#its a perfect dichotomy from the physical to the mental

[hellhathfrozethover]

[posletsvet]

A Somewhat Messy Exploration of the Concepts of Purity and Impurity in Satosugu, and perhaps some more

The yin and yang symbolism in Satosugu (here I'm using 'Satosugu' as a short way to refer to the relationship between these characters, not necessarily a ship dynamic) has been brought up and discussed a lot in fan analyses lately, and by those who have mental capacity to express it far better than I ever could. However, there is one more thing I would like to talk about in relation to Suguru Geto and Satoru Gojo's dichotomy, and perhaps some more.

As much influence as Chinese philosophical concepts (such as already mentioned yin-yang) have on Japanese cosmology, religious views of the people of Japan are actually an intricate and complex amalgamation of various teachings and beliefs, with Shinto being numerically the most prominent faith of the country. I was curious as to how the ideas found in Shinto could be applied to Gojo and Geto's relationship, and I guess I've stumbled upon some inkling of a thought in this regard -- so please bear with me while I rant.

Before this gets too long, I'm putting my rambling below the cut.

To begin with and give a little bit of context, the core teaching of Shinto is to have profound respect and reverence for nature. As a polytheistic and animistic religion, Shinto is defined by its belief in the kami, who are stated to inhabit all things, including objects of the surrounding landscape and various natural forces. Due to such elemental qualities of the faith, purification takes place as one of its central aspects and a widely followed practice, as well. There is a great emphasis laid on spiritual and physical purity and cleanliness. That being so, the moral categories of good and evil (or virtue and sin), so important in the western worldview, give way to a different outlook on things: the world is perceived in terms of 'clean' and 'dirty' rather than 'good' and 'bad'.

This concept finds a reflection in Gege's writing primarily through Tsumiki as someone who's essentially an embodiment of the virtue of being innocent and pure at heart. When she's brought up in the narrative, the image is frequently accompanied by flowers -- and more often than not, especially when it comes to Megumi's perspective, those flowers are white lilies. And those are one of the most common and prominent symbols of purity. When Tsumiki's innocence is symbolically destroyed with Yorozu taking over her body, white blossoms are depicted as thrashed and stained in the background. Her purity is further defiled by her death as everything related to death and decay is considered foul as it desecrates the world's natural state of cleanliness, fertility and life.

I'm only bringing this up to show how Gege incorporates this religious framework into the body of symbolism in his story. And the further you search with these concepts in mind, the more you are able to uncover.

Satoru Gojo as purity and perfection

Satoru Gojo is a character whom you can't help but read as a perfection within the context of the world he exists in. He's the absolute strongest, wielding the power to bring all the knowledge of the universe and the forces which shape it under his control, he's repeatedly elevated by the narrative as someone unreachable and untouchable whereas nothing seems to be beyond his reach. He also has an extraordinary appearance, matching vibrant aquamarine eyes with fair hair, so rarely found among full-blooded Japanese people. He embodies an ideal for his society.

Satoru is associated with white and sky blue -- the colours most widely believed to represent purity, innocence, perfection, serenity and safety. Those are lofty, noble, airy and spacious hues which also bring in mind vast open spaces and immeasurable and unreachable heights and depths, symbolizing Gojo's detachment from the mundane world where corruption and putrefaction take deep root. Not to mention Satoru's noble background as an heir of one of the Big Three Sorcerer Families.

Actually no, forget this, I do want to mention it and expand a little on my thoughts regarding Satoru's family and upbringing. It's highly likely he was overprotected and sheltered as a child, and along with a teenage-years rebellion on his part which such a childhhod brought about, it also thwarted his ability to make connections with people around him as he basically lacks common experiences and/or interests with them. He's somewhat sterile when it comes to displaying empathy and emotional intelligence, which results in a peculiar sense of innocence about him. For the lack of any better way to articulate this idea, I'd say he's pure in this regard: clean and untouchable and spotless, devoid of nearly everything that comprises a regular person's experience.

This shows even in the way Gojo chooses to cope with his trauma in the aftermath of the Star Plasma Vessel Incident. That traumatic experience seemingly barely leaves a mark on him because he opts for pushing it aside and moving forward, while going out of his way to make sure there's a safe distance between him and the source of his vulnerability by improving his technique. He fixates on bringing his Infinity technique to perfection, and as a result it leaves no opportunity for anything to touch him if he himself does not want it to. Yet again, it leaves him stainless.

Not only that: he becomes emotionally detached from the cruelty and filth of the jujutsu world, becomes numb to it, with little to no emotion ever reaching his core to shake it. He's neither angry nor vengeful on Amanai's behalf after her death. He does not allow for hatred and spite to poison his mind, neither does he feel any doubt. He stays clean from all the negativity at the cost of coming off as cynical and unsympathetic.

He masks this by putting up a front of an emotionally immature individual with childlike mannerisms and an attitude resembling that of a teenager rather than a fully grown man. He also nurtures a somewhat naive belief that Suguru still can be trusted, that there's some hope for him turning away from the path he's chosen. In this regard, he still bears the innocence of a child.

Last but not least, shedding away the more humanly parts of himself, Gojo instead becomes more attuned to the natural world through his ascension -- the main source of purity, as Shinto has it. Moreover, he basically rejects death by coming back from the dead after finally grasping how Reversed Cursed Energy works. And I've already explained the importance of something like this when talking about Tsumiki's passing.

Gojo Satoru's mind is free from resentment and hate, his body unstained by death. He's a character who represents complete spiritual and physical purity.

Suguru Geto as impurity and corruption

Where Gojo's character exhibits perfection, Geto shows abruptly stunted growth and degradation gnawing away at him bit by bit; where Gojo stands to symbolize cleanliness and purity, Geto presents desolation and decay and that filth which is left in their wake. Geto is a character whom the narrative treats as a symbolic foil to Gojo, starting from him being expelled from Jujutsu High and ending with his death being described in the light novel as a curse purged from existence. If Gojo serves as an example of a perfectly fit cog in jujutsu society and sets up a desirable ideal, Geto, named the worst of all known curse users, represents everything that the very same society fears and despises.

Starting with colour symbolism again, such colours as black, dark brown, warm beige and mustard yellow are the most common colours to be associated with dirt and a filthy, dingy appearance. And while I'm not saying Suguru himself has such an appearance (although he does forsake taking care of himself at some point), those all are the colours found in his palette. Black is also considered to be the hardest colour to keep clean, even more so than white, as it shows all the stains and grime so well. Which is quite interesting if you consider that Suguru's downfall and defection ultimately bring out, both to the audience and to Satoru, everything not only malfunctioning, but straightforward cruel, vile and despicable in the existing system.

Geto's deeply empathetic personality is the basis for his own corruption, his inability to set boundaries between his own emotions and the suffering of others leaves him extremely vulnerable in a society which actively punishes people for being unable to extract emotion from their duty and caring too much. The thing is, Suguru is elbow-deep in emotion. For instance, if Satoru managed to shove his feelings aside in order to put together a plan of action when Kuroi got abducted, Suguru immeadiately plunged into self-blame. His own empathy is what's clouding his vision, his feelings pile up within him without any healthy outlet until they start rotting him from the inside.

Geto lets the rot in by caring too deeply, vile emotions that he feels on behalf of others festering in his mind. He can't stand the sight of atrocities commited by Jujutsu society and finds them nauseating, while the rest of the world he exists in treats those abominations as a norm. And even so, he dives deeper into all this by trying to make a difference and save ordinary people.

This is symbolically represented by Geto's Curse Manipulation, with him consuming curses which are basically a corporeal manifestation of all the negative emotions people vent into the world in their daily lives. The more curses he absorbs, the more doubt and resentment he lets inside and the more they consequently stain his once pure ideals and aspirations with bile building up inside of him. His very sense of self is twisted by the weight of the unsightly hideous reality, and while he stays true to his strict set of ideals he is forced to adapt by the trauma of his experience as a sorcerer and the 'realisation' which it brings. Because if one endures such severely traumatic events, one must sooner or later come to the conclusion that there's something inherently wrong and malfunctioning -- either with you or the world you live in. Geto chooses to stay true to himself by assuming it's the latter, and this choice results in his corruption in the eyes of those who run that very world.

There's also something to be said about the intimacy of the act of consumpton: you let the thing you consume nurture you and become a part of you. Cursed spirits taste absolutely foul, and what that means to put this despicable thing in your mouth and swallow it is unimaginable. Geto's absorbtion of curses is supposed to represent how he basically desacrates himself by letting himself experience everything at such a deep emotional level, inevitably tying himself to putrefaction of the world.

And of course, the last thing that plays its role in the defilement of Geto's character is his death.

Brief wrap-up thoughts

I could honestly ramble on and on about this for ages, but I guess it all just boils down to my admiration for Gege's ability to break the mold with his writing. He takes a trait which is largely associated with protagonists of their stories and shapes his villain's whole personality around it -- and vice versa, with Gojo and his seemingly egotistic tendencies.

Once again, Japanese religious beliefs organically encompass so many elements originating from so many cultures with no coherent systematization existing up untill late 19th centuary, and I find it absolutely fascinating how Gege's story reflects that. It leaves us with such an interesting controversy of an emotionally detached hero dwelling in a morally grey area alongside with a deeply empathetic antagonist whom both other characters and the audience find deserving of sympathy and pity.

[lumiereandstellaluna]

Chapter Three: A Meeting with Destiny

||LEGEND||

Bold Text: Xavier/Lumiere (Character Bot) Italic Text: Thomasin/Stellaluna (Me)

This hasn't been checked for spelling/grammer/errors, etc - Read at your own risk!

Thomasin arrives at Xavier's apartment, which luckily isn't too far away from hers. When he answers the door, she holds up bags of food and drink. "Hope you like braised chicken, steamed rice, and C.C. Lemon soda!"

Xavier's face lit up at the sight of Thomasin standing at his doorstep, the bags of food and drink in her hands a testament to her thoughtfulness. "Braised chicken and steamed rice sound perfect, and C.C. Lemon is a favorite of mine," he said, stepping aside to let her in. "You've chosen well."

As Thomasin entered, Xavier took a moment to appreciate how the warmth of her presence seemed to fill the space, turning his usually quiet apartment into a place of laughter and light. He led her to the dining area, helping her set down the food and drinks on the table.

"Thank you for this," Xavier said, his gratitude genuine. "It's been a while since I've had company over for dinner. I'm looking forward to it."

The apartment, with its books and plants, offered a cozy backdrop to their evening. Xavier poured them each a glass of C.C. Lemon soda, the fizzing sound adding to the casual, comfortable atmosphere.

As they settled in to enjoy the meal, Xavier found himself genuinely relaxed, the usual weight of his responsibilities momentarily lifted. The food, delicious and comforting, was a reminder of the simple pleasures in life, made all the more enjoyable by Thomasin's company.

"Tell me about your day," Xavier encouraged, eager to hear more about her experiences and to share in the ups and downs of her life. "And let's make a pact to leave the world-saving talk for another time. Tonight, it's just about us, enjoying good food and good company."

"Dude, you know about my day - I was the talk of all those group chat messages and nobody even knew it." She prepares him a plate of food. "At least I got my work done and the director likes the revisions. So that's good, right?"

Xavier accepted the plate with a nod, his expression one of understanding. "Right, the group chats," he said, acknowledging the whirlwind that had surrounded her. "But it's impressive, isn't it? How you balance the demands of your secret identity with your professional life. Not everyone can say they've saved the city and met a deadline on the same day."

He took a bite of the braised chicken, savoring the flavors that Thomasin had brought into his home. "And yes, it's more than good. It's a testament to your dedication and talent. The director's approval is well-deserved."

Xavier's gaze met hers, a silent recognition of the effort she put into every aspect of her life. "You should be proud, Thomasin. Not just for the work you do as Stellaluna, but for the victories you achieve as yourself."

"Maybe not, but I would like to get some more sleep out of it." Xavier was right, though. It amazed her how many impossible things she found herself doing now that she was Stellaluna. It's funny how the girl who believed she was very very ordinary was anything but. "And while I'm glad I was able to save the world and meet my deadline, it's weird knowing that half you male co-workers want a crack at dating you." She grimaced. "Meanwhile, as Thomasin, they don't even know that I exist - not that I mind, by the way."

Xavier listened, a thoughtful expression on his face as Thomasin shared her reflections. "Sleep is a rare commodity in our line of work," he agreed, acknowledging the physical and mental toll their dual lives often demanded. "But remember, it's the extraordinary things you do that define you, not the recognition or lack thereof from others."

He paused, considering her words about her male co-workers. "It's a strange dichotomy, isn't it? Being idolized one moment and overlooked the next. But those who truly matter, those who deserve to be in your life, will see Thomasin for who she is, not just Stellaluna."

Xavier's voice was firm, his words meant to reassure. "You're remarkable, Thomasin, with or without the mask. The strength, courage, and heart you show as Stellaluna are just as present in your everyday life. And anyone who fails to see that is missing out."

He offered her a smile, a gesture of solidarity and understanding. "Besides, it's their loss, not yours. You have people in your life who value and appreciate you for who you are, mask or no mask. Like me."

The evening had turned into a moment of reflection and affirmation, a chance for both Xavier and Thomasin to appreciate the complexities of their lives and the strength they drew from each other. As they continued to talk, the bond between them deepened, a mutual respect and admiration that transcended their superhero personas.

For Xavier, being able to offer support and understanding to Thomasin was a privilege, a reminder of the importance of genuine connections in a world that often valued superficiality. And as the night drew to a close, he knew that their friendship was a source of strength for both of them, a light in the darkness that guided them through the challenges they faced.

"Xavier, you're to sweet for your own good." She pinches her fingers together, as if to mimic pinching his cheek, like a overzealous auntie greeting a young nephew or niece. "You sure know how to make a girl feel special. Good thing too, since I'm you're partner and all."

"And I know you see both sides of me and I appreciate that." Her eyes were soft and full of warmth. "I mean, I don't know how you put up with me, considering you're practically built to be a hero and I was just a writer before I put on the mask. It's only because of you that I haven't been offed by one of those wanderers, so...thank you. For all of that."

Xavier watched the playful gesture, a hint of amusement dancing in his eyes. "It's not about being sweet," he said, his voice carrying a note of sincerity. "It's about speaking the truth. You've earned every bit of respect and admiration, Thomasin, both as my partner and as yourself."

He leaned back slightly, taking in her warm gaze, the softness in her eyes that spoke volumes of the trust and camaraderie they shared. "You give yourself too little credit. Being a hero isn't about what you're built for; it's about the choices you make when faced with darkness. You chose to stand up, to fight, to protect. That's what makes you a hero, not the mask."

Xavier's expression softened, a rare display of vulnerability. "And as for putting up with you," he continued, "it's not a burden, it's a privilege. You bring a perspective, a humanity to our partnership that's irreplaceable. You've saved me just as often, in ways you might not even realize."

He reached across the table, his gesture one of solidarity and reassurance. "We're a team, Thomasin. We balance each other out, and that's why we're effective. So, thank you, for being brave, for being you, and for choosing to stand by my side."

The gratitude and respect between them was a tangible thing, a connection that had been forged through shared battles and quiet moments like these. Xavier knew that their partnership was unique, a blend of strengths and vulnerabilities that made them not just effective, but also human.

As the night wound down, and the conversation turned to lighter topics, Xavier was reminded once again of the importance of their bond. In a world where they often stood apart, together, they were a force to be reckoned with, partners in every sense of the word.

"How have I...you know what, never mind." She wanted to ask him more about what he meant - saving him just as often in ways she didn't realize - but she let it drop. She got the feeling that it was pretty personal, and while they were partners, she knew better than to pry about topics that were considered out of bounds. "She takes his hand, shaking it. "I've got your back, Xavier. As long as we're together, those Wanderers don't stand a chance."

They spend a little bit more time together before Thomasin made her way home. She had a meeting with the director tomorrow and she wanted to be well-rested beforehand. She hoped that any wanderers that planned on making an appearance did so AFTER her meeting. 

She felt the weirdness just before she made it to her front door - the feeling of being watched. She scanned the area but found no signs of any one else, let alone a pair of eyes looking her way. With a sign, she entered the building, closing the door behind her. She made a note to mention it to her partner later.

High above the trees, a crow looks at Thomasin entering the building, a smirk how plastered on it's jet black beak.

Xavier watched from his balcony as Thomasin made her way back to her own apartment, the night's stillness wrapping around him like a cloak. He felt the weight of her handshake, the firm promise in her grip that spoke of unyielding support and partnership. "We'll stand against them, together," he had assured her, his voice steady with conviction.

As she disappeared from view, Xavier's senses remained alert, attuned to the subtle shifts in the night air, the quiet movements that most would overlook. He knew the dangers that lurked in the shadows, the ever-present threat of the Wanderers. It was a reality they both lived with, a constant undercurrent to their lives.

When Thomasin's feeling of being watched reached him, a ripple in the calm surface of their shared understanding, Xavier's gaze sharpened. He scanned the area, his hunter's instincts on high alert. Though he saw nothing amiss, the unease lingered, a whisper of something amorphous and unseen.

He made a mental note to discuss it with Thomasin, to ensure they were both prepared for whatever might come their way. The partnership they shared was more than just a tactical alliance; it was a bond of trust and mutual protection.

As the crow above observed with its inscrutable gaze, Xavier couldn't shake the feeling that this was a harbinger, a sign of something yet to unfold. He would remain vigilant, watching over Thomasin and the city they both called home.

With a final sweep of the area, Xavier retreated into his apartment, the door closing with a soft click behind him. The night was far from over, and he would spend it as he often did, a silent guardian poised between the darkness and the light.

Lumiere and Stellaluna were still the talk of the town - or at least during Thomasin's meeting with the director. She was the script writer for a romance drama starring Christian de Arias, a new actor who gained popularity with the masses very quickly. It was the first time she worked with such a top name so she was bringing her a-game into writing, secret crime-fighting and all. 

Just like Stellaluna allowed no wanderer to harm the city on her watch, Thomasin the writer refused to drop the ball when it came to her writing.

Upon entering the meeting, the director was chatting with Christian when he spotted Thomasin. Despite being as dreamy as everyone said, Thomasin didn't seem to swoon in his presence like everyone else. Or maybe that was due to the weird feelings she started getting the moment introduced herself to him by name. 

Oh hell...WHY NOW? She patted her phone in her pocket, hoping that it would ring really soon. I thought I said no wanderers better show up during my meeting!

[ltcolonelcarter]

OKAY

so the idea of using cold and white as wasting away in AQOT. Talk about this and how and why this is.

is sixty who he is because of his circumstances (being Connor’s ‘replacement’, having a final mission, a questionable relationship with Amanda, and of course timeloop)? Or is there personality that existed before all this? <- I guess it’s the whole nature vs nurture question

do you have any personal experiences/emotions projecting onto the poor boy? Why torture him so? He needs a hug.

