#went through a few phases of hyperfixation over other shows where I was like oh this is the one | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mage-ical-character-person · 1 year

Note

*crawls out of the depths*

I’M BACK FROM THE WAAARRRR (I finished chapter 2 of that yandere fandroid fanfiction and I have a few things to say about it)

It was not well written, by any stretch of the imagination. I enjoyed it satirically, don’t get me wrong, but it was BEYOND bizarre and hard to read.

cringe culture is dead, do what you want.

With that being said, let me walk you through my favorite excerpts.

visceral reaction to this block of text. sudden fear and anger. also apparently we fell over from the sheer shock of melody the girlboss but i never saw “y/n fell down” so I assume we’ve been laying down on a skateboard the whole way here. also, adhoc is a highschool here?!!! interesting. call that faulty education system. I wonder if qualia is also a school and they occasionally have football tournaments with adhoc. (adhoc loses repeatedly) also THEY/THEM Y/N??!!!! no way!!! this is like the last fic I would expect to have a they/them reader. Awesome!! we love to see it. also this is like the first time of 2 times we see melody. she just kinda vanishes. that’s an L on the writer’s part ngl.

growled.

anyways I’m pretty sure “and maria” is a mistake. at the time of when this happens we are accompanied by fandroid and a bot named rose, who idk what she looks like but she’s like our right hand bestie just suddenly. she’s never introduced she just shows up. also maria is like the token mean girl. she has beef with y/n, keep her in mind

again, this confuses maria with rose?!!! fandroid says that rose will “get in the way” (yandere arc incoming) but. Doesn’t do anything about it. you’ll see you’ll see. also INFOCHAN ROBOT???!!! oh god it’s all coming back. I remember my yandere sim phase. also infochan robot has no name and goes by they/them. diversity win, i guess

nooo boy don’t be stressed. it will all be okay. also they have iphones. presumably all of them, but we only see rose and fandroid using them. good for them, i wonder if fandroid has twitter

HE DID IT HE DID IT HE DID IT HE DID IT H

HE KILLED MARIA!!! FUCK YEAH. he threw her off the building. she had it coming. but yeah this is. brutal. but he went from zero to a hundred WAY TOO QUICK. like infobot was like “kill the girl.” and fandroid was like “isn’t there better ways for me to be in a romantic relationship with y/n?!!!?” and then infobot said “I have beef with all of these students. every last one of them. kill the girl” and he was like “lmfao ok I can commit a little murder.” insane. unfathomable.

okay here’s where it gets weirdly heavy.

administration assumed it was a s*icide, and then everyone was called into the gym for the intercom to say “there’s a dead person on campus. go home.” And everyone is crying and panicking (including y/n) because maria didn’t seem out of the usual. and then we get THIS LINE.

fandroid, my partner in crime, you killed her.

like i know this is meant to come off as like cryptic wink wink nudge nudge but it’s just. Lost. It does come off as cold, but not really knowing. silly silly boy

All in all? Funny read. I recommend if you have 40 minutes to kill.

Is it good? No. Absolutely not. I wasn’t expecting it to be. It’s a 1600 word yandere sim fandroid fic. However it had me rolling in like that giddy “this is so silly” kinda way. Maybe it’s just the hyperfixation, but it was throughly enjoyable, I would absolutely force my besties to read this against their will. like I would even draw fanart for this, it was so silly!!

closing notes:

lovely tags. sus

GO HARDER WITH THE YANDERE!!! NOW!!! they just went for classic yandere sim yandere but you could’ve been so unique with it. focus on how y/n feels, watching as these random people & bots go missing. Hell, give us a look at fandroid slowly sprialing from bestie → crush → unhealthy obsession. tell us how he might put up a fight against the urge to kill, until he feels there is no other option. OG yandere chan was “emotionless,” but her crush gave her some sense of feeling, and that’s why she was so promective. However, this au’s fandroid isn’t like that—so… what’s with the murder? Er, well, I’m pretty sure it’s that he hated maria bc maria’s a dick, but after that… what’s the big deal? I’m pretty sure he just hated maria (understandable) but after her… who next? Her bestie? She is mentioned to have a bestie. But bestie didn’t do shit to Y/N. I mean, there’s other stalker behaviors out there, but it’s worth mentioning.

It just. Ends. It’s written like it’s supposed to continue. It doesn’t, and it was last updated September 2022 so I don’t think it ever will. sad,,,

loving the title embellishments. slay

Upon further investigation (me trying to re-find this fic through google) yandere fandroid fics are… strangely common? They’re centered majorly on Wattpad, no shock there. In context, though, it makes sense. (Cue the yandere song; we can’t talk about this fic without bringing it up at least once) Frankly, but I don’t know what I would think fandroid fics would be centered on otherwise. It makes perfect sense. It just shocked me first time I realized that. Every fandom has their keystone trope, and ours is yanderes. Good for us. Love this fandom for that.

Conclusion? Not sure. Maybe just that fandroid fanfiction silly.

This fic was a lot of fun to read, despite it’s many many flaws. Apologies if my ramblings about it made no sense, I have a lot to say.

Excuse me while I go dig my Wattpad out of it’s grave and browse this strange subgenre of fanfiction for what can be classified as purely research reasons. Thank you for your time.

Yes, there is a lot of not-so well written yandere Fandroid stuff. I’ve seen em but I haven’t really looked into any of em beyond a passing glance because I’m not a fan of the Yandere trope all that much and as catchy as Fandroid’s Yansim song is… him being a yandere and being one towards a reader insert just feels… weird? Like not quite right and maybe a little uncomfy.

