#making me feel emotions like some kind of illogical human

[kissme-withyour-cherrylipstick]

I’m really enjoying doing these quick paintings. Featuring his mother's ring. 3.5 hours

#merlin #bbc merlin #bbcm #merlin fanart #arthur pendragon #bbc arthur #bradley james #my art #this picture made me cry btw #i blame the antidepressants #making me feel emotions like some kind of illogical human #anyway i love him #finally no chain mail #just his mother's ring

[subtract-me-from-your-heart]

I like the show version of Chishiya, and here’s why.

I love manga!Chishiya, but he always felt pretty one-dimensional to me. His backstory is one of parental neglect, similar to Arisu. Chishiya basically fails to develop a sense of empathy (unlike Arisu, who just has ye olde Main Character Syndrome). He decides to enter med school because he thinks that a profession where he saves lives might actually help him grow a Give-a-Shitter. Spoiler: it doesn’t.

Manga!Chishiya is an emotional flat line. He doesn’t care about other characters because he can’t. I remember thinking that he had a lot of the same traits as a serial killer. He viewed the world through nothing but intellect, and other people were either nonexistent or pawns to be used to further his own ends. Even the idea that maybe being responsible for the lives of others will help him grow some empathy is a chilling one.

That’s cool. I actually really like those kinds of characters. I also think there are enough characters like that in the story. Characters who you look at and think, “Okay, yes, you are terrible.” The big problem is that it makes his weird self-sacrifice with Usagi absolutely senseless. Like, it came out of nowhere. There wasn't any sort of satisfying build-up where I felt like, "Okay, yeah, this makes sense."

His updated backstory adds a dimension that wasn’t present in the manga version. Rather than simply lacking empathy for other people, you can actually see the moment in which he makes the conscious decision to turn it off. He has this light bulb moment where he realizes that the world is a cruel and unfair place. He realizes that allowing himself to feel for other people is only going to hurt him in the end because he’s powerless to change the systems that are actively harming them. It's better to protect himself and survive.

Chishiya is a selfish character, but the idea that his selfishness stems out of a desire to protect himself from pain gives his character some actual depth that was always missing for me. It also makes the King of Diamonds game a lot more meaningful. Kuzuryu went through the same exact thing, but instead of turning off his feelings, he paralyzed himself with a moral dilemma. Where Chishiya chose to treat all human life as equally worthless, Kuzuryu couldn’t stop looking for some value to assign, whether that was to ease his conscience or to inform a sense of justice he was desperately trying to find.

I really, really like how that dichotomy played out.

I also think it's interesting that Chishiya feels a lot more psychological in the show. He's clearly highly intelligent in both the manga and the show, and maybe it's just Murakami's performance, but there's something more sinister to him. He's clearly developed some sort of friendly relationship with Kuina. He displays an ability to be playful and seems to genuinely be extending an offer of friendship to Arisu (up until he sells him out for one corn chip). Seeing how he can make these connections that feel genuine to the people involved (unlike his manga self who is pretty universally despised) and still be willing to fuck those people over for his own survival makes him feel a lot more menacing to me.

This ability to flawlessly manipulate and betray also means he has a deep understanding of human emotion, which is illogical by nature. In the manga, Chishiya says outright that he isn't suited for Hearts games, but show!Chishiya feels tailor-made for them.

It's also interesting that in the manga, he seems to get harsher and more isolated. By contrast, in the show, he feels to me like he softens episode by episode. It really struck me in the Jack of Hearts game when he said something about his partner dying because he was too kind. On the surface, you could take it as a typical judgy Chishiya comment, but there actually appeared to be a glimmer of sadness, or envy, or regret. Or all of the above. Or maybe it's just Murakami Nijiro's face that made me think that. Either way, I think it was smart of the showrunners to throw him in that game.

In the end, the King of Diamonds game pushes him to the realization that he really is envious of people who have the ability to be kind. He's envious of people who can make the selfless choice. And it's not because he can't be. It's because he's closed himself off to the vulnerability that allows a person to make that kind of decision. You can't truly save others if you're always protecting yourself.

So, he saves Usagi to try to become that person. And I don't feel it was out of character at all.

#alice in borderland #sky in the borderland #chishiya shuntaro #you all can take this with a grain of salt #i spend too much time thinking about him lmfao

[treasureofmammon]

💚 Rational Satan (headcannons) 💚 (3/4)

👥️Characters: Satan x gn!reader

⚠️Warnings: Mainly fluff, but there is spicy stuff, so I recommend that minors and ageless don't interact (MDNI).

🔎These are some headcannons that I have about Tan, mostly based on my own interpretation of how he is with us.

📝Note: I have written one of these for Mammon and another one for Levi. I won't do all the characters; in fact, this is the third one out of four. See Mammon's here & see Levi's here. Simeon (4/4) coming soon.

✨️💖💛✨️💖💛✨️💖💛✨️💖💛✨️💖💛✨️💖💛✨️

• Rational Satan, who, when introduced, is instantly attracted to you; his gaze shows complete surprise, and he glups, trying not to get carried away by his feelings right off the bat. After all, first comes logic, not impulses or feelings, and he keeps that facade for as long as necessary.

• Rational Satan, who sinks into his piles of books, trying to find a logical solution to whatever vision he had when he met you before: your figure engulfed by a radiant light emitted by your pure soul. That's not normal. It must have a logical explanation, right?

• Rational Satan, who finds himself ogling you behind his book: your beautiful and unique features mixed up with your bright soul is making his heart race. "Stop looking, Satan! Focus on the book. Tests are coming soon...", he tells to himself, unsuccessfully, because he's gazing you seconds later.

• Rational Satan, who thinks you're intriguing and interesting. Although he tries to keep his "healthy" distance. He definitely has been observing you.

• Rational Satan, who thinks you're nosy and yet, you are so valiant and refreshing. Why is that?

• Rational Satan, who is honestly surprised by your selfless good deeds for him and his family: "That surely makes no sense whatsoever. What is their real purpose?", unable to understand that you are simply a kind soul.

• Rational Satan, who was angry that you didn't want to make a pact with him (OG) to bother Lucifer; but in fact, feels a sting in his heart because you rejected him without a second thought: "What is this feeling? Is my heart... hurting? Why would it be?".

• Rational Satan, who finds himself thinking about you in-between books: "N-no. Satan, Avatar of Wrath, CANNOT fall in love with a human", until the next morning comes and you hold up his gaze with a candid smile, all logic gone at that moment: "Fuck!", he thinks, "I'm in love", finally giving in to his emotional side.

• Rational Satan, who first tries to hide his feelings for you, but then decides it'd be better to seduce you. The only logical way? With beautiful words and kind actions.

• Rational Satan, who sees you as a person with needs and dreams, and acknowledges yourself as that: a wonderfully flawed human.

• Rational Satan, who analyzes you: you working hard at school to succeed with all your might in a strange place, and he can't help but admire your hungry seek for knowledge.

• Rational Satan, who realizes your potential in all ways possible and supports you constantly and unconditionally. He's proud of you.

• Rational Satan, who knows he must teach you and guide you at those moments in school that frustrate you, but can't help himself from thinking or even doing "improper" things: "I must focus on the task at hand. They're counting on me! I must be a good teacher... It's just that they are so gorgeous!", he thinks. Maybe his hand sliding mercilessly up your tight, you bite your lip and let him continue, how far would you let him go is up to you to decide.

• Rational Satan, who finds his very real and really strong feelings for you way too illogical, and that scares him: "Losing control is never a good thing, right? The only rational path is to feel as little as possible... right?", the last word he says hesitantly, now unsure of his ideas of what is logical or not.

• Rational Satan, who sees you right next to him with smitten eyes, a dumbfounded smile, he loves you so much that it hurts him. Something like that shouldn't be allowed because whatever hurts like this is not good, and yet, he doesn't let you go away.

• Rational Satan, daydreaming about your pretty face and sensual body, about your kind heart and your gorgeous personality..., way too enamored to think straight. His grades might be lacking a little, and he can't let his mere thoughts of you distract him. After all, knowledge is power, and power is something he needs to make you happy in the near future.

• Rational Satan, who is willing to give you everything that you want, even if it makes no sense. That's just how much he loves you.

• Rational Satan, who melts at your touch, ready to give himself to you, completely. He knows he's stupid for loving you like this, and he knows you could take advantage of him, and yet, he can't stop himself.

• Rational Satan, who understands that your love is not logical and neither is his. He makes peace with the fact that he can't be rational when it comes to you: his heart just pours completely for you, no matter what, even when his words can't convey his feelings: he has said "I love you" a thousand times and that will never be enough.

✨️💖💛✨️💖💛✨️💖💛✨️💖💛✨️💖💛✨️💖💛✨️

[Notes: The character(s) depicted here belong to the mobile game "Obey me: shall we date" and are owned by Solmare Corporation. The text here was made by me, meaning these are fan-made. | GN!Reader | English is not my first language, so there might be orthographic and syntax errors. I urge you all to interact kindly with this post].

📌 Masterlist

#Treasure of Mammon writing #Treasure of Mammon headcannons #obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me! #om satan #satan x reader #obey me fluff #obey me fic #obey me satan #satan obey me! #om! satan #satan om #satan obey me #obey me! satan #satan om! #om! swd #satan avatar of wrath #obey me mc #satan x mc #satan x you #satan x gn reader #gn reader #obey me x gn!reader #satan x gn!reader #gn!mc #gn!reader #gn!y/n #gender neutral reader #gender neutral

[tarkalean-trekkie]

It’s All Coming Back to Me Now (Spock x Female Reader)

Version 1

Word count: 1,067

A/N: this takes place after Spock returns to the Enterprise after coming back to life. Reader is his wife, and is exhausted from trying to help him remember their life together, and contemplates divorce. I have 2 versions, one where Spock is more calm to the news, and one where he is slightly more confrontational(no violence don’t worry).

T/W: slight smut at the end, 18+

Y/n: My heart was conflicted at the thought of divorcing my husband. On the one hand, I wouldn’t have to deal with the stress of him not remembering our life together. However, on the other hand, I was devastated to lose my T’hy’la. I knew that I was being illogical and letting my human emotions get the best of me, but I was tired of crying. I cried when Spock died, I cried when he came back, and I cried when I showed him our family photo album.

Suddenly, the doorbell to our quarters chimes. “Come in,” I say.

Spock walks in. “Hello, wife,” he says, voice monotone, almost sad.

I reply simply, “hello, Spock.”

He sits down on a chair across from me. “I have overheard that you have been thinking of a koon’ut’kal’if’fee. May I ask why?” He asks.

I swallow hard. How can I tell him my reasoning without upsetting him? Even though he was still half Vulcan and half human, his human side was more dominant since he was resurrected. “Honestly, Spock, I’ve just been struggling with this. I know you can’t help that you can’t remember anything, but I’m having a really hard time telling you all of our memories. I know I should be grateful that you are alive, which I am, but I’m just having a hard time accepting things how they are. I-I’m sorry.” Tears well up in my eyes.

His expression softens. “Please, do not be sorry for how you feel. If this is really what you want, I can get in touch with the Vulcan council tomorrow. I just want you to be happy.”

Happy… that broke me. Would this really make me happy? At the current moment, I can neither live with or without Spock. “C-can I have some time to think before we make any decisions?” I ask.

“Of course. I would not want to make a decision unless you are certain,” Spock simply replies.

“Good.” I throw on my jacket. “I’ll probably be out late, so don’t wait up for me.” Maybe I can clear my mind on the observation deck.

—————————————————————

Spock: Y/n was right in saying she would be out late. At around 22:00, I decide to head to bed. Yes, I was saddened by the possibility of divorce, for I had gotten used to having her around. Wether or not I had any previous memory of her, I still found her very pretty and kind.

Sleep comes easy at first, but then becomes littered with vivid dreams. The first dream, y/n and I are stuck on a foreign planet, and are forced to share a sleeping bag to keep warm. Her small body fitting like a puzzle piece against my chest.

In the next dream, I’m experiencing Pon Farr. Y/n mates- makes love- with me, giving me her virginity. I am filled with an excitement and love I have never felt. Y/n looking like a beautiful goddess, I wish this dream would continue.

Finally, a bitter dream fills me. Y/n is pounding on a glass wall, crying and repeating my name. I soon realize this is my death, risking my life so that everyone aboard the Enterprise would be safe.

“I remember!” I wake up in a gasp. I had not just experienced dreams, but in fact, memories. Y/n, she is not only my wife, but my Ashayem. It’s all coming back to me now.

I jump out of bed, and run to y/n’s room. I knock on her door and wait. After a moment of no response I knock again. The door opens, revealing a sleepy y/n.

Y/n: “Spock, it’s four in the morning. What do you want?” I ask, rubbing sleep from my eye.

“Ashayem, sit with me,” he says, leading me to the bed.

I obey, and sit on the bed, asking, “ what’s this about?”

“I remember,” Spock says.

“Remember what?” I ask.

“Ashayem, I remember everything,” he states. His voice sounding more like his old self.

Could it be true? Could I really have my husband, my logical, Vulcan dominant husband back?

“Okay, what names did we have picked out when we decided to have children?” I test him.

“We decided on T’Ral, if we had a son,” he begins. For a daughter we agreed on Sh’vha.”

“Alright,” I breathe. “Where were we the first time we made love?”

I could see the slightest smirk on his face, the first smirk I’ve seen since before he died. “We we’re on Vulcan, of course. I was experiencing Pon Farr. I risked death or you risked losing me to my betrothed if we did not mate. You were willing to give me your virginity and be my bride just so that I wouldn’t die. For that I am forever grateful… no matter how illogical it is for me to feel such way.”