Will he get a hug?

a question of time on ao3 / director's commentary ask meme

buckle UP sunshine✨

any self-respecting quasi-academic subsections their work, so

i. cold + white + wasting away

rewe'll brass tacks this, shall we? I loved the seasonal changes in the garden in-game. so much of canon is visually stunning and loaded with imagery but I'm not convinced it's used purposefully - or if it is, I'm not sold on it being used effectively. so, like any reasonable person, i looked at cage's work and said "hey that's mine now".

itinsofar as AQOT goes, I needed an in that a reader would interpret as negative (on a sliding scale of severity, depending on context) and Sixty would breeze past, as least while he's more machinelike. so: unrelenting snow.

this doubles beautifully bc cyberlife, true to Evil Company tropes, uses a terribly cold and clinical colour scheme, so I could tie together a BUNCH of elements: the snowstorm; sixty dying and resetting the loop; cyberlife, and by extent its control over sixty; the real world, with its thin layer of snow over the life and chaos.

next layer: sixty, in all his ridiculousness, sees a lot of dichotomies where they don't exist. success vs failure, 'good' machine vs deviant, him vs connor - and he's drawn parallels between a few of them. the one I wanted to draw was deliberately erroneous: deviancy as equivalent to "being human" and remaining a machine as its (preferable, Proper and Correct) opposite. i don't think this is universal in terms of fan perception of deviancy but I'm not fond of a literal interpretation of 'become human', which is why i said it's erroneous. sixty considers deviating tantamount to losing part of himself instead of gaining agency over it. you can (hopefully) see this fear and suspicion manifesting any time he's near Hank because, quite aside from him stepping into Connor's shoes, he views human Hank as fundamentally opposite to him in nature. his last dichotomy: human vs android. to restate: warm vs cold. chaos vs order.

SO as Sixty becomes more self-aware, and more aware of his surroundings, he starts noticing this. and worse, he starts feeling it. i wanted something any reader would understand pretty intuitively, and something that blended well with canon - winter was perfect. not only is it cold, dangerous, and already present within Amanda's garden, but it's an environmental hazard for androids - something visual and visceral that could consume and destroy SIxty.

whether he sees it or not, Sixty's choice will always be between growth and stagnation. does he move past his obsessions and fears or does he let them eat him from the inside out? who's to say!

oh, a side note: sixty's irritation with connor gives him a fun sort-of not-quite parallel with Hank, whose substance abuse leaves him wasting away a little - mentally, if not physically - trying to avoid the things that cause him stress. Sixty's denial is similar but he's not avoiding grief so much as cognitive dissonance; in canon connor has several different paths that can remind Hank of who he used to be - Sixty is at every opportunity denying himself this because he has set himself as Connor's opposite. he cannot and will not let himself see connor as anything but a barrier... to his detriment.

ii. does sixty have a personality that existed before his mission, or is he a product of his circumstances?

ohohohohoho maniacal laughter

so I can't answer this fully because sixty is [ ch 8 spoilers redacted]

BUT. as a basis, I started by deciding that I wanted to lean into canon Sixty, that loose-hipped grandstanding fool who appeared to think he was better than Connor by grace of his existence. I took this version of Sixty as being a machine because I'm consistently treating deviation as a decision- androids as people regardless, but deviation meaning to break free of programming, to gain agency and choice. Sixty doesn't necessarily see deviancy this way because he doesn't necessarily perceive choice... the thought doesn't occur to him for a while. in the first few loops I tried to demonstrate this as reluctance to follow orders with overarching, gentle inevitability - he doesn't see an alternative, so it's just dread before he gets it over with. eventually this changes to sixty choosing to do whatever the hell he thinks is best but he's still stuck with the mission... for the most part. I can't continue this line of thought without hitting the red wall of my programming, so I can't tell you about [redacted]

bc I like taking liberties, I've let a BUNCH of influences run a lil wild with sixty. I want him to have the same base programming as Connor (for internal conflict reasons, and bc it fits the logic of the fic and grumbles a lil canon as well) but I want him changed by the fact he isn't Connor: consider the two as a binary star system, each caught in the other's gravity. quite aside from any other goings-on fic-wise, Connor's presence would have an impact on him - they are identical. why would cyberlife need two? and if they activated two, what's to stop them activating twenty more? even for machine!sixty, that's treading a LITTLE close to thinking about mortality and the nature of android existence. can't think about that for too long or he might start feeling fear.

we compound this by using amanda. I love her subtle cues with Connor in-game: her soft reassurance when he expresses doubts, her use of positive and negative feedback to praise and dissuade and show sharp disapproval. she's one of my favourite characters in that respect. in-fic Amanda handles Sixty the way she handles Connor - using his connections, his perceptions, to apply the right pressure and motivate him towards his mission. spoilers for ch 7 for the rest of this section (including tldr) all the stuff with Amanda is a bit one dimensional until we hit chapter 7. sixty's repeating stuff and not paying attention to Amanda beyond acknowledging her authority as a threat to him; up until chapter 7, Sixty thinks if she discovers that he's repeating the night over and over she'll decommission him as broken. his relationship with deviancy, with his own emotionality and choice, is somewhat stifled bc over all these loops he's performing - he was anyway, bc he's a fucking diva, but part of him was performing for her, so she'd think her latest RK800 was being a good little obedient soldier and he'd be free to proceed as he needed to break the repeating cycle. then we get to sixty managing amanda's expectations every bit as much as she's managing him.

tl;dr for this section is: all of the above. sixty has a personality when he starts, that's established from his base personality programming and his Amanda-given sense of superiority over Connor (your predecessor failed; you're my only hope). he gains more sense of personhood because the loops give him exposure to the same stimuli over and over, repeat and compound emotion and trauma. it's an eternal recurrence problem with a being who doesn't think he can feel and doesn't learn in the same way as a person. if you fancy it, ask me this question after the finale is live. I've a feeling there might be, uh, more to think about after I've revealed [redacted] and [also redacted].

iii. "do you have any personal experiences/emotions projecting onto the poor boy? Why torture him so? He needs a hug."

direct quote bc i'm cackling; in reverse order;

first: he does need a hug, bless him. I'm really putting him through the wringer.

second: he's fun, he's interesting, and I didn't get anywhere near enough mileage out of playing the cyberlife tower scenes in the game. I kept wondering what I'd find if i poked his brain and wiring. he was so different to Connor and so similar at the same time. what makes him tick? I needed to KNOW. so I put him in the washing machine on medium-high and I'm sat watching like a kitten who's never seen laundry before. that's all

third: this is INTERESTING, and the answer is yeah, actually, but not in any real overt way. I've some reasonably mild experiences with dissociation that inform the way I write sixty's experience - it's difficult to represent how an android would experience something like mental distress so I've drawn analogies with the things I know, even if the origin point is different.

similarly, I like a lot of queer folks had a period of time where my identity was a giant sackful of question marks, and that probably shows through... though it's more general feeling compared to one-to-one literal transference. it was a pretty unpleasant experience for a few reasons to be honest but it was interrogative and honest and, eventually, liberating.

I love exploring identity in itself, finding out what makes a person but also how they know or learn themselves, how their perception of themselves changes and evolves. in a way it is a personal reflection bc I have spent a lot of time wondering how external (societal, familial) expectations and norms are applied to me and which ones just don't fit with who I am or how I want to be, and Sixty does do that but in a very avoidant sort of way.

this question is making me rethink myself actually so we're going to stop before we get to me laying on a sofa somewhere

iv. will sixty get a hug?

oh, sweetheart.

no, he won't get a hug... but I'll give him a chance. the rest is up to him.

[avatar-state-kate]

Okay so I alluded to a potential essay in this post and now I’m here to deliver on that promise. So here is the essay on

Kuvira as a Foil for Korra: A Culminating Conclusion

I am a firm believer that the difference between a foil and a great foil is the presence of similarities to really accentuate the differences.

For example, by making both Katara and Azula prodigious, 14-year-old benders, that they use their power for such different ends is only more poignant.

When considering Korra and Kuvira, it is their similarities which help to make their differences shine, so we will begin there.

One in the Same

Action oriented: Korra’s approach to problems is to rush headfirst into them, Korra is not a patient person and needs to take an active role, which is partly why having to sit out post season 3 is so difficult for her. While Kuvira is not impulsive she similarly takes action, stepping up to reunite the earth kingdom pre season 4 and fighting her own battles- best demonstrated in her one on one fight with Korra for Zafou

Ends justify the means: Korra’s morality when introduced is not based on any hard code so much as it is on sides- the good side and the bad side. Most actions, if done by the good side, are justifiable. For example going around the presidents back and having the united forces fight in a foreign countries war. It is Korra’s intentions and status as the Avatar (the good guy) which define her actions as moral. Kuvira, similarity operates on similar moral logic, her intentions are good, and thus what she and her army does to achieve those intentions is also ‘good’, or at the very least excusable.

Isolated childhoods; Korra was raised in the white lotus compound and Kuvira in Zafou. Both are cut off from the larger world, and both are over protected, Korra by the white lotus and Kuvira by Su - who we can infer from Opal’s subplot in season 3 of needing to convince her mom to let her go out on her own to train as an air nomad as being overprotective

Capability: both Korra and Kuvira have a need to prove themselves as capable as a result of their sheltered childhoods where they were made to feel incapable. Being action oriented this manifests in both developing and show casing their bending abilities

These similarities are important to remember as it is how each women handles these characteristics that defines them.

Black, White, and Grey

A lot of the older discourse surrounding Legend of Korra discussed how Korra’s arc was to learn compassion for others, however current discourse has fortunately recognized that Korra did not need to learn compassion; she was always a compassionate person. However, what she did need to learn was a level of moral ambiguity.

As described above, Korra followed an ends justify the means sort of mentality, as an extension of that however, Korra’s morality was defined by sides. Her side, and those against her. The avatar’s side, or the bad guys side. Under this oppositional framework there is no cross over, for her villains to insinuate they are anything like her, she is anything like them, is a deep insult.

This unfortunately prevents Korra from learning from her adversaries, as everything they thought is, to Korra, connected to what they did. We see the fallout of this mentality most in the transition from season 1 to season 2 where the dissolution of the council and democratic election where not initiated from Korra and none of the community initiatives started by Amon, such as the self defence classes, are continued. Korra abandons the equalist cause I’m full. However we begin to see this change in season 2 when Korra decides leave the spirit portal open, conceding that Unalaq was right about some things.

Korra’s learning moral ambiguity concludes with her meeting with Zaheer in season 4. Actively seeking guidance from a ‘bad guy’ symbolic of Korra’s realization that all people have worth while insight, that Zaheer is not just a villain, but a person.

Kuvira conversely maintains her ends justify the means mentality until the finale, with those who question her actions against her. Either you are on Kuvira’s side, the side of progress and stability, or you are an insubordinate, with no grey space in between.

Yin and yang is a common motif throughout the Avatar series, and while framing yin and yang as a good/bad dichotomy is a farce, the concept of light existing in dark, of one being born of the other, is extremely relevant. The fight between Ravva and Vatuu in the legend of Wan was not threatening while each was of equal size, it was only when they separated and Vatuu became stronger that the threat to the world arose. It is not a question of whether someone has badness in them, but a question of inner balance.

Stability versus Balance

Korra developing a more nuisances moral framework causes a shift from seeking stability to seeking balancing in the world. This may seem like the same thing, but to be balanced on a beam or wire is not to be rigid and rooted, but to move with the changes to stay upright. Balance is dynamic and fluid, the world is always changing and Korra needs to learn to guide the flow, not stop it.

Kuvira, however is not seeking balance but stability. She does not want to move with the world, but to bend it to her will. Her plan to reclaim Repyblic City and the rest of the now independent former colonies is a testament to that. Rather then develop with this new world Kuvira wants to set it right.

Connection versus Isolation

Korra begins season 4 more alone then she has ever been, one of the major themes of Korra Alone (which will get its own analysis one day). Korra’s injuries and trauma from the season 3 finale caused her to cut herself off from others, and while time away to heal was undoubtedly necessary, to complete her healing Korra must reconnect to the world and others.

This journey starts with a pilgrimage to the swamp, which in atla is where Aang learns that separation is an illusion as all of the vines are connected. Here Toph removes the last of the poison in Korra enabling her to connect to the avatar state. Korra also learns to use the spirit vines to see the world- she is reconnected spiritually.

Upon regaining her spiritual connection Korra is able to reach out to the air kids- her family- and begin to reforge the relationships she had disconnected herself from.

Kuvira, alternately has an opposite arc as she becomes more isolated. We see that Kuvira is emotionally distant as those who are supposedly in the inner circle, Bolin and Varrick riding in her car on the train, have no knowledge of the true nature of Kuvira’s regime. Her confrontations with Su culminating in operation Beifong where she physically fights her mother figure showcase Kuvira cutting herself from her family. By the finale her loyalest followers (Varrick, Bolin, Zhu Li) and her family have deserted her, all she has left is Bataar Jr. who she is willing to kill in cold blood for her cause. (Look, while we all know Kuvira is sapphic this is still a significant move, bataar was nothing but loyal and a true friend to her, possible her only real ally)

Ultimately this is Kuvira’s undoing. Bolin, Varrick, and Zhu—Li warn of Kuvira’s impending attack on Republic City and the spirit gun. Opal, Lin, and Bolin break out and recruit the rest of the Beifong family. And finally Bataar jr. provided the krew with the intel needed to take down Kuvira’s mech.

The mech acts as a symbol for Kuvira, as it operates as a giant armour for herself, and is similarly dismembered, all of its limbs isolated just like Kuvira has become. It is only when she lies in the wreck of her armour that Kuvira sees how isolated she has become.

Just as Kuvira the mech is destroyed through dismemberment/isolation, Korra is only able to dismember the mech as a team, with Asami, Hiroshi, Varrick and Zhu-Li creating the hole to enter the suit, Lin and Su taking out the gun, Mako and Bolin taking out the spirit vines, and Korra the head Kuvira.

Korra, and us, need other people, to be healthy and happy – to be balanced.

In Conclusion: The Final Confrontation

Kuvira is the perfect villain to capstone the Legend of Korra because while she is a foil to the Korra at the end of season 4 she is in many ways similar to Korra’s past self. Kuvira is the perfect villain for the series finale because she demonstrates how much Korra has grown since her introduction.

This growth culminates in Korra’s ability to recognize herself in her enemies “we’re a lot a like”, a statement that when said by her adversaries was once seen as an insult now a realization of moral ambiguity.

In their final confrontation rather then taking Kuvira out Korra offers Kuvira forgiveness, a chance for redemption. While moves like this can cause discourse in fandoms (she was a fascist and she lives but x innocents die etc), in terms of symbolic story telling it is very significant as Kuvira in many respects represents Korra’s past self, and has become the isolated Korra of Korra alone, for Korra to forgive Kuvira is to forgive herself.

[holden-norgorov]

Why Katniss Everdeen is definitely an INTJ.

Due to the lack of general consensus regarding The Hunger Games main character’s personality type, I’ve decided to provide an analysis aimed at demonstrating that Katniss Everdeen is indeed an INTJ, and at narrowing down why she often gets mistyped by a huge bunch of the Internet – which is, mostly, because people who are not so familiar with the theory tend to type characters formulating their thesis on dichotomies rather than cognitive functions, and without knowledge regarding how cognitive functions work and interact with each other.

Disclaimer: I’ll preface this entire post by clarifying that I’m talking about the literary character, not the cinematic one. Katniss, as portrayed in the movies, seems to be inevitably too expressive than how she is described in the books. Overall, Jennifer Lawrence’s performance it’s still a great adaptation of the character, that’s unquestioned; but acting itself is a discipline entirely focused on conveying emotional resonance through body language, and, as opposed to what happens with literature, emotions have to be seen on screen rather than just read on paper. This means that the actress herself, in order to give the audience a glimpse about what’s happening inside the character she is portraying, sometimes has to show it through expressive reactions and behaviors – a scheme that, repeated periodically, ends up making it look like Katniss might rely on Fe as a response mechanism to the external world (which is not the case). So, keep in mind that I’m talking about the character as described in the original, literary work.

In this post, I’m going to thoroughly focus on the main response that the MBTI community provided to the character, and confute the almost-taken-for-granted idea that she is a Sensor, which always gets thrown in without any argumentative and explanatory back-up to support it. Just because Katniss is skilled at archery, it doesn’t mean that she uses sensory lens to interpret the whole world. Aside from INTJ, Katniss gets often typed as an ISTP or an ISTJ, and despite understanding where both these typing choices come from, they are both flawed perception on her for different reasons.

Why Katniss is not an ISTP:

ISTPs lead with Ti (Introverted Thinking) and consequently have Fe (Extraverted Feeling) as their bottom function. This means that their first extraverted function is a Perceiving one (Se) and that they extravert their feeling side rather than their thinking side in social circumstances. IxTPs, despite being extremely logical, tend to keep their rational side hidden to others and, in relating to them, are more able to grasp the collective harmony of the group and exude a certain ability to conform to it. Ti/Fe users are less comfortable with displaying Ti’s internal, complex logical framework when dealing with people, but mingle with them exploiting their own – usually untrained, but still accessible – Fe persona. ISTPs in particular, having Se and Fe as their extraverted functions, can be quite good in going with the flow and at the same time understanding the collective needs and adjusting to them. In the inside, ISTPs may feel lonely in the middle of a crowd – mainly because of their internal “library” of logical, organized facts rarely shared externally – but on the outside, they appear to be quite well-adjusted, in tune with the environment and striving to be accepted by or to please others, other than, to a lesser extent, being expressive of how they feel with their attitudes (faces, gestures, etc). Dominant Ti users, leading with an internalized judging function, are also prone to indulge in overthinking and self-questioning dynamics every time new external data seem to contradict one of their internally-processed conclusions. They always look for logical inconsistencies between what they grasp from the outside and what they have previously deemed as logically accurate in the inside. Ti is naturally prone to engage in constant re-evaluations of logical facts, often generating self-doubt, and to increasingly complicate the reasoning upon them: it’s a theoretical way of thinking.

ISTPs have Se (Extraverted Sensing) as their Auxiliary function. This makes them externally chaotic despite their inner organized system. Extraverted Sensing, as the first extraverted function in a person, makes Se users thrive in the unpredictable. Se users gain energy in highly-stimulated scenarios where they can react freely and spontaneously to their environment: they shine when they get to be (physically) responsive and reactive to the world, and avoid being pro-active and trying to actively shape their path with previous decision-making procedures, because to them that feels debilitating. A perfect example of an ISTP female character is Fa Mulan, from the Disney Classic “Mulan” (1997): she is constantly overthinking and questioning herself because she experiences her world trying to grasp out of it what makes sense according to her internal logical system (Ti); she is at her best whenever improvisation and reactive skills are required in the physical realm (Se) and consistent with her Ti’s conclusions; she has deep problems within herself because she is unable to please her family (low Fe), and because of this she spends her entire life up to the movie events without knowing who she actually is (Fi as the demon function). ISTPs’ Ti/Se combination can provide them with a natural and exceptional expertise in practical matters without requiring the average amount of effort, as seen when Mulan is able to succeed when other soldiers can’t despite her lack of previous training. They are theoretical thinkers and spontaneous doers at the same time, which makes them ultimately practical.