(Though imagining him doing a murder to perceived romantic rivals only to be immediately called out by a y/n and never do it again more plausible to me. Like he’d be afraid of upsetting someone he cares about, I feel. Or maybe I’m just projecting because upsetting people I care about is my personal least favorite thing. Guilt hurts so much)

Luckily not all Fandroid Fics are “oh what if he was in love with you and totally twisted fucking cycle path about it” and stuff. There’s not a lot though…

There’s the Stargaze AU which was pretty interesting! Not really sure what’s going on with it right now, though. A rewrite I think.

There’s also uh…

SICKDROID - Fandroid AU - superpeeboy - Wattpad

Outside adventures, (A Fandroid based fan fiction) - Hextra - Wattpad

i don’t. I don’t know. Wish there was more or something.

#fandroid the musical robot #fandroid #Why do you keep talking to me and sending me things? So much?

10 notes · View notes

the-scandalorian · 3 years

Text

Tempered Glass: Chapter 7

Pairing: Din Djarin x Female Reader Rating: M (will become explicit) Word Count: 5.5k Warnings: slow burn, canon-typical violence, cursing, pining, Din in suspenders, fluff Summary: Din takes a job with his old crew, and you and the kid wait for him on Arvala-7. Notes: Sorry this took me forever!

Previous Chapter | Masterlist | Next Chapter

Image from The Art of Star Wars: The Mandalorian

After you left the atmosphere of Tatooine and jumped into hyperspace, Din swiveled his chair around to face you in the copilot’s seat.

“I should take a job. Everything we made went to Peli, and I don’t like being low on credits. There’s a crew I used to run with...I can reach out to them...” he hesitated then added, “but you and the kid can’t come with me.”

“What do you mean I can’t come with you?”

He sighed, shoulders dropping. “I mean, I don’t trust them enough for you and the kid to come.”

“If you don’t trust them, wouldn’t it be better to have backup?”

“I just—,” he looked away, “I don’t want them to know either of you exist.”

“If you don’t trust them, should you be taking a job with them?”

“We don’t have a lot of options.”

“I could get work somewhere. We could go somewhere safe enough for a few weeks. There are some places where I have contacts, and non-bounty hunting work is usually less conspicuous.”

“I don’t think we should stay anywhere that long right now.”

“But—”

“I’ll feel better if you and the kid are safe together.”

“I—”

When he bowed his head in a silent appeal, your determination crumbled.

“Ugh, fine.”

He sighed in relief, reaching out to rest his hand on your knee briefly. His touch was reassuring.

“But, just so you know, this is only going to work once, so don’t think that my staying back with the kid is going to be a regular thing.”

He removed his hand and turned back around to face the viewport.

“I am taking your silence as tacit agreement,” you said to the back of his helmet.

He chose to ignore that, fiddling with the controls instead.

***

Now that you’d both admitted you wanted to stay together, abandoning the pretense of strategy and convenience all together, things were a little off between you and Din. Neither of you were used to being vulnerable, so conversations were slightly stunted again. You found yourself being overly polite, and Din was doing the same.

That first night back on the Crest, he offered you his bunk.

“I’m not taking your bed. You need it to take off your helmet.”

Besides the unshakable lingering chill of the hull, sleeping there wasn’t that bad. You usually slept with every sweater you owned on and that kept you warm enough.

“Use it when I’m not. You shouldn't have to sleep on the floor.”

“Sure, thanks,” you agreed, knowing you’d never take him up on that. You didn’t want to be on a different sleep schedule than he and the kid.

You did try to nap with the kid in Din’s bunk the next day because there wasn’t all that much to do in hyperspace. As soon as you lay down, though, you knew it was a mistake. First of all, it was crazy uncomfortable (somehow not better than the literal floor and the close walls made it slightly claustrophobic), and second—and far more importantly—it smelled overwhelmingly like Din. It smelled like his pine-y soap and beskar and blaster residue and leather and whatever else made up his infuriatingly good scent. It conjured images of crackling fires and golden skin and warm embraces and taut muscles.

Shit.

There was no chance you were going to be able to fall sleep when all you could think about was him.

The kid, on the other hand, was snoozing contentedly beside you. When you’d fully given up on napping, you edged your way out the bunk carefully, doing your best not to wake him.

Din was sitting in the hull on a long crate against the wall, cleaning his blaster, the pieces spread out next to him. Usually, when you were in the hull at the same time, you’d find a place across from him. Instead, you purposefully sat next to him, drawing your knees up to your chest and leaning against the wall.

You decided you were going to push through this awkward phase and make things not weird right there, right then. And you were going to do that the best way you knew how.

He tilted his helmet toward you momentarily then refocused on the blaster in his hand.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Yes,” he said, running a rag along the barrel.

“How does one develop a catchphrase? Does it happen organically or is there an iterative brainstorming process?”

Din paused, sighing dramatically, set his blaster and the rag down next to him, and pushed himself back until he was also leaning against the metal wall. His helmet clunked slightly as he relaxed it back. “This is the way is not a catchphrase. It’s a tenet of the Creed.”

“And ‘I can bring you in warm or I can bring you in cold’ is also a tenet of the Creed?”

He lolled his helmet to the side, looking down at you. “Okay, fine, that one isn’t,” he conceded.

“So you admit it—you have at least one catchphrase that you regularly use on bounties.” You smirked up at him.

Without missing a beat, Din fixed you with that unreadable visor and quipped: “I’ve been told I have a sexy voice. I’m just giving the people what they want.”

Your jaw dropped, a shocked laugh echoing through the hull. You had planned on teasing him and had not expected him to turn it around on you so smoothly.