“Oh Spock!” I hug his neck. “You really are back!” A tear falls from my cheek. “Oh, T’hy’la!”

Spock: I gaze deep into her eyes, and I allow myself some vulnerability. “Oh, Ashayem,” I take her hand in mine, with a passionate Vulcan kiss. I have longed for her touch for too long. Y/n leans in to share a human kiss, that is just as passionate. The combination of both kisses fills me with a deep longing. It had been a long time since y/n and I had been intimate, and I could tell she was longing for me just the same.

Y/n undresses for me, and I do the same for her.

“Are you ready for me, Ashayem?” I ask, climbing on top of her.

She nods, “ just as ready as the first time we made love.” She smiles and kisses me.

I slide inside her, knowing that she will always be my beautiful bride, my Ashayem.

We share the most passionate night of love making we have ever experienced, when we are interrupted by our alarms going off.

Y/n gasps, “I forgot I had duty today!”

“Do not worry, Ashayem. You get cleaned up, and I’ll tell the captain you cannot make it today, and I shall spend the morning cuddling with you, just like we used to,” I reply.

She kisses me once more. “You’re the best Vulcan husband a woman could have.”

“And I suppose I must be the happiest Vulcan alive,” I reply, hooking my fingers with hers.

#star trek #mr spock #spock #spock tos #spock x reader #leonard nimoy #mr. spock #st: tos #spock eyebrow #s’chn t’gai spock #tos spock #star trek tos #tos Spock x reader #mr. Spock x reader #spock smut #spock imagine

[spocks-husband]

it's rotten work.

Words: 1,438

Genre/Tropes: Fluff, a bit of hurt/lots of comfort, humor

Summary: Spock is afraid of thunderstorms. (Also, what the hell are The Amish??)

Notes: Ah, yes, another self-indulgent Spirk fluff fic that no one will like, imported from my AO3 <3 you guys love me so much /s

Spock couldn't help the unnerved sensation that crept its way down his spine as they left the diplomatic hall of the strange new world he and his husband had found themselves upon. Something in the curious, static humidity that hung in the air made his skin crawl-- it was something he, unfortunately, knew well, something he'd gone out of his way to avoid since his first childhood interaction with it all those years ago. Yet, here he was, and though he tried to consider the present circumstances from perhaps a scientific or analytical perspective, he could not. It was a feeling he could not control that had begun to sweep through his body, one he had encountered many a time, yet never one he could hold in such a tight grasp as he could the other facets of his natural emotions. No, this was not something that could be cleared away with logic and reasoning-- perhaps even deliberately so. It was a purely human feeling; the sensation of irrational fear.

In Spock's mind, fear was an irritating-- albeit somewhat evolutionarily necessary-- sensation that, for the most part, was irrelevant. He had been in thousands of life-threatening situations over the years-- he was a galactic hero, for Surak's sake-- but in each one of them, he prided himself on remaining calm and rational enough to handle the situation with clarity and precision. In all honesty, though, knowing that only made him feel more-- What was it, embarrassed? Guilty? Ashamed?-- at the current terror he knew would soon grip him. 

"Something the matter, Adun?" Jim asked casually upon their return to their temporary residence on Tonitribus VI.

It was a strange planet they'd found themselves on; while its people, known as the Vetus, were well aware of warp travel and certainly had the potential to be just as industrially advanced as Terra had become by the 23rd Century, they made an active choice to live simply and without technological advancement. Some sort of philosophical or religious decision from what Spock had gathered, and while it was rather illogical he supposed he respected it. Jim had frequently compared them to a similar Earth movement known as The Amish, but Spock was regretfully unfamiliar with this group; he made a mental note to research them later (perhaps one of the 21st-century holoprograms produced by the antediluvian television company TLC on the subject could be of use?). As a consequence of these beliefs, though, along with the federation's desperation to make a good impression on this society for fear they would deny new Dilithium trade agreements, The Starship Enterprise had to leave promptly after dropping off the diplomatic team, thus leaving Spock and James at the mercy of Vetus hospitality; thankfully, however, they'd found their arrangements-- a comfortable, cottage-like building with the traditional furs gracefully removed from the floors and walls per Jim's request (he hadn't wanted his husband to be any more uncomfortable, after all) quite satisfactory. 

"I am alright, Jim," Spock said slowly, putting down his satchel and removing his cloak as he entered the building. Kirk hummed softly in response.

"If you say so..." the human responded, dropping the subject with a hesitant tone as he walked over to the large, curtained window, looking out over the fields and mountains of Tonitribus VI. The sky was an overcast, dim shade of its usual vibrant purple, and the wind blew through the plants fiercely. "Looks kind of like Earth, come to think of it," he mused, his hands behind his back as he examined the weather in a way that Spock had observed many older American men do-- most notably his father-in-law, but that was beside the point. Something Jim's nephew had called the 'Midwestern Dad Pose', which Spock was beginning to believe was perhaps not an official term. "Looks like a storm might be coming in... if that's how their weather works, anyways," Jim chuckled at his own joke. 

"Indeed," Spock responded quietly as he prepared a kettle of tea on the stove, his back turned to Jim in an attempt to hide any slips of fear that may escape into his outward expression. "I suspect there will be... a thunderstorm." 

"Really?" Jim asked excitedly, perking up with a grin that sort of reminded Spock of the way Terran dogs looked when they became interested in something. "That sounds great! God, I haven't seen a thunderstorm since we were last in Iowa..." he paused for a moment. "Wait, were you with me for that trip?" He approached Spock from behind, watching him prepare their tea with mild interest. 

"... I was on the trip, yes," Spock said slowly. "But... I had returned to the ship that night." Jim raised a brow.

"Why's that?" He asked tenderly. It was odd, really-- even after decades of being together, platonically or otherwise, Spock still found himself expecting Kirk to judge him. He never did, though. There was only one person Spock had ever felt he never had to change for. Only one person who he couldn't disappoint if he tried. Only one person-- gentle and sweet and nostalgic in his aura the way an old photograph is when you find it at an antique store, the yearning to know its history and the bitter sting of knowing that perhaps you will never understand it to its fullest extent, charming and kind with his goofy smile and his bright eyes. He felt like coming home. James.

"... I have not encountered a thunderstorm since a childhood visit of mine to Earth I had gone on with my mother," Spock began carefully, watching the tea kettle with sudden interest. "Since this initial experience, I have found I possess a... distaste for thunderstorms. I... do not like them." Spock couldn't help feeling a bit desperate to avoid admitting the exact emotion he knew was within himself. Thankfully, as always, Jim caught on. 

"Ah... you're afraid of thunder?"

"... Affirmative," Sock said stiffly, avoiding his husband's eyes as he poured the tea. Jim hummed in response. 

"Well, that's alright," James responded simply, tucking a stray hair behind Spock's ear to satisfy his eternal need to be touching his Vulcan partner's cold skin. Spock gave him a slightly puzzled look. 

"You... do not view this as a weakness?" Spock asked slowly. "It is clear you find interest in the storms, I do not want to discourage you from pursuing--"

"It's not a weakness," Jim responded calmly, adding a few spoonfuls of sugar to this tea, stirring it in slowly as he spoke. For once, Spock did not tease him for adding a sweetener. "It's natural."

"It is... human," Spock added slowly, the words themselves seeming unsure as to what their intention was.

"It is," Jim responded with a soft smile. "Come on, let's watch a holoprogram. It'll be nice-- I'll take care of you tonight," Jim kissed Spock softly on the cheek. 

"I... do not need to be cared for," Spock frowned slightly. "I am not a child."

"True," Jim nodded. "But I'd like to take care of you if you'll let me."

There was a pause. 

"I... I shall indulge your human need to comfort those you care for," Spock said, subtly embarrassed. Jim chuckled, gently bemused that even now, Spock's pride would not permit him to simply ask for his husband of several years to soothe his fear. It was something they needed to work on, Jim knew, but that could wait. They had all the time in the universe together. 

Despite Spock's frequently tensed form and the occasional need for Jim to rub a tender hand across his back to calm his racing heart, their evening was rather pleasant. For the first time, perhaps in all his life, Spock felt almost... glad... to allow himself such vulnerability. He and James held hands all through that night, and when they awoke the next morning, still on the couch, with slightly aching backs and two half-drunken mugs of now-cold Earl Grey on the coffee table, there was no regret between them, no embarrassment. In a way, they spoke their own language when they were together, and such words did not exist to them. Nothing existed to them outside of each other. Nothing needed to. 

There was only one question still lingering between them as they awoke the next morning, and as they ate their breakfast in comfortable silence, Spock really couldn't resist his curiosity.

"Jim?"

"Yes, Mr. Spock?" 

He would never admit it, but Spock did adore when Jim used his professional title when they were alone together; there was a peculiarly satisfying irony in it.

"... What are-- The Amish?" 

#star trek #spirk #spock #mr spock #star trek tos #s’chn t’gai spock #tos spock #captain kirk #kirk #james t kirk #jim kirk #k/s #space husbands #k/s fanfic #tos #the premise #fanfic #fanfiction #my fanfic #my fanfiction #spirk fanfiction #star trek fanfiction #spirk fic #fluff #spirk fluff

[randomnumbers751650]

Finished Hortus of Escapismo and it really gave me a lot of thoughts.

Well, I feel others already talked about the tragedy of the event. Sure, the protagonists have deescalated the tensions and something worse was avoided. But the Sarkaz were rejected from the Laterano paradise and few Laterano citizens changed meaningfully their view of the Sarkaz; the problems that underlie Laterano society are still there and will emerge again eventually (and if they aren’t addressed, it’ll make groups like the Church of Deep more attractive to the ones excluded), converging with the rest of Terra’s problems.

One of the themes of Hortus of Escapismo is faith and despair. The abbot tried to manage a “paradise” for both Sarkaz and Sankta where they could live in peace. But, as the story shows, many Sankta didn’t internalize that, they just thought of the Sarkaz there as people just “there”, while the Sarkaz had to live in even worse conditions than the already bad ones of the monastery.

The abbot entered in despair and almost resorted to the Church of Deep’s methods to keep the “paradise” between Sankta and Sarkaz. But he was too kind, he loved them too much to give them the twisted view of paradise of the Church of Deep; it would violate what the individual wishes of his congregations would want. Thus, he teetered in the edge of the despair abyss but didn’t jump. But he will never be the same.

Meanwhile, Clement was also a kind person. Being an Elafia, he was likely mostly ignorant of the conflicts between Sarkaz and Sankta. He gave his life for the monastery, trying to plant flowers to give it a bit of color. But he succumbed to despair when the paradise was crumbling. He was a really unique boss: not a mass of mutated tentacles, not a near-invincible warrior, just a normal gardener. You don’t even really fight him, but the enemy units and the desire of civilians to fall in holes.

After being defeat, it does show how far he’s fallen into despair. It was a sad moment, to state the obvious. But I wonder how much Arturia had a hand on it. It seems her Arts is to amplify emotions. In my opinion, I honestly believe she’s more of an “evil woman (derogatory)” than “evil woman (affectionate)”, but she’s not really good and evil, in a sense. Like an analysis wrote, she’s more of a trickster, doing whatever she wants and to see what happens when people’s emotions are brought to their logical conclusion, making them act illogically – she’s disappointed that the abbot refused to turn the congregation, she surely was looking forward to that, and why Executor can deal with her bullshit, he’s immune to her Arts. But that’s what makes her a threat and that’s why she needs to be stopped (I’m reminded of Dario recognizing that the Seaborn also aren’t good and evil, but a threat that must be stopped). After her talking about how Clement will be remembered, I was like “you sure like your flowery language”; that made me realize some tragedies aren’t “beautiful” neither “cathartic” -- sometimes they’re just bullshit imposed by someone else.

Still, I hope to see more of her in future events to see how this will develop. Also, it seems the Church of Deep also has plans to expand. Will things get better? Not sure, but that won’t stop some trying to improve things and it won’t give easy solutions to the audience. Compassion was also a recurring theme – Hyman recovering her humanity when she saw her children (we’ll surely see her and Aulus again, but I wonder if they also have a different agenda from the Seaborn we’ve seen), the abbot’s compassion for the congregation and Executor essentially learning how to practice it.

#arknights #hortus de escapismo #see bobbile-blog and myceliagoblin posts on the event and arturia #but also yesterday i was reading a book title the hegemony of psychopathy #that talked about hegemony uses psychopathy to perpetuate itself #and the most important way to fight is with compassion with others #and i was thinking of that #when reflecting on the role of compassion in the event

[star-crossed-mid]

Little ramble on water boy 2 and red string cutter and their powers

The Goddess of Fate's power was the ability to change the future/fate of anyone. In some of the other gods stories it kind of seems like her power was just giving people a choice. I like to believe that MC has that power still but its more toned down as in she just talks to people about what choices they can make like idk telling leon to not kill everyone and wipe the universe teehee.

We see her power work in every story intentional or not. Maybe it was the king using the help of her powers to decimate the underworld or the simple acts of kindness performed through MC. Anyway, it can go into theories of dominos falling or butterflies flapping their wings that Clotho's power was very strong and had lasting impacts on a persons future.

Hue's power is clairvoyance, granted he can't use it without touching the person but he could still see into the future. He keeps to himself when he does this, only preparing for the inevitable.