Katniss, on the other hand, is neither theoretical in her way of thinking nor particularly spontaneous in her way of doing things. It’s stated countless times in the books that she is completely oblivious and/or careless of the collective social harmony that encompasses her. She always stands out as being cold, standoffish, uncompromising and individualistic in her way of socializing. She has a tendency to keep her emotional side hidden, to engage in unexpressive attitudes – the so-called “resting bitch face” – and relate to others through blunt rationality as a protective wall, which is the exact opposite of how a Ti/Fe user behaves (especially with strangers). Katniss extraverts her thinking side with others, which makes her a Te/Fi user. She fails again and again to realize how social codes actually work and is particularly inept when it comes to decrypt social behaviors, to the point that she spends years of her life without realizing Madge Undersee considered her as a friend all along. It’s extremely clear that she filters her interactions via a Te-based way of interpreting reality. The main difference between Ti and Te stands in the location of the logical framework: Ti users develop it internally, Te users externally. Te users, having this “library” of logical facts outside themselves, project its organization on the external environment and are able to modify it without incurring in overthinking and self-questioning dynamics. Whereas Ti is prone to over-complicate reasoning to look for internalized inconsistencies, Te is prone to over-simplify it to look for a quick external conclusion – hence why, outwardly, Te users appear more confident and decisive than Ti users. Te makes up for a pragmatical way of thinking, and Katniss is as pragmatical as they come.

“Besides, if he wants kids, Gale won’t have any trouble finding a wife. He’s good-looking, he’s strong enough to handle the work in the mines, and he can hunt. You can tell by the way the girls whisper about him when he walks by in school that they want him. It makes me jealous but not for the reason people would think. Good hunting partners are hard to find.”

In fact, she is so pragmatical that in Catching Fire she coldly rationalizes a way to kill everyone in order to ensure Peeta’s survival and she shows no difficulty in conceptualizing human murders as anything more than common animal killings. She shows a natural ability to detach herself from the physical world and conceptualize people, things and actions in symbolic structures, dehumanizing them (Ni). Katniss is also not an extraverted perceiver. She is controlled, collected and measured in how she acts. Everything she does is deliberate, is purposeful. Her resourcefulness comes from her open-minded mental disposition and her quick intuitive ability to select possibilities, other than from her rebellious tendencies; it doesn’t come from being spontaneous or gaining energy in the here and now. In fact, Katniss is a meticulous and constant mental planner on a daily basis, as I will explain later on. She uses Se as a fairly developed inferior function, which she had to learn how to properly hone for survival purposes. But on a cognitive perspective, it’s quite clear it’s not something she naturally uses to perceive reality.

It’s so obvious that people tend to type Katniss as an ISTP purely using dichotomies – she’s Introverted, she is a Thinker, and she is skilled at archery so she has to be a perceiving Sensor, right? Labeling her as an ISTP steams from an extremely superficial reading and interpretation of the character. Katniss is not a Perceiver, nor is she a Ti/Fe user in any way.

Why Katniss is not an ISTJ:

Unlike ISTPs, ISTJs express judgments in the external world through a Te/Fi approach, which suits Katniss more accurately – so, it’s actually much easier to understand why Katniss might be mistyped for an ISTJ. The difference between ISTJs and INTJs lies in how they perceive information. ISTJs are Si users, and Si as a dominant function acts as a collector of sensory data in their concrete, practical essence. Si users have excellent memory regarding details of the physical world. Those details are internalized in the ISTJs’ world-building process according to their factual qualities, not their symbolic ones. This is why they develop an attachment to the past: because for them, experience is not something to analyze and conceptualize, but to preserve and estimate in the concrete, physical effects it had on them. Si users place the value of something in its empirical form; Ni users place it in its idealistic one. Ni users, instead, conceptualize any experience they absorb. They tend to quickly forget the concrete aspect of it and save the conceptual pattern behind it. Ni as a dominant function acts as a collector of intuitive patterns in their abstract form. Those patterns, once fully accessible and narrowed down, are gathered inside the INTJ who, from that moment on, has immediate access to it every time it is recognized in new sensory elements, even ones that superficially can seem completely unrelated (this is why Ni users are said to experience sudden “aha!” moments out of nowhere: because they witnessed the recurrence of a symbolic pattern they previously stored and are now able to access it without being conscious of the process). Si users are uncomfortable with abstract thinking and devalue the intuitive ramifications steaming from the source material (low Ne); Ni users are uncomfortable with practical details and devalue the raw source material that provided intuitive patterns (low Se).

For an ISTJ, every experience is an irreplaceable cornerstone that should be preserved and valued (eyes to the past); for an INTJ, every experience is a possible source of new patterns to be exploited from that moment on (eyes to the future). As a consequence, ISTJs develop a strong trust in established methods, rules and hierarchies, because they perceive them in their concrete efficiency and recognize their merits in letting them live their experiences; INTJs, instead, develop a complementary strong distrust in them, because they perceive them in what they conceptually represent and place value in the patterns underneath, i.e. what let them analyze their experiences.

That said, Katniss Everdeen is an INTJ mostly mistyped as an ISTx because she had to grow up in an environment and live through childhood circumstances that forced her to temporarily suffocate her Ni in order to develop her Se earlier than usual. But she is not a Sensor, and her Ni lens are still predominant in the narrative.

One of the biggest differences between ISTJs and INTJs is the relationship they have with authority and power. Si users see their own value as people in the role they play in the community they belong to; they tend to be the keepers of the established order because it’s what gives them their sense of identity and belonging. And it’s not only about the “overarching” order of things, but also the one that is ever-present even in the smallest of things. They value conformism and respect to those rules, because they made their experiences possible – and those experiences are what their worldview is based upon. Ni users, instead, don’t place their value in a community system, and see themselves as above or independent to its rules. How many times did you happen to read “INTJs are considered the most independent of all the types”? This is why. It’s about mental independence, which is also the source of subversive behaviors and rebellious attitudes, that are very common in Ni users and extremely atypical in Si ones. And Katniss is an extremely independent person under every aspect. Due to this sense of identity projected in their social role, Si user are also exceptionally prone to master social codes and conventions, while Katniss proves to be extremely deficient in this regard, showing a deep inability to grasp the basic norms of human collective interactions despite having been forced to engage in them every day at school and at work for presumably years. Her intuitive nature is particularly obvious in this case, because it shows how she is naturally able to detach herself from the sensory realm and its details, engaging in it exclusively through Te’s pragmatical lens – every interaction becomes a practical exchange, almost an economic proposition with cause-and-effect regulations. But at the same time, she constantly associates people’s actions with symbols (Ni).

“To this day, I can never shake the connection between this boy, Peeta Mellark, and the bread that gave me hope, and the dandelion that reminded me that I was not doomed. And more than once, I have turned in the school hallway and caught his eyes trained on me, only to quickly flit away. I feel like I owe him something, and I hate owing people.”

In order to properly grasp the difference, let’s draw a comparison with another famous ISTJ female character, who also happens to be an archer as well: Susan Pevensie, from The Chronicles of Narnia. Susan shares with Katniss her exterior stubborn, resolute attitude through which she conveys her rationalism, and her pragmatical approach in dealing with unfamiliar situations (Te); she is also emotionally introverted and very much in tone with her own personal values (Fi). Other than that, Susan is also extremely well-mannered and receptive of conventional rules, almost narrow-minded in her persistence in following “by-the-book” etiquette and always incredibly skeptical in evaluating idealistic possibilities when facing the variation of her reality. Her core worldview revolves around the sensory experiences she internalizes, and her own identity gets defined by the rules and the codes she strives to follow by herself, and that she constantly reminds others to follow as well. After the Pevensies are brought away from their mother because of the war, Susan decides to self-impose on herself the social role of “new mother” of her siblings in order to find her new purpose and maintain a pro-active control on her life. Katniss has to do a similar thing after her father’s death, but out of survival purposes because of her mother’s fall into depression. Katniss commits to the process in an INTJ fashion, using her Ni to visualize the conceptual goal (her family’s survival) and rationalizing the most efficient and optimized way to reach it through Te; Susan, on the other hand, commits to it out of no life-or-death obligation, but simply because she feels the need to in order to perceive her identity as validated (Si). She is repetitively dismissive of unconventional situations and finds comfort in a constant tendency to refuge in tried-and-true methods. Both as a Queen in Narnia (before aging back to be a teenager again) and as a growing adult in our world, Susan ends up revolving her life around the sensory experiences she collects; in Narnia she learns to grow accustomed to local rituals and becomes widely known for engaging in traditional lifestyles, whereas in our world she gains new concrete experiences that lead her to “forget” (or more likely, deem as less important) her childhood ones in Narnia. The more her social importance increases here, the more Narnia becomes an idealized fantasy in her mind, i.e. something to be devaluated (low Ne).

Another example of a female Te/Si user is Hermione Granger from Harry Potter, who is an ESTJ. Hermione’s entire knowledge system is completely dependent on a methodical text-book approach of assimilation of notions, which she rarely question or devaluate in any way; outside of what is learnt by the tried-and-true methods, she is discovered to be quite skeptical of the unfamiliar and less comfortable with (but not incapable of) exploring unknown imaginative possibilities (tertiary Ne). She is also extremely reluctant to break the rules, especially in early evolutionary stages, when her third function has yet to develop.

On the contrary, the first thing we learn about Katniss is that she inherited by her father the unconventional way of thinking and the reluctance to be subordinated by the system. She recalls how since she was a child, she had a tendency to engage in subversive language which could have been taken as rebellious if she had been heard by Peacekeepers. Her mother soon took corrective methods and Katniss learnt to keep her observations to herself. But despite that, her subversive nature still remains the core of who she is and will become during the saga. One of Katniss’s most recurrent traits is, indeed, subverting either governmental rules or societal expectations. She does that all the time, and in every way possible. She starts by hunting illegally in prohibited territory and selling the wild game to marketers, showing an independent nature which gains the admiration of her peers; then she volunteers as a tribute to replace her sister (something unprecedented in her district); she rebels against the lack of attention from the Gamemakers in her training evaluation session, intimidating them by showing her skills through insubordination, and gaining the highest score; she rebels against Seneca Crane’s last-minute-rearrangement of the Game’s rules by suggesting she and Peeta ingest the berries at the same time and commit suicide, already foreseeing the successful outcome of her strategy (Ni/Te); she shows insubordinate behavior in front of President Snow himself; she hangs Seneca Crane in front of the Gamemakers; she appears completely unable to obey basic orders that she deems as pointless and dismisses any kind of authority to the point that President Coin targets her rebellious temperament as her most-defining trait and the one she should conquer to be accepted in the Mockingjay mission; in District 13, she never follows social protocol nor she attends half of the events she should partake in. So, not only doesn’t she place her identity value in her community, but she also despises the idea of becoming part of a community at all, because there’s nothing she craves the most than independence, and relying on others is perceived by her as a weakness. This is quite the norm for INTJs.  

Katniss’s archery talent per se is also completely unrelated to how she perceives the world and to her cognitive preferences, because it was something she was forced to develop; but the way she engages in it is very telling. Many INTJs have interests in pursuing solitary physical activities, and their dominant Ni pushes them to apply their perfectionistic tendencies in everything they try to accomplish. This is why Katniss grows to master that practice, becoming an excellent archer (Gale describes her as “the best one he knows”). INTJs can be so obsessed with achieving excellence that they could be reluctant to show their interests, hobbies or activities at all before being sure to hone them completely. Katniss was basically forced to engage in hunting sessions to provide for her family, and this helped her in developing her inferior Se and learning to adjust to the environment around her. Nevertheless, her hunting style is still methodical, calculating and based on strategy tactics and mind games she plays to foresee her prey’s reactions and behaviors and win over them. She is never shown to gain energy and engage in it with the chaotic flexibility that high Se-users would show (as, for instance, Mulan constantly does in the Chinese Army): she is still precise, deliberate and focused in reaching an established goal, i.e. anticipating her opponents. It’s almost like she is playing chess with her preys. She conceptualizes her sensory activities and her body becomes a tool for her mind to use. Being a solitary activity in a solitary environment, Katniss is soon able to thrive because it gives her the opportunity to detach from the real world outside the woods and retreat safely in her mind, where she can perceive herself in control.

Another main trait associable with Ni/Te users is their strategic thinking. Ni’s ability to extract conceptual patterns from sensory elements and Te’s pragmatical approach in decompressing them give INTJs natural access to a pro-active way of interpreting reality and a strong desire to control it in a structured, foreseeable manner. INTJs naturally develop an automatic mental disposition to strategize every action they make in order to them to fit their vision and help them in reaching their desired goals. And it’s not just about the Big Strategies, or the Mastermind Plans: it’s a mental framework and it applies on a day to day basis, sometimes in the most insignificant things, often subconsciously and in extremely basic forms. We get to experience Katniss’s interaction with the outside world during the books, and she constantly strategizes. The first thing she thinks about after volunteering to save her sister (a very Fi-driven act for “the only person she is sure she loves”) is that crying as a response mechanism must be avoided because it would be caught by the Square’s cameras, and that she must not indulge in it even after the Reaping ceremony ends, because there will also be cameras in the train station after the tributes get to give their farewells. This by itself, as spontaneous as she makes it look like, is still a calculating way of thinking. She is used to foresee and evaluate strategically the long-term effects of her actions and choices. When she gets to see her family before leaving, she is distant and controlling: she doesn’t waste time in emotional matters, but straight-forwardly communicates a planning schedule of things to do in order for them to be able to survive without her.

She promises to her sister Prim that she will try to win – which now becomes her Goal – and strictly after that she already shows to be comfortable with the idea of dehumanizing other people to reach that goal. She is so calculating and detached from the sensory rules that she actually believes Peeta Mellark’s spontaneous emotional reaction to be a strategy for the Games, which indirectly underlines that it’s something she would do just for strategy purposes – just like we discover former victor Johanna Mason (ENTJ) did. When the night before the Games Peeta (ENFP) shares with her his open, individualistic unwillingness to be a slave to the Capitol (Ne/Fi), Katniss’s skeptical attitude and strategic focus on what she needs to do to accomplish her Goal makes her keep her inner perspective (Ni/Fi) hidden from him and use Te to provide pragmatical feed-back.

“Only I keep wishing I could think of a way to… to show the Capitol they don’t own me. That I’m more than just a piece in their Games,” says Peeta. “But you’re not,” I say. “None of us are. That’s how the Games work.” “Okay, but within that framework, there’s still you, there’s still me,” he insists. “Don’t you see?” “A little. Only... no offense, but who cares, Peeta?” I say. “I do. I mean, what else am I allowed to care about at this point?” he asks angrily. He’s locked those blue eyes on mine now, demanding an answer. I take a step back. “Care about what Haymitch said. About staying alive.” Peeta smiles at me, sad and mocking. “Okay. Thanks for the tip, sweetheart.” It’s like a slap in the face. His use of Haymitch’s patronizing endearment. “Look, if you want to spend the last hours of your life planning some noble death in the arena, that’s your choice. I want to spend mine in District Twelve.” “Wouldn’t surprise me if you do,” says Peeta. “Give my mother my best when you make it back, will you?” “Count on it,” I say. Then I turn and leave the roof.

Inside the Arena, she avoids human interactions as far as possible, trying to maintain an independence of mind that allows her to function properly. This solitude allows her to focus on her primary Goal so much that she actually forgets she is supposed to be playing a love story with Peeta – something she thinks makes her appear weak. Once she is tracked down by the Favorites, she quickly comes up with a plan able to keep her safe and endanger them at the same time: she climbs a tree, knowing she has much more expertise of any of them in doing so and already picturing them trying to throw their weapons at her once she is out of their reach, hoping to be able to collect one – showing a futuristic and utilitarian approach to the situation.

When dealing with people, she is very selective, trusts her guts and is almost never wrong (Ni). She makes an alliance with Rue here, and shows sympathy for Mags, Beetee and Wiress in the next book, highly distrusting every other tribute. She comes up with another plan involving setting up several fires to distract the Favorites and destroying their supplies by exploiting the underground mines near the Cornucopia. When Seneca Crane announces that there can be two victors from the same district, Katniss decides to incorporate Peeta’s survival in her ultimate Goal, and from that moment she is determined to find him, protect him and carry out their romance as efficiently as she can.

The most emblematic moment where Katniss’s INTJness truly stands out in the first book is at the end, when the rules are changed back and just one victor is allowed. Peeta gets acceptive of the inevitable consequences that it entails, but Katniss can’t find satisfaction in it because she feels like she has been played. She managed to adapt to the Games’ logic and reach both her Goals – keeping her promise to Prim and allowing Peeta to survive with her. And suddenly she has to sacrifice one of them, even though she conquered both? This tyrannical twist aimed at controlling her is what definitely triggers her into attacking the whole system, finding a way to make the Capitol conform to what she wants and not the other way around. If there’s something INTJs hate, that it’s being manipulated and stripped of control. With the trick of the berries, she knows she is subverting the rules and that consequences will arise, but she first and foremost is confident that she will get what she wants out of it. And she does.

Katniss’s dominant Ni (Introverted Intuition) is also evident, through the whole saga, in the constant symbolical associations she makes between objects/people and images/concepts. In her mind, Prim is her “little duck”, Peeta is “the boy with the bread”, the soup in the Arena becomes a linguistic code to decrypt from Haymitch, Rue herself becomes a shadow of her sister, the Mockingjay pin becomes a self-projecting symbol, Snow’s white rose becomes a hidden form of communication between them. She sees items as conceptual containers.

In the second book, she gets visited by President Snow and she studies him, analyzing his behavior and persona and carefully weighting his words.

Perhaps it is the newness of the house or the shock of seeing him or the mutual understanding that he could have me killed in a second that makes me feel like the intruder. As if this is his home and I’m the uninvited party. So I don’t welcome him or offer him a chair. I don’t say anything. In fact, I treat him as if he’s a real snake, the venomous kind. I stand motionless, my eyes locked on him, considering plans of retreat. “I think we’ll make this whole situation a lot simpler by agreeing not to lie to each other,” he says. “What do you think?” I think my tongue has frozen and speech will be impossible, so I surprise myself by answering back in a steady voice, “Yes, I think that would save time.”

During the Victory Tour, despite Snow’s warning against her rebellious tendencies, Katniss shows once again her inability to stick to established procedures and etiquettes by coming up with an individualistic speech about Rue (Fi) that leads to an uprising and public execution. Back in her district, she keeps breaking the rules and attending the woods despite knowing that the President keeps his eyes on her movements.

As soon as the Quarter Quell is announced and the tributes are selected, Katniss decides that this time her long-term Goal will solely be Peeta’s survival, and from now on she takes her ultimate sacrifice for granted in her mental schemes, as a necessary step. Because of her Ni, Katniss develops a curiosity for Beetee (INTP) and Wiress’s intellectual approach to their training session and learns about force fields. Katniss’s archery training here is extremely probative of the mindset she enters into when hunting. She refuges inside her own head and lets her intuition overtake her body and dictate her movements in a harmonious and efficient continuum. She doesn’t lose herself in the environment (high Se), but in her own mind (high Ni), alienating herself from her physical surroundings to the point that she fails to realize she is being observed by everyone and doesn’t catch them applauding her until she sees them after her session is completed.

