through the orange glasses. His face is so close to yours, even though you are leaning back a bit.

"Yet you still stick around," he laughs, a glimmer in him making your heart burst. "I'm not complaining, Sweet Pea."

"Outrageous. Do confined spaces always make you like this? I don't remember you acting up under the open desert sky. You were very civil." You reply calmly, still teasing him.

"It's not the confined space that makes me like this. No, no, it's probably you wearing my shirt that's slowly creeping up."

That comment brings heat to your cheeks. Quickly, you put the piece of the gun back onto the table, and then both your hands pull the shirt down more and keep it on your lap. You were still completely covered, and you realize he only said it to rile you up. Apparently, he is just as good at teasing you as you are at making fun of him. He laughs and takes half a step back.

"Only joking, Sweet Pea, don't worry. Well, maybe part of what I said was true." He shrugs and reaches out over you to pick up pieces of his gun and starts to put it back together. You are blocked in, and he doesn't look like he will let you get away.

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#tempest wind #fanfic #fanfiction #writing #Trigun #trigun stampede #tristamp #Humanoid Typhoon #vashxreader #vash x reader #x reader #plant boi #Vash the Stampede

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the-arkaives · 2 months

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WELCOME TO THE ARKAIVES!

NOW PLAYING: curses - the crane wives “OOH, LAY MY CURSES OUT TO REST! MAKE A MERCY OUT OF…”

WHAT ARE THE ARKAIVES?: so, I realized that suddenly, i was no longer the only person who had Miss Kai Drew rotating in my brain. now, I may be the only one with her doing so 24/7, BUT THERES OTHER PEOPLE NOW-

The Arkaives are your one stop shop for the small little Kai Drewniverse Fandom! you’ll get cannon posts from me, and then the other arckaivist’s fucking BANGER ass “fannon” posts (GUYS I AM EATING THAT SHIT UP KEEP IT COMING)! it’s just a way for this tiny ass community to thrive :]

HOW DO I BECOME AN ARKAIVIST?: simple! reach out to me, say you wanna become an arkaivist, and then BOOM! you’re in! but if you’re a fucking douchebag/asshole i am NOT afraid to kick you out. this is a silly funtime blog, and if you bring bad vibes i am kicking you out. also don’t argue with me about cannon. I’m the author i know what I’m talking about 🤨‼️

WHAT CAN I POST AS AN ARKAIVIST?: you’re allow to post anything as long as it is vaguely Kai related! like, saw something pink and yellow? KAI DREW REFERENCE POST IT‼️‼️‼️ (<- fun fact: actual way i make going out in public fun instead of nerve wracking) it doesn’t even have to be just Kai! got ideas about relationships between Kai and ‘x’ character? POST IT! that’d probably be helpful for me writing nmk/kai in hf stuff, as I’m always a biiiit afraid of mischaracterizing the people of Hatchetfield in the fanfics. But, like, Kai lore isn’t just Hatchetfield! believe me, i forget too, but she’s in a shit ton of fandoms! so, if you’re into one of the other fandoms she’s in? join! fair warning, though: the Kai in HF lore is ROTTING my brain, so there’s gonna be a lot of that shit-

ARKAIVIST ONE - @pastriibunz

NAME: Pastrii!! :D

PRONOUNS: she/her :]

the kai drew fan. literally. i made her!!! i made that guy!!!! the creator of miss drew, the writer of the fics, the artist of the cannon art, the admin of @shxwstxpper (and this blog too), and professional pokotho prophet (/j)! ive definetly got a better intro on my main, (and it does list what fandoms kai's in so do take a look!), but this is my little bio sooo yeah!!! :D

ARKAIVIST TWO - @skylines-turnstiles13

NAME: Max!! :]

