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boldlyvoid · 1 year

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Bigger than the Whole Sky | Part One: Peter Losing Wendy

Aaron Hotchner x Reader

Summary: Reader has been with the BAU for 2 months when she walks into the bullpen with a fat lip and a bloody nose. Her husband's been keeping secrets and breaking her heart for almost a decade now. However, it takes her 10 minutes to decide she's done with him.

Aaron has been harbouring a crush on our dear reader for as long as she's been on the team... he knew it would never go anywhere when she was married, but that crush goes from a hopeless dream to a heartstopping love faster than he could say "be mine."

Warnings: spousal abuse (physical and mental), infertility, self-esteem issues, friends to lovers, divorce meetings

word count: 8.1k

fic Masterlist

When she transferred to the BAU, everyone knew she had a husband. The thing no one knew was that her marriage was dangerously close to falling apart. No one ever suspected it in her personal life, however, in a room full of profilers… she couldn’t hide the problems for long.

At this point, the BAU had gone through enough female profilers to know that there was no telling what was going on in their personal lives. Between JJ’s secret time at the Pentagon and Emily’s time with the CIA, they had no reason to suspect their newest agent was in an unhappy marriage… especially not one where she had been trying to get pregnant for years and gaslit the whole time that it was her fault that they couldn’t conceive.

Peter, her husband, was happy to start trying in the beginning, they ditched condoms a few months into their relationship and she discarded her birth control a few months after they tied the knot. At first, the sex was fun, the first handful of negative tests just caused them to fuck more often and in different positions and times of the day… then the heartbreak settled in as her friends and family around her age started popping out babies while she only saw negatives.

This went on for years. 8 years to be exact. 8 years of monthly devastation means her heart was broken 72 times and Peter never cared. Each month he told her to get over it and try again… It wasn’t until she brought up going to a fertility specialist that her he finally snapped at her. He said she could go, she could get her hostile uterus checked and get the broken title while he stayed at home. He refused to test his sperm, he refused to go to appointments, he said IVF was a waste of money and a surrogate was too “unnatural” for him to feel comfortable. He didn’t even want to adopt or foster.

For a year she left it alone. Too busy with work, she put her focus into trying to climb the corporate ladder and land her dream job with the BAU. There, she made friends, she made connections, too… JJ gave her the number for a fertility specialist that she was seeing in private and Y/N made the appointment.

“Hey, Pete!” She called from her closet as she got ready for work.

“What?” He showed up in the doorway, buttoning his shirt. “I have to leave, the markets are open already.”

“I know… I made you an appointment at the fertility specialist I talked to you about, it's tonight at 6. All you have to do—

“Are you fucking kidding me?” He blew up, turning redder than a stop sign. “I said I wasn’t going to one of these fucking—

“WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?” She yells louder, “They said it’s not me, I’m fine, it’s clearly you—

He charged her, pushing her against the organizing cabinet and holds her there by her throat, “I’m not fucking broken.”

“No?” She croaks out, afraid but trying not to show it. Treating him like an unsub. “Seems to me like you are. Maybe we shouldn’t have any fucking kids if you’re going to be so controlling.”

The words hurt enough and then he swung, he let go of her throat and punched her right in the mouth, hoping to shut her up. It was just 1 punch but it felt like an earthquake, taking her dreams and turning them into nothing but rubble. He jumps back, realizing what he just did, and his whole body shook with rage.

She remembers it in slow motion. The crunch of cartilage in her nose, the rush of blood down to her lips that caused her hand to come up and cup her chin saving her white shirt from an inevitable stain… if it wasn’t the bloody nose that ruined her white dress shirt, it was the way he ripped her heart out of her chest and threw it on the ground with the rest of her broken dreams.

He didn’t even apologize. He just stares at his hand, “Do you see what you’ve made me do? I was never going to be the husband who hit his wife. I was never going to become my father. If you didn’t push and push and push to have fucking kids we wouldn’t be here, Y/N! Do you want to know the truth?? Why we haven’t had kids yet? I had a fucking vasectomy before we met. Okay?! Is that want you wanted the doctors to tell you? I don’t want your fucking kids!!! I don’t even want you anymore!”

“Okay,” is all she says. Her eyes are wide and her breathing is heavy. She’s stuck there, frozen in the moment. She can’t believe that just happened. “Okay.” She repeats, mainly to calm herself.

She can’t say anything else. She just watches him turn and leave, she hears him gather his things and then the front door slams. He’s gone. Just like that, he’s gone.

At that moment she decided she couldn’t do this. The gaslighting, the name calling, the loneliness… for almost a decade of marriage, she’s spent more time alone than with him. And not because they were working or busy with their separate friends, he just stopped spending time with her after they got married, like tying the knot made her his property and now he didn’t have to try to make her like him. Once he had her, he kept her.

Not anymore.

That same day was also the marker of her being with the BAU for 2 months. Everything had been ramping up to this point, she can’t lie and say she was surprised that he snapped and hit her. He’s been getting angrier and she’s been losing interest in him… all she wanted was a baby. The only person who suspected anything at work was Hotch, and in his own Hotchner way, he was dropping little hints that he knew something was going on. He’d ask her about her nights at home, he called her into his office to share takeout when he saw her at her desk well into the night, he always says he’s there for her, but she didn’t know what he meant until now. He was waiting for the day she told him about the abuse. He could sense it.

Now that she’s staring at herself in the mirror, wondering how she could hide the bruises before work, she realizes he was trying to tell her she was a part of their family. One that would go to war for her if she needed them. So she took him up on that offer and arrived to work with her fat lip and swelling around her eyes on full display. She didn’t even change her shirt.

“Oh, my god?” Penelope reacted first, rushing over to her with the click-clack of her heels alerting everyone in the room that she was in a hurry. She cups Y/N’s face gently, “Who did this to you?”

“Holy shit,” Derek says a bit too loud, alerting JJ and Spencer over at their shared desk, who turn and ask “Are you okay?” At the same time.

She was already close to tears before she walked through the double glass doors of the bullpen, saying his name only made her burst into tears. “Peter, he-he—“ she buries her face in Penelope’s shoulder and lets out her cries, sobbing as reality finally hit her as well.

Penny is quick to get her up the stairs and into the briefing room, away from everyone else, she closes all the blinds and politely asks Anderson, who’s already in there, to get some ice and the first aid kit, all while Y/N takes a seat in her usual spot. “I’m so stupid, I should’ve known. I should’ve—

Derek is quick to follow them, he sits beside her and rubs her back, soothingly. “No, no, sweetheart,” Derek stops her, “It is never a woman’s fault when a cowardly man uses violence to feel powerful. No matter what you said or did, it is not your fault. This is all on him. He’s the problem.”

“I just wanted a baby,” she admits, lip quivering.

“Oh, honey,” Penelope’s shoulders drop and she tilts her head to the side, “he’s not the kind of man—

“I’ve been trying to get pregnant since a few weeks after our wedding and he always made it feel like it was my fault that it wasn’t working…” She takes a deep breath, shaking her head, she can’t believe this part is even true. “When in reality he had a vasectomy before we even met. He’s been infertile for the last 10 fucking years and made me feel like it was me who had the problem the whole time.”

“Are you serious?” Penelope can’t believe it. “And he just never told you?”

She nods, “I think he thought I’d give up trying at some point and just deal with it… but I want to be a mom. I’ve always wanted to be a mom and he just never thought to tell me he didn’t want the same things. He really thought I’d just give up on my dreams like they’re nothing.”

The icepack and first aid kit don’t show up with Anderson, instead, it’s Hotch who is standing in the doorway, listening to what’s going on before he makes himself known. He clears his throat and starts to enter. “Penelope, Derek, could you give us a minute?”

“But— yes sir.” Penelope is quick to give up, and Derek follows suit, the two of them don’t want to leave but they know Aaron has it covered.

“Aaron…” She doesn’t know what else to say. She feels ashamed, she wants to hide. She doesn’t want him to see her like this but then again, he’s the whole reason she showed up at work like this at all.

He takes a seat beside her and hands her the icepack, “has he done this before?”

She shakes her head, “no.”

“Alright,” he believes her as he opens up the kit. “This is fresh… did it happen this morning or last night?”

“Before he left this morning,” she answers, shaking her head as the tears start. “I made an appointment for him to go to the clinic after work and he lost it. He finally told me the truth about his vasectomy after he hit me.”

“My divorce lawyer is really good,” he explains, peeling open a bandaid for just above her eyebrow. “If we take some photos of this and document it then it’ll help with your case. Did you have a prenup?”

She shakes her head, “no, he said we didn’t need one, we were in similar tax brackets when we got married and he said he didn’t see us ever getting a divorce anyway. I believed him.”

“You make more money than him, now, this will ensure he can’t sue for spousal support or anything. I’m going to be frank, you need to leave him before this gets worse.”

“I know.”

They just stare at each other for a few moments after that. “Aaron?”

“Yes?”

“What am I going to do now? How do I just start all over again? I want kids and I’m already old enough, I can’t just wait to see if I fall in love again and then wait for the right time to ask them for a baby. I want kids now,” she explains. “But I can’t do it on my own, I can’t. I wanted to do it with my husband.”

“It’s going to be hard, I won’t lie,” Aaron is honest. “But, if I can be honest… you’re beautiful and smart and when you’re ready, love will find you. I know it.”

“Thanks,” she tries her best to believe it. It’s just hard to do right now. “What’s your lawyers name?”

“Andrea Cortez, she’s the best in the business… but if you really wanted to hurt him back, you should call all the lawyers in the area, pretend to fish around so that when he goes looking for a lawyer, everyone that’s good will have to turn him away.”

“How do you know this?”

“It took me a while to find someone who would take on my case,” Aaron admits. “Haley didn’t do it on purpose, she was just trying to find one who didn’t go to college with me but it ended up fucking me over in the long run… and then I found Andrea.”

“Was it awful?”

He shakes his head, “We didn’t go to court, we had a mediator and we settled it all ourselves. She got 70% custody, I’d see Jack on weekends and if I wanted him over spring break or during my vacation time then I just had to ask… it’s a lot harder when you have kids already.”

“So I’ve been told…”

“Have you thought about leaving him before?” Aaron can hear it in her voice.

She nods, choking on a sob as she covers her face, her voice comes out in a quiver, “I just never admitted it to anyone.”

“You have my support when you leave him. You’ll have Penelope and Derek, JJ, and Spencer, too. We’re going to be here for you while you adjust to this and we won’t ever let him hurt you again,” he says in the softest voice, he reaches out for her hand and holds it tight. “I’ll be here, especially. We can have dinner together more often and we can talk… I know how hard it is. I can be your friend through this.”

She can’t help it, she’s so overwhelmed with emotions that she reaches over and pulls him into a hug that he gladly accepts. He rests his chin on her shoulder and holds her tight and he doesn’t plan to let go until she’s ready.

—

A few nights later, after a week-long case, Aaron follows her home in his SUV with his gun still on his hip. He makes sure she gets into her home to pack her things without issue from Peter. She packs a few suitcases worth of clothes and Aaron helps her get them into her own car, “is this everything?”

She nods, “Clothes wise… I’m just going to grab some of my favourite things, too, I don’t imagine he’d break them but I also never thought he’d hit me, so.”

“If you need to put stuff in my car, you can,” he offers as he follows her back inside.

She uses some laundry baskets and fills them with pots, pans, throw blankets, trinkets, candles, you name it. She didn’t trust him at all, so she took almost everything that she knew was hers or just things she held dear since their wedding. As soon as it’s all in her car, she realizes just how real this is and she starts to cry again.

“It’s okay,” Aaron runs his hand over her back. “Are you still going to stay with Penelope?”

She nods, “Yeah, she said I can have her couch for the time being.”

“You know what? Derek might have a place for you?” Aaron can’t help but think of when he was leaving Haley, Derek offered one of his houses that he was renovating to him.

“How?”

“Hold on,” Aaron digs his phone out of his pocket and calls him. “Hey… do you have any unoccupied homes right now?”

Her eyes go wide, she didn’t know Derek as well as Hotch did, mainly because she hasn’t worked with him as long.

“Can Y/N stay in it?… She’d really love that, thank you, Derek. We’ll meet you there… yes, you can bring Penelope,” he says with a smile before hanging up. “You’re in luck, he’s between renters on one of his properties.”

“Aaron, thank you, really, you’ve made this so much easier than I ever thought it could be,” she can’t even express how much she appreciates him.

“We’re a family,” he reminds her. “You can follow me, I know the way.”

And so she does.

It’s a quick drive, not too far from where she was living but also closer to work now too. She’s going to have to go grocery shopping and… fuck, she never even asked if this place is furnished.

When they pull up, Aaron takes the road and she parks in the driveway, they sit on the front steps together and chat. Derek said he wouldn’t be too far behind them, he was close by but he takes longer than they expect. When he does pull up, however, he has his pickup truck and the back is full of furniture, including a mattress.

“Thank you,” she whispers so she doesn’t cry.

“No problem… I have a storage unit with things for when I stage the homes after I flip them, you can use all of it if you want, but I thought we’d start with a bed.”

“I literally love you,” she rushes out.

“It’s nothing,” he brushes it off and hands her a key. “Now, while we carry in the heavy stuff, would you get the door for us?”

“Anything for my knights in shining armour.”

—

Hotch is a lot more open and soft than she ever expected. On the nights Jack is with his aunt— which are normally reserved for Aaron to do paperwork and stay late at the office, Arron instead, now has dinners with Y/N and watches movies with her on her new couch well into the morning. He even accompanies her to the lawyer's office to be her emotional support when recounting the years of abuse.

And the abuse has continued even when she’s not in the same house as him or even talking to him. Peter texts her almost daily to say mean and terrible things, calling her a whore and accusing her of sleeping with someone else. He thinks that the reason she was able to leave so quickly is because she’s already with someone new… he even sends her pictures of their security footage from the night she moved out, already forgetting what her boss looked like as he accuses her of cheating with him.

She wants to block his number but Hotch tells her not to, all the harassment will only help her case going forward. She keeps every message and Penelope prints out the text logs for her every few days to bring to her lawyer, who is astounded by what Peter is able to say every time.

The day she had the divorce papers served to him, they were on a case in California and he called her phone 23 times. She didn’t answer any of them, she didn’t even listen to the messages he left. She had Penelope go in and forward them all to her lawyer, then delete them all off her cell for her.

She sends him one last message to Peter that read: “If you have something to say, say it through your lawyer. Please don’t contact me again.” And then she blocks his number.

They’re at Aaron's house this time, she doesn’t want to be alone tonight of all nights. With a couple boxes of Chinese take-out, they’re sitting at his dining table just talking about their days, like always, when her mind stumbles across her darker thoughts.

“I took a huge step back in my life today.”

“No, you haven’t,” Aaron assures.

“I had all these plans, I picked out baby names that went well with his last name, I imagined our nursery and what mothers days would be like and everything… every dream I had with him died and today I buried them.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but did you really want him to be the father of your kids knowing what you know now?” Aaron asks. “What if he hit your children?”

“I know… it’s just hard,” she can’t help but feel awful.

“I’m sorry, I know. I know it’s hard, I shouldn’t be saying—

“It’s okay, I need to look at the bright side… I mean, sure, I had some big dreams that will never come true but I can make new dreams. I can become a new person. That girl I was with him is dead but I can make a new me. A better me,” she sits up straight and nods a few times while taking a deep breath. “It’s going to be okay.”

“See what I mean?” Hotch teases, “you’re so strong, this is all going to work out for the best.”

“Thank you,” she smiles, feeling bashful, compliments like this mean the world to her.

“You know… something I tell Jack pretty often is that if we talk about things, memories can’t die and I’m pretty sure dreams are the same. If you ever want to talk about what you wanted, I’m always here to listen to you.”

“Jack is very lucky to have you,” she compliments him first, her heart is too full to do anything but smile. “I really want a boy… I would be happy with any child but I’ve always dreamed about having a boy.”

“I was fairly certain Haley was having a girl the majority of Jack's pregnancy, she just had such a tiny bump and I could picture us with a little girl,” Aaron shares. “I don’t think I ever told you, but I have a younger brother who is 12 years younger than me, I practically raised him, so I wanted a little girl to get the whole experience, but having Jack was easy because I already knew what I was doing.”

“You’d be fantastic as a girl dad,” she compliments him again and can’t help herself from imagining having his babies and imagining a whole life with him.

“Thank you,” it’s his turn to smile and blush a little. “I even had a list of girl names picked out, so figuring out a boy name was what was hard for us.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“I really like J names, apparently? My list had Jane, Juliette, Juniper… I think they all sound good with Hotchner,” he explains and it’s the cutest thing.

“I love that, I don’t know many men who would admit to having a baby names list,” she teases.

He shrugs, “I guess I’m not like most men.”

“You most certainly are not,” she says with an arch of her brow. “And according to Peter, you’re my ‘hot’ new boyfriend.”

Hotch just laughs, “Men like him are so insecure they can’t handle the 1 woman who tolerated them giving any other man some attention. He would’ve done the same thing if it was Morgan or Reid at the door.”

“I just can’t believe I let it get to the point where he hit me.”

“You loved him,” Hotch simplifies it. “It’s hard to just drop that… you’re a rare case where the second he laid his hands on you, you left.”

“For about 20 minutes I just stared in the mirror trying to figure out if I was going to call in sick or just cover it up with some makeup,” she admits. “I didn’t want to hide it from you guys and I didn’t want you to think I’m weak. I couldn’t take everything I’ve learned and abandon it just because I loved him… and then I realized I don’t remember the last time I loved all of him. I loved our memories, I loved the version of him he was when we got married, but I haven’t really loved him in a long time.”

“You’re incredibly strong, it takes a lot of strength to figure that out,” Hotch can’t help but compliment her again.

“Thank you,” she says, reaching her hand out over the table to hold his. “I wouldn’t have been able to do this without you.”

—

Aaron is sitting with her on the plane, on their way to their next case, when she gets a text from her lawyer.

“His lawyer has reached out to me, he is fine with keeping the house and taking on the rest of the mortgage, he just wants you to pay him back for his half of the downpayment, he says it’s not fair that he will be paying the rest of the mortgage when all you did is pay that original $25k. He is fine without spousal support as long as the abuse stays quiet, he doesn’t want this to affect his own job. If you’re okay with that, I’ll tell him and he will sign the papers.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” She says out loud, getting everyone's attention.

“What happened?” Aaron asks, leaning over her shoulder to read the text as well. “oh… if that’s all he wants, I think it’s a good deal.”