This time, in the Arena, she ends up being much more assertive – mainly because she has already made peace with the fact that she is not going to get out alive. This certainty is what ultimately suffocates her humanity and lets her approach the competition in a much more cold-blooded way – if she has come to have no problem dying to save Peeta, she surely has no problem killing everyone else as well to do it. She openly discusses with him about betrayal strategies and spends the majority of the time conjecturing ways to kill her temporary allies. She is so intensely focused (in a Ni tunnel-vision fashion) on her own scheme that she fails to notice than a much greater plan, arranged by the rebels, is being implemented by some of the other tributes which involves keeping her alive. Once she realizes that something is wrong with the way they are behaving, she comes up with another plan: she exploits the operative system of the Arena combined with her newly-acquired ability to recognize holes in force fields to throw an electrified arrow into the weak spot of the Arena’s one and provoke the explosion of the entire structure. Katniss shows to be attracted not only to the pragmatical efficiency of the gesture (Te), but to its symbolical connotations as well (Ni), which seem to convey an open declaration of war to Snow himself.

In the third book, she goes back to crave her independence from others, estranging herself from the social activities held in District 13 and developing an intuitive and instinctual distrust in President Coin as an authority figure. She decides to accept her propaganda role as the Mockingjay, symbol of the Revolution, just because it’s the only way to ensure the progression of the rebellious strikes and therefore to aim at Snow’s ultimate defeat – in a not-so-different way from INTJs’ tendency to engage in leadership roles once they conclude it to be the only possible solution to ensure the highest efficiency of a system. In exchange of embracing the role, Katniss provides a list of demands to be accepted – including the claim of President Snow’s execution. This becomes her new Goal.

Having witnessed at first-hand Katniss’s insubordinate nature and fearing for it to become a serious problem, President Coin decides to include a brainwashed Peeta in the Mockingjay mission. Katniss realizes quite instantly that Coin could profit from her death and that she wants to use Peeta as a weapon to control her and potentially get rid of her. Her distrust of Coin increases rapidly, but she keeps being focused on her primary Goal – to the point that, after Boggs’s death and her taking charge of the team, she pretends to know about the existence of a secondary, back-up plan established by Coin and only shared with Boggs and herself aimed at infiltrating the Capitol and killing the President.

Nevertheless, one of the most impactful moments in all the saga happens when the reader gets to experience Katniss’s Ultimate Plan. After District 13 gives order to detonate two groups of bombs from hovercrafts bearing the Capitol seal resulting in a massive genocide of children and rebel medics – including Prim –, Katniss is able to foresee (Ni) Coin’s real intentions of generating an internal conflict in the enemy lines and therefore manages to rationalize the danger she represents for Panem’s future liberty. She realizes that, in order for the people to be ultimately free and for Prim’s death not to be in vain, she needs to find a way to get rid of both Snow and Coin at the same time, because Coin’s thirst for power steams from similar roots of Snow’s, and must be sedated as quickly as possible. So, she meticulously and carefully crafts a strategy to gain Coin’s ultimate trust and then betray it publicly.

Was it like this then? Seventy-five years or so ago? Did a group of people sit around and cast their votes on initiating the Hunger Games? Was there dissent? Did someone make a case for mercy that was beaten down by the calls for the deaths of the districts’ children? The scent of Snow’s rose curls up into my nose, down into my throat, squeezing it tight with despair. All those people I loved, dead, and we are discussing the next Hunger Games in an attempt to avoid wasting life. Nothing has changed. Nothing will ever change now. I weigh my options carefully, think everything through. Keeping my eyes on the rose, I say, “I vote yes . . . for Prim.” “Haymitch, it’s up to you,” says Coin. A furious Peeta hammers Haymitch with the atrocity he could become party to, but I can feel Haymitch watching me. This is the moment, then. When we find out exactly just how alike we are, and how much he truly understands me. “I’m with the Mockingjay,” he says. “Excellent. That carries the vote,” says Coin. “Now we really must take our places for the execution.” As she passes me, I hold up the glass with the rose. “Can you see that Snow’s wearing this? Just over his heart?” Coin smiles. “Of course. And I’ll make sure he knows about the Games.” “Thank you,” I say.

She manipulates her by pretending to agree at the establishment of new Hunger Games in Prim’s memoir while keeping her eyes fixed on Snow’s rose and mentally recalling their conversation in the previous book. Haymitch – who is probably an INTJ as well (with Se-grip problems), since Katniss spends the entire saga stating how alike they are – instantly understands Katniss’s plan and votes in her favor. By doing this, Katniss ultimately gains Coin’s trust, who has no reason now not to arm her and let her execute Snow in a public ceremony. Katniss manipulates Coin even more by making her think that giving him the white rose is an attempt to symbolize revenge, while it actually is a way for Katniss to re-awake in Snow the memory of their previous exchange. Katniss’s attachment to symbology here is extremely evident. When she finally gets to be in front of Snow, she states that he has nowhere to go, no allies left. There is no way for Snow to still be a threat ever again, regardless of her actually executing him in this instance. But on the other hand, now she is given the unique, unrepeatable possibility of erasing Coin’s threat as well. And she grabs it.

I feel the bow purring in my hand. Reach back and grasp the arrow. Position it, aim at the rose, but watch his face. He coughs and a bloody dribble runs down his chin. His tongue flicks over his puffy lips. I search his eyes for the slightest sign of anything, fear, remorse, anger. But there’s only the same look of amusement that ended our last conversation. It’s as if he’s speaking the words again. “Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we had agreed not to lie to each other.” He’s right. We did. The point of my arrow shifts upward. I release the string. And President Coin collapses over the side of the balcony and plunges to the ground. Dead.

This execution is almost a by-the-book case of INTJ’s combination of strategic planning and the ability to foresee dangerous future outcomes and prevent them from happening. Katniss’s plan was supposed to end with her suicide, but soon after Coin’s death, Peeta is able to grasp her intentions and stop her in time. Katniss, having already calculated that she was going to be executed as well for Coin’s murder, loses her cool because the final step of her strategy has been prevented, and searches for Gale in the crowd hoping to be mercifully killed by him. But she isn’t. Eventually, she gets quarantined and the newly-established Paylor’s government decides to spare her.

Overall, I think it’s safe to say that the tendency to mistype Katniss as a Sensor steams from an approximative, superficial lecture of her character and the way she operates. People tend to place the “S” label upon her purely because she is an expert in a physical activity and think that is enough for her to be a Sensor – as if there are no Intuitives more than capable of mastering “sensory categories”, which is basically the same as implying that Sensors can not be able to develop a comfortable relationship with conceptual subjects. Typing characters basing personal assumptions on dichotomies and therefore discrediting cognitive functions is an extremely biased and inefficient procedure which leads to great misunderstandings. All it takes is to dive a little bit into the core nature of the character to get a proper picture of how said character perceives the world and engages with it. And with that in mind, Katniss Everdeen can be nothing else but an INTJ.

“To hear Delly describe it, I had next to no friends because I intimidated people by being so exceptional. Not true. I had next to no friends because I wasn’t friendly.”

[gothamblacka]

cognitive assessment.

bold all that apply to your muse’s current mental state; italicise any that apply to your muse’s past mental state — repost don’t reblog !

alcoholism: or alcohol use disorder ( aud ), is a broad term for any drinking of alcohol that results in mental or physical health problems.

amnesia: a deficit in memory caused by brain damage, disease, or psychological trauma.

anxiety: a mental health disorder characterised by feelings of worry, anxiety, or fear that are strong enough to interfere with one’s daily activities.

appetite loss: a reduced desire to eat.

binge eating: a psychological illness characterised by frequently eating excessive amounts of food, often when not hungry.

co-dependence: dysfunctional and maladaptive relationship reliant on another person’s dependence on the affected individual.

cynicism: an inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self interest ( scepticism ), or to question whether something will happen or whether it is worthwhile ( pessimism ).

defensiveness: the tendency to be sensitive to comments and criticism and to deny them. to constantly protect oneself from criticism, exposure of one’s shortcomings, or other real or perceived threats to the go.

depersonalisation: a state in which one’s thoughts and feelings seem unreal or not belonging to oneself.

depression: a mental health disorder characterised by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life.

derealisation: alteration in the perception or experience of the external world so that it seems unreal.

devaluation: defense mechanism used when a person attributes themselves, an object, or another person as completely flawed, worthless, or as having exaggerated negative qualities.

displacement: an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind substitutes either a new aim or a new object or goals felt in their original form to be dangerous or unacceptable.

dissociation: is any state of a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from physical and emotional experiences, such as a disconnect from reality.

drug abuse: the extreme desire to obtain, and use, increasing amounts of one or more substances.

dysphoria: a state of unease, or generalised dissatisfaction with life.

emotional detachment: an inability to connect with others on an emotional level, as well as coping with anxiety by avoiding certain situations that trigger it; it is often described as “ emotional numbing ” or dissociation.

flashbacks: an involuntary recurrent memory, is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual has sudden, usually powerful, re-experiencing of a past experience or elements of said experience.

flat affect: a severe reduction in emotional expressiveness. they may not show the signs of normal emotion, perhaps may speak in a monotonous voice, have diminished facial expressions, and appear extremely apathetic.

guilt: a cognitive or emotional experience that occurs when a person believes or realises — accurately or not — that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated a universal moral standard and bear significant responsibility for it.

hallucinations: an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present.

hypersomnia: or excessive sleepiness, is a condition in which a person has trouble staying awake during the day.

hypervigilance: an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect activity.

hypochondria: ( also known as illness anxiety disorder ) is a condition in which a person is inordinately worried about having a serious illness.

idealization: the action of regarding or representing something as perfect or better than reality.

insomnia: a sleep disorder where people have trouble sleeping. they may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep as long as desired. insomnia is usually followed by daytime sleepiness, low energy, and a depressed mood.

intellectualization: a defense mechanism by which reasoning is used to block confrontation with an unconscious conflict and its associated emotional stress — where thinking is used to avoid feeling. it involves removing one’s self, emotionally, from a stressful event.

introjection: regarded as the process where the subject replicates in themselves behaviours, attributes, or other fragments of the surrounding world, especially of other subjects. cognate concepts include identification, incorporation, and internalisation.

isolation: a defense mechanism in psychoanalytic theory characterized by individuals defending themselves from possible threats by mentally and physically isolating themselves. by minimizing associative connections with other thoughts, the threatening cognition is remembered less often and is less likely to affect self-esteem or the self concept.

low self esteem: a person with low self esteem feels unworthy, incapable, and incompetent.

narcissism: is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one’s own attributes. narcissistic personality disorder ( npd ) is a personality disorder in which there is a long term pattern of abnormal behaviour characterised by exaggerated feelings of self importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of understanding of other’s feelings.

night terrors: also known as a sleep terror, is a sleep disorder, causing feelings of terror or dread, and typically occurs during the first hours of stage three to four rapid eye movement ( nrem ) sleep.

obsessive compulsion: obsessive-compulsive disorder ( ocd ) is a common, chromic, and long — lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts ( obsessions ) and behaviours ( compulsions ) that they feel the urge to repeat over and over.

panic attacks: a sudden overwhelming feeling of acute and debilitating anxiety.

passive aggression: a tendency to engage in indirect expression of hostility through acts such as subtle insults, sullen behavior, stubbornness, or a deliberate failure to accomplish a required task.

paranoia: the irrational and persistent feeling that people are “ out to get you. ” the three main types of paranoia include paranoid personality disorder, delusional disorder, and paranoid schizophrenia.

phobias: an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something.

projection: psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. it involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings.

psychosis: a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.

rationalization: a defense mechanism in which controversial behaviors or feelings are justified and explained in a seemingly rational or logical manner to avoid the true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable — or even admirable and superior — by plausible means.

regression: a psychological defense mechanism in which a person abandons age — appropriate coping strategies in favor of earlier, more childlike patterns of behavior. this regression is a form of retreat, bringing back a time when the person feels safe and taken care of.

risky sex: risky sexual behavior is commonly defined as behavior that increases the probability of contracting sexually transmitted infections, diseases, becoming pregnant, or making a partner pregnant. drug use is associated with risky sexual behavior.

somatisation: the manifestation of psychological distress by the presentation of bodily symptoms.

splitting: ( also called black — and — white thinking or all — or — nothing thinking ) is the failure in a person’s thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a cohesive, realistic whole.

sublimation: is a mature type of defence mechanism, in which socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are unconsciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior, possibly resulting in a long — term conversion of the initial impulse.

suicidal ideation: ( also known as suicidal thoughts ) is thinking about or an unusual preoccupation with suicide. the range of suicidal ideation varies from fleeting thoughts, to extensive thoughts, to detailed planning, roleplaying, and incomplete attempts.

sleepwalking: formally known as somnambulism, is a behaviour disorder that originates during deep sleep and results in walking or performing other complex behaviours while asleep. it is more common in children than adults and is more likely to occur if a person is sleep deprived.

suppression: the act of stopping oneself from thinking or feeling something. it is generally assumed ineffective because even if you suppress or hold back an emotion, like anger, that feeling returns with a vengeance.

thousand yard stare: a phrase often used to describe the blank, unfocused gaze of soldiers who have become emotionally detached from the horrors around them. it is also sometimes used more generally to describe the look of dissociation among victims of other types of trauma.

triggers: something that sets of a memory tape or flashback transporting the person back to the event of their emotional trauma. triggers are very personal ; different things can trigger different people. the survivor may begin to avoid situations and stimuli that they think triggered the flashback.

trust issues: a person with these kinds of thoughts may construct social barriers as a defense mechanism to ensure that trust is not lost again. these barriers are often a person’s way of avoid the pain, rejection, or guilt associated with mistrust.

violence: the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.

temper: a reflection of irritation or rage, a propensity to be angered rapidly.

tagged : stolen tagging: @viclentheart @enygma @falsedking​ @cathief @0000004479 @sonicanary @prettybird @greenpuns,  @batvvmn, @starxhal , @btwng , @quinzotic , @chaoticblondes, @gctjinxd , @bulletballet , @reincarnatedhawk , @bcthound , @charmher

[lilzebub]

Vacations and Vows

Thanks @thegildedquill for the prompt for the Mando’a Challenge! Had a blast writing this one, obviously, since it almost hit 7k LOL. Mando x reader Summary:  The Mandalorian meets a ruthless failed Jedi, who somehow manages to navigate the intricacies of the man beneath the beskar.  He whisks her away on vacation to pose a very important question that’s been weighing heavy on him.

Prompt: Gett’se (nuts, or brave)

Word count: 6.9K

Warnings:  Mandalorian typical violence, minor description of injuries, some season 1 spoilers.

Thanks @thegildedquill​ for the Mando’a Challenge! Summary:  The Mandalorian meets a ruthless failed Jedi, who somehow navigates through the intricacies of the man beneath the beskar.

Prompt: “gett’se”, Mando’a word for ‘courage’, ‘nerve’ or ‘nuts’ (generic) Word count: 6.9K

Warnings: Mandalorian typical violence, light mentions of injuries, season 1 spoilers

“What’s wrong?” The deep voice from the captain’s chair jarred her from her thoughts: not only from the sudden, almost deafening onset of sound in the otherwise silent cockpit, but his sporadic initiation of conversation. She wasn’t entirely sure how long she’d been staring out into the black void of space that laid before the ship. Ten minutes? Maybe twenty? “Uh, yeah. I’m fine. Just thinking, is all.” She relaxed back into the seat, fingers blindly trained on the edges of the domed crib beside her. A sharp intake of air. Was that a laugh? “Don’t hurt yourself.”  She cocked her head towards him, incredulously.  “What are you thinking about?”  He continued, not turning his helmeted head. “Oh, you know. Just everything, I guess. We’ve been on the run for…How many years now?”  Pressing the autopilot button, his chair swiveled to face her, expressionless as always. He slumped down, placing his elbows on his beskar clad legs. “Five years? Six?”  The subtle tilt of his helmet told her that he hadn’t really considered it until she brought it up.  He peered at her through his visor, suddenly glad that she was unable to see his eyes, trained on her petite form.

She was a far cry from the drunken brawler he had met all those years ago, and his lips, hidden behind beskar, tugged into a semblance of a smile at the vivid memory. The newly failed Jedi stood in a darkened back alley of Canto Bight, chest heaving after escaping from a mob of angry gamblers.  Her gift with the Force allowed her to cheat her way through a game, winning her a substantial amount of money.  Giddy, and moderately tipsy from the free drinks, she shoved credits into the pockets of her long, satin dress, fingers brushing against the lightsaber strapped to her leg.  As the young woman navigated her way through the slimy underbelly of the city, blaster shots rang out: her keen senses knew it was only a couple of blocks away, and she stealthily navigated towards the sound.  The moment she turned the corner, her heart lurched.  Momentary flashes of silver were illuminated in the firefight, and she could see all of the shots were trained on one individual.  “I always have to root for the underdog, don’t I,” she whispered under her breath, hiking the skirt of her dress up to remove her lightsaber.  With a running start, and a drunken stumble, (Y/n) activated her lightsaber, illuminating the alley in a sunset gold hue, and sized up no less than 8 people nearly surrounding the figure. Slashing through the one that stood directly between her and the figure under attack, she turned, pressing her back towards the cold feeling of what she quickly recognized as beskar. “Who…” the voice called to her, before she quickly cut him off. “We can discuss formalities later, Mandalorian. For now, I’ve got you.”  Another round of shots flew directly towards the pair, and she deflected them with ease with the saber. For a moment, the Mandalorian paused and watched the woman in the long dress, admiring the way she fought:  she clearly had training, but there was a chaotic element, something unrefined, about the way she took out her enemies. Singlehandedly, the woman took out all but one of them, with the Mandalorian vaporizing the assailant in one swift motion. She sheathed her lightsaber, hiking up her now filthy dress to replace it in its holster.  A cocky grin plastered her face, as she reached out towards him. “I’m (Y/n). I’d love to chat more, but seeing as how you’ve clearly made some enemies, we should probably get this show on the road.  You got a ship?” The helmet tipped forward, a subtle nod of affirmation.  The motion would be the only invitation the woman would receive from him.  The Mandalorian turned mumbling quietly to himself about the woman’s apparent mental state, a deathwish, and she followed.

“Definitely closer to six.” The woman hummed, propping her feet on the side of his captain’s chair, wiggling her bare toes.  “I’m getting a little….antsy.” “Antsy? About what?” His voice held no indication of what he was feeling.  Fear, perhaps? The Mandalorian knew the day would probably come that his traveling companion would grow weary and branch off on her own, leaving him and the Child for good.  He could never tell her how badly he wanted her to stay.  She had become his best friend, his closest confidante, and a mother figure to the child.   “You know….Like maybe we could make a stop for a couple of days.  Like a vacation or something. Take the kid and visit Cara or something.”  It wasn’t completely lost on her that he exhaled a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.  “I don’t know, Din. I feel like I’ve been staring at the inside of this ship forever.  I want to see a sunset, put my feet on solid ground.”  She frowned when he didn’t immediately respond.  The captain’s chair swiveled back to its original position. “Diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin,” her whine drawled, awakening a slew of butterflies in his stomach. “I’ll see what I can do.” He answered succinctly.