PRONOUNS: he/him :D

MY SON!!!!! the admin of @laika-at-hatchetfield and the reason this blog exists! legit my brother in christ told me to do it and my ass was like "yes sir 🫡‼️" and now we're here! he makes some DELICIOUS ass art (seriously man eating that shit UP) and made it so our first posts were angst (all hail the boy!!!! doing what i couldnt <- was going to wait a bit for soul crushing angst- let yall get comfy b4 i fuck yall up). GO FOLLOW THEM THEY'RE COOL AF 🫵😡‼️

ARKAIVIST THREE - @chillibeanos

NAME: Chilli/Max :3

PRONOUNS: Any :D

MY (other) SON!!!! I lob them sm GAHEGEGEGVR THE SILLY!!! they also have a neato lil guy named Bean Sprout so GO CHECK THEM OUT 🫵😡‼️‼️‼️ GO FOLLOW MY BOY 🫵😡‼️‼️‼️‼️

ARKAIVIST FOUR - @raspberrysmoon

NAME: elliot/alice/(rasp)berry/ella/julian

PRONOUNS: he/him + she/her + fawn/fawns + star/stars + they/them + it/its

YET ANOTHER ONE OF MY SONS!!!! I feel like getting added to this account just means you become one of my sons- silly little guy!!! they’ve got a more in depth intro too- FOLLOW THEM RIGHT NEOW 🫵😡‼️

ARKAIVIST FIVE - @christianchasity

NAME: Kacie!! :>

PRONOUNS: she/they

im literally neuerodivergent and a minor? but ayways im the rp expert because i ave 12 different accounts and i have 3 years of expeirence.... but i also have the tism and adhd and i am the grace chasity fan okay tats it love you consually an platonically!!!!

#tkwdlm #kai drew #the kai who didn’t like musicals #tgwdlm #the arkaives #starlit songbird #the guy who didn't like musicals #kai drewniverse #kai in hatchetfield #hatchetfield #intro post #pinned post #other arkaivists feel free to send me your bios n shit!! :D

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inaconstantstateofchange · 6 months

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Alrighty, your tags in the 'anti-blorbo friends' post intrigued me, so... hook line and sinker. Personally, I am kind of an 'anything goes' fan, I don't mind people disliking stuff about BG3 - or liking it a bit too much, either. I like all the companions, but I do see their flaws and critique can be fun. That's what a piece of media is for, no? For us to dissect and tear apart. So! Tear it freely, mate. Give me your Gale hot takes.

Excellent, all according to keikaku (translator's note: keikaku means plan). Sorry I love that joke.

Thank you so much for the ask! O(∩_∩)O

Okay, Gale hot takes, with the caveat that, in general, I just personally find his whole everything very off-putting, so I am very neutral-edging-to-negative toward him, but can still appreciate the complexity of his character in an objective sense.

This hot take/critique kind of overlaps with issues I have with a lot of the fandom interpretations of the characters: it feels like a lot of the fandom needs to woobify the characters and/or reduce them down to the most simplified version of themself to appreciate them.

Gale is a character who will approve of good actions in general terms, but the moment there is a chance to do something new, something heretofore untried, some advancement in knowledge or power, no matter what the terms of it, you have his attention. And that's really interesting! It's fucked up as all hell, but it's interesting. And this is something I see pushed under the rug and outright denied or left unexplored in most cases, because it requires confronting that all your faves are complex and "problematic", yes even that one.

This one is tangential to Gale, but also relates to the broader lore and world. I think there's a lot fucked up about Forgotten Realms lore (obviously), but it is also so vast and intricate and Larian put so much work in aligning with it as much as possible with the narrative of BG3, allowing you to extrapolate pretty consistently based on that. I've noticed a tendency by a lot of fans to engage with the world and its lore as though they've been isekai'd into it or something, not considering what would actually affect philosophy and perspective and "human" (as it were) experience in a world that worked like Faerûn does. For example, I recently saw someone arguing that the way Halsin handles Kagha after he is rescued is "unrealistic" and the player should be able to tell him that he needs to pick a stronger option. In my opinion this completely ignores the way that druids and druid groves function very differently from a lot of other communities in Faerûn. The majority of druids tend toward True Neutral in terms of alignment, live and let live unless nature is affected in some way. Halsin is honestly a bit of a rarity for verging so far toward Neutral Good. Additionally, because of their focus on nature and natural patterns, of course they would have different perspectives on punishment and rehabilitation.