I love that Huedhaut was the one to help Clotho figure out how to use her powers and incidentally was one of the first people who had his fate 'changed'. Whether his fate was actually changed by her or it was just him trying to create a logical answer to him catching feelings is wild.

One of my fav excerpts of them is I think in one of Hue's stories he gets surprised accidentally reading Clotho's future. He saw that they were dating before he even knew they were. Ended with both of them getting awkward about it and just acknowledging 'hey we're dating', and along the lines of him saying 'i've never had my own future spoiled'.

TLDR their relationship

One of the reasons Hue fell in love with MC/Clotho was because Clotho always forced Hue out of his comfort zone (at a reasonable level) and was his total opposite. Something refreshing, sun and moon.

Clotho definitely woke up Hue in the middle of the night to ask if he would still love her if she was a worm (and him in a begrudging state of total confusion would say yes, he loves them in any form, he loves their soul etc etc).

It's also to note that her power literally interrupts his. He can't see/predict the future if it's always changing. It was unpredictable for him. Which ties into the philosophy he learnt when we see him in S1 that he doesn't know how to process the illogical and irrational. He also gets a bit mad at MC when she brings up the concept 'fate' once again being a theoretical concept not set in stone. Huedhaut tries to grab onto any reason when it came to an emotional experience and it left him with centuries full of grief as to why Clotho did the things she did.

In a sense, Huedhauts season 1 reads like a ghost story. Clotho is the ghost that haunts MC, Hue, and some of the other gods. There's a famous quote by David Foster Wallace that says:

"Every love story is a ghost story"

Clotho haunts the narrative, and surely haunts Hue. Those versions of the goddess of fate with the god of Aquarius doesn't exist anymore, yet they still have a very persistent figure in the story. Clotho gave up (not sacrificed) herself/powers because she wanted humanity to feel the love that Huedhaut gave her, her last thoughts were literally of her and Huedhaut hugging the morning prior as she found comfort in the absolute. Huedhaut was near her/watched as she faded from existence. Everything she did, Huedhaut took it personal as Clotho's decisions were purely emotional.

Whether it was inconsistent writing or intentional, Hue's reasonings/graspings at Clotho changes throughout the story from (TLDR SUMMED UP)

"Oh gods I desecrated myself for love" "Did she love me or was she unhappy and decided to do that" blaming himself for not stopping her/finding a solution/not being smart enough at the time

it changes in his route a few times but I think its a realistic depiction for someone who didn't get closure and is heavily focused on reason. tldr im rambling love overcomes as a theme and love is good. Voltage I am begging please give Hue a good update also redo his promise of infinity.

hue and clotho/mc have that doomed yuri type beat also something about them just spreads tragedy i love them i have like 3 scm aus and one of them is dedicated to them entirely.

#star crossed myth #star-crossed myth #starcrossed myth #voltage otome #scm huedhaut

[theshadowrealmitself]

Oh right trek! I had forgotten what made me follow you lmao

Anyways, what’s ur opinion on the idea in some areas of trek canon that having Vulcan levels of logic is a) attainable by humanity and b) not guaranteed to blow up impressively for the human

Cause I love Vulcan logic but like. For humans that would be mental illness

Followup, what differences in emotional processing do you think Vulcans have that lets them attain such logic?

Followup, do you think it would ever be possible for a Vulcan to safely dabble in emotion? Like v’tosh k’tur but like. Mentally stable. Personally, I think it would be possible but the kinds of Vulcans drawn to illogic would probably be drawn due to traits that would make it inherently near impossible for them to ever safely feel emotions. Like the kinds of Vulcans that could safely feel emotions are also the kinds of Vulcans who never would choose to. Because the logic that lets them theoretically be able to pull it off also keeps them from wanting to Emotion

Anyways I’m off to bed, have this hybrid question/infodump to chew on

Personally, I think that logical ≠ emotionless, so while I don’t think Humans could ever get to that level of seemingly emotionless that Vulcans can, because anything beyond that calm that like monk could get to (which I still have my suspicions on if even that’s healthy), would be impossible for Humans, the closest they could do is repression and that’s not only extremely unhealthy for a Human, but it also doesn’t work out long term for them either, those emotions will eventually pop out

I do think that Humans can become as logical, cause, to me at least, logic is mainly just critical thinking, for sure Humans can accomplish that, although I guess there’d be many times where a Human’s emotion may cause them to act in a way that they know is illogical, I’m pretty sure Vulcans could also end up doing that if the situation is really high stakes for them, they’d just be less likely to do so

I don’t think Humanity as a whole can eventually get up to that point of being that quick with statistics and stuff, some Humans yeah, but we definitely could never be known for it like the Vulcans are

I’m not too good with science, but I think for the emotional processing thing, I think there’s 2 reasons why Vulcans can pull it off

Reason 1) Their bonds, these bonds can help Vulcans with a ton of things that Humans have no help with, like being actually understood by family and having that mental and emotional security no matter what, there’s a lot I think their telepathy helps with but I don’t know how to speak about it coherently

Reason 2) I think it could be explained as an evolutionary trait, now my knowledge of Surak’s time is terrible, but my way of thinking about it is that with their emotions being high and Vulcans being on the verge of destroying themselves, there must have been a lot of deaths and when they started meditating and trying to regulate their emotions, their bodies might’ve seen it as a trait that aides in survival

I think that might have also led to them evolving other things (which I mentioned on some other posts), like there must be something different about their spines or something that lets them meditate every day without health consequences

(Or maybe it’s just because their brains work so quickly that they can actually work through emotions very quickly and let go)

((Or, it’s actually only the older Vulcans who managed to actually become peaceful logical beings because of Vulcans’ long life spans, and all the younger Vulcans stay on the planet to avoid other species until they actually master their emotions and that’s why Vulcans don’t have many colonies elsewhere))

Finally, for if Vulcans could ever safely feel emotion, I really genuinely think so, because I think Vulcans don’t actually repress their emotions, I think they mastered their facial expressions, I think they mastered their body language, and I think they mastered following logic when they really really want to do something else

But I don’t think they ever actually managed being emotionless (unless you count kolihnar)

I really think that their meditating is what Human meditating is like, working through all your inner struggles and learning to let go of negative emotions so that they have an easier time moving on from situations and continuing to be logical

I think there’d be some worry that if they let loose some control then it might lead to losing more and more control of themselves, but who knows, maybe if they actually physically show emotion, it might be healthier for them overall

I do always wonder what kind of effect that being dedicated to logic actually has on them, to me, the teachings of Surak seem an awful lot like a religion becoming popular when they really needed it, it saved them from destroying themselves, but it was such a 180 from how the species had always lived their lives, is it actually healthy for them to follow it so strictly?

We’ll never really know! Maybe it’s a human-centric thought to think that it’s hurting them, and they’re actually doing fine, or maybe it really was too drastic of a change, and Vulcans actually need a middle ground between no logic and only logic, it’s fun to think about

#ask box #ty ty ty ty for letting me go on a tangent #hopefully this is coherent #Star Trek #I have many thoughts but I usually end up tripping on them while trying to share them #I probably forgot to add a lot of things to this but it’s already pretty long anyways #ty ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️ #Vulcans #Humans #long post #with spacing so it’s easier to read

[psychewritesbs]

When Opposites Attract, part 2: Turning Point

Listen. Gundam Seed, Athrun and I are all having turning points. 

For Athrun, he finally gets some character development. 

As for me and Seed? Well we’re making peace with each other because I must admit that I like melodrama. I am soooo not above melodrama. So I am going to go ahead and stfu about Gundam Seed’s melodramatic plot because... 

Here I am... because #blorbo. 

It is, after all, a known fact that I have a tendency to self-insert my own psyche into male deuteragonists with black hair and green eyes. It’s like my brand.

This time I’m nitpicking at GS episodes 26-30 for juicy asucaga and individual character development. I am officially insufferable...

So the last time we saw Athrun and Cagalli together in a scene they were parting ways in much different terms than when they first met each other. Having humanized each other after exchanging names, Athrun and Cagalli parted ways most likely assuming their Gundanium Alloy chance encounter was a once in a lifetime kind of encounter.

Meaning, they likely thought they’d never run into each other.

Oh but little did Athrun and Cagalli know that the 8 writers in the Gundam Seed writing staff had #plans for them and that they would bend the plot as needed to unfold their potential as the fantastic ship that they are.

Athrun

And so it is how In chapter 26 we get the very melodramatic exchange between Athrun and Kira meant to remind us that these two kids are really good friends. And, you know, this all happens just before they try to kill each other.

So in this little exchange we get to finally see the internal conflict that Athrun is having around this whole situationship with Kira. 

Part of the reason this conflict exists is because Athrun is not just a soldier, but is also incredibly and stupidly single-minded. 

Basically, Athrun is told by his superiors that “enemy = bad, must kill”, and Athrun goes “understood, enemy = bad, must kill.”. No questions asked.

But again, that’s one of the things I like about how Athrun is written. 

This kid has an ease with “logic” and mechanics that does not necessarily translate into the realm of “irrational emotions”. This is ESPECIALLY poignant because, since he’s been a soldier most of his life, he’s used to being told what to do and to blindly following those directions.

The thing to keep in mind is that it’s not just that the military suits Athrun’s personality. It’s a bit more complex than that as he’s also following in the steps of a distant father figure whose approval he might seek unconsciously. 

So in a sense, the military = dad and it makes me feel like there’s something very Oedipal at the core of Athrun having to defy his father.

Athrun has been told he MUST kill the Strike’s pilot if he wants to protect the PLANTs. 

But at this point in the story, Athrun has not begun to think for himself or to wonder whether blindly following directions is the smartest thing to do.

So when Cagalli approaches him and Kira in that scene, Athrun literally and symbolically turns his back on his heart and walks away from them. He leaves Kira behind because not only does he see the world in neat boxes where everything can be easily explained, the logical course of action is that Kira has chosen the wrong side of the war and that makes him an enemy by default.

Enemy = bad, must kill.

Any other narrative outside of this statement is uncharted territory that Athrun has been encouraged never to consider by the mere fact that he’s a soldier.

Now, I did love how dramatic this interaction is for asucaga. As soon as Athrun notices Cagalli is headed their way, he turns around so as to not be seen. After all, she had expressed to him already that she didn’t want him to hurt others with his Gundam... which is totally what he ends up doing.

So he walks away totally emotionally constipated torn between his heart (which he can’t comprehend because it’s illogical) and the blind obedience that is and/or has become part of his character.

Athrun has the kind of cold logic devoid of “conscience” that can be very dangerous. But as Athrun opens up emotionally and starts questioning both his logic and the authorities he was taught to obey, Athrun symbolically introduces the idea of the heart as “Conscience”. 

But alas, we have not had enough character development for that because most of the budget was spent animating boob jiggle in the openings, smexy shower scenes, and Kira crying. 

No mam/sir/whatever label you prefer. We’re halftheway through the show and Athrun has had about as much character development as a goldfish. No offense to goldfish.

So before Athrun can get to that turning point, well... in a fit of rage after witnessing Kira killing Nicol... Athrun does THE #thing...

Enemy = bad, must kill. 

And this is where we leave things off with Athrun before he meets up with Cagalli, who is going through some actual character development, once again.

So let’s look at Cagalli’s growth and where she meets Athrun in the middle as she becomes his impetus for development.

Cagalli

A number of things.

First, I have to add a very important quality about Cagalli I did not mention before. Even though I love calling her a Princess (because she is a literal Princess and behaves like one), the fact that Cagalli chose to go out and learn about the world beyond the safe confines of her lifestyle is so metaphorically Siddhartha.

Siddhartha is a Prince who is better known as Buddha for renouncing to the worldly riches available to him so that he could learn about the world and seek enlightenment. 

Not saying Cagalli is enlightened per se, but rather that she represents that budding light of consciousness that comes from expanding one’s horizons.

And I absolutely loved how when her father told her “you don’t know anything about the world,” and Cagalli basically said “watch me!” and put herself in circumstances that grew her as a person.

In episode 27, Turning Point, in an attempt to dissuade her from joining the Archangel as they battle ZAFT forces, this time her father challenges her to try to think of the causes of war instead of focusing on the symptom--fighting.

Clearly her dad’s words encouraged the kind of introspection that led to choosing not to join the Archangel like she initially intended to. But this wouldn’t have been possible if she had not been changed by what she’s seen. 

Is fighting going to get anyone anywhere when all that comes from it is an endless cycle of hatred and death, thus feeding into the cycle of senseless conflict?

When she finally understands this, she decides to stay behind. The Goddess of Victory is grounded until further notice because the writers needed Cagalli to be the one who rescues Athrun she has to think through how to end this war without fighting.

This is how thanks to that thick ass plot armor, Athrun and Cagalli have their second “fated” encounter.

The thing is that now that Athrun has done the #thing, he is finally ready to start to ask himself what he wants to fight for (as opposed to someone telling him who and why to fight) precisely because he came to realize that his logic led him astray--and the one who shows him the new way is Cagalli.

“Kira was a crybaby”

Cagalli rescues Athrun and brings him abroad her Orb ship where, unlike Dearka abroad the Archangel, he is treated with utmost respect as Cagalli’s guest.

Something that even Athrun snarks about remarks.

Honestly, this interaction was a pain to get through because it’s so over the top melodramatic... But HEY! The power of #blorbo and #otp compelled me so I march on.

Anyways...

Athrun is emotionally distraught--he’s like on “crazy person distraught by grief” mode. 

It’s kind of interesting to see the difference in how Athrun and Kira react differently to their trauma. Kira cries and Athrun represses.