“Uh... I was sort of hoping we’d stick to our unspoken agreement to not bring up the stupid things I said when I was drunk.” You looked down at your hands, suddenly unable to meet his gaze.

“Oh, definitely not.”

You looked back up. “Alright, well then in the name of fairness, we’re going to have to get you really drunk the next time the opportunity presents itself, so we can see what embarrassing things you say.”

He paused for a moment, considering, then said, “Does that mean you’ll carry me home?”

You cracked a smile, nodding vigorously. “Of course. That would only be fair.”

A warm laugh rasped through the modulator. You crossed your ankles in front of you, letting your knee rest against the cold beskar on this thigh.

“I feel skeptical of that promise.” He dropped a gloved hand to your knee.

“Okay, okay I can’t promise to carry you home, but I can promise to tie your shoe if needed.”

“My boots don’t have laces.” He lifted a foot off the ground to show you.

You shrugged playfully: “Well, that’s not my fault.”

“This doesn’t sound like a very good deal for me. I tied your shoe and carried you home.”

“To be fair, both were against my will.”

“But necessary.”

You rolled your eyes at him. “Okay, okay, I can’t carry you, and I can’t tie your shoe... so I’ll...,” you bit your lip as you fished around for something else to offer, “...hold your hand? And not let anyone tickle you.”

He huffed and rubbed his thumb over your knee: “I’m not ticklish.”

You pursed your lips. “Right, sure, of course not. My mistake.”

He harrumphed. “Can I ask you something now?”

“I’ll allow it,” you intoned seriously.

“Where are you actually from?”

“Naboo. Most of my back story was true—I just left out the one major detail.”

“Your favorite color?” he deadpanned.

You laughed. “Yes, exactly. What about you? Where are you from?”

“Aq Vetina.”

You waited, hoping he’d elaborate.

“When my parents died there, I was rescued by the Mandalorians and raised in the Fighting Corps.”

“I’m sorry,” you said, placing your hand over his and squeezing gently. “That sounds like a tough life for a child.”

“It was all I knew,” he explained, shifting slightly.

“Still, that can’t have been easy. It makes sense that you couldn’t leave the kid.”

“Yeah,” he said quietly, solemnly. There was a tension in his shoulders that hadn’t been there moments ago.

“Less serious question,” you replied, changing the subject to something lighter.

“Okay.” He relaxed a little.

“Why don’t you ever use a straw to drink with your helmet on?”

“These are the things you think about?” he laughed. His laugh was usually a quiet, muffled sound through the modulator, but it was getting easier to pick up on it. “There’s a seal on the helmet, otherwise the filters wouldn’t work,” he tapped the release on the side of his head. “So a straw isn’t a possibility, unfortunately.”

“Mmm,” you responded, “that is disappointing.”

He gripped your thigh lightly, turning toward you. “I, uh, heard back about the job... while you were asleep. It’s a go.”

“Ah... great. I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t hear back.”

“I know. It will be fine.”

“Okay... So, any ideas for where the kid and I should stay?”

To your surprise, Din explained that he had a trusted friend on Arvala-7. When you agreed to the plan, he disappeared to the cockpit to set the nav—a two-day trip.

***

That same evening, you discovered a new favorite activity on the Crest. Before bed, the kid was being particularly fussy, so you pulled out your data pad and downloaded the first children’s book you could find. It worked liked a charm.

From then on, it became a daily routine: you’d read to him until his eyelids drooped before his nap and before bedtime. Regardless of his mood, listening to you read seemed to soothe him. You’d pull him into your lap and settle onto your stack of blankets against the wall. He’d watch your face, enraptured, as you relayed story after story to him. His favorite—the story that elicited the most chirps and grabby motions and ear wiggles—centered on a family of frogs. You revisited that one at least once a day, sometimes more if he was grouchy.

You weren’t sure how to feel about his hyperfixation on that particular story given his appetite for frogs.

At this rate, your digital library was going to be largely children’s books. You didn’t mind.

You noticed that Din would find something to do in the hull while you read. The first couple times, he sat and cleaned one of his many weapons or sewed a hole in his flight suit. Very quickly, he stopped bothering with an ostensible task and would just sit and listen.

When you were still 15 hours out from Arvala-7, Din was seated on his usual crate in the hull, the one next to the weapons cabinet, as you finished the final page of a particularly thrilling story about a snail. The kid was snoring softly in your arms, so you clicked off your datapad, and got up to settle him in his hammock for his mid-day nap.

“You’re good with him.” Din was leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees.

“I guess,” you shrugged, snapping the door to Din’s bunk shut and turning back to him. “I just think about what I liked as a kid. I loved when my parents would read to me.”

He nodded, helmet trained on the floor between his boots.

“I’m sorry—” you started, realizing how that must have sounded to Din.

He looked up and cut you off. “Don’t be. It’s nice for him to have some normal kid experiences.”

“You know what he’d really love?”

“What?”

“If you read to him.”

He dipped his helmet slightly in acknowledgement, rolling his shoulders back at the same time like he was uncomfortable agreeing with that.

Several hours later, you pulled Din down next to you in your normal pre-bedtime story time spot. He had the kid in his arms. You switched on your datapad and toggled through the catalog of books you’d downloaded, all of which had colorful covers and silly, whimsical titles, until you found the frog book.

“Here,” you offered, passing it over to him.

You leaned your head back against the wall and closed your eyes, listening to Din’s serious, even voice narrate the heartwarming hijinks of a family of frogs. The kid cooed and babbled along.