“I’m going to lose all my savings again,” she admits. “We put up 50 grand together and I gave him a thousand dollars each month for the mortgage, I lost— Reid?”

“25k with 1k a month for 8 and a half years that’s 127 thousand dollars,” Spencer answers right away.

“Thanks… I have paid more for that house than I currently make in a year,” she can’t believe it. “I also bought all the groceries, all the cleaning products I used to clean the fucking house, I paid to pick up his dry cleaning, I did the laundry every few days, I made sure he had a lunch packed every morning… I did so fucking much for that man, I’m not giving him any more of my money.”

“So let’s go back with that, we can have Penelope gather all the information from your bank statements and previous taxes and she can total up the amount of money you’ve spent on him and that house and we can argue that he should pay you for your time. He treated you as a maid, you should be paid for your services and if they equal out to 25 grand or higher, then he has to pay you the difference or shut up,” Hotch explains, knowing how to play these games as he was once a lawyer and he’s been divorced.

“Okay,” she agrees, “yeah, I think that would work.”

Hotch leans over her, towards the TV is, and presses the button on the screen to call Penelope. It dials and calls quickly, and she answers just as fast. “Yes, my lovelies?”

“Can you do me a favour and gather up all of Y/N’s financial records over the last few years and find out the total she spent on groceries, dry cleaning, house expenses and the money she’s transferred to Peter’s account?”

“I can,” she says and then looks at Y/N through the screen. “You’re okay with this?”

“Oh yeah, total it all up and send all the findings to my lawyer as well, I’m taking Peter down,” she agrees with a smile spread over her face. “He’s going to wish he never met me.”

Penelope hangs up after that, slipping into Y/N’s life and doing the lords work, basically. It would take her accountant months to do what Penelope can do in 30 minutes. And god bless her.

She settles into her seat again with a sigh, everyone else goes back to what they were doing, except for Hotch. They share an armrest between them, he places his hand over hers and looks at her with a soft smile, almost like he’s saying with his eyes that he’s proud of her and that it’s okay. She just smiles back, turning her hand over and interlocking their fingers, “thank you,” she whispers.

“Anytime.”

—

Normally on away cases, they all had their own rooms, unless the hotels were overbooked, and this was one of those times.

Derek is with Emily, Spencer is with JJ and that leaves Hotch with Y/N. She changes into her night clothes in the bathroom, her pyjamas consisting of a plain shirt and blue butterfly-covered pants, nothing too scandalous. When she comes out, she finds him sitting up in his bed, also changed, reading over a case file with his glasses on… she didn’t even know he wore glasses?

She just stands there in the bathroom doorway and stares at him until he looks up at her, “You okay?”

She nods, “when did you get glasses?”

“A couple years ago,” he shrugs. “They’re readers, sometimes I have a hard time reading at night.”

“They look nice on you,” she compliments him, sending a soft smile his way before she puts her work clothes back in her suitcase.

When she turns back to her bed, Aaron is putting the files on his night table and taking said glasses off. “Are you tired?”

“Not really,” she admits. Turning the comforter down, she slips into bed and turns to him, “Are you?”

He shakes his head softly, “I was going to call Jack and then I remembered it’s well past midnight over there, I did text Jess, however, and she said he had a good night.”

“You’re such a good dad, I hope he tells you that all the time…” it just rolls off the tongue, she didn’t even have a chance to stop herself. But the smile on his face is worth the embarrassment she felt for telling him how she feels.

“Thank you,” he’s so soft about it. “You’re going to be a great mom too, I know it.”

She just presses her lips together and hums, shaking her head slightly she bites her lip so she can hold back the tears that want to start coming. “I don’t think it’s going to happen for—

“It will,” he cuts her off. “You’re doing the right thing by getting away from him, I promise you, it’s going to work out for you.”

She wants to cry, normally she spends most of her alone time crying in her lonely bed, be it at the house Dereks letting her crash in or a hotel somewhere in the country, she always ends up crying her eyes out. Tonight she can’t do that. “I hope so.”

“It will,” he’s serious about it. “Do you need a hug?”

She just nods and he gets out of his bed in a hurry to make it over to hers, he slips under the covers and pulls her into a hug and she can’t help but cuddle into his chest. “It just gets loud in my head sometimes, like everything he’s said to me starts to echo around and I can’t help but believe it… like maybe I’m not ever meant to be someone's mom?”

He just rubs her back and lets her get it all out. “Can I be honest?” She nods against his chest. “I didn’t trust him when I first met him. He seemed off and now I guess I know why. He was keeping secrets and he knew the better you got at your job, the closer you’d be to figuring out all the lies he was telling and he’d be alone again. Men like him tell lies because they know that they can’t keep wonderful women like you when you know the truth about them. And now that you know the truth, he’s making it your problem.”

“I just can’t believe he was going to let me believe I was broken instead of just telling me he didn’t want kids. Do you know what that does to a person?” She asks as she sits back up and looks him right in the eyes. “I haven’t felt good enough in years… I’ve hated myself for so long, Aaron.”

“I don’t think you’re broken, I think you’re miraculous and wonderful… exceptional, even,” he admits, staring deep into her eyes like he’s found her soul in there. “And I know what it’s like to try for a long time, Haley and I tried for years and I watched it slowly suck the life out of her, any man that can sit by and watch that and not care, is a sociopath.”

“Did you and Haley want more kids… before everything happened?” She asks, eyes trailing down to his lips and then back to making eye contact with him, she can read the hurt on his face.

He nods, “I’d still love to have more kids.”

Her eyes light right up, “really?”

He nods again, “I would… I wasn’t going to ask you out until well after the divorce was final. I don’t want to get in the middle of everything or ruin the chances of you getting away from him without issue… but I’ve thought you were beautiful since the moment I first saw you.”

“Aaron?” She really can’t believe it. “What are you saying?”

“If you want to have a child, I’d gladly show you what it’s like to have a real man love you,” he rephrases it with a lot more confidence and passion in his voice. He knows what he wants and every part of him hopes she wants it too.

She can’t believe it. The words don’t seem real. Part of her thinks she fell asleep quickly and this is all a dream. There’s no way her boss— and the most handsome man she’s seen in her life, is saying this to her. “you want to sleep with me?”

He laughs, “More than that… which is hard for me to admit because I’m your boss, I shouldn’t like you as much as I do. But I do. I would love to see where this goes… After the divorce.”

“Aaron, am I dreaming? Are you serious?” She shakes her head and shuffles further away from him. “What the hell is happening?”

“You’re awake, I promise,” Aaron assures her while also keeping his distance. “I’m sorry, if you don’t feel the same, I’ll back off—

“No, no, it’s not that, I just— I’ve just never been with anyone but Peter, he was my first real boyfriend, I never thought anyone else would ever want me?” She’s honest. “Are you serious?”

“I’ve been with 3 women,” he admits, it’s not like his number is crazy, but it’s still not what she expected.

“Really?”

He nods, “Haley was my first, back in high school, then I slept with someone during my time doing security for U.S. diplomats— Haley and I were on and off again all the time before we got married... And then Beth, last year.”

“You worked for Emily’s mom,” she knows that story… “did you and Emily—

“It was just a one-time thing. She was an adult and still living at home and also still rebellious as hell… she wanted to piss her mom off, but I didn’t know until after the fact,” Aaron is exceptionally honest. “We’ve always had a good friendship. That’s the one thing all 3 women have in common, actually. They were all my friends first.”

She hums, following along with a nod, “You are my closest thing to a best friend, currently… I think you’re actually the best friend I’ve ever had in my whole entire life. I just don’t know if I’m ready yet.”

“That’s okay, it’s more than okay, actually,” he rests his hand on her knee. “I was never going to say anything about how much I like you, I wasn’t going to ruin your marriage or convince you to cheat, I’d never do that—

“I know you wouldn’t, believe me, I know you’re a good man,” she places her hand on top of his and holds it tight.

“Thank you… I just mean to say that I would wait forever for you.”

“It won’t be that long, I can promise you that,” she smiles, moving back in closer to him. “Best friends can sleep in the same bed… and my marriage is already over, so it’s not cheating no matter what anyone would say if they saw us cuddling.”

“Should I turn the light off?” He says with a smirk.

She just nods, “yeah, get comfy, Hotchner, you’re not leaving my bed tonight.”

—

Turns out, she’s spent close to a quarter of a million dollars on taking care of Peter and their home over the last 8 and a half years.

That’s not even including the time they were living in an apartment together, before and a few months after their wedding. She has her lawyer go back to his lawyer with this information and the fact she will Not be paying him for his half of the downpayment. He doesn’t like that. So, they come to an agreement to meet with a mediator. This way, she can voice her concerns, he can voice his and they can hopefully get the papers signed without going to court.

Standing her ground and sitting in a chair opposite him was going to be the best way for her to win this. He is so much more confident on the phone, sending her threats and derogatory comments, he’s not that confident in front of her. Especially not when she has her boss in the chair beside her.

“Why is he here?” Peter says the second he walks into the meeting room of her lawyer's office. He sits down aggressively and leans back in his chair, exuding an air of fake confidence that both she and Hotch don’t believe.

“He’s my boss, he’s here to ensure my safety and my lawyer's safety,” she stands her ground. “I’m not about to get choked out again."

“You’re that afraid of me?” He laughs.

Hotch flips open the folder in front of himself and holds up the photos of Y/N’s face the morning she came into work beat up. “You did this to her, what else are we supposed to think about you?”

“There’s no proof my client did that,” his lawyer speaks up. The man can’t be more than 30, he must be a new lawyer with less experience than Andrea or Aaron. “She works a difficult job where she gets tossed around by criminals—

“We have the footage from the security camera inside your shared home,” Y/N’s lawyer cuts him off.

“What?” Peter can’t believe it. “Since when is there one inside the house?”

“We got them installed after the neighbours were robbed, or did you forget?” Y/N looks at him like he’s an idiot. “You signed off on it, you wanted to be able to see who was in our house if we got robbed like the neighbours did. There is one in the front hall, the living space, your office and our closet. You sent me photos of me and Aaron packing my things. You know it’s in there.”

“My client—

“Is a liar,” Y/N’s lawyer cuts him off once again. “we have his signature and testimony from the security company saying he was the one who called and asked for internal cameras. They even kept the call logs and we’ve got a copy of the work order from the men who set them up.”

Peter slumps in his seat. His tongue runs along his top teeth as he shakes his head, “what do you want?”

“I want out.” Y/N simplifies. “You wasted the last 10 years of my life, you lied to me and you abused me. I want you to sign the papers and let me go.”

“So you can go fuck your boss?”

Y/N stands with such force her role chair goes flying back, she slams her hands on the table and stares him down the way she would in an interrogation with an unsub, “What I do with my time isn’t any of your concern! This is a 1 party divorce state, if you give me a hard time I will not hesitate to take you to court and get a judge to sign off on this. I don’t need your help, I just thought this would be easier for you, but if you want the whole state of Virginia to know you’re a wife-beater, I can do that.”

“And she’ll win,” Hotch offers, “I’ve been inside enough courtrooms to know that with this much evidence, you’re never going to see any money from her.”

“Fine,” Peter gives in with a wave of his hands. “Where do I sign?”

She sits back down then, biting back a smirk as she’s filled with pride. She really did it. She won.

“So you’re agreeing to keep the house and she doesn’t have to pay you anything to get out of the mortgage?” Her lawyer clarifies.

He nods, “Yes.”

“Okay,” Andrea hands the paperwork over to Peter's lawyer. “This is the original agreement I sent you. It states what items still in the home belong to Y/N and if I remember correctly, you already agreed to her taking those with her at an arranged date and time with a mediator on the premises.”

“That’s correct.” Peter's lawyer reads it over quickly, assuring it’s exactly what she says it is and then hands it over to Peter, “Sign there, there and on the last page, each spot is marked.”

“Got it,” Peter says, not caring at all. He signs the 3 spots and slides the papers back across the table. “What now?”

“What time is good for me to come get my things?” Y/N asks, trying not to smile with happiness.

“Are you okay to do it tonight?” Peter asks, “I moved most of it into boxes and put them by the door… I’ve had a lot of time to organize. I think I’m going to sell it and move closer to where my parents are.”

“That would be good for you,” she agrees. It’s weird to see all his aggressiveness fade now that she’s no longer his wife. “Aaron’s going to come with me, is that okay?”

He nods, “I’m surprised you’re so comfortable bringing your boyfriend around me already.”

And there it is.

“You know, I’m not surprised this ended. You’ve always been so insecure about every single man in my life, even my brother and my cousins? Did you really think I’d just stay single my whole life after you? Did you really think you were such an amazing husband that I’d be so broken and damaged I’d never be able to move on? You weren’t anything spectacular and I think you’ve always known that.”

“I’ll put your shit on the porch,” he says with a huff as he stands up to leave. “Have a nice life.”

“We will,” Aaron answers, digging more salt into the wound as Y/N waves at him with a smile.

Finally, she’s free.

—

It doesn’t take long for them to load all of her things into Aaron’s SUV and with Peter's lawyer in the house to supervise. She does one final sweep to make sure she has all her things. It looks good, so she gives Peter one final smile and a wave and then she’s gone.

She watches the house fade to nothing in the passenger side mirror and her smile only grows. It doesn’t feel like an ending like she thought it would. All those dreams that seemed bigger than the whole sky are nothing but rain clouds that were once disguised as happy shapes… the rain that burst from them washed away all her sadness and left her with a blank space of sidewalk where she could once again be decorated with beautiful chalky colours.

“So?” Aaron asks, looking between her and the road with a mighty smirk. “What’s next?”

“I thought you were going to ask me out on a date?” She teases.

“You’re ready already?” He’s a bit shocked, “I thought we were just pushing his buttons?”

She shakes her head, “We were… but I’m also ready to be loved by a real man. The same man who’s always there for me, the man who would do anything to protect me. I want you too, Aaron.”

“Well, okay then, Agent (your maiden name), where should we go for dinner tonight?” He asks, “Do you want to go somewhere fancy or should we order from our regular place?”

“Hmm… as tempting as that sounds, I think I’d like to get dressed up and go somewhere with you.”

And so that’s what they do. While she’s changing into something nice, Aaron makes a call to a friend who would be able to get them a table at the nicest place in town with only an hour to spare. Luckily, he has good friends in all sorts of places, so before she can even really second guess the date, they’re sat in the back corner of a dark restaurant sharing a candle-lit dinner.

“So… how is this going to work?” She finally asks, she can’t keep it in any longer.

“What do you mean?” Aaron asks.

“Like, are we going to file fraternization paperwork? Are we going to tell the team? Should I transfer to another unit?”

“Oh… I think we could file the paperwork if you want to and you don’t have to leave, you’d just have to report to Morgan or Cruz, it wouldn’t be that hard.”

“And are you going to tell Jack?”

He nods, “Eventually.”

“Does he even want to be a big brother?”

Aarons a bit taken aback by that question, “I… I really don’t know?”

“Cause I don’t want him to hate me, I’ve seen so many cases where kids grow up to hate their dad's girlfriends and new stepmoms and feel like they lost their dad when a new baby shows up,” she just lets all the worry out then and there, there’s no point keeping it from him. He’d figure it out eventually.

“Well… the best thing we could do is go slowly, I can talk to him about it and see where he stands with it all. I know for a fact he really liked Beth and he was very little when Haley left me so I don’t think he holds any resentment for the divorce, I think it’ll be okay.”

“Okay,” she repeats while letting out a deep breath. “Cause… I know you like me but I never got to tell you how I feel about you. I think you’re a wonderful man and you’re so astoundingly handsome it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside and—”

“Really?” He cuts her off with a smirk.

“Yeah,” she manages to laugh, snapping out of the panic because it’s just so easy with him. “This is how I was supposed to feel with my husband… thank you for making me realize I deserve better and thank you for being what I deserve.”

“I feel the same way… I mean, I loved Haley even after the divorce, hell, a part of me still does love her and I don’t think it will ever fade. However, it’s so nice to feel like this again,” Aaron agrees. “I’m just a little anxious that it’ll all come crumbling down around me again.”

“Why?” She asks, not thinking she could ever leave him heartbroken.

“Our job isn’t the safest environment. If you get hurt on the job I don’t know what I’ll do… my little crush on you was hard enough to deal with out there, and that was when you were married and I thought there was no chance of us being together because I’m not a home wrecker, but now… now I have to watch you go out there into the unknown every day with half of my heart in your pocket,” he explains, almost tearing up.

She shakes her head softly and reaches out for his hand, “Aaron, I’m always going to come home with you. Even if I get a little hurt, I know I’ll always fight to get back to you… and I have the same worries, I never want to lose you and physically see it happen or know I could’ve been there to stop it. It’s going to make the job harder, sure, but we could also just get better at what we do because we love each other.”

She watches all the worry fade from his face as his jaw drops for a moment. “You love me, too?”

She can’t help but laugh, “Yeah, Aaron, I love you.”

Just as they lean in to kiss over the table, Aaron's phone starts to ring in his pocket. With a disgruntled sigh, Aaron sits back down in his chair and takes his phone out, answering it with his last name, she watches him go devoid of feelings. “Yes sir, we’ll be right there.”

She sighs, “I’ll get the car, you get the check.”

They stand up at the same time and before she can get too far, he pulls her in close. Hand on her lower back, faces inches apart, “I’m going to show you just how much I love you when we get home, okay?”

“Okay,” she smiles, leaning into their first kiss.

Still smiling as their lips touch, she could swear sparks fly around them as the restaurant fills with the screaming sound of a million colourful fireworks.

General Taglist

@ncsls0515 @stevesmunsons @reidsbookclub @sweetyyhippyy @manuosorioh @mrs-dr-reid @k-k0129 @squishyturtle @katsukis1wife @babybisexual @marsmunson86 @x-a-delama-x @kylakins88 @harrypotteranna23-blog @moonlightspencie

Bigger than the whole sky taglist:

@ssamorganhotchner @mrs-ssa-hotch

#aaron hotchner #aaron hotch hotchner #aaron hotch x reader #aaron hotch x you #hotch smut #hotch x reader #criminal minds smut #criminal minds imagine

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blues824 · 1 year

Note

Obey Me brothers with a female reader who's capable of manipulating all forms of earth (rocks, sand, metals, gemstones, dirt, glass, etc)? Happy New Year BTW!!

I made reader sound like Demeter, which wasn’t my intention.