As @ikuzeminna​ rather eloquently put it, Athrun is emotionally constipated af and acts accordingly.

So Athrun gets all Snarky McSnark and taunts Cagalli because he probably expects that she’ll liberate him from his misery through death. After all, don’t we all just kill people out of hatred?

NO ATHRUN, NO! 

Someone, please! Give this boy some character development.

Ok but in all seriousness, this IS Athrun’s turning point. This is the moment when all of what he thought was true about the world starts to crumble under the weight of a decision he made that he wished he had not made. This is the conflict at the crux of his sense of self also idk if I used this last sentence properly, it just sounded cool.

And my favorite part about all of this was Cagalli almost beating the crap out of him for the lame ass answer he gave about his reasoning for killing Kira: 

Enemy = bad, must kill.

And that’s one of the themes I love about asucaga--they push and challenge each other to be better. 

In other words, Athrun’s realism grounds Cagalli’s idealism the way Cagalli’s idealism inspires Athrun’s realism.

It is then that, after telling Athrun to quit being a dumb crybaby for not stopping to think for himself, Athrun and Cagalli find common ground again in the most unlikely of places: the mutual agreement that Kira cries way too much.

And so it is that by the time they go their separate ways once again, Athrun and Cagalli have changed each other. 

For Athrun who just killed his “bestest of friends”, this is the moment when he has to face his past choices. In their brief time together, Cagalli showed him how one can make the difficult choice not to take revenge out of hatred and instead love one’s “enemy”. She opened up Athrun’s mind to look beyond its logic.

For Cagalli, this interaction served the purpose of showing her exactly what her dad was trying to teach her--look for the causes of war. This lets her know that if she wants to end the war, then she needs to go after that senseless hatred.

So it is that as they say their goodbyes...

All he can think to say is “you’re weird” and sort of thanks her... this is what romance is made of guys! I swear does he not have social skills or something? What is wrong with him?!

And Cagalli is like “thanks dude, I’ll take that as a compliment? I guess...” and gives him that necklace because we need an object that he can use to pine over her. 

Win for the writers and their thick ass plot armor.

Woo hoo! I am finally able to move on to the next episodes... I am almost to the kiss scene. Almost there!

Thanks for reading my shitpost! Over analyzing Gundam Seed is lots of fun precisely because the writing is hit or miss. 

#gundam seed #asucaga #athrun zala #cagalli yula athha

[the-drifters]

Hello! You said you have a whole ass infodump about the omens and their emotion plus how important they express it. Can I hear your explanation on that? I’m very curious.

Ohh yeah sure!

So like… where do I start uhh-

Lemme start with Dianthus as an example I guess. She starts off very defensive about feeling emotions at all. She states there is no ROOM for her to feel things. Her dialogue on the subject becomes more important for my other points below.

Later on, as she’s around the party, this seems to change. Both Geist and Callistephus shame her over expressing her feelings on at least two occasions. Callistephus says she’s too human, and Geist says her “hope” is a flaw that will lead them to disaster.

Adding onto that, take what’s under the surface in Dianthus and Hydolanzer (the first boss of the game)‘s interactions. Note that Hydolanzer also has a voiced dialogue line that says “Fight well, Dianthus.” She doesn’t WANT to kill Dianthus, but she’s been ordered to.

…I think Cres’s cynical comment on Ein being caught in a “Lover’s Quarrel” between the two Omens is right. Coincidentally. Although there’s a good chance that if there was some sort of romantic tension between Hydolanzer and Dianthus, neither of the two had the understanding which leads me to my next point.

It seems like the Omens have actually been experiencing complex feelings for a very long time, but they repress it. Anyone who acts on them enough to be deemed “dysfunctional” gets wiped and rebooted. Why?

Because their HUMAN CREATORS’ illogical behavior eventually led to their downfall. The Omens have to work toward their goals and serve their masters, but they also kind of look down on them, and project that view onto themselves. They feel shame because they’re afraid of dooming themselves and Humanity toward extinction.

Coming back to Dianthus… she doesn’t seem to be all that well liked by many of her peers for the most part. They make it seem like she’s a black sheep, and Callistephus implies the same for Geist after the other Omens gave up on solving Quietus. Now this is important for Dianthus specifically because… it makes me think her stoicism isn’t just that.

Ever notice how she’s more receptive to snarky comments at her expense than she is compliments? How she shoots down every attempt someone tries to be nice to her? Take some of the break conversations, or when she brings Emily on her airship. I want to say that I think she’s emotionally traumatized. She doesn’t allow herself to be vulnerable until she learns to better understand what she’s feeling in her character story. She loosens up in terms of how she views her relationships with others and how she feels about things toward the end.

And lastly, what does this mean to me? Why’s it so moving for me? Well- it’s because there’s a trait called Alexithymia, which is common in people with certain neurological disabilities (ex: autism) or mental illnesses. Alexithymia means that a person struggles to identify their emotions. Notice how pretty much all of the Omens describe the things they feel as “noise in their circuitry.” They seldom actually label what they feel- because it’s complex, illogical, and new to them. They haven’t learned to understand yet. But in Dianthus’s case, she comes to realize that she can use introspection to at least figure out the meanings behind her feeling and what she wants. And I find that so moving because I experience that too.

So… yeah. That’s my infodump. It’s long but to be fair I have a lot to say. I also have some headcanons which might be in part influencing my analysis but overall it’s just how I view the Omens’ emotions and should be taken with a grain of salt.

#asks #kisetsukaze-central #harvestella #harvestella spoilers #dianthus #geist #long post

[discyours]

I’m starting to think I’m not only autistic but too autistic to be capable of understanding why.

I initially rejected my diagnosis because I didn’t relate to it at all. It was hurtful being told how I felt. Being forced into a routine that only made me anxious because people like me benefit from it. Any disagreement was written off as rigid thinking. The very second I got my diagnosis all of my emotions became the result of having a brain that just can’t process things properly, I went from having my emotions dismissed because I was a 13 year old girl to having my emotions dismissed because I was no longer seen as even being capable of having normal human emotions for normal human reasons.

It felt sexist too. I was kidnapped. Taken from my bedroom by two grown men threatening me with a syringe. Brought to a locked facility. Of course I was cold with staff. Of course sitting there not eating, not speaking was the only way I could think of to assert some control over my body. It felt like a punishment. The way I was acting wasn’t unnatural or illogical but it was undesirable, so they had to pathologise it.

The psychiatrist said I had black and white thinking, which he reiterated when I said I didn’t relate to the diagnosis. I had some weird habits with food and cleanliness. It’d take several more years for anyone to recognise that I had OCD or anorexia. He noted that I didn’t seem to struggle to identify other people’s emotions at all, but then he brought up my IQ test from a few years earlier. I wondered if boys ever got diagnosed with autism for being smart, stubborn, and not smiling enough at the people holding them captive.

I’m in my 20s now and it’s only just starting to sink in that he wasn’t wrong. That it was autistic of me to be able to reject the diagnosis for this long. That rejecting social expectations, even if only enough to be cold with the people who are holding you against your will, was autistic of me. But that naively going along with what other people expect of you (which is the kind of thing that gets you raped, which is the kind of thing that gives you CPTSD, which is the kind of thing that makes it very hard to tell if you’re autistic or just “damaged”) is also autistic. And it’s sinking in but I still struggle to understand. It just feels like no matter what I do, I’ll always do it wrong. Is that what it comes down to? How do you accept that without hating yourself?

Everything I hear about autism is from late-diagnosed high-masking people whose message revolves around the fact that just because their extensive social circle can’t tell, and just because they graduated university, and just because they hold a full time job does not mean that they are high functioning. How do I relate to that as a person who’s permanently disabled, can’t make friends, can’t finish a high school education, and somehow still took this long after a professional diagnosis to even recognise that I’m autistic? Other people not recognising that there is something wrong with me has never been my problem. I feel so fucking stupid.

#autism #actuallyautistic #tw #rape tw #ableism tw

[mbti-notes]

Hello there, I get frustrated with some thinking types in MBTI comms because they confuse emotional detachment with reason and logic (even though you can be unemotional and make an illogical argument and vice versa). Some people use the T label as an emotional shield and way to claim they're automatically right (can be very sexist) but don't see their own emotional motives behind doing this. I find it hard to articulate this in debate though, do you know resources that can help? Thank you

Unfortunately, I don't really understand what it is you're trying to argue. Emotional detachment is actually necessary for proper reasoning. But I suppose it depends on what exactly you mean by "detachment". Neurologically speaking, if your executive functioning has been hijacked by emotional reactivity, you do start to lose the ability to reason properly. Why do you think we show some degree of mercy to people who commit "crimes of passion"? We understand that they have utterly lost control of themselves and "can't think straight". It is a state of mind to be avoided if you care about exercising good judgment.

Perhaps what you really mean is emotional repression or poor emotional awareness, rather than "detachment"? Repression or suppression of emotions is indeed psychologically unhealthy. For human beings, knowledge of feelings and emotions is an essential aspect of moral decision-making. Therefore, repression/suppression of feelings and emotions will severely impair your ability to make ethical and healthy choices. To take feelings and emotions into consideration when reasoning is the right thing to do, but this is something very different than "being emotional".

You're raising several confusing points, so let me address them:

-Are you accusing Ts of believing that the very presence of emotions makes it impossible to construct a logical argument? If any T actually believes this, they would not be the only guilty party. As per above, the fact of the matter is that, in most cases, emotions do have great potential to interfere with logical reasoning ability. Therefore, it is not entirely unreasonable to at least be skeptical of emotions when reasoning. In fact, many people possess this skepticism - it is not inherent to Ts. Yes, though it's rare, a person can be emotional and still make a logical argument, IF they understand how to prevent emotions from having a deleterious effect on reasoning, i.e., if they are capable of impartiality (aka detachment).

-Are you accusing Ts of believing that, as long as there is no presence of emotion, an argument is certain to be logical? If any T actually believes this (which I highly doubt), they would be exhibiting a gross error in logic. Yes, you can indeed be unemotional and make an illogical argument. In such a case, it would be sufficient to simply correct the flaws in logic, since emotion would be irrelevant. One of the great advantages of being T is being quite amenable to corrections in logic. If someone isn't amenable to being corrected, it certainly has nothing to do with being T. It's because they have some ego problem of not being able to admit when they're wrong.

-Are you accusing Ts of not being able to see their own emotional motives? Actually, the vast majority of people have difficulty seeing their own emotional motives because of low self-awareness. This problem doesn't come from being T, rather, it comes from issues of psychological immaturity.

I have to wonder why you specifically target Ts as though these problems belong solely to them. It sounds like you're making some kind of essentialist argument about the nature of Ts in order to avenge a grudge you have against them. Could it be that you are not aware of your emotional motives? I suppose the reason I don't understand what debate you're trying to have is because I don't know your motives. You say you're "frustrated", so you want to enter debates with these people… to achieve what? Prove that they're wrong and you're right? But how can you be so sure that you're right when you're not even clear about what you're trying to say?

Yeah, it's not good to be illogical or have low self-awareness, but these flaws are just part of being human. If people aren't ready to learn and grow, what makes you think debating them is going to work? According to your observations, they're already using their type preference as an excuse and a way to shut down discussion. And now you're going to use the opposing type preference to shut them down in return? Usually, debating people who aren't open to listening only makes them cling harder to their beliefs.

One of the reasons I run this blog is to help people empathize and understand each other better. I'm not here to stereotype and demonize and pit the types against each other. I explain the flaws and weaknesses of each type as a favor to people who need the information for their personal growth. What I don't do is write up talking points for moral crusaders. I would be a lot less hesitant to help if you would clarify and explain what your purpose is. You seek to borrow from authoritative voices to boost your own authority and change people's minds. But what is really motivating you to go around changing people who never asked to be changed?