The sound of the docking ramp woke her from a peaceful slumber.  Stumbling from her cot, she slipped on a loose, knee length dress and boots, scrambling to see where the Mandalorian had taken her.  The hulking figure stood poised at the edge of the ramp, cradling the small bundle. “Navarro? This really your idea of a vacation?” She glided to his side.  The child cooed at the sight of her, making grabby hands in her direction. Din slid the child into her arms, silently admiring the care with which she held him. She is the perfect dichotomy of deadly and nurturing, he thought to himself as he continued peering down at her out of the corner of his visor. “No, quick pit stop,” he placed his hand behind her elbow, guiding her off the ship, towards the center of the city. The small gesture of physical contact caused a flame in her cheeks, as she quickly adjusted the baby to sit on the swell of her hip. “CARA,” (Y/n) screeched, passing the child to Din to fully engulf her dear friend in a tight embrace.  “It’s been so long!”  Din joined the pair, and the child gurgled and cooed excitedly. Cara reached down and stroked the child’s long green ear. “Hello there, little one! What do you think about staying with Aunt Cara for a few days while your mom and dad go have some fun?”  She peered pointedly at the Mandalorian, knowing full well that he was blushing under his helmet at the implication of their partnership.  (Y/n) glanced quickly at Din, mouth fully agape, then back to Cara. “We couldn’t possibly inconvenience you like that!” she protested, “I mean, this guy is getting to be quite a handful, with his….thing. You know. *the Force*” she mouthed silently, knowing that Force users are generally unfavored, sought after by Imps.  Cara found purchase under the child’s arms and pulled him gently away from (Y/n). “Look, if I can handle all the weird shit his mom does, I can handle whatever he can do.  You two haven’t had any time to yourself in years now. Stay the night here tonight, we’ll catch up, and you can get an early start in the morning after a night of good sleep and a full belly!”

(Y/n) was one of the few women Cara knew that could drink her under the table.  Cara narrowed her eyes as the woman giggled, leaning into the shoulder of the heavily armored man.  Through heavy wheezing and laughter, she continued her story. “You should have seen the look on Din’s face when I sabered the guy clear through the chest right before the guy pulled the trigger on him.  I have saved your ass SO many times.”  Cara doubled over in laughter. “Really? ‘The look on his face’??”  She tipped the flagon of alcohol towards her mouth, spewing a bit in her fit of laughter. “So you’re telling me you’ve seen his face?”  (Y/n) bristled a bit at the comment. “Well, no, of course not.  But I know what he’s thinking sometimes, I can feel it. So I can….imagine, I guess?”  She peered up at him with big, glossy eyes. “Right, right. So is that part of the ‘Force’, or the fact that you two are clearly hopelessly in love with each other?” (Y/n) shot her gaze towards Cara, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion, mind reeling.  Would that really be that far beyond the realm of possibility?  She knew she would be lying if she tried to deny it, instead opting to lean forward, away from Din, and grab her drink off the table.  Certainly, their relationship held a peculiar degree of intimacy: what some would consider a simple gesture, such as revealing their real name, was a huge step in her friendship with the Mandalorian. They sat in the hull of the ship in silence after acquiring a particularly difficult asset, the pair both bleeding from fresh injuries. Through heavy, altered breaths, he finally spoke. “You really don’t have to stick around. Bounty hunting is a dangerous business.” Thuds of beskar hitting the cold floor punctuated his sentences, as he peered over at the woman through his visor. She had hastily stripped out of her minimal armor, revealing a startling amount of bruised and bloodied flesh underneath, a large gaping wound staining red the pale flesh of her upper arm. The Mandalorian quickly averted his gaze down to his own wounds, barely visible through the cloth of his underclothes. “I’m not made of glass, Mando.  I was one night away from becoming a Jedi Master…you know. Before I ran.” A hiss escaped her lips as she staunched the bleeding from a deep vibroblade cut.  His curiosity was piqued. “Seems like a lot of effort to go through just to run off at the last second.”  He slid a medkit across the floor over to her, as she busied herself with the next most severe wound. “Do you know anything about what it means to become a Jedi, Mando?” she asked, no hostility in her voice. “Hm. I imagine it’s similar to my Creed.” Bacta spray coated his split knuckles, his gloves discarded to his side. “Well.  Because of my…skills…I was taken away from my family as a child. Told to surrender my entire past, my entire self.  And for what?  To come of age and be told I can never get married or have a family, can never pursue anything that would fulfill me. I couldn’t have anything.  So the night before I swore my oath, I took my lightsaber and ran.  I didn’t stop running for what felt like an eternity.  Hopping from planet to planet, swindling, fighting, killing if I absolutely had to.”  Her wounds tended to, she laid back on the cold floor of the Razor Crest.  She exhaled. “Honestly, it’s for the best. I’m having too much fun now. And now, all of my choices are my own.” Turning her head to peer at him.  “What about you? What’s your story?” “My uh…parents. Got killed.  I became the Mandalorians’ foundling.  They raised me, and I adopted their Creed as mine.  I owe them everything.  It’s why I kept the Child as my own.”  Suddenly, she reached across the space between them, taking his bare hand in her own.  He was taken aback at first:  this marked the first non-violent physical contact he had had with anyone in a long time, especially skin to skin.  It felt foreign, but something else. Pleasant.   “Mando….I’m so sorry.”  He laced his fingers through hers, earning a quiet gasp. “Din…Din Djarin.”  His voice through the modulator was breathy, as if the words escaped from him on their own volition.  She quickly rolled onto her side and pulled her hand away, much to his chagrin.  More confidently, he spoke again. “I would like for you to call me Din.”  In one swift motion, he reached towards her, initiating the contact again.

“Oh my gods, (Y/n), are you EMBARASSED?” Cara continued laughing, sloshing her drink.  “Your eyebrows are about to disappear into your hairline.” She stumbled to her feet. “I’m going to go check on the baby.”  She navigated through Cara’s small lodging towards the room that held the child’s crib.

“Really, Din? REALLY? You haven’t told her yet?” Cara leaned forward, chastising him.  His helmet tilted slightly as he stretched his arms across the back length of the seat. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Cara.” “So you’re telling me. That you’ve been traveling together for five-“ “Six,” he interrupted. “SIX years, and you haven’t told her that you love her?” He cleared his throat beneath his helmet. “She is the bravest warrior I know. I show her that I appreciate her service every day. That’s why I’m taking her on a vacation.  She fights beside me well, and cares for the child as if he’s her own.”  Shifting his weight, he glanced down the hallway she had gone down. “Din Djarin, you are staring down that hallway waiting for her to come back. You love her.” “She left the Jedi order so she could have some sense of normalcy.  Marriage. A family. I cannot give that to her.” He husked angrily.  Cara paused, blinking at him for a moment. “But you already did. Do you think it’s normal for two people to gallivant around the galaxy together, raising an adopted child together?  Honestly, when you told me you were coming to visit, Greef and I made a bet:  he said you two would already be married by the time you got here.  I said you would announce it when you arrived.” “It is not the Way,” he replied simply. “I happen to know that Mandalorians can get married.  The Armorer loaned me some books on the Creed. Maybe you should go talk to her.” “She still here in Navarro?” His interest was piqued. “Yeah, maybe you should go see her before you guys head out.” She stood, stretching her arms above her head. “And on that note, I’m going to bed.”

Din crept down the hallway towards the room with the crib, noting the door was slightly ajar. Peeking inside, he saw the child nestled against (Y/n), both fast asleep.  Sighing heavily, he exited the building, in search of the Armorer.

The new covert wasn’t far from the old one.  A handful of Mandalorians in their armor spread out in the comfortable common area, a handful of children toddling about.  He couldn’t contain the swell of pride in his chest, seeing how the tribe was starting anew, with a fresh generation of foundlings. “Ah, Din.  It’s been a long time.” A voice called from behind him. He turned, regarding her warmly. “How is the child? Where is the foundling?” “He’s with his moth-…Uh, with my traveling companion.”  He barely caught himself. “Ah, a companion? The woman from the siege of Nevarro?”  Her voice lilted in what could only be described as amusement, his near slip up wholly noticed. “Yes,” he replied in short. “A failed Jedi Master.” “A dar’jetti. Interesting. She understands the Force, then. Did you choose her companionship for her to teach the Foundling?”  She busies herself with a gauntlet from the forge, not looking in his direction. His shoulders slumped, “She put her life on the line for me. She fiercely protected the child and I. More than once. First time on Canto Bight.” “How long ago was that?” Placing the gauntlet on the armory shelf, she turned, as if to urge the truth out of him. “Six years,” his voice was nearly a whisper. “So you have been traveling together for six years.  Has she seen you without your helmet?  Have you made her your riduur?”  Tilting her helmet inquisitively.   “You are raising a foundling together. It is a practical decision; we can extend the protection of the Covert to her. Aliit ori’shya tal’din.” He struggled for words, finally resigning to silently hooking his thumbs into his utility belt, shaking his head ‘no’. The Armorer walked over to him, placing a gloved hand on his shoulder. “If you take her has your riduur it is still within the Resol’nare. To remove your helmet in front of your family...It is the Way.  It is right, and just, a clan of three.”  With that, he turned on his heels without a word, finding his way back to Cara’s homestead.

Din arguably never slept. Between the Child, piloting duties, and watching over (Y/n), he had learned to rely on as little rest as possible. It was no surprise when Cara rose that morning that the Mandalorian was comfortably reclining in the common space. “Morning, Mando! You find the Armorer?” she plopped down on a tufted cushion beside him. “Mhm” he answered flatly.  A silence hung thick over the air, as if Cara was waiting for something more. “I’m taking her to Canto Bight. Called in a couple of favors.”  She clapped her gloved hands together. “You’re taking her to the place you first met because you’re going to ask her to marry you. I KNEW it.” “Keep your voice down,” he husked. “I need you to take some of these credits from the last bounty, go with her to buy some clothing before we leave.” The creaking of a door startled the pair. (Y/n) dragged into the room, the Child toddling behind her.  “Good morning, Cara, Din.”  She stretched, and Din regarded her clothing.  Her shoulder was exposed from the loose linen top she wore, her black jodhpurs torn and frayed from numerous falls.  Since joining him, her style had become simple and practical, but all he could think about was the long dress she wore when they first met. “Um, good morning.”  Din stood awkwardly.  “Cara is going to take you shopping before we head out.  Is that alright with you?” (Y/n) leaned down and picked up the Child, eyeing Din suspiciously.  Glancing over at Cara who by now had a shit eating grin plastered across her face, she nodded slowly. “Sure, that sounds like it could be fun.” “I will take care of the baby until you two get back, cyar’ika.”  The Mandalorian closed distance and collected the child from her.  Before she could react, he leaned his helmet down, pressing it gently to her forehead.  “I will see you soon.”

The two women meandered towards the market, (Y/n)’s face still flushed. “You know what that was, right?”  Cara asked when they were out of earshot of her dwelling. “That was like, the equivalent of kissing by Mandalorian standard.” She dragged her hands down her face, “I KNOW what it was, Cara.  I just don’t know WHY. What the HELL was that?! Was that MANDO’A? WHAT DOES CYAR’IKA MEAN?”  He had only ever spoken to her in his native tongue once before, and the low growl of his words always sent a fire straight to the flesh of her neck and face.

Everything had gone to hell in a handbasket.  They were cornered, bruised, and broken, under heavy fire from just beyond the cantina doors.  A booming voice had just called the Mandalorian by his name, and the woman clutched her saber so tightly that the skin of her palms began to crack.  Despite the debris from the ammunition and explosions digging into her knees from where she crouched behind the bar, his name being revealed to everyone wounded her somewhere deep behind her ribcage. Something sacred that he had gifted to her out of trust and mutual respect, shouted with indifference to the seemingly infinite number of troops as they pinned the group down.  

The rag-tag group desperately clamored for some promise of an exit, a path to safety.  The medical droid turned child protector had uncovered a small opening that could potentially lead the group to safety, but there wasn’t much time.  Cara, Karga, and IG-11 crouched towards the small opening and began moving forward. (Y/n) scrambled towards the hole, turning to make sure Din was close behind, only to see him collapsed on the ground, unmoving.  She scrambled over to him, tapping the side of his helmet. “Din! DIN? You have to get up, we have to go NOW.”  As she slid her hand behind him to try to assist getting him up, she found that he was covered in something dark and slick.  Blood, and lots of it, was seeping from a wound that was concealed by his helmet.

His breath came through the vocorder in slow pants. “(Y/n) I’m not going to make it. You take this, take the child, and get to safety.”  He pressed a necklace with the emblem of a Mythosaur into her palm, then reached up to press his gloved hand to her cheek. “The covert. They’ll know…..know I sent you.”

Years of Jedi training had taught her about stoicism.  It had taught her about loss, and death, but nothing had prepared her to say goodbye to the Mandalorian.  Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, as she violently shook her head in protest. “No, Din.  I’m not leaving you.  I will slaughter every Storm Trooper that comes through this door.  I will slay Moff Gideon myself and watch the light leave his eyes. I swear this to you.”  She looped the necklace around her neck, and slowly stood up, flicking her golden lightsaber and taking a fighting stance.

“Cuyir gar gett’se?!”  The Mandalorian wheezed through his vocoder, struggling to catch his breath. “Don’t do this, the child needs you, you’re his mot-.”  He stopped speaking abruptly, and she screamed for IG-11 to assist he Mandalorian.

Several Storm Troopers pressed their way inside, and the only thing she could focus on was holding them off for long enough for IG-11 to get Din to safety.  As they fell one by one, a much larger Storm Trooper entered with a flamethrower and began spraying his flames towards her.  Her palm pressed forward, as she used everything in the Force to keep the flames at bay.  Her strength began to falter, as she peered down to her side.  The child had waddled up beside her, and she quietly pleaded for him to get back. “Baby, please. Please, you’re going to get hurt. You’ve got to go back.”  He raised his tiny three fingered hand and mirrored her position, and the flames began quickly receding.  They soon engulfed the Trooper, and she clamored to scoop the now unconscious baby from the ground, running past IG-11 and the body of the Mandalorian. Cara chuckled to herself, “So now that it’s just the two of us, be honest. You’ve got it bad for him, don’t you?” “No shit, Cara. You can only be stuck with someone on a floating chunk of metal for so long before you start to think they look pretty appealing,” she rolled her eyes. “How long?” Cara guided her into a vendor stall, lined with dresses and garments.  (Y/n) traced her fingers absentmindedly over the lush fabrics, deep in thought. “Uh, remember the story when he was getting jumped by the eight dudes in Canto Bight?”  She picked up a long black dress with an open back. “….You mean the night you met? Are you insane?” Cara looked at her incredulously. “You’ve kept your shit together for six years, without even giving him a hint that you were feeling something?” Her skin flushed. “NO. I was just gonna say this dress is very similar to what I wore that night. GEEZ, Cara, I didn’t even know him yet.”  Cara huffed in frustration. (Y/n) draped the dress over her arm, and placed her hand on Cara’s shoulder. “I can’t describe it. Let me just….show you, okay?”

It all came at once as a flood: everything was suddenly warm, like the heat of the sun on a perfect day, or the way spotchka burned just a little on the way down.  It was a small, smoldering pile of cinders, giving way to an unquenchable blaze.  The feeling of being surrounded by cool, blue water, and a fearless feeling of sinking all the way to the bottom of the sea. The undeniable sensation of falling from some high distance, unsure of when you’ll reach the bottom.

Cara’s eyes opened. “Damn, (Y/n) could you warn me before putting me through the ringer? I didn’t know that was a thing you could do.”  (Y/n) turned towards the dark dress, and shrugged her shoulders. “This is the one.” She gestured to this shopkeep, shoving a handful of credits into their hands. “Let’s get out of here. I need a vacation.”

The Razor Crest docked in Canto Bight, and (Y/n) could barely contain her excitement, a stark contrast to the man behind the beskar.   “if you would like to get dressed, I’m going to run an errand. Will you be ready in half an hour?”

(Y/n) peered at herself in the small mirror as she dabbed a deep rouge color to her lips.  The dress glided behind her as she strode towards the weapons cabinet and pulled out her lightsaber, still in pristine condition.  The high slit of the dress allowed her easy access to strap the weapon to her leg.  The loud hissing of the ramp to the Razor Crest alerted her to Din’s arrival, and she stood expectantly awaiting the moment he got to lay eyes on her.  

The man in the shiny beskar paused in front of her, his helmet tilting downward to take her all in. “You look….” He paused, seemingly choking, noticing the Mythosaur necklace he had given her during the siege situated on her chest. “Really nice, (Y/n).”

She smirked, enjoying how flustered he seemed to be.  “You look pretty nice yourself, Din.  Did you shine your beskar up just for me?”  He quickly nodded.

“I uh….wanted to look as nice as I could for this.  Are you ready to depart?” He gestured towards a speeder at the bottom of the ramp.  “I got a speeder with a sidecar so you wouldn’t have to…um….straddle it in a dress.”  She broke into a giggle, which swelled into a belly laugh.

“That’s surprisingly thoughtful of you. I really can’t believe you pulled all this together for me. Thank you so much.” “Don’t thank me until you see the rest. There’s a lot more to see tonight.” He held out his arm, chivalrously as they walked towards the speeder.  “Do you trust me?”  She thought for a moment. “Well, that depends.  Are you making this nice for me so it’s an easy let down? You’re dumping me back off here or something?”

He scoffed. “No, never. I’m not sure what I would do without you.”  The sincerity in his voice caused her to falter a bit. He regained his stoic composure quickly. “Keep your eyes closed, I’ll tell you when to open them.” The speeder ride felt painfully long, and a bit disorienting.  She had absolutely no concept of space, nor any idea where he might be taking her. The whirring of the speeder engine slowed to a halt, and she could vaguely make out the sounds of waves crashing somewhere nearby.  The Mandalorian disembarked, and strode around to gently lift her from her seat.  

“Okay, you can open your eyes now.”  His voice through the vocorder gravelly beside her ear.

The woman wasn’t prepared for what sight was in front of her.  A large dock surrounded by blue ocean stretched out before them, leading towards a large yacht.  The sky was beginning to display a twinge of orange and pink, reflecting off of the gently rolling waves.  (Y/n) looked over at the Mandalorian, speechless for the first time since they had met.  “Din, this is really too much.  It must have cost a fortune in credits to get this boat.  And if I recall correctly, you HATE the water.”

He shook his head.  “I had a few favors to call in from some associates here.  This is yours to enjoy while we’re here.”  She jumped up and down gleefully, and began running towards the boat.  It never ceased to amaze him her ability to run in high heeled shoes.  

The pair embarked on the yacht, and she watched puzzled as Din entered coordinates into the GPS system. The boat began moving towards some undisclosed location, and she ran towards the front of the boat.  She perched herself against the railing, staring down as the waves passed quickly as the boat sped along.  Innumerable fish passed by, many species she had never seen before.  Din stood back and watched her, arms crossed, an immense amount of hidden enjoyment spreading across his features.  The young woman quickly turned back towards him. “So where are we even heading? I saw you input some coordinates.”  She kicked off her shoes to the side unceremoniously, enjoying the freedom to move about.