To your (and the kid’s) utter delight, Din’s rendition slowly evolved into a full-on dramatic reading, complete with sound effects and slightly different voices for each character, as he leaned into whatever prompted the most enthusiastic responses from the kid. You kept your eyes closed and said nothing, worried that if you drew attention to this new development, he’d get self-conscious and stop. You couldn’t help from smiling a little though.

When the story came to its conclusion, you opened your eyes. Din was scrolling through the library of options, browsing for the next book. “What do you think? Which one next?” You looked at him, but he wasn’t asking you. The kid let out a string of gibberish, pointing with a teeny finger. Din read out the titles of several options, selecting the one that triggered the most animated trill.

As Din began the story, he shifted until his body was flush with yours. The places where his beskar made contact with you were cold, even through the fabric of your clothes, but you didn’t mind.

By the time Din finished the second book, the kid was displaying the telltale signs—drooping ears and unfocused eyes—that bedtime had arrived.

Din handed you the datapad and stood to tuck the kid into bed.

As he shut the door to his bunk, you said, “I think you just put me out of a job.”

He scoffed, but you could tell he was pleased.

***

As you got more comfortable around each other, Din took to walking around without his armor—beside his helmet—on. Most of the time, he’d even leave his gloves off. He wore either a flight suit that zipped up the middle or a black shirt and pants...with suspenders. The first few times, it was jarring to see him like that, without his armor. He looked wrong. It was like seeing a turtle without its shell... but if turtles were sexy.

The first time he emerged from his bunk with the suspenders hanging loosely by his sides, you stopped dead, mouth hanging open. He tilted his helmet sharply at you: “What?”

“You sometimes wear suspenders under your armor?”

“...Yes?”

You couldn’t help the laugh that escaped you and the goofy grin that spread across your face.

“What?” he prompted again, shoulders pulling up toward his neck.

“I just really wasn’t expecting that,” you laughed.

“What were you expecting?” The playful note in his voice left you flustered. He took a step closer, much more relaxed now that he was the one doing the teasing. He was getting too good at flipping things on you.

Instead of answering—because you were not about to address the fact that you had absolutely thought about what he wore under his armor—you strode up to him and pulled the suspenders over his shoulders. He stood uncomfortably still, arms hanging awkwardly by his sides.

“What are you doing?” He looked down at his shirt then back up at you.

“I just want to get the full picture.” You looked him up and down.

“Thought about this a lot, have you?” He quirked his helmet down at you suggestively. It was only the second time you’d gotten that particular flavor of head tilt, and you...didn’t hate it. It made your neck feel hot. You disregarded the intense desire to grab him by the suspenders and jerk him toward you.

Instead, you narrowed your eyes at him, enjoying this new bold flirtation. Without looking away from his visor, you hooked a finger through one of the suspenders and pulled it out a couple inches, letting it snap back against him.

“Ow.” He stated it so matter-of-factly that it obviously hadn’t hurt, but for dramatic effect, he rubbed the spot on his chest where it hit him.

“You’ll survive,” you assured him, patting his shoulder and brushing past him to climb the ladder to the cockpit. When you sat down in the pilot’s seat and kicked your feet up to rest on the console, you still had a smile on your face.

***

A few hours later, you were seated in the copilot seat with the child held tightly in your lap as the Razor Crest descended through the atmosphere of Arvala-7. On the way, Din shared how he’d met this friend—he had helped Din when he was originally tracking down the child months ago.

However, when you asked what his friend’s name was, Din said he didn’t know. Honestly, you weren’t even that surprised. Just exasperated.

Din told you the details of when he tracked down the child, including the assassin droid he'd crossed paths with. He explained how he’d teamed up with IG-11, but in the end, he had to destroy the droid to protect the kid. The anger in his voice was raw when he described watching IG-11 point his blaster at the child.

As the dusty, cracked surface of the planet came into view, you asked, “Is that what caused your thing with droids?”

“What thing?”

“Din.”

He was silent for a long moment.

“Droids destroyed my home planet, killed my parents. They’re the reason I was a foundling as a child.”

His words washed over you, and your heart dropped. You leaned forward in your seat to put a hand on his shoulder. He stayed perfectly still, helmet trained on the controls in front of him.

“I’m sorry.”

He nodded stiffly and reached up to squeeze your hand briefly.

“We’re about to land.”

You took that as a cue to drop the subject for now.

***

You and Din, the kid in his arms, approached a small collection of low structures. You swept your eyes across the uniform landscape—all was dry and sienna and flat. The Ugnaught’s homestead was the only sign of habitation in sight. The buildings were brown and domed, and windmills creaked slowly in the warm breeze. Three blurrgs in a large corral watched you balefully.

“Mandalorian!” the Ugnaught greeted, emerging from the door of his low home.

“Ugnaught,” Din replied with a nod.

“I did not think I would see you here again. What business brings you back to Arvala-7?”

“I was hoping that my friends could stay with you for a couple nights—I’ll pay you for the lodging.”

Of course he'd refer to me and a literal infant as his "friends."

You introduced yourself, offering your hand.

The Ugnaught bowed his head slightly as he clasped your hand: “It is nice to make your acquaintance. I am Kuill.”

At least Din knows his name now.

Kuill turned back to Din. “The child remains in your care,” he observed.

“Yes,” said Din, offering no explanation. He set the child down on the ground, and he toddled his way slowly over to Kuill.

Kuill scooped up the baby, and he chirruped happily, reaching toward his whiskery mustache.

“It hasn’t grown much.”

“I think it might be a Strand-Cast.”

You shot Din a skeptical look. He’d never shared this particular theory of his with you.