Another way this presents itself very commonly is in how people conceptualize the system of gods/theology in Faerûn. Most people do not have any real experience conceptualizing a polytheistic worldview in practice, let alone one where the existence of those gods is an undeniable material fact, rather than a belief, and it shows. They hold the gods simultaneously to the standards of humans (which they are not), and the monotheistic conglomerate Christian God (which they are also not). Once again, the system of deity and interaction with it in FR lore is so fucked up, but for complex and interesting reasons I rarely see anyone exploring.

(The above is also the reason I think a lot of people underestimate the power of the archdevils and the Hells compared to the gods, but that is another discussion.)

This comes back to Gale in my hottest of hot takes: I really wish people would stop throwing around the "Gale was groomed, Mystra is a groomer" thing. I think it hyper-simplifies the actual tragedy of his story and the one Larian was trying to tell to an absurd degree, and I don't believe it even does any favors in terms of raising awareness of important issues. Based on FR lore and timeline, Mystra has only been back in existence as a goddess for at absolute maximum thirteen years prior to the start of BG3, and at minimum five, so unless you headcanon Gale to be 30 or younger (which seems decidedly unlikely based on everything else presented in the narrative), their time together was when he was an actual adult.

Am I saying there was no power dynamic problem there? No, ofc I am not. God/Human relationships are famously tragedies and cautionary tales. There is always an inherent disconnect between the two beings. You'll notice a trend, but yes, I do think that the most interestingly fucked up parts of that story are ignored in favor of the most basic and banal.

Mystra is a greater god, having dominion over magic as an entire concept. That means the scale of her power and existence are unfathomably vast, and so alien from human existence that to bridge it would be the work of thousands of lifetimes. At the same time, there are parts of her that used to be human, grafted onto her godhood. That's incredibly fucked up in such an eldritch way, you know?

Final hot take: Gale is a wizard's wizard™, a crime punishable by death. In this essay I will-

#genuinely thank you for the ask!#really appreciate getting to talk about bg3 #happy to continue the convo at any time #ask #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #hot takes

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thefirstknife · 2 years

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Do you think all of these reveals about Misraaks's backstory are... a bit much? All we knew before was he was a vandal during the reef wars who met Sjur, then became our ally. The splicer stuff was a cool reveal, albeit surprising (and what did he do with his old helmet?), but this most recent reveal feels almost retconesque? Just wondering your thoughts!

I saw the comments that it could be an issue with his timeline since he's depicted as a ruthless captain, but when he's found by Sjur, he's just a vandal.

I hope Bungie addresses this, but it's also pretty clear to me that Mithrax at one point stopped using the relic. We don't know why and how and when (yet), but he must've abandoned the pirating ways at some point and by doing so, he would've been demoted. A demotion for Eliksni means less ether and less ether means they lose their size. So him going from captain to vandal isn't really a retcon.

Another thing to remember is that we're talking many hundreds of years (at minimum) of a timespan in his story. Mithrax had plenty of time to grow up, take over as a captain, do the bad stuff, stop, get a demotion and eventually end up with the Awoken. I think the timespan is the most crucial here and people tend to forget that we have no definitive information about how much time it's been, other than vaguely several hundred for sure. There's definitely enough time for Mithrax to have had such a rich history before our time.

However, I would definitely like to know more and get an official explanation from Mithrax himself. All this so far has been told by Eramis and I would love if Mithrax sat us down and told us himself.

Survivor's Epitaph from Splicer reads a lot differently now with all of this in mind:

"There was a ship," Mithrax eventually replied. "It may have been soldiers. Civilians. I do not know." He looked away from the Traveler as he spoke. "I led a boarding party onto it. We slaughtered any who resisted and rounded up those who surrendered."