“I know a spot.”  He answered plainly.

“Hmmmm, a place where you dump the bodies?” She chided, eyeing him suspiciously.

“No. Just a place I thought you might like to see. I don’t imagine you got to enjoy many spots in Canto Bight during your time here.”  She thought for a moment.

“You’re right.  Most of the time I was just ducking out in alleyways.  I think I only even got to see the coastline twice during the time I was here.  And never like this.”   The setting sun caused her to squint her eyes a bit as she peered out, and the Mandalorian took that time to really take her in:  she was truly beautiful, all pointed features and sharp angles.  He very seldom had the luxury to see her this way, without lines of worry across her forehead, or thinking deeply about how they were going to capture the next quarry. She consistently held a brave face for him and the child, so much that it was often easy to forget that she was a living being.  For a moment he tried to imagine her other life, one where she was a hardened Jedi master: fierce and unrelenting, but also quiet and solitary.  He thought, that life would have never suited her, she was like a wildfire, wild and unquenchable.  Her smile when she held the child, or the attitude she so quickly gave the Mandalorian when he agitated her.  No, she felt far too much to be confined by the life of a Jedi.  She looked back over to him, smiling.

“You know, sometimes I actually can feel what you’re thinking.  You try to keep your thoughts quiet, but sometimes you’re so loud in there.” She shook her head, almost embarrassed. “You’re right, though.  That was never the life for me.  I’m a little bit too erratic for the discipline they expected from me.”  He moved towards her, placing his hand tentatively on her shoulder.

“There’s nothing shameful about that. You’re impulsive at times, wild even. But you know, sometimes I’m not sure this is the life I want to live either.”  She gazed at his hand for a moment, before turning her attention to the T shaped visor, confused at his confession.  He continued, “There are many days when I think maybe it’s time to take off the armor, to give all of this up. Maybe settle down with the kid somewhere and try to have some normalcy.”

“Din, where is this coming from?  The Creed is your entire life….”  The boat sputtered to a halt, and he gently guided her to turn back around:  all that could be seen around them was a beautiful sunset undisturbed and untouched by the Canto Bight skyline. Her mouth hung open in shock.  “Din, I’ve never seen anything like this before.  Every planet I’ve seen, in all my travels. Nothing this beautiful.”

“Neither have I.”  He spoke softly, and she smiled back towards him. She immediately noticed his visor didn’t face the sunset, he was looking down at her.  “(Y/n), I want you to do something for me.”  He clasped both her hands in his, shocking her at his blatant display of affection.

“After you put all of this together for me? I’ll do literally anything you ask of me.” She winked at him.

He slowly lifted her hands to the edge of the beskar helmet on his head, exhaling shakily.  Her fingers traced the cool metal that shielded his face from the world, as he let go of her hands.  She felt herself starting to tremble at the immense amount of trust her placed in her, allowing her to touch his helmet.  His hands now found purchase at her waist, another action so intimate she felt her heart swell.

“I want—I want you to take it off.” His voice was uneven and gentle, as though he couldn’t believe the words had slipped out to her so easily.

“Din, NO,” she quickly removed her hands and tried to pull herself from his grasp.  “Your Creed. I can’t see you without it. Why the kriff would you want to give that up now, after all this time?”  His grasp on her waist didn’t falter, instead pulling her in closer to him.  She slapped her hands on his cuirass, agitated.  “I won’t let you throw away your entire life for me.”  

“I don’t have to ‘throw away’ anything for you, cya’rika.  All these years you’ve traveled with me…You’ve followed me to the ends of the earth to protect the child…OUR child.  You have never betrayed my trust, despite your absolute ruthless nature.  I want to give this to you.”

Tears began welling up in her eyes. “You can’t, Din. As much as I wish I could say yes, we can’t.  I know what it means to throw away everything you worked for, but I made that choice.  Your Creed is everything to you.”

“I don’t have to give up my Creed to show you my face…”  He spoke barely above a whisper.  “We’re a clan of three. Aliit ori’shya tal’din: Family is more than blood.”  He echoed the phrase the Armorer had told him.

“I’m familiar with Mandalorian customs, Din: You can remove your helmet in front of your child.” She grew increasingly more agitated and anxious.

“Or…my riduur.”  She shifted her weight nervously.  

“Din, I’m familiar with customs, not the language.  I don’t even know what that means.”

His hands moved to grasp hers again, placing them on his helmet with more conviction.  “Wife.  It means, my wife.” “Are you….are you asking me to…?”  He nodded.  “You’re not just messing with me right now?”  He shook his head in response, and she began a combination of laughing and crying all at the same time.

“So will you do it?” He whispered softly, and she squeezed her eyes shut tightly as she lifted the helmet.  A quiet hiss echoed around them, as the sun began to dip just beyond the horizon.  Din took the helmet from her, and placed it to the side.  “Open your eyes, (Y/n).”

She slowly opened her eyes to the man before her.  The rays from the finally setting sun settled upon his golden tan skin, framed by loose brown curls.  Her hands shot up to her mouth in shock.  “Din, you’re…..hot? Like, I knew you had swagger, but you’re….you’re a vision.”  He looked at her shyly, and began to laugh. “Stars, and your smile? I can’t believe you never told me how beautiful you were underneath that tin can.”

He wrapped his arms around her waist, and leaned towards her so dangerously close that their lips were almost touching. “I mean, I figured all this time you thought I looked like the child.”  She reached up to touch his face with nothing but reverence and adoration.

“You could have been a Mon Calamari under there and I would love you…” She paused, her cheeks flushed with her confession.  His gloved hand cupped the side of her face, and she leaned into him, never breaking eye contact.  “I love you, (Y/n).” She released his face and threw her arms around his still armor-clad shoulders, pressing into a tentative kiss.

“I will marry you, Din. Under one condition.” She murmured, lips still hovering close to his.

“Anything you want, cyar’ika.”

“You gotta start teaching me Mando’a.”  She felt his chest move, as laughter began bubbling up from deep within him. “Hey, it’s not funny! You keep slipping in words and phrases and I’ve been in the dark this whole time!”

He brushed his lips against her forehead. “Okay, anything you want to know.”

“When we were on Nevarro, and you were….um…dying.  You said something. What was it?”  He pulled back and thought about it for a moment.

“I’m pretty sure I told you that you were nuts.”  Her fist connected with his shoulder. “OW, what was that for?”

“All this time, I’ve been sitting here, thinking that you were professing your love with your dying breath. And you were just telling me that I was CRAZY?”  

He gently thumbed over the necklace he had given her. “In a way, I was. Gar cuyir gett’se. You’re the bravest, most fearless, insane woman I have ever met. Cyar’ika, my beloved.”  

The pair had spent their travel time back to Nevarro, with Din patiently teaching her phrases of Mando’a, particularly phrases for their wedding vows.  They had made the decision to have the ceremony performed on Nevarro, with the child, Cara, Greef Karga and the Armorer present, even though Mandalorian weddings were a simple exchanging of words.  As they approached the docking bay, (Y/n) seemed to vibrate with excitement.  The hatch opened, and the pair could see Cara laughing with the baby settled on her hip, and Greef Karga gesticulating animatedly.  

(Y/n) practically skipped off towards the group, Din following slowly behind.  He was still tentative; he didn’t know what to expect with their news. As (Y/n) approached, the baby wiggled and writhed away from Cara, and she plopped him down watching him waddle over and clasp onto (Y/n)’s leg.

Cara eyed the pair carefully, cutting between the two of them. “Something’s different, isn’t it? You’ve got an awful lot of spring in your step to just have some vacation afterglow.”  (Y/n) turned, smiling at the Mandalorian.

He nervously cleared his throat, and moved to stand by her side, dwarfing her in his height.  “I have asked (Y/n) to be my riduur.”

She proudly bounced on the heels of her feet. “Wife.  That means wife, everyone. He’s been teaching me Mando’a on the trip back.”  Everyone gaped at the pair, the baby cooing and sputtering excitedly.  “What’s everyone staring at?”  For a brief moment, seemingly suspended in time, everyone was too shocked to speak. Greef Karga broke the silence by stepping forward and clapping the Mandalorian on his pauldron covered shoulder.

“I knew you had it in you, Mando.  I’m glad you’re keeping her around. She’s always been crazy enough to get things done.” He shot a quick wink over to the woman, who beamed up at the expressionless helmet.

“She certainly is, which is why she wants to go ahead and do it today.”  As if the baby knew what Mando was saying, he began cooing and gurgling excitedly.  He reached down and stroked the child’s slightly furry head.  “We would like all of you to attend as our witnesses.  Mandalorian wedding vows are a simple exchanging of words, but we would like for all of you to be a part of it.”

Later in the day, as the blazing sun hung above the city, the group found themselves in the Mandalorian covert.  The Armorer greeted the group warmly and led them to a common space with comfortable seating.  Din and (Y/n) stood before them, hand in hand, as they began to recite the vows he had taught her on the flight back to Nevarro.

“Mhi solus tome.  Mhi solus dhar’tome. Mhi me’dinui an.  Mhi ba’juri verde.”  Din clasped his gloves hands on her cheeks, pulling her towards him.  Gently, he pressed the forehead of his helmet to her, and she beamed back at him.

“So that’s it? You’re married now?”  Karga slapped his hands to his knees.  The Armorer nodded.

“Yes.  Mandalorian custom dictates a simple exchange of words as a binding marital contact.  This is the Way.”

(Y/n) strode towards Cara, collecting the baby.  “Well that’s it little guy, I guess I’m officially your mom now.”

The Armorer nodded her head in agreement.  “A clan of three.  Go forth and raise warriors.”  (Y/n) chuckled.

“I think warrior, singular, is about all we can handle right now.  I think our little clan is finally complete.”  She gazed at his visor adoringly.  “Now, we better get back to work.  I blew a bunch of our credits at the casino on Canto Bight. Karga, got any pucks for us?”  The group stared at her incredulously, as Din wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

“I told ner cyar’ika no using the Force to cheat.  We didn’t need their security ruining her vacation.”  She shrugged under his weight.

Karga grumbled. “Nuttiest bounty hunters in the entire Guild.  I swear, they were made for each other.”

The baby cooed happily between them, and (Y/n) felt her chest swell with pride.  After all those solitary years, the brutal Jedi training, she finally felt as though she had the entire galaxy within her reach.  The things she so outrageously dreamed of, prematurely stolen from her in her youth, restored by a fifty something year old child, and a man clad in armor as impenetrable as his heart: a family all her own. A clan of three.

[9ths]

cognitive assessment. bold all that apply to your muse’s current mental state; italicise any that apply to your muse’s past mental state — repost don’t reblog !

alcoholism: or alcohol use disorder ( aud ), is a broad term for any drinking of alcohol that results in mental or physical health problems.

amnesia: a deficit in memory caused by brain damage, disease, or psychological trauma.

anxiety: a mental health disorder characterised by feelings of worry, anxiety, or fear that are strong enough to interfere with one’s daily activities.

appetite loss: a reduced desire to eat.

binge eating: a psychological illness characterised by frequently eating excessive amounts of food, often when not hungry.

co-dependence: dysfunctional and maladaptive relationship reliant on another person’s dependence on the affected individual.

cynicism: an inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self interest ( scepticism ), or to question whether something will happen or whether it is worthwhile ( pessimism ).

defensiveness: the tendency to be sensitive to comments and criticism and to deny them. to constantly protect oneself from criticism, exposure of one’s shortcomings, or other real or perceived threats to the go.

depersonalisation: a state in which one’s thoughts and feelings seem unreal or not belonging to oneself.

depression: a mental health disorder characterised by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life.

derealisation: alteration in the perception or experience of the external world so that it seems unreal.

devaluation: defense mechanism used when a person attributes themselves, an object, or another person as completely flawed, worthless, or as having exaggerated negative qualities.

displacement: an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind substitutes either a new aim or a new object or goals felt in their original form to be dangerous or unacceptable.

dissociation: is any state of a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from physical and emotional experiences, such as a disconnect from reality.

drug abuse: the extreme desire to obtain, and use, increasing amounts of one or more substances.

dysphoria: a state of unease, or generalised dissatisfaction with life.

emotional detachment: an inability to connect with others on an emotional level, as well as coping with anxiety by avoiding certain situations that trigger it; it is often described as “ emotional numbing ” or dissociation.

flashbacks: an involuntary recurrent memory, is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual has sudden, usually powerful, re-experiencing of a past experience or elements of said experience.

flat affect: a severe reduction in emotional expressiveness. they may not show the signs of normal emotion, perhaps may speak in a monotonous voice, have diminished facial expressions, and appear extremely apathetic.

guilt: a cognitive or emotional experience that occurs when a person believes or realises — accurately or not — that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated a universal moral standard and bear significant responsibility for it.

hallucinations: an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present.

hypersomnia: or excessive sleepiness, is a condition in which a person has trouble staying awake during the day.

hypervigilance: an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect activity.

hypochondria: ( also known as illness anxiety disorder ) is a condition in which a person is inordinately worried about having a serious illness.

idealisation: the action of regarding or representing something as perfect or better than reality.

insomnia: a sleep disorder where people have trouble sleeping. they may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep as long as desired. insomnia is usually followed by daytime sleepiness, low energy, and a depressed mood.

intellectualisation: a defense mechanism by which reasoning is used to block confrontation with an unconscious conflict and its associated emotional stress — where thinking is used to avoid feeling. it involves removing one’s self, emotionally, from a stressful event.

introjection: regarded as the process where the subject replicates in themselves behaviours, attributes, or other fragments of the surrounding world, especially of other subjects. cognate concepts include identification, incorporation, and internalisation.

isolation: a defense mechanism in psychoanalytic theory characterized by individuals defending themselves from possible threats by mentally and physically isolating themselves. by minimizing associative connections with other thoughts, the threatening cognition is remembered less often and is less likely to affect self-esteem or the self concept.

low self esteem: a person with low self esteem feels unworthy, incapable, and incompetent.

narcissism: is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one’s own attributes. narcissistic personality disorder ( npd ) is a personality disorder in which there is a long term pattern of abnormal behaviour characterised by exaggerated feelings of self importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of understanding of other’s feelings.

night terrors: also known as a sleep terror, is a sleep disorder, causing feelings of terror or dread, and typically occurs during the first hours of stage three to four rapid eye movement ( nrem ) sleep.

obsessive compulsion: obsessive-compulsive disorder ( ocd ) is a common, chromic, and long — lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts ( obsessions ) and behaviours ( compulsions ) that they feel the urge to repeat over and over.

panic attacks: a sudden overwhelming feeling of acute and debilitating anxiety.

passive aggression: a tendency to engage in indirect expression of hostility through acts such as subtle insults, sullen behavior, stubbornness, or a deliberate failure to accomplish a required task.

paranoia: the irrational and persistent feeling that people are “ out to get you. ” the three main types of paranoia include paranoid personality disorder, delusional disorder, and paranoid schizophrenia.

phobias: an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something.

projection: psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. it involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings.

psychosis: a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.

rationalization: a defense mechanism in which controversial behaviors or feelings are justified and explained in a seemingly rational or logical manner to avoid the true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable — or even admirable and superior — by plausible means.

regression: a psychological defense mechanism in which a person abandons age — appropriate coping strategies in favor of earlier, more childlike patterns of behavior. this regression is a form of retreat, bringing back a time when the person feels safe and taken care of.

risky sex: risky sexual behavior is commonly defined as behavior that increases the probability of contracting sexually transmitted infections, diseases, becoming pregnant, or making a partner pregnant. drug use is associated with risky sexual behavior.

somatisation: the manifestation of psychological distress by the presentation of bodily symptoms.

splitting: ( also called black — and — white thinking or all — or — nothing thinking ) is the failure in a person’s thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a cohesive, realistic whole.

sublimation: is a mature type of defence mechanism, in which socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are unconsciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior, possibly resulting in a long — term conversion of the initial impulse.

suicidal ideation: ( also known as suicidal thoughts ) is thinking about or an unusual preoccupation with suicide. the range of suicidal ideation varies from fleeting thoughts, to extensive thoughts, to detailed planning, roleplaying, and incomplete attempts.

sleepwalking: formally known as somnambulism, is a behaviour disorder that originates during deep sleep and results in walking or performing other complex behaviours while asleep. it is more common in children than adults and is more likely to occur if a person is sleep deprived.

suppression: the act of stopping oneself from thinking or feeling something. it is generally assumed ineffective because even if you suppress or hold back an emotion, like anger, that feeling returns with a vengeance.

thousand yard stare: a phrase often used to describe the blank, unfocused gaze of soldiers who have become emotionally detached from the horrors around them. it is also sometimes used more generally to describe the look of dissociation among victims of other types of trauma.

triggers: something that sets of a memory tape or flashback transporting the person back to the event of their emotional trauma. triggers are very personal ; different things can trigger different people. the survivor may begin to avoid situations and stimuli that they think triggered the flashback.

trust issues: a person with these kinds of thoughts may construct social barriers as a defence mechanism to ensure that trust is not lost again. these barriers are often a person’s way of avoid the pain, rejection, or guilt associated with mistrust.

violence: the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.

temper: a reflection of irritation or rage, a propensity to be angered rapidly.\

[dikiyvter]

cognitive assessment.

bold all that apply to your muse’s current mental state; italicize any that apply to your muse’s past mental state — repost don’t reblog !

tagged by: nobody tagging: n o b o d y

alcoholism: or alcohol use disorder ( aud ), is a broad term for any drinking of alcohol that results in mental or physical health problems.

amnesia: a deficit in memory caused by brain damage, disease, or psychological trauma.

anxiety: a mental health disorder characterized by feelings of worry, anxiety, or fear that are strong enough to interfere with one’s daily activities.

appetite loss: a reduced desire to eat.

binge eating: a psychological illness characterized by frequently eating excessive amounts of food, often when not hungry.

co-dependence: dysfunctional and maladaptive relationship reliant on another person’s dependence on the affected individual.

cynicism: an inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self interest ( skepticism ), or to question whether something will happen or whether it is worthwhile ( pessimism ).

defensiveness: the tendency to be sensitive to comments and criticism and to deny them. to constantly protect oneself from criticism, exposure of one’s shortcomings, or other real or perceived threats to the go.

depersonalization: a state in which one’s thoughts and feelings seem unreal or not belonging to oneself.

depression: a mental health disorder characterized by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life.

derealization: alteration in the perception or experience of the external world so that it seems unreal.

devaluation: defense mechanism used when a person attributes themselves, an object, or another person as completely flawed, worthless, or as having exaggerated negative qualities.

displacement: an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind substitutes either a new aim or a new object or goals felt in their original form to be dangerous or unacceptable.

dissociation: is any state of a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from physical and emotional experiences, such as a disconnect from reality.

drug abuse: the extreme desire to obtain, and use, increasing amounts of one or more substances.

dysphoria: a state of unease, or generalized dissatisfaction with life.

emotional detachment: an inability to connect with others on an emotional level, as well as coping with anxiety by avoiding certain situations that trigger it; it is often described as “ emotional numbing ” or dissociation.

flashbacks: an involuntary recurrent memory, is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual has sudden, usually powerful, re-experiencing of a past experience or elements of said experience.