“I don’t think it was engineered. I’ve worked in the gene farms. This one looks evolved. Too ugly,” mused Kuill.

You raised your eyebrows at the frankness of his statement. He is not ugly.

“Your friends are welcome to stay with me. No payment will be necessary. I have spoken.” Kuill turned and headed back inside without so much as a backward glance.

“I insist,” Din said to his back.

Kuill disappeared into his home.

Din turned to you: “He does that. Just ends a conversation like that.”

“I understand why the two of you get along so well. Men of few words.” You raised an eyebrow at him.

Din nodded, reinforcing your point inadvertently.

You and Din stepped closer to each other at the same time. For the first time, you let the concern you were feeling color your features.

“I’ll be back in three days, if not sooner.”

He was padding his timeline in response to the worry that was etched across your face. You knew Din could defend himself—that wasn’t your fear. It was that, whether he liked to admit it or not, he occasionally let trust blind him. The irony of that wasn’t lost on you, considering how long it had taken for him to trust you. This was the trademark paradox of Din. He was loath to fully let people in, but he had a tendency to take people at face value and assume they would keep their word—because he always kept his word. He had a surprisingly generous worldview for someone with such a violent profession and brutal past.

Din reached down to grab something small that was tucked in his belt—the metal ball from one of the controls in the cockpit that the kid loved to play with. He occasionally pretended to be irritated whenever he wanted to play with it, but you knew he found it endearing.

He handed it to you. “He’ll want that.”

You smiled and nodded, looking at the sphere in your palm. Din raised a hand to your chin and tilted your face back up to his.

Do we... hug? He doesn’t seem like a hugger.

So instead, you offered, “Be careful, okay?”

“I will,” he promised. He stayed there for a moment longer, looking at you and rubbing his thumb along your cheek. Before you could decide if you should also try to hug him, he turned abruptly to walk back to the Crest.

You stayed and watched him as he walked the distance back to the ship and disappeared up the ramp. You stayed and watched as the Razor Crest rumbled to life and took off. You stayed and watched as it ascended through the atmosphere and vanished from view.

***

It was a relief to be off the ship for a few days—even if Arvala-7 wasn’t exactly your ideal planet. It would be a treat to eat real food, instead of shelf-stable ration packs, and to have more than the limited space of the ship to move around in... not to mention an actual bed.

Kuill was a kind and welcoming host. He offered you his spare room, where you placed your things, and you sat down for tea together in his small kitchen.

“How did you come to be in the company of the Mandalorian and the child?”

“I guess he has a soft spot for people who are wanted by the Empire?” you chuckled, and Kuill nodded somberly. “Now, we’re just helping each other out.” You weren’t really sure how else to explain it.

Kuill didn’t press you anymore than that, nodding sagely. Instead, while you sipped your tea with the kid on your lap, he told you about his background—decades of indentured servitude to the Empire before he worked off his debt and bought his freedom—in the solemn, frugal way that was clearly characteristic of the Ugnaught. You understood why Din trusted him: he was forthright, calm, wise.

“What can I help you with while I’m here?” you asked, already anxious to find something to occupy your time.

“You are my guest. You do not need to do any work.”

“I would be happy to,” you insisted. “I would rather be busy. I can help with cleaning or repairs—whatever you need. My formal training was in programming, but I’ve picked up general skills along the way.”

Kuill nodded and said, “Come.”

He turned and walked out of his house. You set down your tea on the table and followed him, the child tucked in the crook of your elbow, happily clutching the silver ball. Kuill stopped in front of the workstation that was a short distance from his doorway. Tools and wiring and various speeder parts were arranged on and around a long workbench and a collection of smaller tables and shelves. The circular backdrop of the workbench was the repurposed window of a TIE fighter.

An assassin droid was laid across the tabletop.

“Is this the droid that Mando shot?”

“I believe so, yes. It was left behind, in the Mandalorian’s wake of destruction. I found it lying where it fell—devoid of all life. I recovered the flotsam and staked it as my own in accordance with the Charter of the New Republic. Little remains of its neural harness. Reconstruction will be quite difficult.”

“What are your plans for it?”

“To convert it from an assassin droid to something more useful: a protocol and nurse droid.”

You nodded. “Handy.”

“I will have to reconstruct the neural harness, and then it will have to relearn every function from scratch. It will be a blank slate on which to program something nurturing instead of destructive. You may help me restore him if you would like.”

“Of course.”

The two of you got to work.

***

That night, when you lay down to sleep, you tossed and turned. The child was snuggled in a makeshift crib next to your bed. You found yourself sitting up periodically to check on him. Every time you checked on him, he was sleeping soundly.

Eventually, you slipped out of your bed, tiptoed quietly through the house, and walked out into the cold, clear night. You walked aimlessly for a while, circling the corral of blurrgs. They were asleep, eyes shut tight, standing in a close clump. Then you turned to head out across the open plain and watch the stars through the thin veil of clouds that dusted the sky.

You were starting to regret that you hadn’t pushed harder to go with Din. He was with a whole team of people who sounded untrustworthy at best, malicious at worst. You couldn’t help but think of all the things you should have said to him before he left. You hadn’t even hugged him.

It was freaking you out a little just how attached you were to a man who you’d known for a couple months.

You walked until the chill of the night air became too much, then turned back.

In the morning, you sat at Kuill’s kitchen table again, feeding the child. Kuill moved around the small food prep area, pulling together breakfast and making tea.

You followed Kuill as he went about his daily jobs, caring for the blurrgs, doing routine maintenance, and continuing the work on IG-11.

You were sweating in the sun, hands covered in grease, concentrating on refitting a damaged arm joint when Kuill’s calm voice brought you out of your train of thought.