Shaxx turned to look at Mithrax, a wordless question in his faceless mask.

"We argued what to do with the prisoners. Some suggested we keep them as warning-trophies. Others said to barter with them." Mithrax looked away, shoulders sagged. "But I was young. Impatient." He closed his eyes. "I opened the airlock. It seemed the simplest solution."

This definitely hinted, even back then, that at some point in his life, Mithrax had a significant position of power among the Eliksni. He led a boarding party and he was the one who had the power to decide what to do with prisoners.

But yeah, either way, I hope we get more clarifying lore about his past. They obviously haven't forgotten that he found his daughter in a wreck (he mentioned it in a voice line) and that he spent time with the Awoken (Eido's name) so I wouldn't say they're retconning anything. But it would be great if he told us more about his past just so we can get a better grasp on when all of these things happened.

As for his old helmet, no clue. His mother is shown wearing an identical one in the cutscene, so he either inherited hers or had an identical one made, and he later abandoned it before coming to the Last City for, perhaps, peace keeping reasons. Him wearing the old helmet while he was hiding in the basement on the Farm was fine, but coming to the City with it was something he perhaps saw as too much for those that might recognise it (both humans and Eliksni). But again, I would love to see some official lore on that so we don't have to extrapolate.

#destiny 2 #mithrax #ask #looking forward to the next three weeks of story and lore pages

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mermaidsirennikita · 2 months

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I mean yeah it all comes back to her being a reylo, the way people still talk about them shocks me. Idk if i've ever seen shippers from such a mainstream popular ship get treated this way when honestly....reylo isn't even that problematic. I would argue something like darklina is more problematic and those shippers don't get 1/3 of the shit reylos get. Hell I could name you other more problematic ships where the shippers don't get nearly as much hate as reylos.

Well, to be very fair a lot of reylos said a lot of out of pocket, racist (and specifically antiblack) shit about John Boyega and Finn. I don't want to downplay the shit John Boyega went through making those movies.

And in turn, a lot of finnreys said some really fucked up, racist (specifically anti-Asian) shit about Kelly Marie Tran and Rose... and I do think that gets downplayed a LOT. Like, if we're going to talk about racist fandom antics in SW, and there are a lot of them, then let's talk about all of it. Obviously, all of this goes beyond shipping, but the interesting phenomenon that did happen with the reylo stuff is that because they didn't want Rey with Finn, many of them did support Finnrose (and by the way, lol--I'm not into Finnrey because in general I don't like Rey outside of TLJ and I frankly though Finn deserved better on every level, and I wouldn't consider myself a Reylo, but I AM into Finnrose, and to a lesser extent Finnpoe). For some, I do think that was a "get Finn out of Rey's path" thing, for sure--but also, setting Finn up with a cool pretty girl to get him away from Rey is... not the worst thing lol. And I would also say that many did seem to genuinely like that ship, and a lot of the reylo fic authors I saw back in the day used to write some good Finnrose shit.

(Also: Roselo? Let's get into it. I would kill for Rian to cast Adam and Kelly in a Benoit Blanc movie, the chances that Adam would do it are MIDDLING but still.)

I think the main reason why the reylo thing got much bigger, tbh, is that it's Star Wars. Darklina is in theory more problematic (though to me it's very much a draw because while I personally do not find Kylo Ren as like, threatening as the Darkling, he's still a prominent cog in a dictatorial fascist-aligned regime and he did kill a lot of innocent people, so, you know, fair) but S&B is NOTHING compared to SW. I think in general shippers are loathed by a lot of old school SW die-hards because Shipping = Kissing and Kissing is Gross, and Bad People Bad, except for Vader because Vader Cool. They make exceptions for Han and Leia because they still jerk it to Leia to this day and it's a part of the old lore, and a lot of them just want to be Han Solo in a way I don't think a lot of them wanted to be Kylo Ren.