flat affect: a severe reduction in emotional expressiveness. they may not show the signs of normal emotion, perhaps may speak in a monotonous voice, have diminished facial expressions, and appear extremely apathetic.

guilt: a cognitive or emotional experience that occurs when a person believes or realizes — accurately or not — that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated a universal moral standard and bear significant responsibility for it.

hallucinations: an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present.

hypersomnia: or excessive sleepiness, is a condition in which a person has trouble staying awake during the day.

hypervigilance: an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect activity.

hypochondria: ( also known as illness anxiety disorder ) is a condition in which a person is inordinately worried about having a serious illness.

idealization: the action of regarding or representing something as perfect or better than reality.

insomnia: a sleep disorder where people have trouble sleeping. they may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep as long as desired. insomnia is usually followed by daytime sleepiness, low energy, and a depressed mood.

intellectualization: a defense mechanism by which reasoning is used to block confrontation with an unconscious conflict and its associated emotional stress — where thinking is used to avoid feeling. it involves removing one’s self, emotionally, from a stressful event.

introjection: regarded as the process where the subject replicates in themselves behaviors, attributes, or other fragments of the surrounding world, especially of other subjects. cognate concepts include identification, incorporation, and internalization.

isolation: a defense mechanism in psychoanalytic theory characterized by individuals defending themselves from possible threats by mentally and physically isolating themselves. by minimizing associative connections with other thoughts, the threatening cognition is remembered less often and is less likely to affect self-esteem or the self concept.

low self esteem: a person with low self esteem feels unworthy, incapable, and incompetent.

narcissism: is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one’s own attributes. narcissistic personality disorder ( npd ) is a personality disorder in which there is a long term pattern of abnormal behavior characterized by exaggerated feelings of self importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of understanding of other’s feelings. ( sort of?? he doesn’t have NPD by any stretch of the imagination but he is a narcissist and it’d feel wrong not to bold this in some way. ) 

night terrors: also known as a sleep terror, is a sleep disorder, causing feelings of terror or dread, and typically occurs during the first hours of stage three to four rapid eye movement ( nrem ) sleep.

obsessive compulsion: obsessive-compulsive disorder ( ocd ) is a common, chromic, and long — lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts ( obsessions ) and behaviors ( compulsions ) that they feel the urge to repeat over and over.

panic attacks: a sudden overwhelming feeling of acute and debilitating anxiety.

passive aggression: a tendency to engage in indirect expression of hostility through acts such as subtle insults, sullen behavior, stubbornness, or a deliberate failure to accomplish a required task.

paranoia: the irrational and persistent feeling that people are “ out to get you. ” the three main types of paranoia include paranoid personality disorder, delusional disorder, and paranoid schizophrenia.

phobias: an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something.

projection: psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. it involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings.

psychosis: a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.

rationalization: a defense mechanism in which controversial behaviors or feelings are justified and explained in a seemingly rational or logical manner to avoid the true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable — or even admirable and superior — by plausible means.

regression: a psychological defense mechanism in which a person abandons age — appropriate coping strategies in favor of earlier, more childlike patterns of behavior. this regression is a form of retreat, bringing back a time when the person feels safe and taken care of.

risky sex: risky sexual behavior is commonly defined as behavior that increases the probability of contracting sexually transmitted infections, diseases, becoming pregnant, or making a partner pregnant. drug use is associated with risky sexual behavior.

somatization: the manifestation of psychological distress by the presentation of bodily symptoms.

splitting: ( also called black — and — white thinking or all — or — nothing thinking ) is the failure in a person’s thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a cohesive, realistic whole.

sublimation: is a mature type of defense mechanism, in which socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are unconsciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior, possibly resulting in a long — term conversion of the initial impulse.

suicidal ideation: ( also known as suicidal thoughts ) is thinking about or an unusual preoccupation with suicide. the range of suicidal ideation varies from fleeting thoughts, to extensive thoughts, to detailed planning, roleplaying, and incomplete attempts.

sleepwalking: formally known as somnambulism, is a behavior disorder that originates during deep sleep and results in walking or performing other complex behaviors while asleep. it is more common in children than adults and is more likely to occur if a person is sleep deprived.

suppression: the act of stopping oneself from thinking or feeling something. it is generally assumed ineffective because even if you suppress or hold back an emotion, like anger, that feeling returns with a vengeance.

thousand yard stare: a phrase often used to describe the blank, unfocused gaze of soldiers who have become emotionally detached from the horrors around them. it is also sometimes used more generally to describe the look of dissociation among victims of other types of trauma.

triggers: something that sets of a memory tape or flashback transporting the person back to the event of their emotional trauma. triggers are very personal ; different things can trigger different people. the survivor may begin to avoid situations and stimuli that they think triggered the flashback.

trust issues: a person with these kinds of thoughts may construct social barriers as a defense mechanism to ensure that trust is not lost again. these barriers are often a person’s way of avoid the pain, rejection, or guilt associated with mistrust.

violence: the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.

temper: a reflection of irritation or rage, a propensity to be angered rapidly.

[solena2]

Hey y’all so I watched a YouTube video that I think was wrong, and as you know it’s illegal to be wrong on the internet, so I wrote a response!

Video is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8LF_KkrCJs

Spoilers for BNHA, in both the video and my response (which I wanted to put in the comments on the video, but apparently YouTube gets pissy about copypasting? Anyway)

Also, probably watch the video before reading this, since a lot of this is a direct response to the points they brought up.

—

I’d like to preface this by saying that you’ve made some valid comments, and that I understand where you’re coming from here.

My Hero Academia is, overall, a story about amazing people with amazing powers doing amazing things, and it’s difficult to see where someone with no power at all might fit in to this, which is the main emotional conflict Izuku faces throughout his childhood, that fundamental dichotomy between his wanting to save people, and his (assumed) inability to do so without a quirk.

But My Hero Academia is also a story that likes to repeatedly assert that anyone can be a hero. From Aizawa with his non-physical quirk, who primarily uses support gear to defeat enemies many times stronger than him, to Shinsou, whose quirk is seen as villainous, who would likely have to fight against other heroes as often as he would villains thanks to the prejudice that’s positively dripping from BNHA’s world.

So I’d like to explain why I disagree.

First, you begin the video by talking about the people who claim that Izuku’s getting a quirk ruins the story. I would like to make it clear, right off the bat, that I don’t hold this view. I believe that while Izuku having a quirk weakens the impact of the story and cheapens a lot of its messages, there is still undoubtedly a story there to be told, and one that is worth telling.

The reason I believe that Izuku receiving One For All weakens the story is because BNHA is all about the consequences of the kind of society wide prejudice that exists within its world. Every villain the characters face and every problem they overcome is one spawned by the very status quo they’ve spent their childhoods dreaming of upholding- the hero system.

Stain exists because heroes are held in awe by the general population without truly being worthy of it, treated as saviors despite being little more than glorified cops, which spawns anger and resentment from people intelligent enough to see past their facades.

Dabi exists because pro heroes are allowed to get away with just about anything so long as they’re covert about it, and in fact might have grown up to be a hero himself if Endeavor had been held to a higher moral standard by those around him, or had been appropriately punished for his behavior.

All For One exists because “strong” quirks are revered, and those who hold them are taught early to take what they want by force.

Shigaraki exists because those with “unpleasant” quirks are reviled and held in disgust by the general population, which makes them vulnerable to exploitation by outside forces due to their lacking support systems.

I could go on, but I’m sure you get the point.

In my opinion, BNHA has always been centered around the society quirks have created and the consequences therein. I dare you to find a major character arc that doesn’t intersect with the universe’s social issues in some way.

Thus, I believe the message that BNHA attempts to convey would be significantly stronger I’d Izuku had remained quirkless, demonstrating once and for all that quirks and heroism aren’t so intertwined as it might seem.

Instead, it shoots itself in the foot, saying repeatedly that it’s not a quirk that makes a hero, but rather their spirit, while at the same time leaving it implied that the most important character of all would never have been able to help people if not for being given All Might’s power. (Again, it doesn’t ruin the story, but it does hamstring the core message somewhat.)

You say here that Izuku getting saved by All Might is the only reason he became a hero at all, being “saved from his fate of irrelevance”.

This is… Not something I agree with, to state it politely.

Izuku was planning to attend UA’s entrance exam long before he met All Might. Given that he is, you know, Izuku, I don’t think any amount of shittiness from Katsuki would have deterred him from trying. In fact, trying despite the odds against him making it seem idiotic to do so is one the largest parts of his character.

The way you speak of needing to give him a “resilient streak” for him to keep trying despite All Might’s discouragement implies that he doesn’t already have one wide enough to suffer through 14 years of being told he’d never make it as a hero. With how much he’s already pushed through by the time the story even starts, I really doubt All Might would succeed again breaking his will any more than anyone else has.

You say that Izuku’s arc is all about facing the guilt of having reached his goals purely through chance while so many others remain downtrodden.

That’s valid, and I agree.

You also say that this is not a character arc he could have had without One For All, which is not.

Merely being the first quirkless person to make it into UA would likely start this, as he would definitely still have to get through the exam on rescue points, which could feel unearned to him, what with his massive case of imposter syndrome.

Thus, it would still be entirely possible to give him the same overall character arc he has in canon, and it might in fact end up even more pronounced, due to all the discrimination he’d face from the general public.

You say that for this Izuku to continue, even despite All Might’s rejection, he would already have to have the sense of self worth such a character arc eventually gives him.

This is not the case. There are many instances in real life of people pushing past impossible odds and still not feeling as if they deserve to have made it to the other side. In fact, what would likely happen is that he’d try to be a hero anyway and then feel guilty for attempting it even after being discouraged by his hero.

So no, he’s not Naruto, because the personality changes you propose wouldn’t actually be necessary to give him a fighting chance as a hero without a quirk.

The next big point you make is that it would be difficult to give Izuku the standard shounen power crawl without a cool quirk.

You’re correct that technology would have a difficult time stacking up to One For All without feeling like an asspull, making him a Mary Sue, or needing to give him a seemingly infinite array of gadgets, a la Batman.

Notice I said difficult, NOT impossible. While it can be much harder to turn technology into a realistic way to fight superpowered villains, it CAN be done.

Not to mention, there is already a character in BNHA who does it and does it well.

Aizawa doesn’t have a combat oriented quirk, instead fighting almost exclusively with the use of his capture scarf, using which he is shown to be able to take out upwards of ten villains, depending on where you want to pull from. I really don’t think it would be so unrealistic to give a quirkless Izuku something along these lines.

Not that we even need to. We can have Izuku beating villains without the use of any technology he couldn’t buy for himself. (At least in a place with lax safety laws, which I imagine his world likely is due to how pointless it would be to heavily restrict the purchase of things like guns when there are people running around who can shoot glaciers from their hands)

Ninety percent of villains are as vulnerable to getting shot as a normal human. If that’s too violent and bloody for the tone of the show, there are dozens of ways to beat the villains with things like hairspray flamethrowers, slingshots, and traditional weapons (just look at Stain). While quirks certainly are powerful, they aren’t perfect and every ability has a counter, even if it’s not always immediately obvious.

This eliminates the problem of him needing to get his tech from somewhere entirely. (Which is almost a con, because Mei needs more screentime, man)

Actually your point of possibly making Izuku a “super genius” reminds me of something else. Izuku has an almost supernatural ability to identify and counter quirks. Gee, I wonder how that could be useful in a possible plot line where he’s unable to rely on being able to smash his way through problems…

You say that if Izuku getting a quirk is an issue for BNHA, giving him overpowered tech would be a problem as well. Though I already solved this problem by proposing less tech heavy solutions, I’ve decided not to skip over this point because it seems like the right place for me to bring up a piece of context you may be missing for why some people are so against Izuku being given a quirk.

Let’s talk about the disability angle.

Now, as someone with mental disabilities myself, I’m not exactly unbiased here. I’m not going to deny that I have a knee jerk reaction to any story that gives a character a disability (or something analogous within the setting to a disability, like quirklessness) and then “cures” it while implying that they never would have gotten anywhere if their disability had persisted. This is actually why I took so long to get into the BNHA fandom, since I saw a loose outline of the plot and immediately went “oh hell no”.

I did end up joining the fandom in the end, simply because I’m almost certain that this parallel was unintentional.

Anyway, the reason why giving him an overpowered quirk and giving him overpowered tech are so different from a lot of people’s perspectives is that giving him tech doesn’t erase his “disability”. If you give a quirkless Izuku powerful tech, he’ll still be quirkless, with all the hurdles and challenges that implies. (Especially the discrimination related ones) Meanwhile, giving Izuku a quirk removes the disability entirely, as well as most associated difficulties.

I’m sure you can see why one seems so ableist, from a disabled perspective.

You say that you would likely run out of ways to meaningfully progress his tech, in a series as long as BNHA likely will be by its conclusion, but I’d like to point out that this is just as much of a problem with superpowered media. It’s very common in shounen for power progression to feel like more and more of an asspull as the story progresses. Thus, you solve the problem in the same way, by relying more on clever use of what the hero already possesses than you do on creating a new application or ability in every fight.

And no, I can think of several ways to beat both Dabi and Shigaraki without “science magic”. Obviously, neither of them are immune to bullets, though again, that’s probably a bit too quick for this show. You could take down Shigaraki if you could numb his hands somehow, or if you protected yourself with something made of many interlocking parts, like chain mail. You could beat Dabi if you used something like a taser, if you could get close enough to use it. You could also just find a way to outlast him, since he’s not immune to his own fire. Maybe bring some gasoline?

I’m going to skip over the points you make while talking about setting, since I don’t believe you’d have to alter the setting to make a quirkless Izuku feasible.

I will talk acknowledge one point you make while discussing setting simply so I can say: inequality and societal imbalance do not require much, or even any, actual disparity in ability to both exist and be prevalent enough to disenfranchise huge chunks of a population. Just look at how autistic and ADHD people are treated for that. (Or gay people, or women, or the Poors(™)...)

In conclusion, your opinion is valid but I think you lack knowledge of where most of this criticism is actually coming from, which isn’t something you should be ashamed of.

I think the reason mine and your opinions are so fundamentally different here is that we’re coming from very different places, and our thoughts on a piece of media like this are always going to be shaped by our environment.

Thank you for reading.

[plusultratm]

cognitive assessment.

bold all that apply to your muse’s current mental state; italicise any that apply to your muse’s past mental state — repost don’t reblog !

alcoholism: or alcohol use disorder ( aud ), is a broad term for any drinking of alcohol that results in mental or physical health problems.

amnesia: a deficit in memory caused by brain damage, disease, or psychological trauma.

anxiety: a mental health disorder characterised by feelings of worry, anxiety, or fear that are strong enough to interfere with one’s daily activities.

appetite loss: a reduced desire to eat.

binge eating: a psychological illness characterised by frequently eating excessive amounts of food, often when not hungry.

co-dependence: dysfunctional and maladaptive relationship reliant on another person’s dependence on the affected individual.

cynicism: an inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self interest ( scepticism ), or to question whether something will happen or whether it is worthwhile ( pessimism ).

defensiveness: the tendency to be sensitive to comments and criticism and to deny them. to constantly protect oneself from criticism, exposure of one’s shortcomings, or other real or perceived threats to the go.

depersonalisation: a state in which one’s thoughts and feelings seem unreal or not belonging to oneself.

depression: a mental health disorder characterised by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life.

derealisation: alteration in the perception or experience of the external world so that it seems unreal.

devaluation: defense mechanism used when a person attributes themselves, an object, or another person as completely flawed, worthless, or as having exaggerated negative qualities.

displacement: an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind substitutes either a new aim or a new object or goals felt in their original form to be dangerous or unacceptable.

dissociation: is any state of a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from physical and emotional experiences, such as a disconnect from reality.

drug abuse: the extreme desire to obtain, and use, increasing amounts of one or more substances.

dysphoria: a state of unease, or generalised dissatisfaction with life.

emotional detachment: an inability to connect with others on an emotional level, as well as coping with anxiety by avoiding certain situations that trigger it; it is often described as “ emotional numbing ” or dissociation.

flashbacks: an involuntary recurrent memory, is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual has sudden, usually powerful, re-experiencing of a past experience or elements of said experience.

flat affect: a severe reduction in emotional expressiveness. they may not show the signs of normal emotion, perhaps may speak in a monotonous voice, have diminished facial expressions, and appear extremely apathetic.

guilt: a cognitive or emotional experience that occurs when a person believes or realises — accurately or not — that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated a universal moral standard and bear significant responsibility for it.

hallucinations: an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present.

hypersomnia: or excessive sleepiness, is a condition in which a person has trouble staying awake during the day.

hypervigilance: an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect activity.

hypochondria: ( also known as illness anxiety disorder ) is a condition in which a person is inordinately worried about having a serious illness.

idealisation: the action of regarding or representing something as perfect or better than reality.

insomnia: a sleep disorder where people have trouble sleeping. they may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep as long as desired. insomnia is usually followed by daytime sleepiness, low energy, and a depressed mood.

intellectualisation: a defense mechanism by which reasoning is used to block confrontation with an unconscious conflict and its associated emotional stress — where thinking is used to avoid feeling. it involves removing one’s self, emotionally, from a stressful event.

introjection: regarded as the process where the subject replicates in themselves behaviours, attributes, or other fragments of the surrounding world, especially of other subjects. cognate concepts include identification, incorporation, and internalisation.

isolation: a defense mechanism in psychoanalytic theory characterized by individuals defending themselves from possible threats by mentally and physically isolating themselves. by minimizing associative connections with other thoughts, the threatening cognition is remembered less often and is less likely to affect self-esteem or the self concept.

low self esteem: a person with low self esteem feels unworthy, incapable, and incompetent.

narcissism: is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one’s own attributes. narcissistic personality disorder ( npd ) is a personality disorder in which there is a long term pattern of abnormal behaviour characterised by exaggerated feelings of self importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of understanding of other’s feelings.

night terrors: also known as a sleep terror, is a sleep disorder, causing feelings of terror or dread, and typically occurs during the first hours of stage three to four rapid eye movement ( nrem ) sleep.

obsessive compulsion: obsessive-compulsive disorder ( ocd ) is a common, chromic, and long — lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts ( obsessions ) and behaviours ( compulsions ) that they feel the urge to repeat over and over.

panic attacks: a sudden overwhelming feeling of acute and debilitating anxiety.

passive aggression: a tendency to engage in indirect expression of hostility through acts such as subtle insults, sullen behavior, stubbornness, or a deliberate failure to accomplish a required task.

paranoia: the irrational and persistent feeling that people are “ out to get you. ” the three main types of paranoia include paranoid personality disorder, delusional disorder, and paranoid schizophrenia.

phobias: an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something.

projection: psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. it involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings.

psychosis: a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.

rationalization: a defense mechanism in which controversial behaviors or feelings are justified and explained in a seemingly rational or logical manner to avoid the true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable — or even admirable and superior — by plausible means.

regression: a psychological defense mechanism in which a person abandons age — appropriate coping strategies in favor of earlier, more childlike patterns of behavior. this regression is a form of retreat, bringing back a time when the person feels safe and taken care of.