“It is curious that the Mandalorian elected to keep the child.”

You looked up at him. “He secretly has a soft heart,” you said, smiling to yourself.

“Yes, that much is clear, but he is also set in his beliefs, and this choice went against the Guild Code. What is curious is that such a small being could inspire a change of heart in such a rigid person.”

You considered his words.

“I... think he was just waiting to find a greater purpose than hunting, to find someone to love, you know? It comes naturally to him, but I don’t think he’d ever had the chance.”

Kuill hummed thoughtfully. “Is that not what we are all doing—looking for a greater purpose?”

“I guess?” You shrugged.

“And have you?”

“Have I what?” you asked, wiping a bead of sweat off your forehead.

“Have you found the greater purpose you were looking for?”

You considered for a moment then said, “Well... I found a purpose a long time ago, when I joined the Alliance, and since then, I’ve been too busy trying to escape the wrath of the Empire to really think about what’s next in the larger sense... Staying alive has been the main priority.”

Kuill hummed again, glancing over at the kid. “You weren’t looking for something greater, but it appears to have found you.”

“I...,” you started. You watched the child, who was siting on the hard ground admiring the silver ball clutched in his hand. “I’m not sure.”

“I have spoken,” said Kuill, bowing his head, and he lapsed back into silence.

You watched the kid as he dropped the ball and staggered to his feet, squealing excitedly as he chased a lizard that darted past him. You wondered where Din was at this exact moment, and your heart squeezed in a familiar way.

***

The second night was much like the first. You walked outside for some time, thinking of all the awful things that could be happening to Din.

What if they turn on him?

What if another hunter finds him?

What if he doesn’t come back?

It wasn't a crazy thought. You were used to people not coming back.

Until that moment, you hadn't considered that you'd be the sole guardian of the kid if Din didn't return. For a split second, you felt the crushing weight of responsibility for the life and safety and happiness of the tiny green child that Din must feel at all times.

Eventually you fell into a fitful sleep, waking early, and the day dawned bright and cold. As the sun climbed, the chill rapidly dissipated, making way for a dry heat that seemed to be the only weather condition on Arvala-7.

You spent the morning helping Kuill continue the repairs on IG-11. You did your best to not count the hours that slipped by. He’d said it could take three days, so there was no reason to be concerned yet.

But... did he mean he would return ON the third day? Or the fourth day?

And for that matter... did the day he left count as day one? Or was yesterday day one?

Did he mean seventy-two hours from the time he left? Or that he’d be back at the start of the third day?

How did I not clarify this before he left??

That evening, you were in deep in discussion about artificial intelligence when Kuill said, “I believe your Mandalorian has returned to you.” He pointed behind you, and you whipped around to see the Crest touching down in a cloud of dust in the distance.

“Will you—?” you asked, turning back to Kuill.

“I will watch the child.” He seemed vaguely amused by your enthusiasm.

You sprang to your feet and walked as fast as you could toward the Crest. You briefly considered running, but that felt dramatic. He’d only been gone a couple days.

Why did he land so fucking far away?

You’d made it about half the distance when the ramp of the Crest finally began to lower with a hiss. Your resolve snapped, and you started to jog. Din descended the ramp, and you were so relieved to see him that you weren’t even embarrassed anymore that you were literally running to him.

Din cocked his head—a curious head tilt—when he saw you sprinting at him across the dusty ground. He paused at the bottom of the ramp.

“Are you—?” he started to say as you crashed into his chest and wrapped your arms around him. He barely budged upon impact.

His shoulders relaxed immediately, and he pulled you tight against him.

Well, if he wasn’t a hugger before, he is now.

“I’m okay,” he reassured you.

“Good,” you said into the fabric bunched around his neck.

After a moment, you released him and stepped back, the steadying weight of his hands remaining on your arms. He looked like he was in one piece, but the slight heaviness in his shoulders told you that the job had taken a toll on him.

“I, uh, missed you too,” he said, a little awkwardly.

You smiled at him and took his gloved hand in yours to walk back towards Kuill’s home. You felt slightly giddy that you were casually holding the Mandalorian’s hand. He seemed taken by it too, his helmet tilted down to where your fingers were intertwined.

“The kid?” he asked, looking up to your face.

“He’s good. Misses you, I think. Ate several frogs. And one lizard. The usual. He is disgusting,” you laughed.

Din made a sound that you would almost swear was a snort. “Yeah, he is,” he agreed fondly.

Kuill was waiting outside his home, the child in his arms. When you and Din were close, Kuill set him down, and the baby tottered over to wrap his tiny arms around Din’s calf.

You watched as Din bent stiffly, slowly to pick up the kid.

“You’re hurt,” you realized.

“I'm fine,” he said.

You felt sure that wasn’t true, but you let it be for the moment.

“Thank you,” Din addressed Kuill. He reached into the pouch of his belt for credits.

“I will not accept payment,” Kuill insisted, shaking his head. “In fact, your friend here helped me make great progress on my current project.” Kuill raised his eyebrows at you.

“Very well,” Din acquiesced.

You gathered your things and said your thank yous and goodbyes, returning to the Crest, which—with a jolt—you realized was already starting to feel like home.

***

Chapter 8

***

Taglist: @bbdoyouloveme @beskarhearts @bookloverfilmoholic @elinedjarin @eury-dice3 @dincrypt @dunderr @honey-hi @jagi-yaaa @just-me-and-my-obsessions00 @mbpokemonrulez @red-leaders @speakerforthedead0 @tuskens-mando @spideysimpossiblegirl @theflightytemptressadventure @ubri812 @zoemariefit

If you want to be added or removed, let me know!