Lucifer

The first moment he experienced your power was when you first arrived at the Devildom in the Council Room. You were scared, so you raised a boulder up (destroying the floor of the room), and held it so as to make sure you were ready to fight.

After calming you down, you apologized and fixed the floor, and it looked like it was never destroyed in the first place. Lucifer wasn’t even angry, he was impressed. He thought humans didn’t have powers, so this came as a shock to him.

From that point on, you only used your powers to threaten Mammon, which the eldest brother found quite amusing. It kept the second eldest in line, so Luci over here didn’t have a problem with it at all. He might actually let you have your go at him if you so desire.

Mammon

When you raised the boulder, he shrieked like a little child. Last time he checked, you weren’t a witch and therefore you shouldn't have this ability. Mans is cowering behind Lucifer, using him as a barrier to put some space between the two of you.

Once you calmed down, Mammon was still freaked out. You even fixed the floor, which made him panic even more. He was shaking in his boots. You apologized for scaring him, but he tried to convince you that he wasn’t scared at all. It might have worked if his voice didn’t crack.

From then on, he might ask you to use your power to help him evade either his brothers or the witches he made deals with. It’s your choice if you want to help him, and if you do he’ll get you something as a symbol of gratitude. You will be his favorite person.

Leviathan

He was honestly amazed when you made a boulder levitate, and in that moment you reminded him of so many different characters who had the same power. He was still very freaked out because you had the power to small all of them with the earth, but that was secondary to his fascination.

Once you calmed down and fixed the floor, Levi went in a whole rant about the many different characters you reminded him of. He got embarrassed about going off on a tangent, but you reassured him it was totally fine.

I feel like you both got close because he has a close connection with water, and you were one with the earth. You both had entire worlds to show each other, and you were the only one who was able to bring him outside just to talk to him about the fertility of a plot of land.

Satan

Mans was certainly shocked when you just threatened to crush everyone with a boulder upon first arriving at the Devildom, but he understood that this situation wasn’t very normal. So, he took on the task of calming you down (ironic, isn’t it?)

When he successfully deescalated the situation, he proceeded to ask you a bunch of questions about your earth manipulation abilities since they weren’t shown in your student profile. You gladly answered each of them, and that started a spark between the two of you.

Satan went on to conduct a bunch of research to find out more about your abilities, and how a human could accumulate them. You were glad to see someone so interested, so you gladly gave a few lessons on earth and the extent of your powers.

Asmodeus

He definitely let out a loud scream of terror when he saw the floor being torn up and formed into a roughly shaped ball for you to direct if anyone tried to attack you. What was worse was that his charm didn’t work on you, so he couldn’t really do anything besides hide behind his older brothers.

When you had calmed down, he admired your abilities as well as how beautiful you were. Beauty is strength, after all, and you definitely just showed that. So, he grew attached to you at the hip, much like he was normally.

As the two of you did skincare with each other at night, he would listen as you went on rants about how different the Devildom soil was compared to the Human Realm soil. You’ve even taught him how to take care of flowers so that he may keep his room beautiful and nice-smelling.

Beelzebub

He was ready to fight back when he saw the floor breaking up and being formed into rough spheres, as well as you getting ready to attack. Lucifer had everyone stop before anything got destroyed, and he explained what was going on.

Beel was quite impressed since he assumed you wouldn’t have any powers, and once you got settled in he asked if you wanted to go grab some food and talk a bit, to which you accepted (because who wouldn’t?). At the snack store, he asked a few questions about your earth manipulation, and you answered to the best of your abilities.

Through that one ‘date’, you both gained a connection that the demon never thought he would have. He loved you and the strength you show when you use your powers, and it’s the perfect durability test for him for training. Carrying a boulder has to give you at least a bit more muscle.

Belphegor

He got to first witness your power when you brought a bag of rocks with you to the attic when you first heard him calling for help. He didn’t expect you to fling a bunch of stones out of surprise at the gate that held him back from the rest of the realm.

After a few tries of hitting the gate with more rocks and no results, Belphie began planning out how he could use your powers to his benefit. However, as you came back to see him time and time again, he got to have a close relationship with you.

When he got out of his prison, he expected you to use your powers. He didn’t expect for a boulder to be hurled in his direction, hitting him in the head in the process. That allowed his brothers to get a hold of him before he could harm you, though.

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yamameta-inc · 1 year

Text

My Orochi Stood Up: A Draconic Response to "eat shit and die"

tshirt3000’s seminal essay, “eat shit and die,” illuminates the fact that in any sillyserious discussion of Gintama, there is a recurring tension–or overlap, or slippage, or push-and-pull–between the motif of the anus and the motif of the phallus. Far from being contradictory, however, this dynamic conceptual tug of war has the potential to be not only meaning-generating, but fundamental to a thematic understanding of Gintama. In this essay, I aim to illustrate how applying a certain homebrewed framework of mine can help make sense of these interwoven concepts and provide symbolic structure to their analysis. I’m talking, of course, about the ouroboros–also known as the snake eating its own tail.

As we all know, Gintama is full of phalluses. The sword is basically a matryoshka doll of motifs all on its own (or, to invoke tshirt invoking Barthes, the beginning of a chain of images, or significants). But the same vulgar toilet humour that leads to Gintama being chock full of dick jokes (and balls jokes, which for many reasons can be conflated with dick jokes, a primary one being that the Neo Armstrong Jet Cyclone Armstrong Cannon, practically a mascot of Gintama in its own right, stands strong, beautiful, and trinitas) also leads to plenty of hole jokes. Guys like Sorachi thinks it’s funny when the protagonist gets something stuck in his butt, or when gay sex exists, or when a guy is a sub. But there’s no need to discuss this part in depth–just read tshirt’s essay.

There’s a saying among my friend group: “all there is in Gintama is head and hole.”

Why do the sages say this? First of all because it’s funny. Second of all because it’s true. You can reduce everything in Gintama to essentially two things. Shouyou and Utsuro. Gintoki and Takasugi. Humans and monsters. Those who swing the sword right and those who swing it wrong. Those who take in and those who are taken in. Those who keep struggling and those who don’t. And then you can also always reduce these two things to one thing: Shouyou/Utsuro are, after all, the same being, even if they’re not; Gintoki; simply people, Gintoki once more; Gintoki yet again; and struggling itself. Because losing is part of struggling too. You can’t pick yourself back up if you never lost in the first place. We know that Gintoki has managed to become “a splendid human” by the end of the series–so what was he before that? Was he really a monster? At what exact point in the series did he become human? Was it while he was on-screen, while we were looking, but without us noticing? Was it off-screen, while we were flipping the page, or in the space between the panels? The answer, of course, is that he was learning to be human every day of his life, and if you were to assign him a static, general status to put on a wiki profile under ‘“species”, it would be: “becoming human.” And so “which one is the head and which one is the hole?” is the wrong question. Even if you assigned one to each half and managed not to be wrong, since they’re collapsible into one anyway, they’ll always be both.

In my ouroboros collage, I used western alchemy to stylize this struggle. This forging of the soul into a precious metal, language used by Gintama itself. Chrysopoeia–the making of gold. Or silver, as it were. But the ouroboros isn’t just a major symbol of alchemy. I chose it because, simply put, it’s the It girl. It does it all. It’s a snake. It’s a dragon. It circles the world. It represents eternity. It’s a loop. And while the ouroboros, alchemically, is a western symbol, the snake eating its tail is not. As I noted in my collage, the ouroboros and the world serpent are images that appear in traditions around the world.

I’m going to state the obvious: yes, the snake eating its own tail is the head and the hole. After all, the snake eating its own is also a symbol of fertility: the snake’s tail is phallic, its mouth yonic. Male and female, yin and yang–these are all things the ouroboros represents, because it ultimately embodies the cosmological interplay of complementary forces necessary to sustain a truly endless cycle. Now, tshirt’s essay could not be more clearly about the anus most specifically. But in this essay? Love is love, hole is hole. Sorry tshirt.

In all sillyseriousness, as tshirt details in their essay, the anus “following hocquenghem, normally stands in for the individuating function which itself gives root to desiring within the social sexual system, and the means by which we might therefore transcend the phallus.” Note the term “individuating function.” In my ouroboros collage, I included the following idea from philosopher Bernard Stiegler about the individuation process: “The I is essentially a process, not a state, and this process is an in-dividuation — it is a process of psychic individuation. It is the tendency to become one, that is, to become indivisible.” Indeed, Carl Jung (yes, that Jung) saw the ouroboros as the ultimate symbol of the “paradox” at the heart of the individuation process. Many of the lines in the second half of my poem are from him. Specifically, they’re from this one key paragraph from his Collected Works, vol. 14:

The alchemists, who in their own way knew more about the nature of the individuation process than we moderns do, expressed this paradox through the symbol of the Ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. The Ouroboros has been said to have a meaning of infinity or wholeness. In the age-old image of the Ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself. The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow. This 'feedback' process is at the same time a symbol of immortality since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself, and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he, therefore, constitutes the secret of the prima materia which ... unquestionably stems from man's unconscious.

I believe the relevance of these quotes to Gintama is clear at this point. Because as I said, everything in Gintama is reducible to two opposing forces, which is then reducible to one. The ouroboros fundamentally embodies the paradox of Two, Yet One. And through the style and language of alchemy, it turns this paradox into the preeminent human endeavour, the Great Work of human existence. tshirt’s identification of Gintoki as “a reluctant hole” (very queer I agree) positions him perfectly here as the poor, tragic hero who, despite everything, Is Doing It–who is both recipient and victim of his own wisdom about the undertaking he must choose to embark on. It is a task that will last forever, even after he’s already succeeded. (In Gintama, therefore, to be a reluctant hole can denote both a noun and a verb.) And yet, there can be traced a definite “before” and “after.” In its literal shapes and features, the ouroboros forms an imperfect circle–it is a cyclical figure that necessarily depicts a break in the cycle, where mouth meets tail, where there must be an opening. A gap that must despite the snake’s best efforts exist, because a mouth is not a tail at the end of the day. Something that may seem like an insignificant smudge in the great flow of time, but that was nonetheless enough to shatter Utsuro’s “eternity.”

Though in some depictions, including the most iconic one, you can see the gap full well. Look. Does it seem like it’s smiling to you?

(We know Shouyou smiled right before he died–do you think that severed head of his still held a smile?)

There are a lot of other things I could say about hole. Like a hole being a sort of lack, something to be filled–a void, perhaps, one that gets artificially filled with all kinds of detritus as part of the process of person-making in Gintama. Or I could say something about the displacement or potential conflation of one kind of hole with another when your protagonist is male, cis, virile (alleged), and obviously straight in a way that makes anal sex jokes funny, and PIV jokes only too racy for Jump. Alas, this isn’t an essay on Gintama hole theory, so while there’s still much to be said about head and hole, I think it’s time we move on to one of the most important elements of the ouroboros thesis:

The dragon.

Now, the terms ryuumyaku and ryuuketsu were not invented by Gintama. As mentioned in my annotation part one (I now understand why Final Fantasy XV gave out crucial information about its story in disparate chunks spread across multiple mediums instead of behaving normally), the concept of “dragon veins” is part of real life Japanese traditions, and is tied to feng shui. The idea of concentrated life energy, or natural power, flowing through the earth along certain paths, like ley lines, is a rather common one across the world, and thus a basic building block of fantasy worlds. In my poem I highlight the geo-somatic aspect of this, how it conflates Utsuro with the planet that birthed him, effectively turning him into a world snake that walks on two feet. The tendrils of his re-knitting flesh resemble strands of hair, or perhaps the whiskers on a dragon, his blood is a river is Altana is precious oil to be extracted and hoarded by intergalactic powers, his heart is a deep, blood-red stone that denies that his blood was ever liquid, and smoke rises from him when he regenerates as though the fire that Shouyou’s body was thrown into was never truly put out.

What’s notable, though, is the person who delivers the line that draws these comparisons most concretely:

Yes, I’m cannibalizing part 2 of my annotation here. Very sad. But I’ve always said I wished Gintama had more cannibalism. So let’s press on.

Umibouzu is uniquely positioned to make this observation here because he’s the only character to have fought… well, to have come into, shall we say, “fighting range,” with both of the series’ immortals. And as uninteresting as he may be as an individual character, it’s through him that we finally gain access to a straight-on view of Kouka–specifically, Kouka on Rakuyou, before she left her planet to die femininely.

I won’t rehash too much of what I’ve already said in my collage and annotation. The Orochi on Kouan is a world snake much like the blurry dragon-vein-Utsuro-Shouyou package on Earth: a serpent with innumerable heads, both singular and plural, this time in a more literal way than Utsuro’s multiple selves or the image of a river flowing into countless streams. It’s wrapped all around planet Kouan like… well, a world snake. Or… a world tree. Because as much as it’s clearly a serpent of the Orochi archetype, it’s described in both animalistic and vegetative language (e.g., it has “roots” that spread into the planet’s core, where they soak up the Altana… but the planet is its “nest”). Kouan’s dragon is thus a mutated beast that defies easy categorization, part mythical symbol, part serpent, part plant. Kouan, after all, is no longer capable of supporting normal life, its atmosphere and soil too toxic for anything but mutants. The Orochi, then, is an animated, aberrant substitution for the Lifestream, one whose roots have replaced the planet’s veins, one that can express aggressiveness and loneliness, and whose fleshy corporeality allows Umibouzu to…

…make a bad dick joke. Naturally.

Kouka and the Orochi aren’t conflated the way that Utsuro and the dragon veins are. The Orochi is not her body: being its own creature, it appears much more separate from her than the formless glowing green Sephiroth energy does from Utsuro. But interestingly, they are mistaken for each other through the title of “Master of Kouan,” which the Orochi acts as a decoy for before the story “reveals” that it refers to Kouka. And Sorachi makes clear: the Orochi is lonely. The planet is lonely. Kouka is lonely. The Yato are lonely.

Rabbits can die of loneliness, you know, etc. etc. And as Kagura delivers to us early on in the series, the only way out of this endlessly repeating, and yet endlessly diminishing (sort of like reverse infinite tumblr chocolate) cycle, is to change.

Umibouzu’s dick jokes return us to the self-explanatory phallic-ness of the snake. I don’t think I need to explain the overlap between snakes and dragons, especially in an Asian context. So if Umibouzu is the phallus–the new arrival that introduces change to planet Kouan–then does that make Kouka the hole? Well, yes, but no. Because Kouka is the one associated with the Orochi. Kouka is the immortal, living her life frozen in time until she decides to leave the dragon behind. And in the end, when Umibouzu convinces her to leave with him, he tells her: “You and I are the same. No matter how busy a planet I’m on, no matter how surrounded by people I am. Without you, I’m lonely.” A hole, as we said earlier, is a type of lack. And neither Kouka nor Umibouzu at this point have dirt that can fill that lack–the dirt that, as tshirt put it, “marks the permanence of one’s relationships.” Because only dirt can stick enough, can stain enough to leave an imprint.

Now, in another world where Sorachi isn’t a coward and a boring misogynist, here is where I would be digging into juicy insights into Shouyou|Utsuro’s milfhood, the genderisms of being an Altana immortal, the obvious implications of Umibouzu having been a failed parent unable to deal with Kamui’s situation due to living in the same (shall we say, hole-sided) world as Kamui, which loops back around to Kamui inheriting eldest daughter female hysteria his body isn’t capable of processing a la Oboro, and Kouka’s relationship to the phallus-as-transmissive-samurai-spirit–but given that we sadly don’t live in that better world, there isn’t much I can add to this enumeration that wouldn’t be self-evident.

As an aside, it does have to be said: the nature of the snake swallowing its own tail as a simultaneously self-fellating symbol and an established motif of macrocosmic heterosexual (re)creation of the universe perfectly encapsulates Gintama’s relationship to sexual jokes and the linkages it creates using vulgar wordplay. And it’s also the sort of thing my friend tshirt would love to quote Freud on. Another way of looking at it is that the microcosm of the universe in Gintama is a queer human, who is probably a pervert. Which seems glaringly obvious when you think about it outside of the context of this essay for two seconds.

Anyway, as Jung said, the ouroboros is not just self-sustaining, but self-fertilizing. Or perhaps self-sustaining is a potentially misleading term, because by nature it cannot remain static. It can only slay itself, and give birth to itself once more. Utsuro was never the same person twice. But what does it mean to be self-fertilizing? It means, above anything else, that in the end people give hope to themselves. That Shouyou put in the work, and that what Shouyou gave birth to was, in essence, the same as himself.

An endlessly replicating chain of Shounen Determination.

Of course, this goes both ways as well.

Shouka Sonjuku, then, is the embodiment of Shouyou’s self-fertilization–a motif taken up by Gintoki, our illustrious shounen protagonist enacting the genre-typical inspire and change everyone you touch. At the same time–or, you could say, anachronistically–Gintoki is enacting his own self-fertilization, fertilizing his own soul–or tama, or egg–with pieces of everybody that touches him. Because, though the hole is a lack, it is simultaneously where the crux of this self-transformation takes place. As tshirt puts it so succinctly, “the anus—the dirty human things—is the home for the phallus—the ideals we hold, the source of our power.” The scabbard for the sword of one’s soul, so to speak, but that metal for that sword is made up of fragments from many sources–as the Rakuyou arc anime illustrated for us so memorably.

In the Shinsengumi Crisis arc, Kondou (whose status as butt monkey for the crassest of Gintama’s jokes positions him in a unique way for these things) says something similar: nobody is being dyed in another’s colour. It’s hard to even say what colour other people’s souls really are, if everyone’s soul is made up of broken off bits and shards and dead things (positive) from all over the place, like beach sand. What Itto has mistaken as a form of influence over others, as the level of dominance of one’s soul, is really just:

“Because it’s something annoying that you can’t get rid of, in the end it becomes troublesome when you start to care about it.” Or something like that. The translation here is probably at least a little suspect, but you get the gist of it. tshirt’s analysis of gorillahood is potentially interesting and relevant here as well, but I’m afraid I have to move on for the sake of keeping things on track.

It’s worth noting that even as, from Gintoki’s perspective, Shouyou smiled at him right before he died, from Shouyou’s perspective (and of course, from Takasugi’s)–Gintoki smiled back.

Incidentally, the chapter two chapters before this one was named “The Two Utsuros.” Later on in this scene, Sakamoto refers to “the two Yoshida Shouyous.” And on this page, we see two Gintokis. Isn’t Gintama fun?