And then you combine that with the morality police who really just like. Didn't like reylo for whatever reason, but decided to take on the idea that it's HORRRRRIIIIIBLEEEE to ship a bad guy with someone (when like--I personally cannot STAND Anidala, but you would have no SW if a bad guy hadn't fucked someone back in the day... tepidly, I imagine, but it happened). The idea of using moral righteousness to justify your ship has always been a thing, right? (If we're keeping it real here: while I do think that a lot of reylo antis were genuinely concerned about racism with that ship, I also think that many of the white antis.... were only concerned with racism when it suited them. I mean, where were they when Kelly was getting death threats? Care about it for everyone, you know?) But I think it became a much bigger thing when it was reylo.

Then in turn, the reylos reacted by becoming more cultlike, because that's what happens when you vilify people for wanting to ship something. And they became wackier, and the lore became more kNOWN. Like, again--I don't personally ship reylo. I find the dynamic compelling in TLJ; I think Adam and Daisy have great chemistry in that movie; I think that he and Rian pulled her best work in the trilogy out of her; and I think that that movie is the only one where Rey feels like an actual human being, versus a girlboss cypher. She's human, she idolizes Luke and then realizes he's only human, she experiences disappointment, she experiences DOUBT about morality, she is, I believe, genuinely pretty horny for Kylo Ren in that movie (imo, Rey probably has like, zero sexual experience lol, but I also doubt that he has much either), and the idea of her wanting to be SOMETHING only to find out she's NOT THAT is really interesting. I find the idea of her being tempted to become his Dark Empress or whatever, and the idea of him being both an incredibly weird, dark, amoral person who's all about assuaging his own Feelings because mommy and daddy didn't love him the way he wanted them to... and someone who else wants this girl to bounce on it as his Dark Empress.... really interests me.

I didn't want to see them have babies. I didn't want to see them be happily ever after. I wanted to see her kill him while kissing him or something. Which I don't think was what a lot of reylos wanted, right? So it kind of made that ship inaccessible to me, and I imagine a lot of people who might've otherwise been into it. And I think things like "grey force babies" or whatever naturally made it seem more ridic, which of course happens with any ship (BOATBABY.......) but the size of the fandom and the ship made it seem bigger.

But because that ship was so archetypal (big bad man, girl onto which you could project whatever you wanted because she has like zero personality in 2/3 movies) it was easier for allll of these fic writers to do whatever they wanted with the dynamic, to pass the fic around, to do weird shit with it. And I think that tends to happen with bad/good ships. The fic writers have something very iconic to cling to, and they can do more with it, and therefore the fic is better, and that makes the ship bigger. The ship evolves into the fanon version, and then everyone who hates it hates it more because that ship is getting what they want. It reminds me of Darklina, Dramione (and for the record Dramione is something like... Go with God, but I do nOT. GET. THE DRAMIONE RENAISSANCE LOL.), Haladriel. Because reylo was again, so big though, there were more writers and more types of fic and it just got More More More.

So yeah, I think it's all kind of a snake eating its own tail thing. And now everyone who hated reylo anyway hates it even more because of all these reylo authors getting book deals, and often having solid success (or better). You can make a lot of critiques about why that's happening with a white ship versus a ship featuring poc, but that's beyond reylo and gets into fandom racism and racism in publishing AT LARGE. It's a bigger thing than just "the reylos did this".

But yeah, I personally don't really find Reylo all that shocking or perverse a ship. I've shipped worse lol. I just think there are a lot of really complicated things that have less to do with the SHIP than the shipping culture. Some of those things are super valid. However, I also think that this narrative occurred wherein it was like "the only toxic ones are the reylos" and... Yeah dude, there were plenty of toxic reylos. However... The Kelly Marie Tran of it all is where I really start getting bugged, because what happened to her and her character was one of the grossest things that happened in that franchise, and LET US BE REAL, the driving force behind that was not the reylos. (Nor do I want to imply that it was all finnreys--a lot of the SW fandom in general is super fucked re: basically any people of color in prominent roles.)