#my writing #tempered glass #the mandalorian fanfiction #the mandalorian fanfic #din djarin fanfiction #din djarin fanfic #the mandalorian x you #din djarin x you #the mandalorian x female reader #din djarin x female reader #the mandalorian x f!reader #din djarin x f!reader #mature #mando x you #mando x female reader #mando x f!reader

270 notes · View notes

xxmisty · 4 years

Text

My Big Humiliating Torchwood Confession - Part 1 :P

Warning: this will be a LONG post, and i’m sorry about that!

Lucy is sat opposite me asking me repeatedly if I’ve started typing yet because she knows how desperately i’m putting off making this post!!1

This is awful, this is.... probably the most embarrassingly intimate confession i’ll have made since the day I opened up about my fetish way back at the start of 2013. And on the surface of it it probably doesn’t seem like that big of a deal but IT IS TO ME! And a big chunk of the trauma i’m about to express is tongue in cheek but it’s genuinely been - and continues to be - a huge bundle of DISTRESS AND HUMILIATION AND UTTER RESENTMENT!!! Because this year has been.... one hell of a personal journey and i don’t even mean anything to do with the pandemic.

It all started on New Year’s Day. I was feeling horrendously ill; the miraculous medication that had started to give me my life back had run out and thanks to the festive postal delays my new lot hadn’t arrived yet. I was in agony, I had a horrible headache, I felt sick and I could hardly move. We spent the day watching a bunch of muppet stuff, and that night we watched the first ep of season 12 of Doctor Who and, y’know, it was a pretty damn good episode (plus thirteen in the suit.... fuuckkk)

So afterwards we started having a discussion about Chris Chibnall - we’ve long held criticisms about some of his writing (not all of it, but it’s a mixed bag) and Lucy told me I still hadn’t seen his worst writing because that was for Torchwood...

Which I had never seen. Which I had been desperately trying not to see, although I didn’t know why. I just always had this vibe like a big “NO ENTRY!” sign at the idea of ever watching it. It’s not as though I had a logical reason for it, it’s not like I’d read up about it and thought, ‘naahhhhhh, I don’t fancy watching that’. I just had a big WARNING sign in my head, telling me not to go there.

Several years ago Lucy made me watch the first episode (after i’d been avoiding her threats of showing it to me for like 2 years) and like... it wasn’t horrible? It wasn’t... great either... but it didn’t kill me. Then a couple of years ago she showed me Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang because we were having a big Runaways phase so she wanted to show me an episode with James Marsters in. Again, it didn’t kill me. It wasn’t horrible. But I still had those big NO ENTRY!!! signs up in my head. I was still trying desperately to avoid actually being shown Torchwood as a show.

And the the new year happened and I was too WEAK AND DEFENCELESS to know what was happening when Lucy and I cuddled up in bed that night. I was too sick to really comprehend what she was doing or to fight back when she announced she was going to show me the very worst of Chris Chibnall’s writing... and put on Day One followed by Cyberwoman.

Oh. My. God.

All day I had been in a state of physical agony. Suddenly my mental and emotional state was far, FAR worse!!! The sex gas alien was bad enough, then by the time she put on Cyberwoman my brain was trying to shut down. I used to suffer blackouts and, god, I kept blacking out all the way through it, and instead of being her usual loving, wonderful self she KEPT FORCING ME TO COME ROUND TO WATCH IT!!!

By this point it was gone midnight and I was in a state of utter distress!! This was the worst double helping of tv I had ever sat through in my life and I sat up and let forth a tirade of absolute distress! This, I decided, had to be the reason I’d been avoiding Torchwood. Because it was more like.... Torurewood :P

Yep, that had to be it. Couldn’t possibly be anything worse, could it?

At least now lucy had shown me those two terrible Chibnall eps I would NEVER EVER HAVE TO WATCH THEM AGAIN. Or ANY Torchwood episodes. Yes, my ordeal was over. Had to be.

Nope. We went back to bed and she put on Out if Time. And i’ll admit, the story was much stronger but goddddd I had issues with the endings! And my level of despair started to rise even higher. I HATED Torchwood! This was the most distressing night’s viewing ever and I just wanted to go to sleep and be done with it all! Lucy put one more episode on afterwards: They Keep Killing Suzie. And that was much better but halfway through we finally fell asleep - so surely my trauma was over with.

Nope.

I had horrible nightmares of a very thirsty Gwen coming onto me all night, over and over again and it was HORRIBLE!!! Like, you have no idea how distressed I was! And when I woke up I blamed lucy whole-heartedly and she very sympathetically laughed at my plight!

But yeah. My trauma was over. No more Torchwood. I’d suffered the night from hell. Now it was time to pick up the pieces of my shattered life and move on! My medication arrived that day, I started work on some new pet portraits and life went back to normal.

Until that night, when I saw the telltale sign of Lucy putting a video on and turning her iPad around and then there they were - the opening titles of Torchwood - and I wanted to jump out the boat and into the canal and swim as far away as possible!!!

But the episode she put on was Fragments. She said she wanted to show me Chris Chibnall’s finest episode. And y’know what? It was really pretty fucking good. And god, I was fURIOUS about that!!! When we went to bed she pulled a real double whammy though by putting on Adam - which became instantly one of my favourite episodes of ANYTHING, EVER. And I looked at my wife, shook my head, sighed and told her, ‘nice save, Lucy... nice save...’