What of Kouka, then? I think her situation is clear. She created literal children of the flesh rather than of the spirit–and there is unfortunately little else to say, because even this is quite obviously a cliche of the dead anime mom. The context of Gintama’s story is enough for us to assume an implication of her having transmitted something to her children, of them carrying on her legacy in some way… but her character is too woefully undeveloped for me to say anything particularly interesting about that. What little I can say is essentially what I depicted in my annotations. When Umibouzu wants to whisk her away from Kouan, Kouka asks him–why did you remind me of these emotions? At the end of Silver Soul, it becomes clear that Utsuro’s professed “void” is not so empty after all–just like Kouka, he had simply been denying that he felt anything that ran contrary to his driving force, i.e. the power of his great resignation (“eat shit and die” terminology intended). For a long time, Kouka was resigned to staying on her planet–on her dragon–as its heads multiplied. In the end, she chooses to leave the planet behind, willingly sundering her eternity, and the planet watches her go. She dies because she became alive–just like Shouyou. It’s also worth noting that, when Kouka initially tries to disappear from Umibouzu, it’s the Orochi that points Umibouzu to her location, blending them into a sort of phallic comrade-in-arms, even as the Orochi is, as I said earlier, attached to Kouka’s existence. So in this ouroboros reading, Umibouzu simply becomes a device for her self-fertilization. Yayyyyy.

Here we can see the relevance of wordplay and dick jokes to any sillyserious analysis of Gintama. The motif of self-fertilization, in particular, is a rich arena for the conflation of sex and shit that tshirt notes is enabled by Gintama’s beloved [BLEEP]: “connected by dirty things can implicitly stand in for shit, sex, or the penis itself.” In the ouroboros framework, both sex and shit ultimately denote that which gives birth to others and that which gives birth to yourself. Your legacy is made of the same stuff as you, is you, and you are finally brought into being by your legacy, in a process that transcends linear time. The ouroboros is literally connected to itself by its own tail–or head, depending on how you look at it. It’s all one snake, after all. I suppose you could say this is one reading in which Takasugi’s ambiguously alive-yet-dead state at the end of the series makes sense–he was always a shadow that could be folded inside Gintoki’s body. But I don’t like it, so it’s actually very bad.

In any case, the procreation of the universe, yourself, and other people happens interdependently and simultaneously, yet something has to happen first. It’s a chicken-or-egg scenario, an endless cycle that needs an initiating key moment–or, to be Utena-esque for a moment, a shell-cracking moment–for life to exist. If Utsuro’s eternity was an egg, then the moment of Shouyou’s birth as a human, itself undefinable in time, was what cracked it (Utsuro egg cracking moment). Of course, I think all Gintama fans innately understand that the moment of Shouyou’s beheading is the single most pivotal moment in the series. But after speaking of head and hole for so long, I think it’s finally time to address the obvious:

Gintama is about severed heads. A lot of them. (Shoutout to oomf’s severed head collection.)

The importance of beheading as a motif throughout the series interacts in a very interesting way with the ouroboros thesis. Some heads in Gintama need to be cut off. Others resolutely need to stay on. But even for the ones that need to be severed, it needs to be done right–or watch out. Or, as I once said:

“gintama is like. sometimes people die when they are killed. but this is not guaranteed. and sometimes people survive because they are killed. among the cast are people who need to die and people who need to survive. choose wisely” (me, 2022)

Within the stylized aesthetic framework of the ouroboros, this is where the metaphor of the hydra becomes useful. Cut off one head, and two more will sprout in its place. If you don’t swing the executioner’s blade right, the monster will remain a monster–or grow even more monstrous. Even worse, you will have failed to possess a human’s heart while swinging that blade–so what does that make you? Failing at being human in relation to the sword, then, puts you in danger of falling into the neurotic failure state described by Freud described by Hocquenghem described by tshirt.

Gintoki didn’t fail, though. He just wasn’t able to succeed yet, without the rest of his story having unfolded yet. And so, within that paradoxical instant, the very heart of the ouroboros, Shouyou was saved and Utsuro was born. There is a persistent, and I would argue intentional, analytical ambiguity to this moment unless you allow for the paradox within it, represented by the moment of duplication where Sorachi likens Gintoki to Utsuro and presents both as the “one” wielding the sword. If Gintoki killed Shouyou with a human’s blade, then why was Utsuro born? If Utsuro killed Shouyou with a monster’s sword, then how did Shouyou’s humanity crystallize? If Gintoki became human throughout the course of Gintama, then how did he possess a human’s sword ten years ago? If he didn’t have a human’s sword and do the right thing back then–how could he have been the bottomless mirror standing unbreakable and infinitely reflective in front of Takasugi, Hijikata, Kamui, Nobume, and so many others?

Diegetically, of course, the answer is that Gintoki simply did the best he could, lost everything, and then picked himself back up and un-lost everything. Shouyou, too, just lost to Utsuro, because he was a human, and humans lose all the time, no matter how wise and gnc they might be. But he came back; or he survived; or the world survived without him–it doesn’t matter. Of course, I don’t believe Gintama is a series where you can really separate the “diegetic” from anything else (if you tried to explain anything that happened in it that way, the result would be not only very dull but hardly accurate). In a blend of shounen inspirational metaphor and absurdity, the series’ main themes are simply delivered through the mouths of various characters, without care for either subtlety or compromise. This is, after all, the series where our protagonist was given strength to keep going through a little girl telling him, don’t worry, mister, when I grow up I’ll become a splendid executioner and cut your head off for you! You could say that Gintama is full of a sort of “head anxiety” that only Gintoki is aware of. Oh man, I cut my teacher’s head off. Oh man, what if I did it wrong, that was so scary. What about my head, is my head weird? I bet it’s weird. Is it coming off? Is it stuck on too tight? Is this normal? Is my head too small for my body? Man, I can’t show people this. When is it coming off? Asaemon’s words also link the promise of death with the promise of life, or redemption–he must live so that he might die, and it’s only through death that he can truly live. Very ouroboros-esque.

One thing I’d like to point out here is that Gintoki was imprisoned after Shouyou’s death. He hears Yaemon’s crucial, This Is A Surprise Tool That Will Help Us Later speech about beheading only after he’s already gone and beheaded someone. This is both straightforward foreshadowing and also unintentionally funny. But what I’m going to argue here is this: the fact that the Reaper Arc comes before Shogun Assassination for us makes it true enough for Gintoki as well. Because the moment Gintoki sliced Shouyou’s head off was the moment Shouyou’s humanity was affirmed, and thus the moment Utsuro’s “eternity” could be confirmed to have shattered. At the same time, it’s the moment of Utsuro’s birth into the world. In other words, it’s where the ouroboros ends and where it begins–a moment isolated in time and space, located, if anywhere, in the time of monsters. And this is mimicked by the Gintama narrative itself, as Shogun Assassination marks the end of the structure the entire series existed in prior. A two-year timeskip would never have been possible previously, as the series’ time circled on in endless loops, one anniversary after another, one Christmas season after another, without the characters ever aging, even as they grew wiser. The moment of Gintoki’s tragedy, finally fished out from within Takasugi’s eye, shattered Gintama’s “eternity,” too.

I’ve already gone and used the hydra, so I’m going to be exceptionally silly here and invoke another piece of ancient Greek mythology, as a homage to hole and to Gintama’s dedication to bad puns: Uranus. According to Hesiod’s account of Aphrodite’s birth, when Uranus’ balls were cut off by his son, the goddess emerged from the white foam that flowed into the sea. You might be asking, am I really going to compare ball removal to decapitation? (This is a rhetorical question. No true Gintama fan would question this.) As I hinted at earlier, Gintama itself already provides the grounds for this kind of comparison through its ideological commitment to balls. It is, after all, Gintama. Phallic or yonic is largely irrelevant here, as this isn’t really about castration (sorry tshirt). Instead I want to emphasize the “head” in this case being the symbolic object imbued with transmissive and procreative power. This interpretation is, in the spirit of Gintama itself, built on playful punning between tama (ball) and atama (head). In the series, Shouyou and Gintoki are the characters who embody the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm most substantially–with Utsuro’s geo-somatic embodiment of Earth juxtaposed with his dominion over the forces of space, while of course also being the premier “dragon” of the series; and Gintoki enfolding the entire story within himself, both the silly and the sad. And so when Gintoki cut off Shouyou’s head, it was the birth of a universe, the “seed” spilling out from that severed neck and setting in motion the story we know and love.

(Incidentally, the magic sci-fi spark that gives Tama, who ended her introductory arc as a severed head in Otose’s snackhouse, the ability to be human is called “the Seed.” Did you know that Fuyou means lotus?)

(I just thought that was interesting.)

Incidentally, while Japanese mythology sadly doesn’t feature any testicular cosmology, it does offer a rather interesting tidbit. According to the Kojiki, Izanagi and Izanami were tasked by the other deities to create land together using the heavenly spear Amenonuhoko. This is described thus:

Granting to them a heavenly jewelled spear, they [thus] deigned to charge them. So the two Deities, standing upon the Floating Bridge of Heaven, pushed down the jewelled spear and stirred with it, whereupon, when they had stiffed the brine till it went curdle-curdle, and drew [the spear] up, the brine that dripped down from the end of the spear was piled up and became an island. This is the Island of Onogoro.

…I think this account speaks for itself. The island of Onogoro became the first piece of Japan (and thus the world), formed out of briny white water, reminiscent of the white foam that Aphrodite sprang out of. Izanagi and Izanami then erected a pillar on the island and built a palace around it, then moved in and started making children. There’s more I could say about Izanagi and Izanami in relation to the ouroboros, but I think that would be too much of a digression. In any case, it takes little effort to imagine why multiple peoples long ago might have looked at sea brine and seen in it an intuitive symbol for creation and genesis–especially a people for whom the sea was a literal source of life. But what I’d really like to draw your attention to is the translator’s footnote on the translation of “jewelled spear”:

The characters translated “jewelled spear” are [], whose proper Chinese signification would be quite different. But the first of the two almost certainly stands phonetically for [] or [],—the syllable nu, which is its sound, having apparently been an ancient word for "jewel" or "head," the better-known Japanese term being tama. (Unfortunately, the characters can't be displayed.)

And there you have it. Is a “spear” really that different from a sword when you think about it, especially when it’s a spear carrying that kind of symbolism? Or, as tshirt put it, “the pole and the hole.” And I’d like to remind you that Utsuro’s body is likened to the land of Japan itself through the very-much-Japanese concept of ryuumyaku, not just my own artistic derangements. His blood is the life-bringing sea, his flesh the earth of the archipelago. When he fell back into the mouth of the earth at the end of Silver Soul, he was falling back into his own mouth, the serpent devouring itself once again.

Unfortunately for Utsuro, within the confines of this essay the mouth is akin to the asshole. Hole is hole: this I did solemnly swear to you at the start of this essay, and I intend to uphold my vow. Utsuro, then, falls back into Hole, and the earth spits him back out–hydra head clumsily cut off, having sprouted into two once more. You could compare, perhaps, Shouyou only re-emerging after having been thrown back into the dragon vein and shaken around a bit to Gintoki’s soul’s own instinct to fly towards buttholes when knocked out of its proper container. In the bodyswap arc, Gintoki gets hit by a truck and sadly survives, though his soul is shaken loose and part of it breaks off (no wonder, when it’s made up of so many little bits), and ends up entering the asshole of a dead cat. Gintoki is essentially a dead-eyed catboy, so this is an easy mistake to make. Additionally, in one of the most memorable gags of the final arc, Gintoki gets swallowed by Sadaharu and pooped back out, but missing two-thirds of his body that, again, accidentally came apart from him while he was in there. They need to be recombined in Sadaharu’s guts, which through his connection to Altana as an inugami constitutes a makeshift dragon hole, until Gintoki finally exits hale and whole from his dog’s asshole.

What did he mean by this?

Well, first of all, it seems like you have to be gentle with Gintoki, despite appearances. He’s made up of so many bits and pieces and people that parts of himself will break off without him even noticing. Second, these gags link the idea of plurality to dirt to the anus as the site of the reconstitution of the self. Or, as Jung said, the “integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow.” Gintoki’s shadow can be represented by Takasugi. Or it can be represented by a naked, hyper-muscular Hello Kitty monster made up of his memories of war and his gambling addiction. They’re both missing an eye and have PTSD, so close enough. What’s fun is that in the Sadaharu gag, the punchline, “Gin San,” is about Gintoki’s name–the “Gin-san” identity he must take on once more to be able to face Shinpachi and Kagura. The joke faintly echoes the tonally very different scene on Rakuyou, where Gintoki told Kamui that Kagura and the others filled his emptiness, giving him the new name of “Gin-chan.” Asaemon, of course, also echoes parts of this, as her primary narrative role is to not-so-subtly provide guidance for the reader to understand and resolve Gintoki’s thematic journey, a parallel made more digestible through her distance from Gintoki as a feminine, vulnerable, indecisive character whose past is totally illuminated to us. At the end of her arc, she kills herself, and gives birth to her new self, like any healthy Gintama character.

Indeed, Gintama’s moral is to “fight yourself,” so naturally all the characters who haven’t given up yet are constantly in the process of devouring themselves. But this is a different process than emptying yourself, which is what the antagonists are doing. All Gintama villains are hole-sided, desperately trying to destroy themselves while pretending, as hard as they can, that they don’t know that you can’t destroy a hole–only make it bigger. I emptied myself on purpose, Kamui insists. I did it intentionally and edgily, so it’s different and your criticism is void. He truly is an 18 year-old boy. Kamui and Takasugi were unable to accept themselves as the ultimate fruit of Kouka and Shouyou’s transformations–their magnum opus. It’s interesting that in their very last snapshots, both of them are bodily changed, taking on younger forms invoking a sense of renewal; Takasugi literally being pooped out of a dragon hole as an ugly infant. While I don’t subscribe to Altana immortal Takasugi theory, in a literal sense Shouyou died and Takasugi was reborn–or, to be more precise, Shouyou returned to the macrocosm, to the lands and grasses and waters of the dragon’s earthly body, and Takasugi re-emerged in his micro (short joke) place. After all, the ouroboros always gives birth to itself, and Takasugi was never expelled. He has always been a part of Shouyou. As Sakamoto said, it’s only natural.

As for Kamui… I originally had a section here discussing his case, centered on his tag-team battle with Kagura against the Eldest, that one-off Silver Soul villain who is first presented to us almost like a strange, low-budget imitation of Utsuro.

However, as much as this guy does end up being a living dick and balls joke, I’ve decided to reserve this material for a future essay where I can delve into the question of blood more fully. So consider this a teaser. This essay has gone on long enough, I think.

So what can we conclude from it? As tshirt observes, Sorachi cannot resist the phallus (or the balls), even beyond the obvious “sword” metaphor. Viewed from the lens of the ouroboros framework, however, Gintama’s insistence on wordplay enables interesting meaning to be derived from these dirty jokes and their interaction with other motifs in the story. After all, the name of the series itself elevates the spirit of the balls joke, even if unintentionally, to the same level as the other metaphor in the title: “silver.” In “eat shit and die,” tshirt notes the important role that conflation plays in both Gintama’s humour and meaning-making, a role we’ve seen repeatedly in this essay with the purposeful blurring of person and dragon and planet, and its deliberate use of paralleled “other selves.”

But perhaps the singularly most important example is the -tama in Gintama, with its plethora of potential meanings, each of them just silly and dirty enough that you have to take it seriously. Beyond the obvious joke on kintama (balls) and the “silver soul” meaning (which the series could not be more explicit about), we’ve seen that tama is also easily conflated with atama (head), and even with tamago (egg). This is clearly demonstrated with the series’ fixation on beheading leading to the salvation of the soul and the bodyswap arc hinging on the pun between soul and egg, which English translators very impressively retained using “egg” and “ego.” The fact that the characters end up turning into giant turds, likening the soul-egg-balls to an asshole, only drives the point in further. In this essay, I took things one step further in mapping these different motifs onto the phallic and yonic/anal (the holeic, if you will). After all, the tension between the phallic and the anal is fundamental to the ouroboros’ symbolism. It is this tension, and this complementarity, that leads to both destruction and creation, death and renewal. One of the reasons I chose the ouroboros as my stylization of choice is that Gintama perfectly encapsulates that central concept of death as rebirth–while throwing in the seemingly contradictory case of the main villain, who is very much Rebirth, But Bad. The ouroboros, then, supplies the symbolic technology to convert the inherent contradictions and sometimes difficult to navigate ambiguities of Gintama’s thematic structure into a more legible, metaphorically potent form.

As I noted in the beginning of this essay, every character in Gintama is ultimately both head and hole, both the beginning and end of the serpent, as the two belong to a single entity. If the head demands the cold bite of the executioner’s sword, the void inside of people also needs to be filled with the essence of others before they can be properly human. You can’t behead yourself–you need someone else to swing the blade. And yet that person is also, in some way, you. The one restoring you to humanity is yourself, the one slaying you is yourself, the one you give birth to is ultimately yourself.

The serpent eating its own tail’s self-fertilization schema is the key tying together the draconic motif of the ouroboros with the tangle of messy metaphors, tautological themes, and fraught relationships that make up Gintama. Naturally, the throughline running through it all is dirt–of the dirty joke variety, but also dirt as that which clings to others, dirt that fills, dirt that stains, dirt that, in short, remains. If the phallic is what inseminates and transmits (as the sword that releases and crystallizes, as the heavenly spear that leads to genesis), in other words tama as “balls,” then the anal is the scabbard for the sword, the vessel that receives and holds on to the seed that is dirt, the cradle where our soul is fertilized–in other words tama as “egg.” Tama as “soul,” then, is simply the combination of these things, the result of this self-fertilization: it is ourselves. When all is said and done, this is reducible to a rather simple message that Gintama has always had: you cannot make yourself alone, but that is hardly a problem or an excuse, because you are never as alone as you think you are.

Let us end on the question of Gintoki’s wooden sword, or as tshirt put it so insightfully, his “prosthetic phallus.” In the end, in Gintama all souls are artificially–yet organically–created through the process of chrysopoeia. tshirt’s argument that Gintoki’s wooden sword is made all the more transgressive for not being a “real” sword highlights the fact that even in the most surface-level reading, Gintoki’s wooden sword is more sword-like exactly because it invokes the idea of one without the technical reality. The “human’s sword” that Gintoki attains at the end of the series is airy and abstract, but more than readily understood by the reader because that is the kind of sword he’s been wielding all along.