#anywaaaaay #i also just think that

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ichika27 · 11 months

Text

OnS Chapter 126

A shot from space. Does this mean it’s lore time? It’s lore time!

This will be long as there’s a lot of photos and a theory at the end.

(lol I forgot I had this in my drafts for weeks now)

Earth is a kingdom and Sika Madu was it’s king apparently? Here he is, addressing his subjects.

We finally get some explanation: there are many different kingdoms and Earth is one of them. The angels living in each kingdom are creating some kind of tower which has to be tall and the citizens also have to collect enough Photons (their power source). The end goal is reaching the Sun where God is. It’s Paradise.

New characters! A couple of angels who looks more humanoid than most just like Sika Madu and angel!Mika.

These names might be familiar to many as they’re the names of Demons and have been referenced in other series. I had to google this by the way as I knew they were a reference to something (I’ve watched Mairimashita! Iruma-kun and saw some of the same names there) but never looked up what until now haha.

One of them, Amon, tells Sika Madu that they would follow the latter no matter what.

Mika and Yuu also think they’re familiar! They look just like some people they know from the present time but with different names. They also wonder if Sika Madu and the others are literally going to the Sun itself.

Away from the others, a conversation begins: what to do with the experiment Mikaela. Angels aren’t allowed to create life so they must get rid of the evidence that shows they did just that.

Paimon protests as he knew Sika Madu has gotten attached to Mikaela and this meant punishment. He and the others think highly of the king and wouldn’t want him gone. Sika Madu’s reply is that both Paimon and Bael could take his place if he were to be gone.

Paimon says he’d rather die first than let that happen.

Paimon is already infected by the sickness that had plagued the angels though and what he says just might happen. He then asked if the Mikaela Experiment is to find a cure for this plague.

Sika Madu says that it’s something that must be done as many angels might die even if they reach paradise. Whatever his plan may be is also forbidden. Paimon pleads for his King to not do this as they’re not important enough for Sika Madu to try and cure. He then asks again to be allowed to dispose of Mikaela.

Sika Madu asks for five days so he could say his goodbye to Mikaela and he would dispose of the boy himself. Paimon expresses his trust in Sika Madu’s words as the latter has never lied to them before and says he and the others would await the command to go to paradise.

Back outside Paimon tells the others of what happened as he knew Sika Madu was lying and that they’d have to kill Mikaela themselves. He doesn’t care if he doesn’t get cured so long as his king is alright.

Bael is on Sika Madu’s side though as he wouldn’t want Paimon to die of sickness. He says he’d rather die than go to Paradise without Paimon. He also tells Paimon that leaving the sick means to leave half their population which isn’t good either.

The two argue and decide they’d do what they believe they must but Bael also tells Paimon that the latter should have had more belief in ther King.

Mika and Yuu are watching, able to sympathize with the angels’ predicament as they’re going through that, too. Mika wonders if it’s the right thing to do as even they don’t know if they’d succeed and Yuu tells him they’re just gonna go for it and worry about complicated stuff later.

Mika then wonders how things went for the angels. (also the boys are calling the angels by the names of people the angels resemble in the present time).

Paimon just really don’t want Sika Madu to suffer for his decisions and Mika could sympathize as he wouldn’t want Yuu to go through the same thing.

Yuu finally noticed something we in the fandom probably have right now reading this: history is repeating itself. They just involve other people this time around.

Yuu is annoyed as this repetitiveness feels like they’re in Hell. Mika points out that Heaven is above where the tower is reaching after all.

Yuu says heaven to him is where all of his loved ones are and if their world is hell itself then the First Progenitor had been stuck in hell for ages then.

Meanwhile, the First Progenitor is spending time with his son. He says that angel!Mika would be okay but for now, they’re gonna have to go somewhere far away so angel!Mika has to be a good boy and conserve energy.

Angel!Mika is excited for their little outing and invites homonculus!Yuu with them. Unfortunately, Paimon arrives to do what he must.