#debate #conflict #communication #ask

[galaxy-of-hair]

wrt guillermo seemingly flip flopping on the issue of whether he wants to be a vampire or not.

ok so i do a lot of thinkin on guillermo because i think he might be the best character televison has ever had. i’m not being hyperbolic, i mean that. he makes me insane at least three times a day i can hardly believe we get to have him we are so blessed.

there’s a lot going on with that little guy. we talk a lot about characters being repressed, or in denial. and i think even to some extent we talk about how guillermo may have been in denial wrt his feelings for nandor until his convo with meg.

it’s hard though -- especially during this, the season of gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss -- to see guillermo as anything but firmly in-the-know, and firmly in control. he’s always been the competent one, the sensible one, the solid one.

but it occurred to me during my third(???) re-watch of the s3 finale, that we are seeing guillermo very out of control, even as he’s desperately trying to maintain order. the chaos orchestrated by nandor is throwing a wrench into all of his carefully placed gears. his reaction to spiraling out is to try to control shit even harder, including the narrative. he tells us he’s trying to keep the vamp pod together because he’s dedicated twelve years of his life to becoming a vampire, and he’s worried that if he can’t wrangle the situation, his chances of becoming a vampire disappear. 

he insists that his main motive is still to become a vampire. that’s the reason he’s been here all along, right? that’s his thesis statement. it’s a thread that runs through almost everything he does and says. and yeah, it used to be true, definitely. the whole point is to become a vampire. why else would he be doing any of this? that’s totally why he’s freaking out so bad, cause everything he’s worked towards is going up in smoke.

and i don’t believe him. i think he’s lying.

i don’t know to what degree he’s aware that he’s lying. he’s lying to us, that’s certain, but does he know that? is he lying to himself also? hard to say. before that convo with meg, i would have pegged him for a pretty self aware guy who definitely knew about his feelings for nandor. after that scene, i’m not so sure.

guillermo is a guy who likes things clean, and neat, and orderly. there are few things less clean and neat and orderly than feelings. they are messy, confusing, painful, often illogical pains in the ass that most humans have to deal with whether we like it or not. i think this is part of the original reason guillermo wanted to be a vampire. (very cool post about vamps and emotion from @nandoor that i’m lowkey obsessed with rn) anne rice’s vampires definitely find it easier to be detached and cold and calculating. 

i don’t think we interrogate guillermo’s original reason(s) for wanting to be a vampire nearly enough. because he’s often more honest with us than with the other main characters it’s easier to feel like his confidant and take what he says at face value, but i don’t think that his stated reasons for things are always true, whether he knows it or not.

i am not of the opinion that he is vacillating between wanting to be a vampire, and not wanting to be a vampire, but rather, that his motivation for wanting to be turned has shifted. being a vampire is no longer his central goal, but being a vampire is still the most obvious way to achieve his goal.

he started out staying with nandor and the gang so he could be a vampire. now he wants to be a vampire so he can stay with nandor and the gang.    

but that’s a lot of messy scary emotions, so it’s easier, it’s better, (it’s safer) if he has some kind of, uh, “””professional””” reason why he doesn’t want the vampire party to end. i mean, on its surface, it sounds reasonable! i put in twelve years to get this promotion and i’ll be damned if this company files for bankruptcy before i get it! but it really doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

he’s been in the game TWELVE YEARS. he’s made in-roads, he knows people, he’s got friends (some of them) in high places. he could probably even force a vampire to turn him at stake point if he wanted to. the staten island house splintering would not be the end of his quest for vampirism. not by a long shot. i’d argue that he’d likely have more success exploring other avenues, if that was his actual goal.

his panic is about the ticking clock, his time with these people is ENDING, there’s been a death in the family and now he’s staring down the barrel of a death of the family. (this fic by mia-ugly is amazing and it pokes into guillermo’s relationship w death) but the only reason that the clock is ticking, or that there’s a clock at all is that he’s human, and humans are on borrowed time.

if these creatures leave him behind before turning him, that would mean they may never see him again...and they’re fine with that. it’s less about a physical abandonment and more about an emotional one.  

but as long as nandor turns him, even if he leaves guillermo behind, then nothing is really over. they can always see each other again. they can always try again. they’ll never run out of chances to figure it out. the pressure abates. he can take his time getting things right. as a vampire, he’ll always be a part of their future instead of a story from their past or a blurry figure in the background of one of their faded pictures.

that’s why he gets teary eyed when nandor says,

if you come with me i’ll make you a vampire.

because he hears,

come with me and we can stay together for eternity. come with me, i want you to stick around forever. come with me, i don’t want to run out of moments to share with you. come with me, we can take as much time as we need to figure this out between us. come with me, there’s no rush.

and i just think that’s neat

#wwdits #wwdits meta #nandermo #nandermo meta #guillermo de la cruz #i simp 4 vamps #long post #character study #I JUST WANNA UNDERSTAND THEM???? YA KNO???? #JUST WANNA DIG AROUND IN THEIR BRAINS N SEE WHAT I FIND #i have no idea if im just stating the obvious or not but it was a lightbulb moment for me at least

[olderthannetfic]

Hi! I know you're one of the older fans on Tumblr & I wanted to ask you about the anti movement. I'm 19 & when I see people talking about the ages of anti fans, they're often within the 14-25 age range & I have no idea why. I also feel it's a little unfair to say that younger fans tend to be antis, though it is understandable since I've also made mistakes when I didn't know things. Why do you think most antis are younger fans? What should younger fans who aren't antis do to be more involved?

Hee! I’m 40, which, tbh, actually isn’t that old for Tumblr (though it’s certainly old compared to the common perception of tumblr), so sure, I can probably answer this. I guess there are two questions here: 1. Is it true and 2. why, if so?

1. Experience suggests that antis do tend to be young... but it does not follow that young people tend to be antis. (You’d have to know the proportion of antis relative to the overall population of fandom, which we don’t. I think the majority of people of any age tend to want to read fic in peace and not be roped into endless wank.) I definitely see some ringleaders who are older and good at manipulating fandom trends for their own ends too.

2. Why would this be the case?

When I was in college, we used to joke about all the freshman year Marxists. It’s an eternal phenomenon: people who don’t have much experience learn a new thing and are on fire to change the world using the one tool in their toolbox. (To a man with a hammer, yadda yadda.) There’s no passion like the passion of the newly converted, and young people tend to have a lot more energy and often a lot more free time to yell on social media. Antis may be one expression of this among people currently in that age bracket. It’s not like people my age didn’t do other annoying-ass things when we were that age. You just don’t see it because it was 20 years ago, a lot of it was never online, and all the websites/platforms from then have been systematically destroyed. (Often by yahoo. Fuck yahoo.)

The other half of the reason, in my opinion, is that there have been concerted efforts to sway lefty/socially liberal people in specific--often TERFy--ways. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the right wing radicalization of gamer guys.

People are susceptible to it because their lives suck and because they don’t know enough history or have enough confidence to form their own opinions and stand up for them. Sure, some people are going to go hardcore for anti views no matter how much they know, but a lot of people are just being swept along with the tide because something sounds superficially pro-gay or pro-protecting kids or whatever.

I cannot emphasize enough that the things that make someone ripe for the alt right are the same things that make them ripe for cults and for various kinds of toxic fandom shit: it’s usually the smart, sensitive overthinkers who don’t have enough close actual friends and who aren’t in a good place in their lives.

---

So what can you do?

You can try to make fewer more significant friendships and make sure your support system isn’t people you only know because you currently share a fandom. Most of my offline friends are people I found through fandom meetups, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for making fandom your life and only hanging out with fandom people, but we’re just regular friends who have dinner parties and shit (well, when it’s not the plaguetimes). Most of the time, we don’t share specific ships or fandoms. It’s vitally important to have a real support network that can’t be ripped away by social media wank.

The next thing we can all do is publicly stand up for what we believe in and not cave to pressure just because someone yelled “think of the children”. It’s important to be clear about the real history and logic behind these things, whether it’s the history of censorship that inspires people to support AO3′s extremely permissive policies or the fact that ‘queer’ was a fully reclaimed umbrella term in the 90s.

It’s okay if we don’t all agree. What’s not okay is appeals to emotion and ignoring science. A lot of anti bullshit is like “Rape fantasies are an abnormal red flag”, and this goes against every damn thing we know about human sexuality.

Part of this is examining our own stances for illogic and hypocrisy. If thought crimes aren’t real, then all of them aren’t real. I see way too many “Okay, but that one gross kink though!” comments from people who claim to be on my side, and this is very silly.

Possibly the biggest thing, though, is that we as a planet need to start being savvier about shitty social media and how it’s destroying our mental health. I don’t have a good overall solution, and obviously, I’m still on tumblr, but we all really need to cut down the amount of time we’re on sites like Facebook and Twitter and probably tumblr too. The more it has an algorithm and the less it has moderation, the more it’s a problem. Individual discords and spaces that can have moderation are better. It’s fine if some of them are 100% antis. The point is to have multiple spaces with rules that suit different groups.

A thing you can do is make your own spaces: be the owner of a discord for your ship, not just a passive participant at the mercy of shitty mods in an existing one. Run a fic exchange with rules you think are sensible and be firm when people try to scream about problematique things you don’t agree are a problem. One of the most pernicious anti problems is mods breaking the rules of their own spaces (usually a “no kinkshaming” one) to cave to social pressure from the loudest, most assholish set of people in the server. They don’t know how many people quietly disapprove and quietly leave their fandoms because they only fear the loud harassers, not the silent toll of caving to them.

Honestly, the climate of fear is the big issue more than a bit of yelling: I routinely meet 20-somethings who live in fear of being canceled and shunned. You can help this by... not being like that with your friends. If they’re friends with a canceled person, don’t ask them to drop the canceled person or face the same fate. If you disagree about some fandom hot take, talk about it calmly and don’t act like the friendship will be over in 5 seconds and you’ll use all your knowledge of them against them in a public callout because they didn’t instantly agree.

Basically, have some self confidence and don’t be fucking terrified all the time... which can be a tall order and probably explains the age thing also.

#fandom meta #loganelfreeces

[gaiuswrites]

King of Cups || Chapter 9

Chapter 9: The Hanged Man

Archive: ao3 | masterlist | eight

Pairing: Din Djarin x fem!Reader

Summary: After some time apart, new conclusions are met.

Word count: 7.8k~

Rating: Explicit

Warnings/tags: SMUT, fingering, unprotected piv sex, emo emo emo (are we even surprised any more), mature themes, abandonment/family trauma, loss

Notes: Friends, wow. I'm honestly embarrassed by how long this took. Thank you for your patience. I hope you find the reward worth the wait. This chapter is nearly all in Din's POV until it switches and blends in the last chunk. If you’re new to KOC, you’re more than welcome to start at this chapter! Love you guys x (gif credit: @bestintheparsec)

“Din.”

Familiar fingers brush through his hair, a hand he knew once combing over his overgrown locks. He feels the drag of nails across his scalp, tucking a truant curl behind his ear, and the act feels like home— like hearth.

Somewhere beyond his open window a morning bird trills, perched in its roost nestled into the forked branch of the elm.

He breathes a sigh, the sound thick with sleep, and turns to his pillow, burying himself deeper into the linen.

“Din, honey.”

He blinks— lazily, molassesed— her shape clearing into focus.

Green eyes peer back at him, fine lines framing the corners of them, and crescents crease around her lips, pulled warm into a soft curve.

Small toys— wooden things, baubles and bits, dolls made from scraps of old fabric—litter the floor, spilling from the chest butted against the stone of the wall. A book, well-loved and dog-eared, rests on his nightstand—the one he insisted she read from each night, the story he couldn’t possibly fall asleep without hearing—the images written on the page, dancing in his small mind to the tune of her voice.

It’s all there now as it was then before.

“It’s time to wake up.”

She sits at the edge of the bed—his bed—the weight of her arm draped over his shoulder like a blanket— like shelter. Like never being fearful again. Like never dying. Like summer, forever.

“I am awake,” he murmurs, and it is with his own tongue that he speaks. Not that of a boy, but a man—unfiltered, unmodulated. Stripped of his helmet, he hardly recognizes the tenor of it, of its richness, but he feels the words reverberate against the hollow of his throat and he knows they belong to him.

Light casts through the window behind her—particles of dust, trapped in the tines. Floating there, suspended on strings.

She only smiles, and strokes a thumb across the sweep of his cheekbone, there in the room he last felt safe.

“No, not yet.”

It’s time to wake up. It’s time to wake up. Wake up wake up wake—

“Not yet.”

His eyes blur open with a flutter of his lashes, the lifeless durasteel ceiling coming into view—the jade of her gaze fading, fading. Blowing away.

He shifts a hand through his hair— through the long strands in dire need of trimming— lying on his bedroll, spine knobbing into the thin mattress. The cold metal overhead stares back at him.

His chest rises. Falls.

Din can still feel her, the warmth of her, there on his cheek.

///

There is no part of this that comes easy.

He knows what you’re thinking, he can see it in the guard you’ve encased yourself with— your glass walls, your glass house. Transparent but impenetrable, Din can only look. A spectator, watching as you go about your routines— a stranger on the outside.

And he sees how you look at him.

You think he’s fine.

You think he’s marble. Unbreakable. Impervious to time, to cold, and he does nothing to correct you; no, he allows the belief. He lets you believe the calloused veneer of his beskar— lets you assume he is more machine than man.

Din thought it would be simpler. Convenient. Din thought it would hurt less.

Because how can he tell you? How can he possibly communicate the imprint you’ve left on him— how his mind revolves around the imagery of that evening in vicious figure-eights. How he can’t unremember your heat curling around his fingers, how he can’t unbridle the pulse of his cock in your palm. How he can’t unspeak that which he called you, his virgin tongue flicking new and flighty around the word.

Cyare.

It tripped—in the midst of his pleasure, it sprang clumsy from him how the inevitable always seems to where you are concerned: transport to Coruscant, his past, his history, his identity— it just happens, reasonless, illogically. Some driving magic beckoning him to buckle, wishing him to give.

Your moans, your gasps, how you prayed his name— this is the white noise murmuring through the ship, harmonizing with the tinny mechanical beeps and settling groans of the bulkheads. You churn like smog through his helmet. Ever present, the memory of you is constant— invasive. It’s suffocating him.

He’s been dealt plenty of injuries and contusions— he has the scars enough to prove it— but it’s this. It’s this that’s killing him. It’s you.

All of these paintings, life-like and lurid, and yet it is this wound - untended, uncauterized - that scalds most: the moment Din, that beskar apparition, slipped away from you. You were there, hip under the weight of his glove, and he simply

went, like fog.

He watched your face crest and fall—felt your heart, skipping nervous like a stone over a morning pond, little waves rippling lightly, lightly out and out until it puttered quiet and

sank.

He abandoned you there. He left you before you had the opportunity to convince Din that you wouldn't do the same to him. Because Din has learned this, his suit of armor a trudging reminder of the inherent fact: good things leave.

You’ll be gone soon. You’ll leave him—he’s taking you home and you’ll leave him. His son will leave him.