As I noted before, even if Gintoki has become human, his task has not ended. The Great Work will continue forever, even after it’s already been accomplished. If the human is the microcosmos and the stuff inside them is, as Jung says, the prima materia, the formless base element of the universe, then it is not only the fruit but also the process itself that creates the world. And though this essay has not been about queer theory, let it be said that the profundity with which Gintama treats the act of self-transformation, along with the nuances and textures of Gintoki as a “reluctant hole,” make him a captivating protagonist on more levels than one. And of that desperate struggle to produce a human being, of the base substance inside of people that is their only natural material, let me quote the 17th century Theatricum Chemicum, on the subject of the prima materia:

They have compared the "prima materia" to everything, to male and female, to the hermaphroditic monster, to heaven and earth, to body and spirit, chaos, microcosm, and the confused mass; it contains in itself all colors and potentially all metals; there is nothing more wonderful in the world, for it begets itself, conceives itself, and gives birth to itself.

Emphasis mine.

Appendix A:

#gintama #gintama spoilers #dear god.#posting this on ginpachi-sensei anime announcement day. we are subject to cosmic forces after all

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sinisterexaggerator · 7 months

Text

Beauty and the Bounty Hunter

Chapter 5: Hungry and Hot to Trot

(Cad Bane x Fem! Reader/OC)

*This is a second person POV (reader) fic / OC fic. It's both. I forgo physical descriptions as much as possible, though yes, you/she has a name, and a personality.

This chapter: Our dear reader wakes up hungry, but Todo doesn't know what to do! Cad Bane has left you stranded on his ship, and with a lack of any food. But it's for your own good; he's gone to find the man that kidnapped you.

Warnings: 18+ for dirty humor, nudity, mention of female anatomy, death, murder, gunfights, dismemberment, reference to fertile cycles and alien biology aka horny old man Bane headcanon, and one sassy droid.

Word count: 7.6k

Notes: I could have kept writing as I have so much ground to cover, and it has been nearly a year since I've updated. SORRY ABOUT THAT. Life got a bit in the way. I hope you enjoy this chapter, however, and I plan to keep this series going until the end, no matter how long it takes.

BATBH: Masterpost

Ao3

THIS IS A CRACK FIC! Or, as I like to call it: Slapstick Smut.

You are Aurora Ordel and you awoke with a start; you were faced with a face you could not see clearly. You screamed pure, unadulterated murder, then you were promptly gassed; you passed back out again.

“Ah, shit-”

Cad Bane palmed his face. He had acted on impulse; he had released a cloud capable of putting you to sleep; there was a hidden valve residing beneath his wrist gauntlet.

That had not been his intention, though he did not mind that you were quiet, however considering the circumstances he found himself wanting to know if he should have kept those sleemo’s breathing – torture, after all, was not outside his wheelhouse, and intel in this case was priceless.

“Mister Bane, maybe I should be in charge of the prisoner-”

“She ain’t a priss’ner!”

“Sorry. Force of habit.”

“Be out a’couple hours now. Exspectin’ Ah be back b’fore dhen,”

“You are leaving?”

The Duros had paused to lean in close; he could still smell those blasted hooligans all over your damn clothes. A rumble was emitted, the sound tantamount to a displeased grumble; Bane proceeded to rub his rostrum across your neck, chest, and the remnants of your dress.

He had taken to marking you, wanting to replace that putrid stench with his own fragrance without so much as an explanation.

Todo watched on idle, blinking his yellow eyes. All of this was beyond interesting, Bane’s behavioral response absorbed by his many microprocessors.

Cad cleared his throat; he pushed up off you, leaving you to lie there. His brow ridge stitched before he addressed the small metal man off to his left.

“Gonna find dhis Green Hair. Somethin’ don’t add up,” the hunter commented.

“Whatever do you mean? They just seemed like a gang of thugs to me,” Todo followed up.

“She’s too high-profile; jerks like dhat don’t go fer Imps widdout plannin’ on a high payout,” Bane enunciated dryly.

“You mean you think he was coerced to kidnap her, or perhaps even hired?”

Todo looked up as his master checked his gas carts; a quick once over of his gear was common. Even in the middle of a mission, Bane would habitually assess his ammunition, or lack thereof; being put in a tough spot was not something he was fond of.

“Yep,” he affirmed, turning to walk out the door.

“Wait! But Bane, what if-”

“Keep an eye on ‘er!” he interrupted. “Don’t let ‘er out of yer sight,” the Duros finalized, “or it’ll be yer metallic hide.”

Todo groaned; it was a sound usually reserved for humans and other beings. Still, it expressed his feelings, as he was not sure what to do should you wake up.

“This job is among the weirdest yet,” he complained.

Then, he did all he could do; he sat down and stayed watch, ever vigilant.

---

Two standard hours had ticked on by; you heard a few mumbled words as you once more opened up your eyes. This time, you were faced with a droid. You gasped as you scrounged for purchase.

You backed up far enough that you met with the closest wall. Unfortunately, there was nowhere left for you to go. You cursed, wondering what else you had gotten yourself into.

“There is no need to be afraid, we have already met,” Todo articulated, “but just in case: I am Todo 360, techno-service droid, and accomplice to Cad Bane.”

If nothing else, you recognized his voice; your glasses were long-gone. Your vision was blurred at best, though it was difficult to see past his gigantic head.

“Where am I?” you asked, your nails digging diligently into surprisingly soft bedsheets.

“You are aboard the Justifier, and this is where you will remain. Mister Bane has ordered that you stay put until he comes bac-”

You squealed; your voice was shrill. “You mean he’s not here?!”

The frazzled droid zipped a pace away, clearing himself of your immature display. You had begun to shake, or vibrate, trembling of all things.

“Where is he?” you asked desperately.

“He is away,” he replied simply.

“But what if they come back!” you whined, disconcerted.

“Rest assured, you are perfectly secure,” said the twitchy service droid. “There is no safer place for you than on Bane’s ship.”

You looked around, though you could barely make out your surroundings. “Are-are you sure?” you asked more quietly.

Todo chirped, irritated. “Yes, I am sure. Now, just sit still and wait patiently. I am positive Bane will be back any— Excuse me! Where are you going?” he demanded of you as you had risen to your feet.

“I feel faint,” you admitted, not seeming to remember that you hadn’t eaten in nearly three whole days; your stomach had begun to gnaw at you, craving food.

“Then why are you standing?” Todo argued, tugging at the edge of your torn and sullied dress.

“You have something, don’t you?” you inquired weakly as you stumbled across the room.

Todo sighed a human-sounding sigh, releasing his slight grip. He had to think about it. “I do not believe you will be interested in what Bane has to eat,” he explained succinctly.

“I don’t care, anything—” you managed, walking out into the hall. You were faced with a row of doors. You were not sure which to try, so you went by one at a time.

“Ah, ah, ah!” Todo scolded you as you entered what looked like a workshop of some kind; it contained within a mixed assortment of odds and ends. You wondered how he had acquired all of this. If you squinted, you could just make out what looked like clone trooper helmets; among those you thought was a Jedi’s lightsaber.

You opened your mouth to speak; Todo was not having it. “This way, please,” he said, chaperoning you like he might a helpless child.

You weaved to another entry of some sort, this one with locked tight doors. Todo was quick to apprehend you; his weensy body became a barrier. He pushed against your thighs with his tiny hands; they were cold, and the droid was adamant. “No, no! Definitely not in here. This is Bane’s private quarters! He would have both our heads.”

You huffed, exasperated. “Just take me to the kitchen!” Even so, you could not deny you wanted to know what was just on the other side…

“We do not have a kitchen-” Todo corrected you, “-we have a galley, and I am trying!”

“Whatever! Food is food!” you rationalized.

“Yes, so I have heard,” Bane’s droid tittered wryly. “Mister Bane also shares those sentiments, as you will find.”

“Well, good!” you answered in a mood. You would not concern yourself with reading between the lines. Hells, you would take a ration bar; anything was fine!

You continued on your bumbling misadventure; Todo directed you toward an abnormally large lift; you wondered what Bane carried in it. Once inside, you thought that you could smell yourself. Luckily for your inorganic tour guide, he could not tell the difference.

“Oh my God—” you began, hoisting up your arm to take a whiff. Todo shifted, gazing up at you, emotionless.

“What is it now?” he queried.

“I smell awful!” you admitted.

“That must be why Mister Bane rubbed himself all over you,” Todo conjectured.

“He what?!”

“Truly fascinating, Duros. Although, you ought to know,” the droid complained with attitude.

You gawked at him, not believing you were being sassed by Cad Bane’s companion. Was he angry? Jealous? Protective of his master?

“I’m sorry?”

“You should be!” he explained. “He has been behaving quite differently with you around.”

The door to the lift flew open; Todo hovered out and onward. You had no choice but to follow him.

“How is that my fault?” you dared to ask.

“Well, it is, and it isn’t, you see,” Todo knew there was more to it than that.

You glanced about, finding yourself to be in the bowels of the ship. This was a part of the Justifier you had not seen previously. Not even on the day Cad Bane had dragged you in, keen on being mean, but it had backfired – you were still here.

This area seemed mostly unused, or like a storage space. Every corner was home to an oversized cargo crate. They were quite possibly chock-full of weapons, supplies. Then, on the other hand, there could be ration bars. Your thoughts drifted as did your feet; you were once more cutoff by Cad Bane’s little confidant.

“This way, this way! Do not go snooping. That is one surefire way to get Mister Bane to despise you,” Todo spoke from experience; he often wondered how young Boba Fett was doing.

“It seems like he already despises me,” you mumbled, hungrily marching forward as you finally approached another set of doors; these were double.

“To the contrary,” Todo proffered, causing your eyes to dart in his direction. He ignored the rise in your attention span, passing through into what you had called a “kitchen.”

It was full of pots and pans, plates, bowls, and numerous utensils. Most seemed unused, set to sparkling as Todo was the one who diligently polished them. There were knives, forks, spoons; there was everything but food.

“It’s so clean,” you marveled.

“You may thank me for that,” Todo retorted.

“But what does he even eat?” you whined, traipsing forward, flinging cabinets open and pulling out all the drawers. There was nothing there! Your mind reeled and your stomach growled. That’s when you finally noticed the conservator.

“Meat mostly,” Todo said offhand. “I assumed you knew everything about Mister Bane,” the feisty droid remarked, “though he also consumes what he likes to call ‘roughage.’”

You could only hope that meant salad; you could do with one right now. Or hells, even a steak would be nice, something big and juicy to suffice you. Though, on the other hand, what Todo had said kept nagging. You spouted off a question just as you pulled the door wide open.

“What did you mean ‘to the contrar-’” There was something wrapped in what looked like foil; you made your move, a bold one, to steal the scraps of Bane’s last meal.

“I would not do that!” Todo blurted out.

You pulled the wrapper back; its contents had a face, and worse yet, eyes. The only thing missing was its fur and guts; it was a chunk of flesh, raw, and oozing blood.

“What the fuck!” you exclaimed as you promptly dropped it.

“I did try to warn you,” Todo highlighted, as if he needed to.

You nearly puked, your diaphragm contracting. “That’s disgusting!” you announced.

“Maybe to you-” Todo rebuked “-but Mister Bane quite likes it.”

“Well, Mister Bane is a weirdo!” you retaliated.

“You are one to talk!” the droid rejoined.

Your hand had risen to cover your own mouth, but for what you were not sure; it wasn’t as if you had anything in your stomach to throw up. In doing so, you smelled your armpits. That in and of itself reactivated your gag reflex.

You pouted, stomping down your bare foot. The floors were duralloy and provided full resistance. However, you stepped on something squishy. You protested as you almost slipped and fell, your body nearly crumpling.

“Grossssss!” you lamented, having come into contact with whatever that dead thing was.

“I need a shower! Shower. Shower. Shower! Right now!” you demanded, beginning to scamper off without so much as knowing where you were headed. You were in such a rush you collided with a wall; you started crying at the injustice of it all.

“Oh my, oh dear,” Todo said as he came forward, prowling around you as he balanced on his thrusters. “Yes, that might do you some good. Mister Bane always feels better after a long stint in the shower. But it is back upstairs, I am afraid.”

“Take me there,” you pleaded, a hand cupping your bruised shoulder. Todo complied with your request; soon you were back on the lift.

For once, you were silent. You were tired and oh, so hungry. Your body needed energy; you moved more slowly. Todo noticed your decreased speed; he puttered around you in small circles – doing as he was ordered – yet not having the ability to meet your every need. He could only hope Bane would come back soon, as he was not sure what to do for this human woman.

You found yourself once more near Bane’s quarters, being directed to a small refresher. You nearly collapsed just inside the entrance, trying your best to undress yourself.

“Oh, uh—” Todo began, tapping metal against metal as his fingers joined together, obviously somewhat perplexed or even agitated, “—I’ll just be over here,” he stated, leaving.

You had paid the droid no mind, tugging the shreds of your clothes off that remained. You discarded your bra, then the dress as well – straight into the trash bin. Your panties were MIA, but you would burn in hell before you ever wore those things again. Besides, they smelled like others and not just you; you had put two and two together at Todo’s mention.

In theory, it was endearing. It brought you back to Todo’s comment of “to the contrary.” You hummed a little to yourself as you turned the shower on, relaxing against the wall as real liquid started streaming over you.

“Thank fuck,” you mumbled; at least he had the good stuff, sonic vibrations never did quite cut it as per your preference; he must have had a tank of water on reserve.

You let your body slide down, down, until you sat right in it. It was the most luxurious, blissful thing to happen to you in the last three days. You closed your eyes as you tried to regain your peace, but then a thought occurred to you; you had no more clothes to change into. What were you supposed to do?

For the moment, you tried not to let it worry you; the water felt too good. You breathed out a laggard sigh as you finally opened up your eyes.

You stood; your hunger was once more overpowering; you let the water stream down your face and hair, wanting to just stay there, yet the rumbling in your stomach was not a thing to be ignored. Truth be told, you still felt nauseous, finally calling out to Todo whom you thought was just outside the room.

“Excuse me, little droid? Are you there?”

It took him hardly any time to answer you. “I am afraid so,” he said sourly.

You quirked a brow; his tone abruptly changed. He now seemed eager, his programming dictating he was happiest when serving others in some capacity. “How may I be of assistance?”

You attention had been diverted; you were examining some kind of cleaning substance. It was meant to help slough off dry, dead scales; you would not use it for fear of what might happen to you. Your only hope was for some soap. That, or whatever you could find in terms of clothes; as long as they were clean and somewhat fit, you did not care one bit.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to walk around naked if you can’t find something for me to wear,” you called out to him, your voice being carried beyond the sound of running water and the boundary of the door.

Something sparked in Todo’s droid brain, causing gears to whorl and whirl; he knew just the thing! Something he thought might be more your size, as his master was tall and gangly. “Just a moment! Wait right here,” he insisted.

You heard him buzz off down the hall, then there was total silence. You allowed yourself a nice long soak, taking your time beneath the warm spray of the water. You drank from it to quench your thirst by leaving your mouth wide open; you were sure you were dehydrated. Then, you allowed it to saturate your tangled strands; it ran through all your nooks and crannies.

This would have to do until you could get back to your roost; the penthouse you called your home, seated in the lap of luxury right here on Coruscant. Or at least you thought…

As a matter of fact, you had no idea where you were or where you’d been; you were now trapped here on Cad Bane’s starship. Wherever it happened to be, that is. You had no way of knowing your coordinates, and the refresher had no viewports; it was just as well so people couldn’t spy on you.

You waited for what you felt was much too long; you turned the water off. You attained a towel, though it seemed used. You gingerly rubbed your nose in it; it smelled like Duros.

“Ummmph,” you vocalized, happy, horny, distraught, and needy all at the same time. His scent was heady. You felt you couldn’t think straight, having a wicked and troubling idea tickle your jumbled brain.

“Todo?” you tried for the droid once more; he did not answer. You opened the refresher and tiptoed out, buck naked, into the narrow corridor.

You were relieved to get no response, slinking like a tooka toward Bane’s living quarters; Todo had made it very clear to not go in here, but you only knew one thing, the thing that drove you: inside this room behind the door were Cad Bane’s extra clothes.

It did not take much effort; you pried a panel loose. Even without your glasses, this was elementary; you could rewire an automated entry with your eyes closed – too easy.

Once inside, the door again shut tight; you did not pay it any mind, as your eyes went wide, mesmerized by a plethora of mishmash things, and even trinkets. Everywhere you looked was something pretty, shiny, or otherwise unique; Cad Bane had expensive tastes for a rough and tumble mercenary.

There were unmarked credits on the bed, gold coins of unknown origin, an extra hat – which you picked up and put right on your head – and loads of other fascinating stuff.

His blankets were pristine and plush, his pillows fluffy and silky smooth. Off to one side was a box full of random treasures, one you recognized as Durosian if you squinted; you wondered if he collected artifacts from his species’ culture as a hobby, or just because it was worth something.

You blindly plundered through his drawers; there were stolen bounty fobs and palm-sized holoprojectors with secret messages. There was a datapad or two, and a box of toothpicks. You were tempted to snoop more thoroughly, but after what Todo said… You did not want Cad Bane to have your head; you wanted him in bed.

Finally, you found what you came here for - something belonging to the man that you could wear. You had located what appeared to be a dress shirt with long sleeves; it was white with buttons down the front and hit just above your knees. You at once adorned it, inspecting yourself in a full-length mirror; you wondered if Bane often stood right here when admiring himself; you could not blame him.

You sniffed your prize and nearly melted on the spot. Satisfied, you turned around to exit. The moment your hand touched durasteel a loud noise sent you reeling. You covered up your ears as you had triggered an alarm, a screen descending from the ceiling as a recording of Bane himself played automatically before your bleary eyes.

“Stupid is as stupid does,” the Duros drawled; your breath was heavy as the sirens refused to stop their bleating. You tugged at another access hatch; you began to dislocate and mismatch wires, whining audibly.

“Bane, I’m sorry!”

The recording snickered as if he had heard you through the viewscreen, leaning forward to threaten you with the little piece of wood that perpetually lived between his teeth. “And yer about as stupid as dhey come.”

You found your mouth agape as two more things emerged: loaded blaster rifles, snuggly sequestered on either side of the Duros’ depraved yet smiling face. “Say yer prayers,” he directed.

“Oh, please, oh no. No, no!” you pleaded, bending low to shield yourself. You threw your arms above your head and squatted down till you touched the ground, pulling up a chair to act as a makeshift impediment. Blaster shots rang out, rebounding about the room and all of your surroundings. You screamed as if you were being murdered, because you were, then everything went silent.