Over the next couple of weeks we also had a major Doctor Who rewatch and revisited most of the New Who era, and - to my mixed feelings - she dotted various other episodes of Torchwood in around them. I was conflicted - after the Adam and Fragments double bill I was no longer in brain-screamy hatred territory. I did however keep having flashbacks to that godawful night. Plus i’d had several further nightmares about a thirsty Gwen and I did NOT like it! But by a couple of weeks into January I’d seen a fair bit of Torchwood. Some of them twice.

Around this same time I’d started back in testosterone after not being able to afford it for the last 3 years. And then I started to notice I was getting some..... urghhhhhh..... unusual... and very uncomfortable feelings... about certain.... things... and characters.

And I started falling headlong into a great big gay panic :P

And here’s where the whole story becomes a HELL of a lot more embarrassing so i’m going to put it under a read more :P

Did ya click on that read more? Wh-why? there’s nothing to see here... especially not a long tale of shame and distress :P ugggghhhhhhh ok, FINE;

Basically there were two things happening at the same time. One was that I started to feel something I hadn’t felt in two decades. When I was a kid/teen we didn’t have the phrase ‘hyperfixation’ so I just called them obsessions. I always had obsessions, at any given point there was always this ONE THING that was my entire life. i lived it, breathed it, became it. It was my whole world, my whole personality, my focus, my lifeline. 9 times out of 10 it would be a tv show. Between the ages of 12 and 15 I would generally change my obsession about once a month. There were several ‘usual suspects’ that would cycle around over and over - Red Dwarf, The Brittas Empire, Sonic the Hedgehog, Halfway Across the Galaxy, Parallel 9, Out of this World...

late in 1995 I became obsessed with The X Files and - bizarrely - that obsession just ran and ran. I was so used to my obsession changing around once every month that it was bizarre to still be absolutely hyperfixated on it almost 9 months later. And then, in June 1996, my longest ever obsession took its place, a little known uk fantasy show called Bugs.

That... was my longest running obsession. And oh my god, was I ever obsessed with it. I have no idea how that one obsession kept going for 3 years. i’m sorry this is particularly wordy but this is kind of personal and I want to explain this right.

If you’ve been following me for a while you’ll probably known that one of the most defining moments of my life happened in the summer of ‘98. My cousin’s husband sexually assaulted me and my life spiralled into total despair. While that night was bad enough, the slow breakdown I went through over the course of the year that followed was harder to recover from. And eventually I came out the other side to some degree but i’d lost my love of three things that made me the person I was: writing, drawing and being obsessed. All three were so closely entangled with that night and surviving afterwards that it changed something that had always been a fundamental part of me.

I was no longer able to feel obsession. To hyperfixate the way I previously had. It was like something was broken inside me. And that was like a loss unto itself. It was SUCH a big part of me. It had been the only way i’d survived years of depression when I was young. My obsessions were what kept me afloat.

In the last decade there are a few things that I called ‘obsessions’ and I thought were as close as I would ever get to the way I used to feel. I thought maybe it was because i’d ‘grown up’ (pah). That’s not to say that i wasn't thoroughly into Ashes to Ashes, FNAF and Homestuck, for example, because of course I was! I even called them obsessions, but there was something that just... wasn’t the same, no matter what I did.

And over time, I got back the other things I’d lost. I started writing my A2A fics in 2010 and Lucy helped me to start drawing again in 2018 and god, both times it was like finally having a piece of myself returned after so long! As for my ‘obsessions’, I just thought I wasn't able to feel the way I used to because I wasn’t a kid any more.

But then, I thought that about Christmas Eve too, and then lucy came into my life <3

Still, the last thing I was expecting was... for *those* feelings to start sneaking back in my life. Feelings I hadn’t been able to experience since the summer of 1998-9. And to my further distress I discovered that they were relating to a certain show that I’d had a traumatising introduction to on new year’s day...

Suddenly it was all I could think about; TORCHWOOD! TORCHWOOD! Aargghhhhh and yet I still hated it! It was still awful! And yet... at the same time... it was so goooooooood.... arghhhhh, every time we watched an episode there was a knife twisting in my guts, reminding me that I hadn’t even felt these feelings over things we’d been HUGELY into... the fandoms we’d met through, the fandoms we discovered together. Nope. It was Torchwood that brought back my ability to hyperfixate! And I have SO MANY ANGRY FEELINGS ABOUT THIS!!!! Grrrrrrrrr!!

And believe me, I kept thinking it was going to stop and go away BUT IT HASN’T! It’s only gotten worse! And as of yesterday Torchwood officially became my second longest obsession ever!!!

I. AM. FURIOUS!!!

It’s... urrghhhh I hate this fact but it’s almost like I have a crush on the *show*??!!! I... can’t explain it better than that??? It’s like, if I could throw Torchwood on the bed and make sweet, sweet love to it I would :P and yeah, i’m saying all of this tongue in cheek but i’ve had a fucking sky high libido ever since I went back on T (ohhhhh and believe me I am LOVING it!!! 💙💙💙) But it’s like... there are elements of Torchwood itself that are so fucking hot that I get.... reactions that I am SO FUCKING EMBARRASSED ABOUT for so many reasons deidjdhdggjhaaahhhhhhhhh

Lucy literally only has to say ‘Torchwood’ at me and I end up in a gibbering heap half the time - I am not even kidding!!!

This, however, is NOT the worst thing that happened as a result of Lucy making me watch this god damned show.

But honestly this post has gone on WAY too long already so i’m going to save that for part 2.

Oh god... my shame.... my total and utter shame....

To be continued :P

#torchwood #about me #me #obsessions #hyperfixation #moirspritmaterail blogging #Lucy is MEAN!!!#my posts

12 notes · View notes