---

Holy crap! Lore time!! I can’t believe they dropped so much info this month! Although this is a long time coming and we’ve been waiting for it so I guess it’s just right.

First of all, they’re talking about killing Mika. It doesn’t matter if it’s the angel! Mika, they’re still talking about probably killing Mika. Why do these things always happen on chapters that fall on Mika’s birthday month?

In May 2020, vampire!Mika dies and becomes a demon, May 2022 Mika finds out he has to die to resurrect humanity, and now May 2023 we find out angel!Mika had to die to protect Sika Madu. Does the author have something against Mika or something???

Anyways, Sika Madu was the king of angels on Earth way back and their goal is to get to the Sun. There are apparently other satellite kingdoms whose goal is the same as theirs. Why are all these angels on the planets in the first place? Is this some kind of battle royale where one group needs to get to Paradise faster than the others or something?

The king has a bunch fo loyal subordiantes and they all look very familiar. I love how Mika and Yuu just decided to call them by the names of people they look like in the present. Let’s see...

Bael: Urd Paimon: Saito Amon: Ashera Belial: Krul Astaroth: Lest Marbas: (?) Bathin: (?) Naberius: (?) Raum: (?) Orobas: Kiseki-O (I think)

I’m not sure about four of them but they could either be a progenitor or a demon we know. The artstyle of this manga is kind of samey with some faces (and some are at a different angle in this chapter) and I don’t know their haircolors so it’s difficut to tell. Although if we’re going by significant characters, Marbas could be Crowley, Bathin is Ferid, Naberius is Noya, and Raum might be Byakkomaru but I’ve never seen the guy without a hood so I really can’t be sure of this one.

I have a theory about this one but I’ll leave that for later.

It seems the angels from millions of years ago went through their own pandemic. Sika Madu says he created Mika for this reason (exactly for what, he didn’t say) so he isn’t agreeing on killing the kid. Paimon wants Mika dead cause he knows the king would be in trouble once it’s known he created a life. Unfortunately, Sika Madu seem to have gotten attached so Paimon wants to do the deed himself.

Here’s where an argument starts: Paimon wants to kill Mika for the king’s sake and doesn’t care if he or anyone dies of the sickness (a weird sort of reversal of the present where Saito wants to stop Sika Madu out of hate). Bael wants to believe in ther king and wouldn’t want anyone to be left behind.

Mika and Yuu discuss the happenings in front of them as in a way, they could relate: do what’s right and accept that there’d be sacrifices or keep going and save everyone no matter the difficulty. Yuu found it frustrating that things back in the past are the same as the present and it’s awful that it seems to be happening again.

Sika Madu seems to be attempting to escape but Paimon decides to make a move earlier than expected. I don’t know why homonculus!Yuu reacted that way after angel!Mika invited him to come with them. Why was he conflicted, I wonder?

Okay, theory time!

There’s a sickness going on that’s killing angels and the First Progenitor seem to be close with several of his subordinates and these people happen to look like vampires/demons in the present timeline. Angel Mika was artificially created to find a cure but the First Progenitor grew to care about him as a family.

Some of the current vampires are said to be a “Mikaela”, right? I think it’s maybe cause they were created the same way the original Mika was created.

They all probably died and Sika Madu tried to revive them by artificially recreating them. This would be cause he cared about them and also as a sort of experiment to bring Mika back to life. These experiments probably failed as they didn’t come back correctly. He probably tried recreating them from scratch later on via human birth and then just collecting all of them again to turn them into vampires. Sadly, they seem to be failures again and so he took the ones closest to what he wanted with him and had them turned into demons.

What has happened to the current Mika up until now? He was born human, then turned into a vampire, then now a demon where he no longer has a physical body... and angels aren’t humans. Sika Madu could revive Mika not as a human with the ritual. The other demons were tests to see what would happen if he turned Mika into a demon.