You gasped, feeling yourself up; you were all still in one piece, unbelievably. Standing before the now open door was that pesky, life-saving service-droid; within his hands was some kind of drab colored garment.

“What have you done?!” he wailed. “Mister Bane is going to be absolutely furious!” he proclaimed, golden eyes wide in horror and disbelief.

Todo dropped what he was holding, coming around to push against your back. He shoved with all his might, despite you still being on the floor bent down. You tried to come to terms with what just happened, and all due to a shirt; your eyes watered as you let the little robot escort you out.

“And give me that!” he griped, reclaiming the hat upon your head that now suffered a distinctive scorch mark. “Do you have any idea what this cost?!”

“A-a lot?” you asked with a quaver to your voice.

“Yes!” he retorted.

The droid stopped to pick up what had fallen, scooping it up within his arms. He stayed his fury to look at you, tilting his large cranium. “And what is that you are wearing?”

“A shirt I found,” you whispered.

“No, no, you must take that off this instant. I brought you this,” he explained, holding out something worn, brown, and understated. Despite being still terrified and near to tears, you took it to appease him.

“What is it?” you asked sheepishly.

“It is a robe, a Jedi robe, and part of Bane’s collection; he has worn it in the past when needed, and it is a wonderful disguise!”

You gave a little start, looking the thing over. “How did he get it?”

“Surely you know Bane is a Jedi-killer,” Todo quipped, leering at you. “And a most successful one at that. It is his – was – his specialty. They are all dead now, you see.”

“O-oh,” you conceded, then made a face that displayed your distress. “I’m not wearing this!” you contested suddenly.

“And why not?” he fought back, metal hands akimbo on his hips.

“What if I’m mistaken for a Jedi?” you whimpered. “What if someone else tries to kill me?” You dropped the robe, not caring that your – Bane’s shirt - was open. Todo got an eyeful as you retrieved the one thing you could use, a belt that was rather rope-like; you inspected it as Todo gawked, though he didn’t have a mouth.

He made a throaty sound, having seen the outline of your form, the curves and dips, the shape of your bare hips. “Yes, you will do quite nicely,” he commented offhand.

“Excuse me?” you snapped, beginning to button up. You fastened each closure one by one, traveling all the way up to the very top; the belt came next. You soon had fashioned the bounty hunter’s shirt into a dress.

“Well, it seems you are rather good at that! Nearly getting killed, that is, why if it weren’t for Mister Bane—”

“—No, finish that other thought,” you demanded.

Todo sighed for the second or third time, thinking he should have kept his nonexistence lips shut, but it was too late now; he settled down, then began a rather short but interesting tale.

“Duros have a finite reproductive window, and Mister Bane is getting older by the day,” he explained. You cocked a brow but kept on listening. You tried to give him your full attention, but your stomach growled; you needed food right now.

“Walk and talk,” you said.

Todo followed you as you made your way back toward the lift, this time setting course for the location of the boarding ramp; it was at the Justifier’s rear, but you were all ears.

The only thing you didn’t have was your glasses or a pair of shoes; you would make do and go barefoot; you were too hungry to give a damn.

“Well, Mister Bane has been rather grumpy as of late – grumpier than usual – and especially since coming into contact with you,” he remarked.

“I see,” you interjected, yet quite fond of this engrossing notion.

“Therefore, I have come to the conclusion it is best that he mates with you. Once he gets it out of his system, I believe that—”

You burst out laughing; that had already been your plan. “Don’t worry your big head,” you grinned. “Now, wait here.”

Todo looked around, realizing you had dropped the ramp. He had lost track of your destination, instantaneously switching gears as was his very nature, if you could call it that; he was just a culmination of ones and zeros, but it still felt like he had feelings.

“Where do you think you are going? Bane instructed us to both wait here.”

“To the market,” you answered back, having come to the conclusion you were parked somewhere near CoCo Town at a rundown spaceport.

“Come back! You should not disregard what Mister—”

“What’s he going to do, shoot me?” you jested, feeling a teensy bit more like your old self.

“Yes!” he responded, trailing close behind. “Wait! Oh, you—we’re going to be in so much trouble when he gets back!” the droid complained as he endeavored to keep you company.

“Just come with me,” you offered.

Todo bellyached, indignant. “What do you think it is I am doing? He did tell me to keep an eye on you.”

Then, he glared at you. It was rather cute. “I will make sure to tell him I tried to stop you.”

“Mhm, yes, of course,” you simpered, nonplussed, though finding his last confession had warmed your heart; he did care somewhat after all.

---

Cad Bane had assured that you were safe, but at the cost of backtracking, one of his least favorite things. He once more made his way through the Crimson Corridor, headed for the Tusken Oasis as per the Gotal he had killed. He had parked his ship far from this squalid high-crime district, thinking if you stayed aboard the Justifier nothing could go awry - that’s where he was wrong - he had underestimated the power of your stupidity, for however smart you were.

He passed the Green Glowstone Tavern; Bane knew the Bothan bartender who owned the place, yet he would not stop to chat; he had business to attend to, business regarding you.

Still, he tipped his hat; the Bothan waved right back. It was a silent interchange between two men, both busy.

The hunter continued trudging forward; crowds parted for him. Those who scurried he kept an eye on as he traversed the infamous Barsoom Boulevard.

Prostitutes tried flirting with him; a few scoundrels attempted to sell their wares. It was the ones who watched that warranted his attention; they were not clever; the Duros had dealt with all types and kinds of people, and street thugs were no different. He had an inkling that sneaking would be impossible, as these degenerates would most likely run and tell their boss; there was no use hiding –- Cad Bane was on the prowl.

This area of town was the Raptor Gang’s main hideout; he had heard from word of mouth, steadily stalking onward, eyes forward, as he could sense something sinister afoot -- an ambush.

Bane stalled, stopping dead, slowly but surely turning his hat and head. There was an eerie silence the hunter did not trust, fingers loitering above the holster of one LL-30 BlasTech pistol.

“May as well come out, cahn smell ye’ from a klick,” the gunslinger taunted.

Three bodies emerged from behind trash and refuse, big and burly, weapons drawn and at the ready, as if they thought they had anything on him. Bane grinned a sadistic grin. “Let’s make dhis quick.”

Plasma flew as shots were discharged; Cad Bane dodged it all, rolling to take up residence behind the nearest wall. He returned his own deluge of blaster fire; his aim was true. Ignorance had been their downfall; the Duros would persist in his pursuit.

“Better luck next life,” he jeered to the corpses at his feet; he stepped over them, disrespectfully. But there was one person that he did not want to disrespect if he could help it: Yanth the Hutt, owner of the prestigious nightclub for which his course was set. Though there would be no stopping him, even if that meant killing all of Green Hair’s men. Bane would try not to demolish the whole bar, but if he did? So be it.

The Crimson Corridor was empty now due to the pathetic gunmen he had encountered, its residents scared away back into their homes or other dens, places of debauchery and sin. Places Cad Bane rarely frequented except for occasions such as this; he preferred the quiet confines of his ship.

He could hear the music from a hundred yards; a Bith quartet had taken center stage. Lately, they seemed to be all the rage, but Cad Bane could care less; he approached the entrance.

A bouncer tried to guard the way, but the Duros was infamous and greatly feared; it did not take him much convincing. All the hunter did was glare until he took the hint and scrammed, the green Gamorrean deciding he desired to live and fight another day thanks to such little pay.

Bane regarded him as he up and left; he tipped his hat again. He strolled on through, being met with colored lights and statuettes of varying hues and species, some mythological in the form of beasts; the Hutt spared no expense for his well-kept business. It was quite impressive if Bane could be impressed; the only thing that had that affect on him were credits, and you had a lot of them.

There were dejarik boards and tables for sabacc, gambling men and dancing girls. There were women dressed to the nines alongside scum and villainy; all manner of people came here, including those that Cad Bane now searched out.

Twi’leks, Rodians, and Zeltrons batted their lashes at him, trying to distract him if he didn’t know better. He slipped on by, giving a flirtatious squeeze to varying rumps and waists; while he was tempted, everything had a time and place. He left a gaggle of smitten ladies in his wake.

Then, the heat was on. Green Hair sat amongst a slew of bodyguards. There was no doubt that it was him; he was a human male, lean with a wiry build. But he also sported the most ludicrous hairstyle Bane had ever seen; his green hair was kept upright by an electrostatic field.

The Duros suppressed a laugh, coming off as composed and stoic though inside he was dying. It looked like he had stuck his finger in a socket, the man assuming he was the epitome of style; word around these parts was he was nicknamed “Fashion Plate.”

“Kids dhese days,” Bane mulled internally.

As he descended upon their table - each step slow and full of purpose - Green Hair’s men decided to act like the brutes they were, boxing the Duros inside their little circle. It there was one thing Bane did not like, it was being cornered; his hand returned to rest upon one blaster’s holster. One H'nemthe in particular got right in his face; Bane kept his cool, but cockily insulted him.

“Ah’d say ye’ must be plumb weak north of yer ears-” he heckled, “-but it don’t look like ye’ got any.”

Cad Bane sneered; he had to be one of the most hideous sleemo’s he had ever seen. A reptilian-humanoid as was his ilk, but still— at least he didn’t have three fingers or ridges on his face. He figured he had never mated; their women were said to kill them once they did –- this one was a virgin.

“Couldn’ get laid so ye’ took up clownin’, did ye’?” Bane insinuated.

That was all it took; the H'nemthe drew his pistol. Cad Bane laid him out; one shot and he would precede his brethren in death, but only by mere minutes, seconds - others were ready to avenge his name - but their green-haired leader finally said his piece.

“Let’s not be hasty, shall we?”

“Tell dhat to yer men, dipshit.”

The punk in charge smiled cordially, pretending to welcome Bane with open arms. Reluctantly, his hired guns made room for him to pass, wary, and with scowls upon their ugly mugs.

“The notorious Cad Bane,” Green Hair began. “And to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Cut de kark,” the Duros seethed. “Who hired ye’.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

The man motioned with one arm as an introduction. “We are the Raptor Gang. This is our turf,” he said more firmly. “We work for no one but ourselves.”

“Dhen yer de one who ordered Ordel captured,” Bane growled with a curl of his upper lip.

“Oh, her,” the bottom-feeder said dismissively. “She’s just some Imp who works for the Empire. Why do you care?”

The hunter grit his fangs, remembering the state in which he found you. While it could be said Bane had done much worse, it still was not a good enough excuse.

“Dhat’s my business—” he glowered, “—but Ah’m about t’make it yers.”

Green Hair side-eyed one of the henchmen to his right; the tension was so thick it could be cut clean through with a vibroknife. The very air was pregnant with unease and animosity, the Duros’ fathomless red eyes studying his adversary. His intent was mal, Bane past the point of being patient. The human could sense his unwavering hostility, mentally preparing for if and when he would have to flee the scene.

The man who had received his subtle signal placed himself between Bane and Green Hair, as was his duty. Bane snidely smiled, taking this opportunity to bruise him; hiding behind a lackey was cowardly. “Didn’ realize Green Hair was so yello’-bellied,” the hunter mocked him.

Green Hair ignored his comment, not allowing it to get the best of him. “We were holding her for ransom,” he explained. “But no one came to collect—except for you,” he clarified.

Then, to add insult to injury, the scuzzball kept on talking; he must have thought he was safe and sound behind the blanket of some odd ten men at his disposal.

“The way I see it, you owe me for damages, bounty hunter. You got the girl, but not without destroying one of my properties and killing several of my crew-” Smugly, he took a drink to wet his tongue before he continued. “-a million credits, and I’ll let you walk away. I just know you’re good for it,” he speculated.

Bane laughed; it was dry and lustless. He had a word of his own to say, hand ever at the ready to pull his weapon should the need arise.

Green Hair had frowned at his response, or the lack of one, knowing that his horde was all eyes and ears and judging him for this; to misstep or slip-up during an interaction could be grounds for reevaluation of his leadership.

“Draw,” Bane said with strong contempt.

Green Hair sat up straight; if his mop didn’t already stand on end, it most assuredly would have. He knew who held his audience and the reputation of this dodgy Duros; it did not ease his fears as Cad Bane stood transfixed, and very serious.

“It’s only fair; I was told she was valuable,” he quickly stated, trying to keep the panic from wholly overtaking him.

Cad Bane’s austere red eyes narrowed. “Told by whom,” he barked the question.

The man dared to shrug, “heard it through the grape vine,” he said simply, so far remaining calm and collected with all his wits about him, but not for long.

“Draw,” the gunslinger echoed.

Green Hair stood up on his dais, one level above the plane on which Cad Bane watched, attentive. He had the nerve to brandish his pointer-finger, extending it to put the blame to Bane.

“Now, wait a minute! You don’t give orders around here, I’m the one who—” That finger was blown clean-off, the Raptor’s leader staring on in shock. The wound was already cauterized; the intense heat of the plasma shot had staunched the flow of blood.

“Don’ got de patience fer no lily-livered, nuna-hearted, blackguard, disssrespectful sssleazebag,” Bane rasped harshly.

“Get him!!!” Green Hair screeched shrilly, holding his wounded hand with the one that still had all its digits. Bane was closed back in; multiple blaster bolts flew in his direction. The Duros soared sky-high per the activation of his rocket boots; this in turn caused several to drop down dead; they had gone and done his job for him.

“Too slow,” he hissed.

His taunting caused more blasters to start blazing, Bane zipping and zigzagging as he easily avoided their pathetic excuse for aim. He withdrew his second pistol; this was the end game. Not for him, but for the whole of Green Hair’s men.

Multiple rounds were fired; they were continuous. Bane’s LL-30 BlasTech pistols had been modified to suit his needs; they would never overheat. One man went down, and then another; they were dropping like Bahl flies, straight down onto the ornate carpet.

People screamed; innocents, supposedly, though this place was a rumpus room full of crooks and thieves. They dashed about like nunas with their heads cut off, knocking one another over as they scrambled to get out. Still, they had no need to worry; Bane never missed his target, and currently his sights were set on one particular maggot trying to escape his wrath.

Green Hair ran opposite, toward the back of the establishment. Bane assumed there was a hidden exit, or a tunnel he was privy to. With all his enforcers dead, the gutless sack of bantha dung had high-tailed it -- too bad for him he wasn’t faster than Cad Bane’s lariat.

With the actuation of his wrist gauntlet, he let his whipcord launch. It wound around the slimy bastard's ankles, causing him to trip over his own two feet. Bane landed gracefully; he reeled him in, the nails of Green Hair’s remaining fingers digging into the fancy rug.

It was no use; Cad Bane tugged and hauled him back. His quarry hemmed and hawed as he tried to switch his story.

“I don’t know anything!” Green Hair proclaimed to ears now deaf, hidden beneath Bane’s insulated cap and his overly large hat.

“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” Bane snorted as he used his other arm to shoot a stream of grisly flames; they ignited the perps pants, setting them ablaze.

Green Hair screamed and yelled, twisting and turning, although he was still lassoed. He managed to bat the flames out, panting, swearing, and now met face to face with Bane as he dragged him to square up.

“Who sent ye’ afta’ Ordel,” Bane asked again.

“I don’t know, I don’t—”

Bane prepared for the smell of burning flesh. “Liar, liar, face on—”

“WAIT!” the asshole bellowed, deciding to change his tune to one more favorable. He breathed in and out, trying to settle himself down as two red eyes, bright as starlight, radiated hatred; this bastard’s luck had just run out-- Cad Bane was not merciful.

“Some guy, old guy. Talked with a funny accent.”

“Ah wanna name,” Bane sizzed angrily.

“Don’t have one— he said she was an engineer! Told us to watch the news. Said she’s valuable to the Empire and they would pay hefty credits to get her back! She’s a brainiac!” he explained hurriedly.

“Yer right stupid, ain’cha. Ye’ think de Empire ain’t gonna just storm yer lil’ hideout if dhey want ‘er?”

Bane glared deep into his eyes; he would both see and sense his fear. People who were scared often withheld information without the proper motivation, but the bounty hunter found he could be quite persuasive.

“Ye’ suppose dhey take kindly to extortion?”

The Duros retrieved one holstered pistol, planting it against the side of Green Hair’s spiky head. He bared his fangs; he had no qualms with offing him.

“And she’s ah brainiac yer men used an’ abused,” he hissed. “Dhere ain’t no lady who deserves dhat, not even an Imp,’ he spat.

“Now—” Bane’s words took on a darker tone, “—give me’a name, or Ah’ll assume yer de one t’answer fer all. dhose. sins,” he finished.

Green Hair truly didn’t have one, just a pseudo he had given him, and what he could remember of his unremarkable appearance.

“I dunno, man! He reached out to me; his frequency was encrypted. I shoulda known this shit was a trap!”

Bane shook and rattled him, a threat to do him in. “Now he’s gettin’ it.”

“Said I could call him-- call him Willy,” Green Hair imparted. “Maybe, he—”

“Maybe he jus’ couldn’ do it ‘imself and knew ye’ were an idiot,” Bane filled in the blanks, throwing the so-called leader of the Raptor’s back down upon the ground. If you took the time to put two and two together, it all made sense; it was an inside job, the suggestion made by one of your trusted colleagues.

“Please, don’t kill me,” the white-livered Green Hair begged.

Bane glanced down at him as if he forgot that he was there. About that time they had a visitor. One unhappy Hutt came slipping and sliding down the carpet, Yanth, the owner of the Tusken Oasis nightclub.

“Explain this!” he thundered in Galactic Basic.

Bane knew Yanth was a Vigo, one of nine, and part of Black Sun’s leadership. He was wealthy and held in high esteem. He oversaw the organization’s operations in this sector of the galaxy. He reported directly to the Underlord; it paid off to know your stuff, as Cad Bane did not want to piss him off.

“Dhis one ‘ere started it,” Bane began, yanking Green Hair up again to toss directly into the hands of one of his two men.

“Was gonna haul him in,” the Duros said all calm and casual, glancing at the shed that lined his fingertips.

“Reckon he owes ye’ some money,” Bane finalized.

“I know you,” the Hutt informed him. “You’re a bounty hunter.”

“Cad Bane, at yer service,” the gunslinger rejoined.

“Hey, that’s not—” Green Hair interrupted.

One of Yanth the Hutt’s men backhanded him across the face; he was nearly knocked out cold, blood spewing from his lips. He now hung limply in the arms of a four-limbed Besalisk. Bane grinned as Green Hair groaned; he couldn’t help it.