He’ll be alone again. He’ll have the Crest, he’ll have the Guild—he’ll have the life he once cast in stone for himself, the life he’s worn as proudly as the Mudhorn emblem he boasts on his pauldron. But that was then - before - and he can never find his way back to that now; now that he knows what he knows—of breakfast and bitter caf and laughter like church bells and warmth and goodness and you.

There is no part of this that comes easy.

There in the galley, lamp-lit iridescence caressing your countenance, you asked him once if he was scared of anything and he told you he wasn’t sure— not yet.

Din lied.

As a rule, he doesn’t make a habit out of dishonesty; it doesn’t typically suit him, he is blunted to a fault— earning allies and enemies alike with the very attribute—but he lied to you then. Maybe his fears are the same as everyone else’s, maybe they’re simple. Human.

Maybe he’s scared that you’ll unchain him from his armor, of his shortcomings and tragic flaws and see the pulpy heart of him—that you’ll look and look and look, and you will like nothing that you find there. That he’s just a man.

And perhaps, he’d rather remain unknown than risk the chance of being unlovable.

For there is a certain hollow you befriend in the aftershock of loss—there is an aperture loss gores you with. There are some holes time can never fill; they remain trenched, dug from rusted trowels— left to fester, left to ill.

Sometimes, in the surly vacuum of space, in those dulled moments in which he has nothing but to count the seconds as they tick clocklessly away, Din attempts to conjure the last word his mother gave to him. He didn’t know it then—he didn’t know it was intended as a gift, boxed and ribboned and bowed. He didn’t realize—a child, wide-eyed with naivety, drenched in fright—that he should cherish it. Remember it. Keep it safe.

No matter how hard he tries, how hard he strains, he can’t recall it. He practices the nightmared memory of it, transports himself into that war zone, dodging shrapnel and brimstone just to catch sight of her face— and he can see her lips moving, can feel the fan of the flames as his world is reduced to cinders, but he cannot hear her.

Was it goodbye? Was it I love you? Was it be safe? Was it hide? Hide hide hide for me. Be good and hide, kind boy—

It dogs him. The nothinged mumble, his silent passenger.

There is no part of this that comes easy.

He heard you. There in Valentia, the city buzzing cacophonously like an orchestra tuning their instruments, he overheard the Twi’lek translate for the older woman.

Family, she said. You have a beautiful family.

Din has never in his life considered forsaking his Creed— forgoing the thing that saved him, made him, honed him to tungsten, sharp as a blade.

But he did then.

It was a flash, something fickle and brief— like the flicker of a candle before it diffused to smoke— but in that nanosecond he saw himself ripping off his helmet. He saw himself going to you, pulling you close to his plated chest. He saw the surprise wash over you—the shock that bubbled to elation. He saw you smile, that crippling gorgeous thing, with his own naked eyes and—

And then suddenly you were there before him, snapping Din from his reverie, blanket snug to your chest, the child — his child— slung beside you. He wished he had an explanation, but before he could process his actions his hand was drawing itself to your body, tugged by some unseen force—robbed of his autonomy— and rapturously, he touched you. He felt you.

His knuckles grazed your arm—your warmth, radiating past the aged leather of his glove—and the wisdom that woman uttered, the plain truth only the ancient could learn— only a mother could know— rattled around his mind, unanchored and barreling.

Yearn for the past. Reclaim time.

Hold onto them hold onto them hold on—

Never let them go.

Ready? he asked you, arm resigned to his side, feigning monotony beneath the cover of his visor.

You threaded an even smile to your lips, as if Din were none the wiser— as if he hadn’t catalogued every lick of your expressions, every curve and bow and wrinkle as your emotions sung across your face. As if he didn’t know when you were lying. As if he didn’t know when you were falling apart.

Ready, you replied, swallowing past the disappointment welled in your throat.

Both your hearts broke then. Perfectly—the same.

This is the Way.

///

Din is gone over a week. It’s the longest he’s ever been away for a hunt—it’s the longest nine days of your kriffing life.

The ship feels vacant without him; she’s cumbersome, too cavernous for the likes of only you and his foundling. Her durasteel sidings yawn morose against the wind beating restless against her—her metal stretching like a lothcat in a patch of sun. The doors and hatches complain ajar and gripe shut, as if she’s recalcitrant to go about her standard operating procedures without Din’s presence. The old gal misses him, down to her steely bones and dual ion turbines, and in truth — and despite yourself— you suppose a small part of you feels the same, shares an inkling of that same loneliness.

The rituals and dog-eared routines you’d drawn comfort from are now rinsed in a forlorn wash.

The single bowl of food you prepare looks wrong without its twin beside it.

You scroll a finger over your display screen, flicking through various articles, the faint light from the holopad basking the contours of your face in a lonesome shade of inanimate blue.

Anything good you hear him ask, there in your inner ear— the memory of his voice leaving a nick among the many wrinkles of your brain.

You sigh, quietly— alone. Never.

Even Munch misses him, although he expresses it differently. He’s been a downright terror with Din gone. At first it was a vacation, a luxury retreat; you and the child gorged yourself on crackers and grava berries and dried bantha meat—mindful of sweeping up the crumbs on whichever surface you snacked. You giggled and ran amok and shared secrets in code only the two of you could decipher.

But one day grew to two, and two to three and three to four and by the fifth you were out of treats and your patience too had dwindled to short supply.

The child is special— unquestionably unique. And as much as you adore him, would lay down your life for him if it came to it, Maker he is uniquely qualified to send you round the bend twice over. He’s baffling, infuriating— just like his father. Of all the things he could have inherited from the man, of course he decided to latch on to his vexing penchant for mystery.

You lost him for half a day. He was somewhere aboard the Crest, of that you knew that for certain, but he managed to enact a stunt that could’ve puzzled even the most illustrious of illusionists with how quickly and effectively he vanished, seemingly out of thin air.

He emerged eventually for dinner, babbling wickedly. There was that, at least: you could always count on Munch to — well, munch.

Over a week of this— nine days, sixteen hours, and twenty-two minutes, to be exact… But who’s counting.

The sky glitches with lightning, sparking like a bulb in dreadful need of changing, and veins of violet skitter along the horizon, chased by the clapping hammer of thunder. Fat drops of rain trace down the transparisteel, the metalled drum of their pattering against the Crest lullabying your eyelids to a slumbered close. You drift, weightless, waxing and waning in and out of a reoccurring dream that always blurs to mere suggestion - to shadow - as soon as you wake.

The harsh sound stirs you—the ramp’s gears springing to life, signaling the Mandalorian’s return. Rapidly, you blink clear the slog of sleep from your eye, re-emerging from the forgotten depths of your subconscious and half-roused, you bound from the copilot’s chair. You rally from your stupor, instinct urging you to meet the bounty hunter by the entrance—some tittering, foolish part of you still so glad and girlish just to see him.

Hobbling down the ladder with veteraned coordination - one leg one arm one foot one hand - you hop the last two rungs to land catlike on the balls of your feet, heading towards the stern of the ship and—

You don’t make it three steps.

He’s there. Din is there— nine days later and finally, like a hallucination, he’s here— ominous and backlit by the glow seeping in from the galley. An obelisk, undaunted.

Your gut somersaults, flipping until it dizzies.

Knee-jerked and reflexive, the basest part of you demands you go to him, to cross the threshold separating you— the time and space and uncertainty dredged like a moat between you two. But instead of greeting him as you wish— two arms thrown around him, welcoming him home—back to the Crest, to the child, to you—you stand there, dumbstruck and wanting.

The passage of the corridor is like a strait. It's so narrow you can smell him— his carbon musk, his petrichored sweat—and it furls thick into your sinuses, fogging up your vision, clotting the faulty wiring of your mind. He’s brought the wet in with him, drip dropping from his hulking frame to splat puddled onto the deck.

plop

plop

plop

A beat ferments, hanging ripe from its branch as the tempest rages outside the sheltered hull of the ship. Distantly, thunder booms from above.

“Din— hi.”

“You’re up.” He doesn’t move from the archway. Stiffened, composed from granite, the man hardly breathes. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t,” you offer hastily—untruthfully.

Din scans you: your obviously tousled hair, the drowsy flush kissing your jaw, the tell-tale crinkle of your tunic. Your tongue darts out to skip over your lip and his lungs pull, aching beneath his ribs.

Maker, you’re pretty even when you lie.

“Go back to sleep,” he assures, but you hardly register it; it’s scarcely above a murmur by the time the words hum through his modulator.

“Can I make you some food? Can I—"

There’s a tarred shake of his helm, tiredly dissuading you. “No, you—you’ve done enough.”

“But you must be exhausted, Din. Let me help you,” you urge, sincerity shaping the lilt of your voice. “Please, I—” You falter. Vision finally adjusted in the dimmed hall, it is then that you spot it.

Your mouth runs dry.

He’s dappled in a violent scarlet, foreign red splatters contrasted against all that silvered grey, bleeding with the rainwater to roll sanguined down the rounded edges of his armor.

Blood. He’s covered in blood.

Something pitted—something vital— in you contracts; horror, prickling the fine hairs along your forearm. “Maker, what happened?”

Eyes gaping fearful, you skitter around his breastplate, his vambraces, the paneling of his flight suit, roving meticulously in search for the source of his injury. Thoughtless, consumed with only one concern - is he hurt? - your hand flies to his chest where it rests—solid. Fretting. “Stars, are you—”

He can see it—he can see you, always—how your gaze swells, laced with a surge of adrenaline, of care, and Din lays his broad palm flat over your knuckles, grabbing your frantic attention. “It’s not mine—hey, it’s not mine.”

Your shoulders deflate, relief visibly relaxing the rigidity in your spine, and for the first time in what feels like minutes you release the breath you’d fostered high behind your teeth.

He doesn’t know what overtakes him. Perhaps it’s your sleep swollen lips or the soft petal of your cheek— taunting Din, daring him to feel you again, as he did before— or perhaps it’s the all too apparent fact that you simply give a shit about him— despite everything he’s done, all of that which he has left unsaid. That you worry. That you care.

Puppeted, arm hoisted by some invisible strings of fate—those unseen threads of inevitability—he reaches for you. Din’s thumb roams the slope of your cheekbone, the buttered hide of his glove gliding over your skin. Something rattles flustered in your chest, and you must look pathetic— how your eyes bat at him and your mouth parts, breathy and demure.

“Dala.” He sounds pained when he says it, as if it’s poisoning him; the very syllables like hemlock dripping down his tongue—slowly gradually, ending his life— this life.

This life as he knows it.

You nuzzle into the cradle of his palm, encircling a hand around his wrist, urging him still. You both know he could break away from you without an ounce of strength squandered, but he doesn’t; he listens, he quiets for you. Enchanted, neither of you dare move— neither of you, willing to shatter the profound spell of intimacy you’ve stumbled onto.

He holds you like this, and you hold him to you. His hand on your cheek; yours over the birdcaged throb of his heart— burning - devouring - its entombed aril like the heart of a dying star.

“Where’d you go?” you whisper, heathered, into the heel of his hand. There is something broken in your cadence, like the chipped rim of a fragile cup, and it punctures him just there beneath his sternum.

Where’d you go?

Where’d you go before? When you left— where did you spirit away to?

Why didn’t you take me with you?

A sick wave rots his stomach. He couldn’t answer you then, not when you were wobbly and coltish beneath him—Din can barely answer you now. His digits twine into your hair, cupping the arc of your neck. The gesture is not unkind. It is delicate— urgent, too—and the following hush you share speaks tomes for the both of you, the sob of his leathered fist admitting what he cannot utter.

I couldn’t. I couldn’t.

Maker, if you could see him. See how his face folds for you, grief lined into the shallow grooves that mark him. The cycles of it— how they bend him into something contorted. Something in need - I need you I need you I need - something ugly, he thinks. Leftover. Hidden. Hide hide hide hi—

You turn, pressing a kiss into the rough of his palm. It’s a soft thing— trepid and cautious—too worried you might frighten him away to offer anything more than a chaste brush of your lips—too worried you’ll send him scurrying back into the cratered unknown he crawled out from.

But he doesn’t.

Din doesn’t turn tail and run, he stands firm—weaving his hand further into your scalp, guiding you closer to him with a throaty sound. The forehead of his helm sinks to yours, and through its filter you discern the tremor of Din’s breathing, made fuzzy by the tinny modulator.

This is nothing like before. Din was hot blooded and vicious then, possessed by the infernal likes of some great beast, but he has since been tamed, if only momentarily—coaxed into a certain meekness by the frail ache of his heart—by the grace of your kind mouth, kissing his gun-worn glove.

He groans your name, mumbled and brassy. The two of you so close, so merged, that if it weren’t for his helmet, you’d feel the tickle of the syllables as they sweep over your face. Din repeats himself, repentant—praying for forgiveness on the cross of your name—your kiss, a benediction.

Again, he calls you. I’m sorry.

Again, you kiss him. There is nothing to forgive.

Again. Again.

With a flutter of bravado, you sling a lumbered arm over the span of his neck, notching yourself into his chest, an interlocking piece finding it’s match. Din’s forearm comes to coil around your waist, wide hand spanning the small of your back, and if possible, gathers you nearer— a growl emanating somewhere from under his beskar.

“Tell me to stop,” he breathes, bullet riddled—grating—warring with the countless shards of himself he has yet to reconcile; but his body betrays his intentions as Din’s grasp finds itself lower, filling his fingers with the plush of your ass. “Tell me, please.”

Arousal rushes to pool in your depths—at the proximity of him, the hungered way at which he paws you—and it’s a reaction you feel mimicked by the iron rod straining against Din’s flight suit, pressing into your thigh. You shake your head, gaze colored earnest, and you shift, applying a grind of your hips against him in response.