The rest of the vampires took a lot of energy to make, maybe. They were failures and Sika Madu only wants his kid now so he’s gonna sacrifice the rest. Yuu the homonculus is the final puzzle piece needed to recreate the real Mika as he has memories/data about angel!Mika that Sika Madu doesn’t have.

This is what I think, at least.

Woah! This was a long post! Been a while since I made something like this. Next month would be part of lore time again so I might make another depending on what they’d reveal. I’m excited!

Thanks for reading uwu

#owari no seraph #seraph of the end #manga #sana_post

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golbrocklovely · 11 months

Note

In regards to your TikTok vent (which was totally justified like wtf) I think some kids just get really into like a man with a life filled with tragedy? Idk how to explain it, but it’s like they have a thing for men who have a life filled with trouble and pain. So they exaggerate Colby’s Emo-ness to be filled with self harm, depression, SA and more. I have no way to explaining it but I know people have mentioned how they enjoy reading books with the main male character like that and I feel like it translates to real life people too.

sorry i didn't respond sooner. i saw this ask when you originally sent it in, and then forgot all about it until now.

i think part of your ask is right. i think there are a lot of fans that are drawn to this darker side of colby, whether true or not.

i think as young women, we do get taught a lot that "bad boys" are really just good guys that are rough around the edges. they're the ones with a dark past and are emotionally constipated. we as women need to "fix" them - be their therapist, mom, gf all in one (even if at the risk of losing ourselves). and i think this notion also gets passed onto guys that girls are into, whether this is something they want or not.

you can't fix someone. it's not your job to do that to your partner. and if someone is really that "broken", they need professional help. you can't put that pressure on yourself.

that being said, i think your idea isn't the full reason why these lies are being spread on tiktok. i mean, trying to give an explanation as to why ppl lie is already a feat to make. i bet there are fans that just lie just to see if ppl will believe it. and i think what makes that worse is that no one follows up something when they see someone make a statement.

for example, the "elton making colby show his sh scars to a camera": the one tiktok i saw that talked about this (now idk if they are the originator so i'll cut them some slack), when asked when did this happen, only said "it was during a livestream that's been deleted". and hilariously, i've also heard someone else say it was actually a video but elton took it down. the problem with this is that of course giving this as the "proof" basically means you can make up whatever as long as you say the proof was deleted. but my main issue with this is that 1, elton and snc haven't collabed since 2019, which means that 2, if this did happen, why did no one talk about it until 2022???? you're telling me for three years, no one said anything. but a random fan on tiktok was able to unearth this event that unfolded, only to not give proof bc it was a livestream that was deleted???? which then means 3, how the fuck would you know this was a thing??????

i will say, the snc fandom on tiktok HATE elton. like, even more than i do. but i think they try too hard to make elton the bad guy. like, elton has done enough fucked up shit. you don't gotta lie to make him look bad lol

not to mention, especially with this particular topic, colby has outright said that he's never had depression, has never hurt himself, and doesn't feel comfortable giving advice on this type of stuff. so… what about that screams "i've suffered with depression and self harming"?????

i also believe that a lot of fans take things out of context and just run buckwild with it. like the clip from the awesomenesstv video where they do the lie detector and colby says they had a roommate that they felt used them. ppl immediately said "oh it's about elton" when in reality it was about aaron when they didn't get along for a month after moving out. but bc a lot of fans have just gotten into the fandom, they don't know all the lore. which is really my main problem with the tiktok fandom: they don't know everything and thus connect dots that aren't there.

and all of this is tiring as an older fan not only bc i know the truth, but bc NO ONE ELSE IN THE COMMENTS IS ARGUING WITH THEM. i barely see any comments trying to say "hey guys, this didn't happen", so it's hard for me to want to do that either. that's why i make the joke that i might have to start an snc tiktok just to tell fans that none of this shit is real and someone is lying to you.

also i forgot to mention but fanfics are also at fault. but i've ranted about that enough on here lol

#ask #personal #colby brock #elton castee

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