“Then I suppose I should thank you for getting the situation under control before it got out of hand,” the slimy Hutt-lord said.

“Tweren’t nothin’,” Bane said with a tip of his wide hat. “Consider it a gift,” he proffered, pulling out a toothpick from the inside pocket of his jacket. “So’ry ‘bout de bodies,” he added, placing his wooden chew toy in his mouth; the Hutt finally took one long glance around.

“I’ve seen worse,” he commented.

“Ah’m sure ye’ have,” Bane quipped offhand. Then, he produced a copy of his calling card; he offered it to Yanth as a way to keep the peace between them.

“If ye’ ever find yerself needin’ a bounty hunta’, give me a buzz,” Bane stated, twirling on his heel for his coat to swirl; he loved making a grand exit; he was known for his showmanship.

Bane walked, alert. He kept his eyes forward, but he was focused on his rear. His ears were sharp and his senses were perceptive. If Yanth tried to turn on him as he made his way, he would be ready, but the only thing he heard was Green Hair yelling as he was dragged along the floor.

With the Hutt in charge, he was in for his comeuppance; Bane did not pity him.

---

Once outside, Bane was unaware his worries would intensify. His first order of business had been to comm his ship and his little droid, but there had been no answer.

“Todo, how’s de lil’ hellcat doin’. Finished ‘ere,” he started, waiting patiently before he became impatient. He could not think of an excuse to be ignored, unless there was a heap of trouble brewing.

“Todo, where are ye’? Answer de comm,” Bane demanded of his companion.

For a few moments, he stopped to wonder; just who among your ranks had it out to kill you? Truth be told, this job was getting out of hand. He had a mind to leave it all behind.

Then, he remembered your annoyingly attractive face, your buxom tits, and all your assets. He would not admit it to himself, but he had somehow formed a slight attachment; he wanted to see you safe if nothing else, you had paid him to do no less.

“Todo…” He rang his ship a second time, his droid’s name spoken with mild panic. He should have known better than to leave the two of you alone; his scales prickled as he thought of all the things that could go wrong. He had no idea about your hunger, or the lengths that you would go to get a meal, nor did he realize you had solicited his addled sidekick to go somewhere against his will.

“Ye’ gotta be shittin’ me,” Cad Bane declared, igniting his repulsor boots again. This time his aim was for his speeder, parked some few blocks off. He only hoped when he made it to the Justifier that you weren’t dead, or worse.

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whileiamdying · 1 month

Text

Artist Profiles: Hasna El Becharia

Angel Romero June 10, 2016

Hasna el Becharia

Hasna el Becharia is a female Gnawa multi-instrumentalist. She was born in 1951 in Béchar (formerly known as Colomb-Béchar, a garrison town during the time of the French colonization). This town in southwestern Algeria is a fertile musical ground, with styles such as Diwan, Foundou and the popular Haddawi repertoire to celebrate Arab-Berber weddings of this sub-region.

The daughter and grand-daughter of Gnawa musicians, she plays popular Saharan traditional songs and personal compositions. In 1972, she began to play by herself. With three friends of hers, including Zorah and Kheira who are still singing by her side, singing and playing drums and tambourines. Hasna played traditional desert tunes on the acoustic guitar. They became successful very quickly, playing at weddings, banquets, etc. Everybody wanted to hear Hasna and her pals. During their performance, people sang along all the songs. It was so noisy that Hasna began to play the electric guitar to be heard. At that moment, she became really famous. Beyond the little town of Bechar, her name was known all over the south of Algeria. Algerian producers tried to make her record some tunes on a tape recorder, but she refused because she didn’t trust them.

In less than 4 years, Hasna and her band built their own legend. In 1976, they were the guest stars of a great concert in Bechar, organized by the Union of Algerian Women, in front of a female audience.

She arrived in France in January 1999 when she was invited to a festival called “Women of Algeria. She was one of the two new-comers who emerged from this festival. Fascinated by her music, the organizers of the festival decided to put her on stage every night, although it was originally planned that she would only play one evening. Quickly, rumors spread throughout Paris about this incredible female guitar player from the desert. Journalists and producers showed up and the prestigious French newspaper Libération published an article about her.

Hasna decided to stay in Paris because her situation was too difficult in Algeria. In spite of singing about the Prophet, she did not conform with tradition. She is too free and does not accept the old fashioned patriarchal customs that still rule in her country.

The guimbri and karkabas (two instruments masterfully played by Hasna) are the pillars of North African black music. Hasna creates a powerful and rough guimbri sound and she has an astonishing sense of rhythm.

Like numerous Algerian Gnawa musicians, Hasna takes her roots in the popular wedding repertoire. In addition to guimbri and karkabas, she plays electric guitar, ud, darbuka, bendir and even banjo. At the age of 51, Hasna recorded her first album. She composed the majority of her songs in France. By no means corrupted by stage or studio performance, she took advantage of these new experiences to explore the sound of guitars, vocal timbres on different tonalities, to improvise and make new encounters. In order to make her recording, the producers brought together great musicians from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Niger.

#Hasna El Becharia #Gnawa #Béchar #Artist Profile #Algeria

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vergess · 2 years

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Hello there! I apologize for the late hour, but I was just wondering if you have any headcanons or speculations about Besk, the twins' deceased mother from I Was A Teenage Exocolonist. I already heard back from @exocolonistfeelings and @arionwind , but I thought a third opinion would be good for my curious brain 😅

Oh, you never need to apologize for sending me asks about my Favourite Subjects, don't worry! Unfortunately, I had already gone to bed by the time this arrived D:

So, before we begin, this post will have spoilers for:

MAJOR: Robotics job storyline.

MAJOR: Dys and Tang friendships (duh)

MAJOR: Delusions run/achievement

MAJOR: Barista job storyline.

Marz friendship (minor)

Doctor job (minor)

Prolific parenting ending (minor)

Life on Earth achievement (minor)

It will discuss the following stressful subjects:

Suicide

PTSD

Depression

Psychiatric abuse

Child abuse

Substance abuse (alcohol, psychiatric medication)

Cult indoctrination and abuse

Human extinction

And finally, Besq has a character profile in the game data, but it's never used. The profile informs us that she:

Was named Arabesque;

Was female;

Died at age 32;

Was born in Early Quiet;

Was ~12 years younger than Instance, ~7 years younger than your parents, and the same age as Anne, Tirah, Al and Bernie.

Combined with details from the Twins, Marz and Instance, we can develop a very complete timeline of her life.

And it's nasty.

But let's start a little lighter.

Like Ari, I am a definite "Arabesque And Instance Truther." For a while, I honestly considered that Instance might have been the other genetic donor for the twins. Tangent's resemblance to her is particularly noticeable.

So, I figured they were besties, and maybe exes, but in that way you get with queers where no one is sure if they dated or not even though they definitely both lived together for a while and had sex.

Until I started plowing through all the endings, I was under the impression that when Tangent talked about bonding during her transition it was because Instance is also trans. That seems not to be the case (if you become a geneticist or a doctor or something, you develop a more perfected transition technology and it's used specifically for Utopia and Tangent, but not Instance or Vace).

So I was honestly under the matching impression that when Arabesque needed a genetic donor for her Depression Baby, she went to her "Friend" rather than going to the genetic banks, possibly because she knew she would not pass any meaningful examinations. Medicins aren't good at it, but they are trained to look specifically for depression in mothers. With the entire colony hinging on reproduction as aggressively as it does, I truly thought she would have been caught by even the most basic screening.

Of course, as a psych herself, she could easily just lie about everything and get a donor sample.

And that seems to have been the case because of 2 things.

1) Tangent implies she checked her genome against Instance's at one point around year 14 and found no significant commonalities suggesting relationship.

2) If you do Prolific Parent after picking menstruation/breast growth in adolescence (and maybe also null?) and have a female partner, you help the colony develop XX-to-XX fertilization so you can go around knocking up other people too. (Again: 40 children!!! You must be stopped!! Literally! The colony has to stop you from having more children!!).

So, if Instance is indeed cis, the tech wouldn't have existed yet for her to be the other donor.

At this point, I now believe Tangent looks like Instance because she was going to come out looking in some way undesirable to Besq. Was Tangent going to look like her genetic dad? Like Besq's ex? Like Besq herself? (I suspect it may be the latter)

Whatever the case, it seems Besq went full Designer Baby on that shit, and used her Bestie 'Tans as a model.

Bestie, exes, singular point of psychological support in perhaps the most horrific possible torture chamber.

~*~Just Girly Things~*~

As Ari mentioned, it was wildly irresponsible for the cult to designate one singular person as the entire emotional support system for hundreds of people living in a heretofore unknown and unknowable stressor, knowing that they might kill their entire families in the process, thereby rendering their entire movement extinct, and possibly the entire human race if the Earth ending is to be believed.

Really sit on that. Think about the horror that the adults, capable of understanding what they are and what they're doing, are going through every single day.

And every single one of them relied exclusively on a single woman to process that trauma, even as she had to process her own trauma without anyone to trust.

And even then, even then, she lives years on the strato. She survives over a decade of a kind of psychological torture that I cannot even begin to understand.

Now brace yourself, because it's time to payoff on that timeline comment.

Arabesque was 16 when she boarded the Strato as their designated trauma therapist.

She spent her entire adult life in hell.

The twins are 1 year younger than Sol. Besq is mentioned in Marz's high friendship event as being alive, but already heavily drinking, when the twins are turning 5. She dies shortly afterwards.

For the twins to be turning 5, the ship has to have been traveling for just under 16 years. She dies on or around her 32nd birthday. Only four years out from the wormhole.

Unironically and without reserve, Arabesque's inconceivable resilience is responsible for the survival of the human race. Without her there to soak trauma up like a sponge for 16 years of isolation, there is 0 chance that everyone else on the Strato would have had the emotional competence and resilience themselves to make it to Vertumna, let alone establish a colony.

And I don't give the cult any benefit of the doubt in this one, by the way. Modern therapy is great, but it's not the only system for developing emotionally resilient groups. It's specifically terrible for small groups that live together.

This is something that anyone trying to create a planned community of any kind should know on day one. It's unbelievably irresponsible to do what they did.

They didn't need a therapist; they needed social hobbies. They needed a knitting circle, a sewing circle, a banjo band, a bonsai club, three mutually exclusive tabletop rpg groups, a teach-what-you-know art class, a choir, a peer-support therapy and study group, and a dozen other small-group hobbies to foster strongly interconnected emotional group bonds.

That or they needed a religious system. Those are basically the two options. But honestly the cult is alarming enough as it is, so hobbies!!

They did NOT need to make a child bear that burden, and certainly not by herself.

What the Strato needed, and the cult should have provided, is what their children got. A wide variety of small activities that contribute to the overall longevity of the colony while building friendships.

And we only got it because Besq lived long enough for everyone else to survive, and then died spectacularly.

Because of her death.

The severe shock of finding that she hung hung herself in her office, between appointments, completely breaks the "therapeutic" strategy the cult imposed on the colony. Unlike every other job with a possible death in the game, Besq is never replaced.

It takes 20 years and a complete restructuring of the social system of the colony before it's even possible for another therapist to emerge, and only rarely!

Meanwhile, even Congruence struggles under the weight of managing the automated therapy protocols when Besq dies. It's mentioned frequently in certain playstyles that Congruence's therapy is fine for what it is, but it doesn't work nearly as well as a real, trained therapist. Vace describes it as confusing and monotonous. Sol simply describes it as "not as good."

It's a mostly automated system. The handful of excerpts we get from it suggest a very basic CBT regimen. That makes sense, since CBT's non-holistic approach makes it especially easy to self administer. However, it also severely limits the kinds of problem CBT can treat.

And even still, Congruence almost dies the same way Besq did. Only, if Congruence goes, so does the rest of the colony.

That's the end of the Robotics storyline.

After a shockingly similar ~16 years, the strain of mental health for the entire colony, combined with constant trauma, breaks Congruence. An AI many hundreds of thousands of times faster than a human, who regulates everything in the colony, who was designed to self-repair for millennia.

Congruence is the human equivalent of the Overseer, and she lasted exactly as long as Besq did under that strain, while doing significantly worse than Besq did.

Speaking of CBT's inherent limitations: Tangent seems to favour the Psychodynamic approach if she becomes a therapist.

However, Tangent's psychodynamism stands out specifically because of her willingness to use medical and technological intervention alongside it. This is relatively uncommon in our world, if only because psychology (therapy) and psychiatry (medication) are two different fields with totally different demands and licensures.

But even in cases when a psychologist and a psychiatrist share a practice and work together, the ease and readiness with which Tangent approaches those additional interventions is fascinating.

It suggests to me that Besq was likely also a psychodynamist, but a non-medical one.

This is also fun, because it plays well with the theme of reuniting the twins. Instance says outright that Tangent takes after her, while Dys takes after Besq. (Instance saying this is a large part of why I think they were exes rather than unresolved, because it seems like a sort of 'history repeats itself' statement, since it's specifically in the context of 'why Dys and Tangent can't love each other.')

TI is only when Tangent combines the dynamic, holistic approach of Dys (and psychotherapy) and with the the rigid, numerical approach of Instance (and psychiatry), that Tangent overcomes the hurdles her mother failed.

Tangent's happiest lives come from reuniting with emotionality, trauma, and soft skills through Dys, and through the echo of their mother Besq.

Her happiest lives come when she surpasses the horror she inherited when her mother's all-too-human strength finally failed.

And I think that's part of why Tangent is often so... accepting of her early death (she never lives past 60). And why even in the best endings, she doesn't have children of her own, though she donates genetics to a few.

She achieves her goals simply by surviving her trauma instead of being consumed by it. Her legacy is the health and happiness of humanity as a species, not herself or her bloodline. She's very much the mirror image of Dys and the Gardeners, in that way.

There is one other kind of mental health intervention in the colony without Tangent, though. If Congruence's workbook therapy doesn't help, then there's Instance's meds.

When Arabesque dies, Instance devotes herself wholeheartedly to creating self-regulating psychiatric drug implants. In the Barista job ending, Tangent talks about how she and Instance have perfected the technology and Tangent uses it herself to manage her depression, anxiety and paranoid delusions.

If you do a Delusions run, you get a few more tantalizing hints about that.

After Besq's death, the entire colony develops a SEVERE stigma around mental illness.

When Sol presents with delusions (which CBT is especially bad at handling), no modern therapies are attempted. What happens instead is a horrific combination of futuristic medicine and medieval psychology.

Instance begins with bed rest.

That doesn't work. It wouldn't work even on bog standard psychosis. In the fashion of "The Yellow Wallpaper", being put on bedrest runs the risk of making Sol worse.

If Sol continues to express delusions, Instance moves on to heavy antipsychotics. Because the implant is not yet ready, Sol can fake taking these meds.

But it doesn't matter if you do. You'll eventually be caught, and forcibly medicated in a way you "can't avoid." This is never specified, but is specifically not an invasive procedure.

The antipsychotics cause a horrible reaction, whther voluntary or forced. You become almost catatonic, and are trapped in a permanent hallucinatory dream state with your various lives overlapping in your hearing and sight.

So, Instance, your parents (if alive), and the colony council decide to perform an experimental cyberpunk lobotomy on you. This is suggested to be either a prototype or early version of the implant, as it involves invasive surgery, a long recovery time, the suppression of neurochemicals, and massive personality changes.

When I say there's stigma, I am not fucking around. That's their response to nonviolent, nonthreatening delusions in a child.

And as a natural consequence of this absurd behaviour around modern psychology, the colonists avoid anything and everything that looks even vaguely like modern therapy, with the exception of Congruence's AI CBT.

However, because of Besq's tireless work, the colonists are also generally psychologically healthy enough the "inferior" AI therapy is sufficient.

That means the colonists are healthy enough to more or less self-regulate. Combined with the close quarters and heavy labour demands, a system naturally emerges that prioritizes social-bonding through shared hobbies and work.

I don't think Besq killed herself with that in mind. I can't imagine she planned it that way. I think by the time she got pregnant, it was already much too late for her to have any hope of survival.

But the fact remains: Besq set the colony up to survive, in the most horrific way possible. Tangent's obsession with killing herself so that the colony can survive is very much inherited.

Oh also! I'm pretty sure she named Dys that because he (as the "planned" pregnancy) was her Depression Baby.

There's this thing people do, sometimes, when they're extremely depressed, where they have a kid and obsess over it, because as long as the kid is alive and loves them, then they have a reason to live, etc etc. It's really a horrific pattern, because if the parent(s) don't get help for their psychological issues, it almost always leads to all kinds of child abuse.

It can overlap with post-partum depression, too, which just makes it worse, feeding in to the sense that the only value in your life is your children, or vice versa.

As a psychiatrist and psychologist herself, Besq would have been aware of that. I think on some level she knew she was setting herself and her children up for torment. But it was that or just give up and die already.

I very much believe she had Dys specifically as a way to manage her own dysthymia (major depression) long enough to eke out a bit more survival.

I think her peculiar behaviour towards her children also reflects that. The few times we hear about her aside from Instance, Besq is consistently both drunk and doting. If you've ever read Homestuck, Besq has a very Mom Lalonde energy of desperately trying while utterly failing in no small part due to her substance abuse.

And given that the only other people her age she meets for the rest of her entire life are:

Aunt Anne, the All-Mother

Tirah et al, the most distressingly well adjusted polycule on or off earth

Al and Bernie, the literal fucking dictionary definition of picket fence monogamy

All of whom have kids aready or are just starting to have children (remember, Dys and Tang are the youngest in the group). All of whom are happier and better adjusted than you. In spite of the fact that you were the one doing the adjustments.

With all that, a depression baby starts to sound like a very appealing last ditch effort. After all, as long as she's careful not to hurt the kid herself, then when she does give up and die, at least she knows the creche will keep them safe. And Anne is so happy, so loving.

All Besq needs to do is stay drunk enough not to hurt herself, sober enough not to hurt them, until she's finally done. From the perspective of someone who went through what she did, it must have seemed like a kindness.

Given them a bunch of happy memories of her when they're too young to understand why she reeks of illicit alcohol and doesn't spend time with any adults. Then, when she's too tired to continue, just off herself so she can't hurt them with her self destruction, and let Anne and the creche clean up the mess.

When you're far enough down in the depression, that logic checks out. The idea that your absence could be worse than your presence is unfathomable.

Also, since Besk's birthday is immediately after Dys and Tang's, I have to assume the reason Dys is so weird about birthdays is that Besk made sure to live just long enough for their 5th birthday (the photo Marz has), and then killed herself on or immediately before her own.