Din lets out a defeated groan; weak to you, a fabled Mandalorian warrior brought to trembling knees by the guile of a good woman. And suddenly, like striking a match in a room swarmed with gas, you are incendiary.

He’s everywhere— groping and kneading your arms, your ass, your neck and waist. You are malleable beneath him, sculpted like wet clay under his eager touch—as if he is committing your form to memory; the fervor of his grip, reclaiming time.

He hooks a hand under the crease of your knee, yanking you to the column of his armor, sealing your bodies together. Gyrating your hips against him, your clit yearns against his thick outline as you dig into the cowl draped over his shoulders.

Sliding his hand down your backside, he presses his palm into your clothed heat from behind, pads of his fingers insistent as you saddle your spine into his touch, granting him better access. His cock brays, straining beneath his many layers, and a withered moan breaches past your lips.

“Gods, Din.”

Din. He can’t stand that—his name, lush in your wet mouth—and without ceremony, drops your leg from where he’d glued it to his hip. Like a beggar, impoverished and need-stricken, he begins to fight with your clothing, half tempted to rip the damn things off you, leaving you tattered; he’d happily buy you a new wardrobe if it meant having you as he’s wanted for these long months—naked and vulnerable and his.

Your tunic and pants come off in a flurry, your underwear too, discarded hastily in some forgotten corner—and with a hand on your chest, he walks you backwards until your bare ass connects with the durasteel, a jagged inhale tearing through you at the chill. A question knits your brows to meet as Din paces away from you, increasing his distance.

“What are you-”

He interrupts you with a groan. “Just - gedet’ye - just let me—”

His gaze drips like wax down your body—eyes dressing over your clavicle, the supple weight of your breasts, the gorgeous dusting of hair at your mound, the sweet press of your thighs as you clench them together, your pretty knees, your pretty ankles, your pretty feet, pigeoned inward nervously.

Pretty pretty pretty—fuck, all of you. So fucking pretty.

With the cock of his chin, his gaze returns to the heave of your breasts—tracing over your nipples pebbling in the everpresent draft of the Razor Crest— and you rile under him, heart stammering loud—so loud you’re convinced he can hear it with the aid of his helm. And Maker above, the way you’re fucking staring at him—all hooded lids and flushed cheeks. Din wants to fucking ravish you.

Dismantle you.

Pick you apart bit by bit until you’ve come undone completely.

And as if slogging through gravity itself, movements prowled, he steps to you. Din finds your hips, running the whisper of his gloves along the slopes of your sides; a master of patience, commanding time to his will, he crawls up your skin

slow

slow

deliberate.

You’re all but helpless to the shiver that traverses the planes of your body, zipping along your synapses like the fault lines of a quaking planet—cracking you open, exposing your molten core. You’re not proud of the noise you make when he cups your breasts. Starved, you whine as he takes you into his hands, pinching and groping until you’re pert and sore and you drive your pelvis into him, rutting yourself against his frame like some flea ridden slum-mutt in the prime of her heat.

Din seethes, mumbling in Mando’a—spitting curses you can’t pretend to comprehend, but that blot warmth along your cheekbones at the oaky depravity of which he utters them.

He seals over your mound, blood pumping at your seam, bundle of nerves pulsing steady against the heel of his hand. Immobile, he waits, hovering stagnant and teasing before his lust to feel you outweighs his desire to make you be good and wait—and parting through your curls, he kisses the tips of his orange gloves into your honeyed cunt.

It’s dirty. He’s dirty, he’s fucking filthy—covered in foreign blood and alien soil—and you feel depraved, unclean. Powerful. You feel, perhaps, as the Maker intended—wild and without shame, to roam his gateless garden and sully the soles of your feet.

You feel raw. Din Djarin sands you raw.

The pump of his wrist is merciless, pistoning in and out in shallow thrusts, knuckles angled to prod at that spot— that piece of primordial heaven sequestered at the channel of your cunt—and he keeps discovering it over and over again with a sharp shooter’s precision—zeroing in on his mark and releasing the trigger. Dead eyed.

You grab greedily at his bulge, at his cock begging for regard beneath the protective fabric covering him, and you squeeze the best you can. The angle is awkward and unweildy and it’s not nearly enough for either of you, but it conveys your intention well enough.

Can I have this? Will you give this to me?

Din growls his reply, leaving your pussy to fumble with the waist of his trousers, fidgeting over the pesky buttons—the final of the flimsy holdouts separating you and the tempered steel hanging solid between his legs. It bobs free from his pants, ruddied tip straining and pining for you, and without spending another moment idle, he rediscovers the warmth of your naked body— molding himself to your form, his grip once more finding the pit of your knee and bracing it to his side.

He ruts the underside of his shaft through your slick folds, his blunt head nudging at the swollen cleft of your center—each pitch of Din’s hips sending bolts of pleasure crackling through your core. He’s stifling a string of moans while he does it, while he undulates against you, the sighs and gasps digitized to near silence as he coats his cock in your gloss—and not for the first time do you find yourself considering how fucking colossal Din is. How fucking virile and engulfing, like blaster smoke and tabacco and cedar. Like coaled smog from a cremulator. Like giving life, like taking it away— like mercy. Vengeance.

Din swipes your standing leg up to match the other in a fluid motion, effectively levitating you off the ground with only his palms secured beneath your hamstrings and your strangled hold around his neck to suspend you.

“Tell me to stop and I will.” He’s practically begging you now, anguish wrecking through the timber of his voice—grasping blindly for an excuse not to lose himself in you completely, not to bury his primal drives and fears into the chasm of your sex.

You’ll leave him you’ll leave him he’s terrified you’ll leave him

“I-I don’t want you to stop— I want this. Din, I want you, I missed you. I miss you.” You miss him. He’s right here, cock streaking through your middle and still, you miss him. You’ll never stop missing him—wanting him. An unscratchable itch at the median of your back, burning for his affection, for his touch.

He releases a husked sound at that, as if hearing it from you hurts— your words, purpling a bruise into the bloody beat of his heart—and like a dipping sun sinking below the crust of a darkening planet, the last of Din’s resolve fades to utter black as he finally - finally - buries himself into where you weep for him.

Oh Maker. Fuck, fuck—

You muffle a relieved cry, forehead collapsing to the slope of his shoulder. Your walls shutter, blinking and gasping around his cock as he rolls up into you, lips pulling taut around his girth with each drag through your cunt. Din fucks you slurred and languid—his pace, sweltering like a summer fever—heavy, punitive. Smothering and thick. You can feel every vein, every silken ridge, as he notches himself inch by inch— the cant of his hips meditated, aiming to melt you open with each wave.

Stuffed to the hilt inside you, he rakes in a ragged breath, calming the race of his bloodstream drumming percussive in his ears.

It occurs to you then that he might be trying to be careful with you, curled around him like this, crushed up against the bulkhead. You think he might be treating you as a jeweler would handle a rarified gem— gentle and tip-toed, afraid of letting you clatter to the counter, of scuffing your facets— devaluing you.

But you don’t want that. You don’t want cautious or considerate or any of those awfully pious things. You want to be owned. Devoured. You don’t want to feel anything else but him. You want him to need you so terribly, so primally, he bleeds. You want to forget your own damn name and replace the memory of it with his—just his, to sit besot like liquor on your tongue. Din Din Din.

“Fuck me— please - please - fuck me harder Din.” Fuck me like you need to. Fuck me like you want me— please just tell me you want me. Tell me I’m wanted. Tell me I’m worth this.

You can see the deliberation span over his mask, the light glinting off the steel there hesitant, wary. Are you sure?

“Fuck me.” I want this. I want you.

He wants to give this to you somewhere soft— somewhere you deserve. With a feathered mattress and molted down pillows and gauzy curtains billowing in a sea breeze as light dapples prismed patterns on your dewy skin. He wants to give this to you somewhere beautiful—perhaps on that planet you once probed him about - Adega - with its red trees and warm nights and friendly natives you’d cherish and keep aloft in your breast.

He wants you to feel safe. Adored.

But what he wants and what he needs are two vastly different things—two opposing extremes at odds with the other. Because he needs to fuck you here— it has to be here. Needs to score your backside with metaled bites from the Crest’s unforgiving interior; needs you crumpled and sloppy, panting out his name to echo shamelessly into the deviled bowels of his gunship.

He needs you charred for him. Scorched earth.

And with your panted pleas, lilting addictive and irresistible, he is all but helpless to deny you— to deny himself. Relenting, resolved, his voice bottoms out.

“I-I’m gonna fucking ruin you.”

He fucks you frenzied. The snap of his hips drives you into the wall; he lifts you off his cock just to spear you on it once more, fucking up up up into you, unleashing all his strength— his neglected need—into the grail of your womb. The salted slaps of skin are loud enough to make a lecher blush. It’s a chorus of beskar rattling, wet and ugly and Maker, he’s splitting you open and all you can do is mewl.

You screw your eyes shut, lost to oblivion—crown of your head shoved back, jugular bared for him like prey before the slaughter.

“No.” Leveraging his mass against you, Din clasps at the nape of your neck to command your focus, forcing your chin. “No, look at me,” he orders, brutal and sinewed and there’s desperation there. Din needs you looking at him — seeing him— the embrace of your gaze like a life raft, tethering him here, grounding him to this plane of existence, the one where he has found salvation—if only fleeting, if only like hourglassed sand sifting through his fingers—within the temple of your body. Struggling and led-lidded, you pry your lashes apart, shivering as you drink in the punishing expression leering across his visor; and as you always do, you peer past the murky T there, meeting his eyes camouflaged in their sockets behind it.

“There you are. There you are, my pretty thing - hnng—” He silences himself with a hoarse moan, the sensation of you clenching firm around him, gripping Din like a man would a rope, dangling some feet above the ground, hiccuping him to stutter. “T-That’s it, dala—fuck, y-your pussy is so godsdamn tight.”

You go boneless at the praise—at how he tongues out those fond epithets, vehement and covetous and brined in sincerity—and your breathing quickens as you soak the coarse weave of Din’s flight suit, chafing your clit to shambles with each bow of his starved sex.

You’re close. Stars, you’re so kriffing close—reach out and touch it and you’re there, a promise fulfilled dancing at your fingertips—and you almost tell him; you wish you could - don’t stop don’t stop please right there Din - but you’ve lost your voice, vocal chords stricken with tension. More than that, you’ve lost the wedge of your brain that recognizes articulation all together. Speech itself. You’re wasted. You’re shattered. You’re being fucked within an inch of your sorry life.

Nimbled, without a word of warning, Din relocates— grappling under the plats of your thighs and bracing you featherlight to his chest—negligible in comparison to the ton of armor he dons cycle after cycle, weightless when compared to that of his Creed, hanging like a yoke around his gullet. You yip in surprise and scramble around him, calves digging into his back, forearms clamped around his shoulders—his cock remaining delved within your pussy with each footfall.

Four long strides and he’s reached his destination: a large crate, stranded just outside the hallway leading to the galley. Stooping at the waist, he lowers you down with astonishing ease until you’re flush on your back, knees flanking his frame. You heave a sigh, petulant and wanting, when he slips from you mid-adjustment, a lewd squelch accompanying the movement. It is to the fervor of your clawing, desperate nails scratching down metal - please please please - that he glides back into you with one deft sweep, a satisfied gasp tumbling loose from him.

He looms over you now— Din, a tower unyielding—thrusting into you rough and hard and perfect. He’s filling you in undiscovered places long gone unrealized, nooks you didn’t know you had—the length of him completing you, making you whole.

“Tell me to stop,” he pants, orange pads of his gloves dimpling your hips.

With a tremor of your chin, you moan—broken and chirping. “Don’t - please - please don’t - shit - don't stop—” Your prayers convulse, dying in your throat, sentence cut short as he circles his thumb over your clit, catching at your slippery bud. Ever the marksman, he’s debilitatingly attentive to you, the hide of his glove snagging against your cleft, and combined with the steady rock of his dick shredding you open, you’re all but defenseless to the dawning of your release, crawling closer and closer and—

“Din,” you pant, ”Din Din Din, I think I—I’m gonna cum. I’m gonna, oh Maker—”

The muscles in your stomach seize, a twisted expression cramping your brow. You scamper to his arms, reaching out for something - anything - a parcel of real estate to clutch onto while you unravel. You’re grappling with his pauldrons, the pulsepoint at your wrist humming over the symbol welded to his shoulder, and you mage into starlight. You’re fizzing. You’re blind. You’re atomic and phasing in and out of realities and you burn— a meteor hurtling through the upper atmosphere crashing crashing crashing and—

Language exhausted, all there is left for you to do is cry, the evidence of your orgasm ricocheting like a hail of gunfire against the Razor Crest walls.

“That’s a good girl, that’s a good girl for me—f-fuck." It’s like taking a jab to his solar plexus, how you cinch around him— the corset of your walls milking his cock until he’s shaking, stumbling. The drive of his pelvis has gone erratic, the throbbing bloom gnashing its teeth in his gut—that rabid thing desperate to be released, uncaged—teeters on the identical ledge you’d just leapt from.

“Tell me to stop - please - tell me to, tell me to stop—” You’re all eyes. Your whole face, swallowed by the sweet, glassy orbs notched below the quiver of your forehead, and you’re looking at him like he could hang the damn moon and it’s too much— it’s too much too much he can’t levee this raging need— and with a hurried gasp he pulls out of your heat to tug at his slicked cock— panting ragged as he gushes onto your stomach, your legs, your pretty pussy made pink and puffy with abuse.