That, uh... that would for sure give your kids a weird complex about birthdays, to the degree that your son hates people more if they give him cake, and your daughter refuses to eat any sweets at all.

So yeah, that's about that.

I suppose I should mention her Ex from Earth, the one that comes up in her suicide note. But honestly? She was 16 when she left. I'm not exactly shocked that she idealizes some boy she left back home. Even without the trauma of everything else that happened in her life immediately after leaving him and which never ever ended which would necessarily conflate his existence with the last time she felt joy?

It's not that weird for a 16 year old to have a strong crush, and then wax nostalgic about it as an adult. I mean, most people are willing to make a bit of fun at themselves for how silly and obsessed they were as a teen riding high on that first rush of "oh my god I have sex/romance/whatever feelings now."

It's just that, unlike most people?

When Arabesque says 16 was the best her life ever got, she's right.

#asks #ask answers #va1iant-viridity #Fuck wait shit #Is it besk or besq #It's short for arabesque so...#So besq right?#Dys #Tangent #Exocolonist #I was a teenage Exocolonist #iwatex #Doctor Besk #Dr Besk #Doctor Besq #Dr Besq #vees writes meta #Ahahah ooops I didn't mean it to be that long

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dhr-ao3 · 3 months

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your great deserts repay

your great deserts repay https://ift.tt/phlPqFd by middlemarch ...“I really wish I could have gotten to know her,” Hermione replied, watching Draco’s profile as she spoke, “Everything you tell me about her just makes me think we would have gotten on splendidly.” His eyes finally returned to her, still cool and distant, but with a slight warmth buried deep within: occlumency holding several feelings back from her. “Like a house on fire, I assure you.” -- "an ever-fixed mark," ninepiecesofcrait This is what "getting on splendidly" looks like, when one of you is on the other side of the Veil and has no plans to pick-up a side gig as a ghost. Matagot is there, as always, for the assist. OR, watch as I fangirl/person all over "an ever-fixed mark." Words: 4526, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: F/M Characters: Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, Scorpius Malfoy, Astoria Greengrass, Harry Potter, Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter, Theodore Nott/Harry Potter, Astoria Greengrass/Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger & Scorpius Malfoy, Hermione Granger & Astoria Greengrass, Astoria Greengrass & Blaise Zabini Additional Tags: Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Epilogue, Alternate Universe - Post-War, Marriage, Dad Draco Malfoy, Domestic af, Epistolary, Gift Fic, Love Letters, wives dishing, semi-sentient magical house for the win, Matagot is always the best wing-creature, references to NottPott, Family, Family Dynamics, less Occluding, so many parentheticals, in which Hermione's interior monologue has an interior monologue, references to Regency romance, well-read women, Teasing, Kid Fic, cooking as a love language, Spoiling Kink Returns, Language of Flowers, Does Not Pass the Bechdel Test, Names, Blood Curses | Blood Malediction (Harry Potter), some world building of my own, references to period sex, Female Gaze, POV Hermione Granger, Adult Hermione Granger, Adult Draco Malfoy, good stepmother Hermione, Female Friendship, writing the author's note was a whole PROJECT, strongly in the 'grey' camp over here, Fertility Issues, subtly secular Jewish heritage Hermione Granger, the sex scene is a fade to black via AO3 works tagged 'Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy' https://ift.tt/Q7SO1hZ March 02, 2024 at 01:43PM

#IFTTT #Dramione #Draco x Hermione

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vaguely-concerned · 1 year

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I went on a stone age art wikiwalk. come partake in some highlights with me

Çatalhöyük. Often called 'the world's first city' and located in current day Turkey. Here's a probable reconstruction of an interior of the houses:

Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük. A figurine found in Çatalhöyük. Personal note: what the hell this art fucks so incredibly, look at that definition, those shapes!!

Venus of Dolní Věstonice, found in current day Czech Republic. It's dated to 29,000–25,000 BCE (!!!!) and is one of the oldest known ceramic pieces ever made.

I don't know why this got to me as much as it did, but during a scan in 2004 they found the fingerprint of a child between 7-15 on this figurine -- they probably weren't the artist, but must have handled it at some point before it was fired. and somehow that gets me real emotional haha

Venus of Monruz. Found in current day Switzerland, likely about 11,000 years old, and of a profile I feel can only suitably be described as 'absolute dumptruck'. Mostly here for the ass enjoyers to balance out the representation of glorious boobage, if I'm being honest. Some similar figurines were found in Germany and at least one of them are theorized to be made by the same artist; I find this idea absolutely delightful because I love the idea that someone so obviously Knew What They Were About back then. (The actual function of Venus figurines, whether for ritualistic/religious purposes as fertility symbols, works of art, or good old fashioned tit(t)illation is uncertain and contentious (as is the use of 'Venus figurine' as a name for them, accordingly), but in my own humble and entirely unqualified opinion: somehow this one feels deeply horny. someone here was all about that base and didn't care who knew it.)

Venus of Hohle Fels Found in current day Germany, the oldest known clear depiction of a human being we know of, dated to 40,000 -- 30,000 years old. (The Löwenmensch figurine is likely older, but it's kind of unclear if that is meant to depict a human being or a god or what. My unprofessional personal opinion: Yes, that is right; the furries got there first, and I don't see why anyone's surprised fhsdfjak.)

Several male anthropologists have said some deeply exuberantly weird and horny things about this one! It does somehow feel like I'm daring tumblr to strike me down even in the absence of female presenting nipples on display here (nevermind the 'more of a pussy out sort of look' of it all) so maybe they have a point, but I find this piece of art so deeply charming I'm ready to take the chance anyway. I adore the way the hands are rendered especially. I also cannot recommend enough that you go to the wikimedia section of this one, not least because I found THIS in there

the power of transformative art. the anime titty jiggle of our modern day applied to the oldest known human figure. art begets art across the ages

Not a piece of art as such, but the the Neanderthal skeletons found in the Shanidar Cave in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq fascinate me. Lots of interesting speculation about the possible presence of altruism in Neanderthals brought up from this. Special shoutout to the body known as Shanidar 3: a male person who was between 40 and 50 at the time of his death, and who may have been the first guy we know of to have been stabbed to death by someone. what a claim to fame. Caesar may have done it the most but this guy did it first

This little guy

I can't stop laughing. yes that is exactly how I feel too, trace of French cave art possibly depicting a cave hyena from Le Babiliou Cave, Dordogne, France. You're saying what we're all thinking

#I also went through a fun little hike through some articles on homosexual pair bonded animals and such it was that kind of day lol #art nonsense #ngl I mostly made this post to get to share the possibly-hyena one. it despondently said :/ and I'm so there with it #there were also a bunch of amazing cave paintings from all over the world but I am tired. and sad. so mostly you get boobs&ass jokes today

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angeltreasure · 1 year

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I saw something the other day I think another anon but it made me think so this is pathetic probs anyway like I know your answer esp because you’re a woman of God and I’m tryna get closer to him. Is outer beauty all that matters I know everyone is all different and God made us and things happen and inner beauty is what God sees too. One of my old friends said being ‘skinny’ and looking like a model and having perfect face is the goal and everything it just made me feel sad for all reasons

No. Outer beauty is not all that matters. We don’t stay young forever but money talks so that’s why you see all kinds of things people try in order to stretch their youth and make them appear younger. That’s why you see so many beauty product commercials, plastic surgeries, strange fashions worn by people clearly too old to wear them, photoshop photos for magazines and movies to slim down models and sexualize women, AI photo filters, people posting older photos as their profile picture to trick others, etc!

People will spend thousands and thousands of dollars to make themself appear to have eternal youth. Some go to extremes with surgery. Some try other methods not as expensive such as restrictive dieting, getting a new haircut, medication over the counter, using tiktok filters, etc. It ends up becoming trendy and leads younger and younger people to want a certain unattainable image. Then the younger crowd below them sees how they behave and try to copy them. Ballerinas look pretty when they dance but a lot of them suffer eating disorders.

Youth and prime don’t last forever. We age in this life if God wills that we live long enough. Over time, our cells don’t divide as fast so bruises and wounds take longer to heal. We get wrinkles and our skin can even feel rough. Our hair color will most likely change to grey and white depending on our genes. If we don’t use our muscles they can break down. Joints wear out. We can get stretch marks. Our fertility declines once reaching a certain age, or earlier from medical conditions and complications. Bones become sponge if we don’t take care of them. And more. Aging is normal. It’s supposed to be normal.

When we become skinny, there is a certain BMI that is dangerous depending on if we are male or female and how tall we are. Being super skinny or underweight isn’t without consequences. When people forcefully starve their own bodies to drop dramatically in weight, it can cause permanent organ damage. If we binge eat by forcing ourselves to throw up constantly you can damage all of your teeth and gums. Blood pressures drop causing you to pass out. White blood cell counts can start to decline, making it harder for your body to fight offensively against disease, and more. Eventually, once the body is too weak and when you stop eating altogether, you can even die. Please don’t try any of those eating disorders!

No one has a perfect face except God. We humans can’t even look upon in this life or we can literally die.

The goal is not to be a super skinny model for likes and attention and praise from men but rather, our true goal for you and I is to become saints. Don’t waste your life away in this life trying to give yourself the fountain of youth and materialism. Instead, store your treasures up in Heaven and keep the faith.

Don’t look to movie stars and Victoria Secret models. Look instead for our the example of Our Lady, Mary. She was so filled with grace and never sinned. She was full of virtue and was taken straight to Heaven. She was closest to Jesus. Look at her beauty instead and model after her wanting to do the will of God. Her beauty shines not by skinniness but by grace and love, Motherly love. Turn to our lady and our Lord and pray the Rosary. It is a powerful Bibical prayer that will get your mind off body appearances and instead to focus on the lives of Jesus and Mary. Turn away from worldly desires and instead, pray the Rosary each day and go to Mass.

#asks

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fmdiagnostics · 2 years

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dirhwangdaseul-archived · 2 years

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How ‘Lord of the Rings’ Inspires Italy’s Giorgia Meloni - The New York Times

posted the entire thing was behind paywall

ROME — Giorgia Meloni, the hard-right leader who is likely to be the next prime minister of Italy, used to dress up as a hobbit.

As a youth activist in the post-Fascist Italian Social Movement, she and her fellowship of militants, with nicknames like Frodo and Hobbit, revered “The Lord of the Rings” and other works by the British writer J.R.R. Tolkien. They visited schools in character. They gathered at the “sounding of the horn of Boromir” for cultural chats. She attended “Hobbit Camp” and sang along with the extremist folk band Compagnia dell’Anello, or Fellowship of the Ring.

All of that might seem some youthful infatuation with a work usually associated with fantasy-fiction and big-budget epics rather than political militancy. But in Italy, “The Lord of the Rings” has for a half-century been a central pillar upon which descendants of post-Fascism reconstructed a hard-right identity, looking to a traditionalist mythic age for symbols, heroes and creation myths free of Fascist taboos.

“I think that Tolkien could say better than us what conservatives believe in,” said Ms. Meloni, 45. More than just her favorite book series, “The Lord of the Rings” was also a sacred text. “I don’t consider ‘The Lord of the Rings’ fantasy,” she said.

Tolkien’s agrarian universe, full of virtuous good guys defending their idyllic, wooded kingdoms from hordes of dark and violent orcs, has for decades prompted scholarly, and convention center, debate over the author’s racial and ideological biases, his view of modernity and globalization. More recently, his works have also provided a fertile shire for nationalists who see themselves in his heroic archetypes.

But in Italy, the adventures of Bilbo Baggins and the maps of Mordor have informed generations of post-Fascist youths, including Ms. Meloni, who, the latest polls strongly suggest, will emerge from the election on Sunday as Italy’s first female prime minister — and the first descended from post-Fascist roots.

Ms. Meloni, who leads the hard-right Brothers of Italy party, and who has called for a naval blockade against illegal migrants and warns her supporters about the dark, conspiratorial forces of internationalist bankers, first read Tolkien, a conservative who once called Hitler a “ruddy little ignoramus,” at age 11. She became a fantasy fanatic.

In her early 20s, she surfaced in chat rooms under the nickname Khy-ri, calling herself the “little dragon of the Italian undernet.” More recently, she named her political conference Atreju, an Italian rendering of the name of the hero of “The NeverEnding Story,” best known as a 1980s cult film featuring a flying animatronic character that appeared to be half dragon, half Labrador retriever.

As a government minister in 2008, Ms. Meloni posed for a magazine profile next to a statue of the wizard Gandalf. In 2019, she honored a manga character, Captain Harlock, the “space pirate,” as a “symbol of a generation that challenged the apathy and indifference of people.” Last month, she lamented that her busy campaign schedule had kept her from mainlining Amazon’s new “Rings of Power” series.

But Ms. Meloni’s otherworldly interests have as much to do with politics as personal taste.

“The genre of fantasy in Italy has always been cultivated by the right,” said Umberto Croppi, a former member of the Italian Social Movement who is now the director of a national association of public and private agencies in Italy’s culture industry. He said that the two worlds shared a “vision of spirituality against materialism, a metaphysical vision of life against the forms of the modern world.”

The modern world did not work out so well for the die-hard Fascists who stayed loyal to Hitler and Mussolini after the official Italian government switched sides to join the Allies during World War II.

After the war, many of those Fascists flocked to the Italian Social Movement, but the party’s efforts to reintegrate into Italy’s institutions eventually hit a wall. Its younger members, feeling excluded from civil society, seized on an Italian edition of “The Lord of the Rings,” prefaced by Elémire Zolla, a philosopher who was a point of reference on the hard right and who argued that Tolkien was “talking about everything we confront every day.”

That resonated with a small group of the party’s Youth Front, already bristling at the cultural dominance of the left. They saw themselves, as one of their leaders, Generoso Simeone, put it, as “inhabitants of the mythical Middle-earth, also struggling with dragons, orcs, and other creatures.” Seeking a more palatable alternative to quoting Mussolini’s speeches and spray-painting Swastikas, which, Mr. Croppi pointed out, “was easy to reproduce on walls,” in 1977, they created the first Camp Hobbit festival.

“The idea to call it Camp Hobbit came from a real strategy,” said Mr. Croppi, one of the founders. The thinking was to move beyond the old symbols and to capitalize on the party’s isolation, smallness and victimization by violent leftist enemies to make their hero “not the warrior Aragorn, but the little hobbit — we wanted to get out of this militarist, heroic idea.”

The party’s old guard was perplexed. But, with the support of hard-liners, Camp Hobbit festivals emerged as formative touchstones for the young activists. Celtic cross flags that meshed perfectly with the Tolkien aesthetic waved. The band Fellowship of the Ring played songs about European identity, including what became the anthem of the party’s Youth Front, “Tomorrow Belongs to Us.”

The song echoed a ballad “Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” sung by a member of the Hitler Youth in a chilling scene in the movie “Cabaret.” Mr. Croppi acknowledged that the camps had their fair share of Fascist salutes, but argued they were “ironic.”

When Ms. Meloni entered the picture as a teenage activist in the Youth Front in Rome in the 1990s, the far right — especially in the capital — was still in a trenchlike mentality, struggling to break with the previous generation.

Francesco Lollobrigida, a leader in Ms. Meloni’s party, Brothers of Italy (as well as her brother-in-law), said that he and others had a desire starting in the 1980s “to break with the patterns of a party that still had inside of it people who had been in the Social Republic, who had done fascism.”

Ms. Meloni, seated across from him, agreed.

“There was a desire to get out of that,” she said.

Ms. Meloni attended a new iteration of Camp Hobbit in 1993, which she called a “political laboratory” and where she sang along with Fellowship of the Ring and discussed culture and books.

“We read everything,” Ms. Meloni said.

The bookstore of choice for the hard right in Rome was Europa, just outside the Vatican walls. On a recent visit, it displayed titles like “Mussolini Boys” and “The Occult Origins of Nazism.” A picture of Hitler stood watch above the register next to a cup of pens.

Europa has a section dedicated to Julius Evola, an esoteric, deeply taboo, Nazi-affiliated Italian philosopher who became a favorite of Italy’s post-Fascist terrorists and bourgeoisie-loathing nostalgists. Evola argued that progress and equality were poisonous illusions.

“A bit boring,” Mr. Lollobrigida said of Evola’s work.

Ms. Meloni said that instead a more influential writer at the time was the more mainstream Ernst Jünger, a German former soldier, who sought to make sense of war but also glorified combat.

But for Ms. Meloni, all of those took a back shelf to “The Lord of the Rings.” She said she had learned from dwarves and elves and hobbits the “value of specificity” with “each indispensable for the fact of being particular.” She extrapolated that as a lesson about protecting Europe’s sovereign nations and unique identities.

In the 1990s, after becoming the leader of the youth wing of the National Alliance, the party that succeeded the Italian Social Movement, Ms. Meloni started her own political festival, which she called “similar” to Camp Hobbit. But this time, she named it Atreju. “It was the symbol of a boy in battle against nihilism, against the Nothing that advances,” she said.

She joked that Italians could hardly pronounce Atreju, but she said that the annual conventions, including the first one, in 1998, which was about the dangers of globalization, had reach.

“We wanted to say that globalization, you have to govern it,” she said. “If you look around, we weren’t wrong, were we?” she added.

At the Atreju convention in 2018, the guest of honor, Stephen K. Bannon, walked by patriotic posters of “Italy’s heroes” and desks selling Evola-themed T-shirts and works by Evola. Ms. Meloni’s supporters have interpreted her calls to defend Italy from mass migration — and the replacement of native Italians by invaders — as a battle cry to protect Middle-earth. This month, at a rally in Sardinia, Davide Anedda, 21, the leader of the local youth wing of the Brothers of Italy, wore a T-shirt reading “Hobbit.”

“If you’re not from our world, it’s very hard to understand,” Mr. Anedda said, explaining that Hobbit was a post-Fascist far-right rock band and that Tolkien had written “a fundamental part of our history.”

And for Italy, maybe a part of its future.

Ms. Meloni, who seems poised to grab her own brass ring after decades in the political trenches, said that her understanding of power and its ability to corrupt and isolate a person was “closely tied to Tolkien’s reading.”

“I consider power very dangerous,” she said. “I consider it an enemy and not a friend.”

@vague-humanoid @antifaspiderman @beserkerjewel

#fascism #italy #twi decades of warnings did nothing to prevent this but they've been fascist for the last decade already considering their treatment of #romani people and immigrants #italy has always been like this and now we know from infancy #librero #europe #the lord of the rings #fantasy #media

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