His breathing is labored; you can see it in the mountainous rise and fall of his chest plate as his strokes slow, his other hand digging into your flesh, indenting you. He exhales, scraping clean the fissure between his lungs, and Din tips his head, angling it backwards— granting you a rare sliver of the stubbled swath along his neck. The sightly patch, treasured behind his silvered grotto, shouldn’t be the thing that plays upon your heartstrings like one would pluck a harp— not after he’s burrowed himself inside you, not after he’s carved you to his likeness— but it does. You’re butterflied and cherry blossomed and you grin— not so much on your lips but in your soul, and there is a purring warmth that’s radiating like candle flame from the anima alive beneath your breasts and—

And then, suddenly — like time, like memory— he is gone.

He leaves you. Mirrored, he does as he did that night—laying a squeeze into the meat of your hip, he transpires to atoms, dissipating round the unknown bend of a corner and you’re alone again—alone, with only the citric bile steeping in your insides to accompany you, threatening to rise up your windpipe.

No. No no nonono—

Din’s presence, a beacon in the moonless night, disappears— leaving you orphaned and moored and mortified. He’s done it again— he’s left you, he keeps leaving you— and it renders you sick; viscerally, you’re angered and ill and green-washed with naivety.

Fool you once, shame on them. Fool you twice, and what in Maker’s name did you expect? A declaration? An about-face? As if a Mandalorian could let the beskar from his blood. As if Din could reanimate the cadaver of his past—could slip into that old snakeskin he’d shed cycles before.

It paralyzes you. Immobile, you are chambered flat on your back in the resin of your embarrassment, bereft of your vision as you stare sightless into the steel. You’ve separated—your mind and your body disjointed like oil and water, and you don’t hear it. You don’t hear the tread of Din’s feet, you don’t register his aura, Illuminous in the archway; you don’t see the stray towel fisted in his grip, you don’t feel the clench of a frozen hand around your heart as he does his. For he sees you there—a tick in your jaw; eyes distanced, fogged—and he knows he’s done this to you. The scarring of how he derelicted you then tarnishing the new-leaf flesh of the present.

He steps towards you, closer now, and your alerted gaze pins to him. A surprised expression makes a home there, astoundment freckling your face— and although he hasn’t earned the right, it strikes him bullseyed between his plated ribs because it hurts— the obvious shock of him returning for you hurts. Din is not a good man— not all of him. Sometimes, you and all your heaven-lit gleam, you make him forget that.

But sometimes, you make him remember.

And Maker, if you don’t look good like this. Streaked with his seed, creamy white pearling the maps of your body, the shine of it catching in the cannistered shafts of filtered light.

There’s a word for this—for you, for how you look, splayed and painted with his cum—with him. It puffs up like petals would, there in the square of his center. He’s never said it. His mouth doesn’t know the feel of it, his lips don’t know its shape. It’s scribed in Mando’a, and as native as the language is to him—as fundamental as Basic, if not more so—the word itself is foreign. Gawky. The thought of it alone hobbles through his mind on foaled legs. Din keeps this word barred, its essence clinging to the iron partitions of his skull, its perfume clouding his senses, his better judgement, his confounded rationality dangling precarious by a string.

Beautiful. Mesh’la.

You shift under his watchful eye, knees steepling mousy, and gingerly, he prizes the two apart and you let him.

You let him you let him of course you let him.

Din runs a damp cloth up your seam, up those hypersensitive folds, towards the expanse of flesh leading to your belly, and you hiss—a startled chill icing through your body.

“It’s cold,” he informs you, well after the fact, and you chortle a note in response. He continues to lave you clean, the drag of the material smoothing over your stippled planes and it’s intimate—how he takes you under his care, how he unmakes his mess.

Your heart, silly flustered thing it is, it tells you the act feels worshipful—reverent, maybe—but your head convinces you to look away, to cower, to do anything but address the blaze left in the wake of the rag he’s swiping over you. It’s too much. You feel vase-like— fragile and dainty, for the bounty hunter to either fill with wildflowers or crush under the heel of his boot— and it’s too unbearable. Bringing a hand to your sweat-sheened face, you shadow your eyes, ostriching shyly— if I can’t see him, he can’t see me.

A clipped tone escapes his helmet and it’s a sound you can’t place— it’s short, a blip—and you presume he’ll remain mum until he speaks. “You don’t have to hide from me.”

You don’t have to hide from me. I don’t want you to hide from me.

You nearly whimper at that. There’s something endearing and bronzed about how he says it, something torn, too—and you peak through the curtain of your fingers to watch him perform his ministrations. Almost begrudginly, you remove your hand from it’s shelf, resting it on the swell of your breast while he passes the cloth along your inner thighs, erasing the sticky traces of himself. There’s a quiet pause, a moment of distilled nothing before—

“I didn’t think you were coming back,” you admit, small.

He soothes his thumb into the crook of your hip, voice blunt with guilt. “I know.”

Sighing, you nod a little thing, a half-gesture, practically creeping under the Mandalorian's radar undetectable. Thunder shouts, lightning cracks— the bombastic storm outside apathetic to the lull within. Din clears his throat, rasping. “Was that okay?”

You resist the temptation to snort. Din is such a juxtaposition—one you don’t imagine you’ll tire from any time soon. He’s dangerous and protective and clever and strong and kind, despite his best efforts to snuff his compassion to ash like the butt of a dead cigarette. Lifting your palm from its perch, you extend to him, measuredly sliding your fingers against the crate— stretching stretching until he meets you, dubious and toddling like a child’s first steps, orange-dipped digits touching nude flesh. Your everbright grin brightens all the more— bewitching, back-breaking—as you entwine your hands to mesh.

“More than okay,” you say coyly. “Was that-was that good for you?”

Din huffs out an airy chuckle rich with disbelief, like he can’t fathom you’re even asking him—like you’d even have to ask at all. “That was—that was good. Very good,” he confesses gruffly, never a man for poetry, breathlessness still apparent in the bleed of his vocoder. “Even better than I imagined.”

A feline grin unfurls your lips, boldly quirking the droll corners of your mouth. “You imagine this often, Mando?”

Smirking wry and devastating, Din ushers you up by your woven hands, your body pliable and easy to his will; uprighted, his hips slot between your pretty knees, and he expertly twists your arm behind your back, snaring it there. Spine swooped, breasts brushing against his beskar, your nipples pebble cold. “Don’t let it go to your head, dala,” he gravels, visor tilted down at your dwarfed form, tenting you.

“Well," you tease lightly, "I’ll try my best.”

And you look at each other with all the tender awkwardness of two people standing on the edge of a brave new unknown.

Nervous, girlish, you smile.

Fluttering, pussy-drunk, he smiles back.

///

Nested in the pronged branch of a tall tree spindling up from the graveled soil, Din— a man, a boy too— reclines supine against the bark. His feet dangle like they did then, back when he wasn’t so afraid, and the air is dusted with a rosy haze as dusk settles upon the tired day.

The sun sets. The world twinkles a midnight blue, winking starshine as she spins.

Somewhere, behind him, his mother calls him home for supper.

/

tags: @girlimjusttryingtoreadfanfics @pedros-mustache @miranhas-art @djarrex @djarinsbeskar @bookloverfilmoholic @keeper0fthestars @misguidedandbeguiled @bookishofalder @helmet-comes-off @grumpymuffinmama @niiight-dreamerrrr @spideysimpossiblegirl @janebby @greatcircle79 @gracie7209 @thatonedindjarinfan @altered-delta @email2ash @stevie75 @shegatsby @onebrownoneblue @uniquebiscuitmongerdonkey @severinsnape @kirsteng42 @justanothersadperson93 @mrsbentalmadge @radiowallet @librariantothejedi @whataperfectwasteoftime @babydarkstar @punkremus @mandobloggin @alma-rt1 @not-the-droids @pedrostories @kylieann0716 @jk7789

#King of Cups #din djarin x reader #din djarin x fem!reader #din djarin x you #din djarin x ofc #din djarin #the mandalorian #mando x you #mando x reader #mando x fem!reader #din djarin fanfic #din Djarin smut #the mandalorian fanfic #star wars fandom

[writingonesdreams]

What I learned from“A Little Life”

This books felt traumatizing and life changing. It’s hard for me to describe what I’m feeling, because after the onslaught of suffering and feels I just feel numb after finishing.

The writing is unique. It’s filled with long sentences and descriptions of places in incredible detail and vivid metaphors. Marvelous how much you can explain a feeling through metaphors. It felt more engaging and understandable and horrific to imagine the metaphors as feelings instead of figuring out what the bodily sensations were supposed to mean.

The long sentences help with the feel like you are inside the character’s thoughts. As they come, long, illogical, associative. It felt incredibly immersive and it makes the book powerful for it. It’s almost impossible to put down, once you get charmed, and I kept coming back to it, despite knowing it would only get painful and frustrating as it went.

The honesty of those thoughts. I believed this was a deep true insight into someone’s head, because the thoughts were at times very difficult, dark, selfish, unfair, honest. Or about people being honest about not being honest and how they felt and achieved their hidden honesty. Mindboggling.

The structure and choice of pov really hightlights how much can be done through literary means to tell the story you want to tell. How much you can use storytelling devices to strenghten and express what you want. The structure was so untypical, so misleading on purpose, it was excellent and changes how I see structure in books. Beginning, middle, end, what characters you introduce, what you zoom in, what you promise and who you actually deliver being played with, subversed, turned on its head. Totally different than the schemas most writing advice teaches. It really is for beginners I guess. Masters know how to break it to their advantage.

Setting. Pov. Voice. Tense. Form. Prose. Flashbacks. Chronology. Everything was so different, breaking rules, jumping around, being unpredictable but then coming together for a united whole.

I have been attracted to this book for its promise of close male friendships and pain that would get comfort. The book delivers and exceeds any limit, throws itself into tragedy and meaninglessness agony and living with it, but the author had very clear messages and themes in mind. She knew what she wanted to say. I realize now my frustration comes with disagreeing with lots of it. But that’s what books, are right? Not here to tell the one and only universal truth, but to explain and argue a point of view. An opinion. An option for living and seeing life. I understand and felt the argument and I still choose to disagree and that’s all right and good.

But it was incredibly insightful. There are wisdoms about human life, one so deep it gave me a puzzle piece I longed for for a very long time.

This book changed how I view pain. Not just a plot device, not just a moment in character life or point in their arc, but as state. Pain can be a state of being, physical, mental and emotional, social and personal, past and present. Pain doesn’t have to be just a singular occaurnce, something to get rid of, it can be chronic, long lasting, spiralling, a way and part of life.

The statement I guess that’s about radical and a bit hard to live with and I’m not sure what to think about. That some things will stay broken. That a person you love can be sick and never get better. And you can give them all the love and care and effort you have and more and it might not be enough and if doesn’t have anything to do with you. Some things just can’t be fixed.

The bonds of friendship. I liked how it got celebrated and centered on, even if I felt a bit betrayed they made Willem and Jude have a romantic relationship in the end after all. But it was an interesting study of the difference and transformation from friendship to romance. What changes, when you have already been close and known each other for decades? What changes from one kind of love to another? Expectations from the outside? That people can’t justify the time and effort you spend on friendships and need labels like romantic partners and family?

It was beautiful though, how the characters made thier own rules. How the four core friends never had kids and most didn’t marry, being sustained emotionally by their friendships. That friendship can be that close and nutricious and life-defining.

The theme of how no person can give you everything. How hard, embarrassing and stressful it can be to get close to someone, so who is worth such an effort? Being with others is in some ways do much harder than being alone. Why do we do it? What do we look for in others that we can’t find in ourselves? What do we give them? How do we find people who appreciate the best of what we give, give what we need back and we all value the same things enough to stay together and look for the mixing pieces somewhere else?

What I didn’t like about the opinions of this book was that comfort and deep affection only came with great pain. As if only horrendous suffering justified men in crying, needing touch and comfort and allowing themselves to get any. 

Other thing I was confused about was what Jude and Willem changed about their relationship, when it went from friendly to romantic. In a way the narrative defined deficencies of friendship, while preaching about its uniqueness and importance. So men are not allowed to touch and be that comfortable and physically intimate with each other, not allowed to randomly hug or sleep beside each other or snuggle, when it’s not with their romantic partner? I thought the shift would be mainly sexual, and that aspect gets thematized (and is hard and troublesome for Jude’s trauma about it and his unwilligness to disclose his suffering about it to Willem to not lose him to percieved societal obligations). I don’t know what exactly it is that I’m looking for, but I found it lacking in this story, despite its focus on friendship. 

I don’t get where the characters got so much time from. They managed to work overtime, cook too much, play instruments, meet friends, have fancy dinners and meetings, visit threathers and art, travel, have introspective debates about life, watch movies, drive long and slow, swim in the morning for two hours, regulalry visit doctors, work through the weekend, buy several apartments, reconstruct them and then build a whole new house…like what? That’s not humanly possible to achieve. I’m either that bad at time management, or the characters had way too much energy or the author didn’t really check how much hours a day has. 

All in all, this was a powerful book and I can see why it’s called a modern day classic, why it won awards, why it is so popular. I don’t regret reading. I don’t think I would do it again though. I want to read more famous and awarded books, want to observe masters at the craft of writing, but I don’t want it to be tragic and hopeless like these. Why do so many classics end tragically? Is there nothing deep about life than suffering and bathing in its pointlessness?

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