risky sex: risky sexual behavior is commonly defined as behavior that increases the probability of contracting sexually transmitted infections, diseases, becoming pregnant, or making a partner pregnant. drug use is associated with risky sexual behavior.

somatisation: the manifestation of psychological distress by the presentation of bodily symptoms.

splitting: ( also called black — and — white thinking or all — or — nothing thinking ) is the failure in a person’s thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a cohesive, realistic whole.

sublimation: is a mature type of defence mechanism, in which socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are unconsciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior, possibly resulting in a long — term conversion of the initial impulse.

suicidal ideation: ( also known as suicidal thoughts ) is thinking about or an unusual preoccupation with suicide. the range of suicidal ideation varies from fleeting thoughts, to extensive thoughts, to detailed planning, roleplaying, and incomplete attempts.

sleepwalking: formally known as somnambulism, is a behaviour disorder that originates during deep sleep and results in walking or performing other complex behaviours while asleep. it is more common in children than adults and is more likely to occur if a person is sleep deprived.

suppression: the act of stopping oneself from thinking or feeling something. it is generally assumed ineffective because even if you suppress or hold back an emotion, like anger, that feeling returns with a vengeance.

thousand yard stare: a phrase often used to describe the blank, unfocused gaze of soldiers who have become emotionally detached from the horrors around them. it is also sometimes used more generally to describe the look of dissociation among victims of other types of trauma.

triggers: something that sets of a memory tape or flashback transporting the person back to the event of their emotional trauma. triggers are very personal ; different things can trigger different people. the survivor may begin to avoid situations and stimuli that they think triggered the flashback.

trust issues: a person with these kinds of thoughts may construct social barriers as a defence mechanism to ensure that trust is not lost again. these barriers are often a person’s way of avoid the pain, rejection, or guilt associated with mistrust.

violence: the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.

temper: a reflection of irritation or rage, a propensity to be angered rapidly.\

tagged : @coldkindle​ tagging : @bvlletproof​, @mcwscollective​, @quirkstm​, @puppcteer​, @cremationtm​, @hokosu​

[0first0holder0-moved]

cognitive assessment. bold all that apply to your muse’s current mental state; italicise any that apply to your muse’s past mental state — repost don’t reblog !

alcoholism: or alcohol use disorder ( aud ), is a broad term for any drinking of alcohol that results in mental or physical health problems.

amnesia: a deficit in memory caused by brain damage, disease, or psychological trauma.

anxiety: a mental health disorder characterized by feelings of worry, anxiety, or fear that are strong enough to interfere with one’s daily activities.

appetite loss: a reduced desire to eat.

binge eating: a psychological illness characterized by frequently eating excessive amounts of food, often when not hungry.

co-dependence: dysfunctional and maladaptive relationship reliant on another person’s dependence on the affected individual.

cynicism: an inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self interest ( skepticism ), or to question whether something will happen or whether it is worthwhile ( pessimism ).

defensiveness: the tendency to be sensitive to comments and criticism and to deny them. to constantly protect oneself from criticism, exposure of one’s shortcomings, or other real or perceived threats to the go.

depersonalization: a state in which one’s thoughts and feelings seem unreal or not belonging to oneself.

depression: a mental health disorder characterized by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life.

derealization: alteration in the perception or experience of the external world so that it seems unreal.

devaluation: defense mechanism used when a person attributes themselves, an object, or another person as completely flawed, worthless, or as having exaggerated negative qualities.

displacement: an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind substitutes either a new aim or a new object or goals felt in their original form to be dangerous or unacceptable.

dissociation: is any state of a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from physical and emotional experiences, such as a disconnect from reality.

drug abuse: the extreme desire to obtain, and use, increasing amounts of one or more substances.

dysphoria: a state of unease, or generalized dissatisfaction with life.

emotional detachment: an inability to connect with others on an emotional level, as well as coping with anxiety by avoiding certain situations that trigger it; it is often described as “ emotional numbing ” or dissociation.

flashbacks: an involuntary recurrent memory, is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual has sudden, usually powerful, re-experiencing of a past experience or elements of said experience.

flat affect: a severe reduction in emotional expressiveness. they may not show the signs of normal emotion, perhaps may speak in a monotonous voice, have diminished facial expressions, and appear extremely apathetic.

guilt: a cognitive or emotional experience that occurs when a person believes or realizes — accurately or not — that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated a universal moral standard and bear significant responsibility for it.

hallucinations: an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present.

hypersomnia: or excessive sleepiness, is a condition in which a person has trouble staying awake during the day.

hypervigilance: an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect activity.

hypochondria: ( also known as illness anxiety disorder ) is a condition in which a person is inordinately worried about having a serious illness.

idealization: the action of regarding or representing something as perfect or better than reality.

insomnia: a sleep disorder where people have trouble sleeping. they may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep as long as desired. insomnia is usually followed by daytime sleepiness, low energy, and a depressed mood.

intellectualization: a defense mechanism by which reasoning is used to block confrontation with an unconscious conflict and its associated emotional stress — where thinking is used to avoid feeling. it involves removing one’s self, emotionally, from a stressful event.

introjection: regarded as the process where the subject replicates in themselves behaviors, attributes, or other fragments of the surrounding world, especially of other subjects. cognate concepts include identification, incorporation, and internalization.

isolation: a defense mechanism in psychoanalytic theory characterized by individuals defending themselves from possible threats by mentally and physically isolating themselves. by minimizing associative connections with other thoughts, the threatening cognition is remembered less often and is less likely to affect self-esteem or the self concept.

low self esteem: a person with low self esteem feels unworthy, incapable, and incompetent.

narcissism: is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one’s own attributes. narcissistic personality disorder ( npd ) is a personality disorder in which there is a long term pattern of abnormal behavior characterized by exaggerated feelings of self importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of understanding of other’s feelings.

night terrors: also known as a sleep terror, is a sleep disorder, causing feelings of terror or dread, and typically occurs during the first hours of stage three to four rapid eye movement ( nrem ) sleep.

obsessive compulsion: obsessive-compulsive disorder ( ocd ) is a common, chromic, and long — lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts ( obsessions ) and behaviors ( compulsions ) that they feel the urge to repeat over and over.

panic attacks: a sudden overwhelming feeling of acute and debilitating anxiety.

passive aggression: a tendency to engage in indirect expression of hostility through acts such as subtle insults, sullen behavior, stubbornness, or a deliberate failure to accomplish a required task.

paranoia: the irrational and persistent feeling that people are “ out to get you. ” the three main types of paranoia include paranoid personality disorder, delusional disorder, and paranoid schizophrenia.

phobias: an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something.

projection: psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. it involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings.

psychosis: a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.

rationalization: a defense mechanism in which controversial behaviors or feelings are justified and explained in a seemingly rational or logical manner to avoid the true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable — or even admirable and superior — by plausible means.

regression: a psychological defense mechanism in which a person abandons age — appropriate coping strategies in favor of earlier, more childlike patterns of behavior. this regression is a form of retreat, bringing back a time when the person feels safe and taken care of.

risky sex: risky sexual behavior is commonly defined as behavior that increases the probability of contracting sexually transmitted infections, diseases, becoming pregnant, or making a partner pregnant. drug use is associated with risky sexual behavior.

somatization: the manifestation of psychological distress by the presentation of bodily symptoms.

splitting: ( also called black — and — white thinking or all — or — nothing thinking ) is the failure in a person’s thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a cohesive, realistic whole.

sublimation: is a mature type of defense mechanism, in which socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are unconsciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior, possibly resulting in a long — term conversion of the initial impulse.

suicidal ideation: ( also known as suicidal thoughts ) is thinking about or an unusual preoccupation with suicide. the range of suicidal ideation varies from fleeting thoughts, to extensive thoughts, to detailed planning, roleplaying, and incomplete attempts.

sleepwalking: formally known as somnambulism, is a behavior disorder that originates during deep sleep and results in walking or performing other complex behaviors while asleep. it is more common in children than adults and is more likely to occur if a person is sleep deprived.

suppression: the act of stopping oneself from thinking or feeling something. it is generally assumed ineffective because even if you suppress or hold back an emotion, like anger, that feeling returns with a vengeance.

thousand yard stare: a phrase often used to describe the blank, unfocused gaze of soldiers who have become emotionally detached from the horrors around them. it is also sometimes used more generally to describe the look of dissociation among victims of other types of trauma.

triggers: something that sets of a memory tape or flashback transporting the person back to the event of their emotional trauma. triggers are very personal ; different things can trigger different people. the survivor may begin to avoid situations and stimuli that they think triggered the flashback.

trust issues: a person with these kinds of thoughts may construct social barriers as a defense mechanism to ensure that trust is not lost again. these barriers are often a person’s way of avoid the pain, rejection, or guilt associated with mistrust.

violence: the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.

temper: a reflection of irritation or rage, a propensity to be angered rapidly.\

[archivedxunovasheroine]

cognitive assessment.

bold all that apply to your muse’s current mental state; italicize any that apply to your muse’s past mental state — repost don’t reblog !

alcoholism: or alcohol use disorder ( aud ), is a broad term for any drinking of alcohol that results in mental or physical health problems.

amnesia: a deficit in memory caused by brain damage, disease, or psychological trauma.

anxiety: a mental health disorder characterized by feelings of worry, anxiety, or fear that are strong enough to interfere with one’s daily activities.

appetite loss: a reduced desire to eat.

binge eating: a psychological illness characterized by frequently eating excessive amounts of food, often when not hungry.

co-dependence: dysfunctional and maladaptive relationship reliant on another person’s dependence on the affected individual.

cynicism: an inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self interest ( skepticism ), or to question whether something will happen or whether it is worthwhile ( pessimism ).

defensiveness: the tendency to be sensitive to comments and criticism and to deny them. to constantly protect oneself from criticism, exposure of one’s shortcomings, or other real or perceived threats to the go.

depersonalization: a state in which one’s thoughts and feelings seem unreal or not belonging to oneself.

depression: a mental health disorder characterized by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life.

derealization: alteration in the perception or experience of the external world so that it seems unreal.

devaluation: defense mechanism used when a person attributes themselves, an object, or another person as completely flawed, worthless, or as having exaggerated negative qualities.

displacement: an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind substitutes either a new aim or a new object or goals felt in their original form to be dangerous or unacceptable.

dissociation: is any state of a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from physical and emotional experiences, such as a disconnect from reality.

drug abuse: the extreme desire to obtain, and use, increasing amounts of one or more substances.

dysphoria: a state of unease, or generalized dissatisfaction with life.

emotional detachment: an inability to connect with others on an emotional level, as well as coping with anxiety by avoiding certain situations that trigger it; it is often described as “ emotional numbing ” or dissociation.

flashbacks: an involuntary recurrent memory, is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual has sudden, usually powerful, re-experiencing of a past experience or elements of said experience.

flat affect: a severe reduction in emotional expressiveness. they may not show the signs of normal emotion, perhaps may speak in a monotonous voice, have diminished facial expressions, and appear extremely apathetic.

guilt: a cognitive or emotional experience that occurs when a person believes or realizes — accurately or not — that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated a universal moral standard and bear significant responsibility for it.

hallucinations: an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present.

hypersomnia: or excessive sleepiness, is a condition in which a person has trouble staying awake during the day.

hypervigilance: an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect activity.

hypochondria: ( also known as illness anxiety disorder ) is a condition in which a person is inordinately worried about having a serious illness.

idealization: the action of regarding or representing something as perfect or better than reality.

insomnia: a sleep disorder where people have trouble sleeping. they may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep as long as desired. insomnia is usually followed by daytime sleepiness, low energy, and a depressed mood.

intellectualization: a defense mechanism by which reasoning is used to block confrontation with an unconscious conflict and its associated emotional stress — where thinking is used to avoid feeling. it involves removing one’s self, emotionally, from a stressful event.

introjection: regarded as the process where the subject replicates in themselves behaviors, attributes, or other fragments of the surrounding world, especially of other subjects. cognate concepts include identification, incorporation, and internalization.

isolation: a defense mechanism in psychoanalytic theory characterized by individuals defending themselves from possible threats by mentally and physically isolating themselves. by minimizing associative connections with other thoughts, the threatening cognition is remembered less often and is less likely to affect self-esteem or the self concept.

low self esteem: a person with low self esteem feels unworthy, incapable, and incompetent.

narcissism: is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one’s own attributes. narcissistic personality disorder ( npd ) is a personality disorder in which there is a long term pattern of abnormal behavior characterized by exaggerated feelings of self importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of understanding of other’s feelings.

night terrors: also known as a sleep terror, is a sleep disorder, causing feelings of terror or dread, and typically occurs during the first hours of stage three to four rapid eye movement ( nrem ) sleep.

obsessive compulsion: obsessive-compulsive disorder ( ocd ) is a common, chromic, and long — lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts ( obsessions ) and behaviors ( compulsions ) that they feel the urge to repeat over and over.

panic attacks: a sudden overwhelming feeling of acute and debilitating anxiety.

passive aggression: a tendency to engage in indirect expression of hostility through acts such as subtle insults, sullen behavior, stubbornness, or a deliberate failure to accomplish a required task.

paranoia: the irrational and persistent feeling that people are “ out to get you. ” the three main types of paranoia include paranoid personality disorder, delusional disorder, and paranoid schizophrenia.

phobias: an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something.

projection: psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. it involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings.

psychosis: a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.

rationalization: a defense mechanism in which controversial behaviors or feelings are justified and explained in a seemingly rational or logical manner to avoid the true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable — or even admirable and superior — by plausible means.

regression: a psychological defense mechanism in which a person abandons age — appropriate coping strategies in favor of earlier, more childlike patterns of behavior. this regression is a form of retreat, bringing back a time when the person feels safe and taken care of.

risky sex: risky sexual behavior is commonly defined as behavior that increases the probability of contracting sexually transmitted infections, diseases, becoming pregnant, or making a partner pregnant. drug use is associated with risky sexual behavior.

somatization: the manifestation of psychological distress by the presentation of bodily symptoms.

splitting: ( also called black — and — white thinking or all — or — nothing thinking ) is the failure in a person’s thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a cohesive, realistic whole.

sublimation: is a mature type of defense mechanism, in which socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are unconsciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior, possibly resulting in a long — term conversion of the initial impulse.

suicidal ideation: ( also known as suicidal thoughts ) is thinking about or an unusual preoccupation with suicide. the range of suicidal ideation varies from fleeting thoughts, to extensive thoughts, to detailed planning, roleplaying, and incomplete attempts.

sleepwalking: formally known as somnambulism, is a behavior disorder that originates during deep sleep and results in walking or performing other complex behaviors while asleep. it is more common in children than adults and is more likely to occur if a person is sleep deprived.

suppression: the act of stopping oneself from thinking or feeling something. it is generally assumed ineffective because even if you suppress or hold back an emotion, like anger, that feeling returns with a vengeance.

thousand yard stare: a phrase often used to describe the blank, unfocused gaze of soldiers who have become emotionally detached from the horrors around them. it is also sometimes used more generally to describe the look of dissociation among victims of other types of trauma.

triggers: something that sets of a memory tape or flashback transporting the person back to the event of their emotional trauma. triggers are very personal ; different things can trigger different people. the survivor may begin to avoid situations and stimuli that they think triggered the flashback.

trust issues: a person with these kinds of thoughts may construct social barriers as a defense mechanism to ensure that trust is not lost again. these barriers are often a person’s way of avoid the pain, rejection, or guilt associated with mistrust.

violence: the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.

temper: a reflection of irritation or rage, a propensity to be angered rapidly

[abyssmalice]

cognitive assessment meme ! (aka flower pretends there’s nothing wrong with how traumatized she made her muse!)

bold all that apply to your muse’s current mental state; italicize any that apply to your muse’s past mental state — repost don’t reblog !

alcoholism: or alcohol use disorder ( aud ), is a broad term for any drinking of alcohol that results in mental or physical health problems.

amnesia: a deficit in memory caused by brain damage, disease, or psychological trauma.

anxiety: a mental health disorder characterized by feelings of worry, anxiety, or fear that are strong enough to interfere with one’s daily activities.

appetite loss: a reduced desire to eat.

binge eating: a psychological illness characterized by frequently eating excessive amounts of food, often when not hungry.

co-dependence: dysfunctional and maladaptive relationship reliant on another person’s dependence on the affected individual.

cynicism: an inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self interest ( skepticism ), or to question whether something will happen or whether it is worthwhile ( pessimism ).

defensiveness: the tendency to be sensitive to comments and criticism and to deny them. to constantly protect oneself from criticism, exposure of one’s shortcomings, or other real or perceived threats to the go.

depersonalization: a state in which one’s thoughts and feelings seem unreal or not belonging to oneself.

depression: a mental health disorder characterized by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life.

derealization: alteration in the perception or experience of the external world so that it seems unreal.

devaluation: defense mechanism used when a person attributes themselves, an object, or another person as completely flawed, worthless, or as having exaggerated negative qualities.

displacement: an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind substitutes either a new aim or a new object or goals felt in their original form to be dangerous or unacceptable.

dissociation: is any state of a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from physical and emotional experiences, such as a disconnect from reality.

drug abuse: the extreme desire to obtain, and use, increasing amounts of one or more substances.

dysphoria: a state of unease, or generalized dissatisfaction with life.

emotional detachment: an inability to connect with others on an emotional level, as well as coping with anxiety by avoiding certain situations that trigger it; it is often described as “ emotional numbing ” or dissociation.

flashbacks: an involuntary recurrent memory, is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual has sudden, usually powerful, re-experiencing of a past experience or elements of said experience.

flat affect: a severe reduction in emotional expressiveness. they may not show the signs of normal emotion, perhaps may speak in a monotonous voice, have diminished facial expressions, and appear extremely apathetic.

guilt: a cognitive or emotional experience that occurs when a person believes or realizes — accurately or not — that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated a universal moral standard and bear significant responsibility for it.

hallucinations: an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present.

hypersomnia: or excessive sleepiness, is a condition in which a person has trouble staying awake during the day.

hypervigilance: an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect activity.

hypochondria: ( also known as illness anxiety disorder ) is a condition in which a person is inordinately worried about having a serious illness.

idealization: the action of regarding or representing something as perfect or better than reality.

insomnia: a sleep disorder where people have trouble sleeping. they may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep as long as desired. insomnia is usually followed by daytime sleepiness, low energy, and a depressed mood.

intellectualization: a defense mechanism by which reasoning is used to block confrontation with an unconscious conflict and its associated emotional stress — where thinking is used to avoid feeling. it involves removing one’s self, emotionally, from a stressful event.

introjection: regarded as the process where the subject replicates in themselves behaviors, attributes, or other fragments of the surrounding world, especially of other subjects. cognate concepts include identification, incorporation, and internalization.

isolation: a defense mechanism in psychoanalytic theory characterized by individuals defending themselves from possible threats by mentally and physically isolating themselves. by minimizing associative connections with other thoughts, the threatening cognition is remembered less often and is less likely to affect self-esteem or the self concept.

low self esteem: a person with low self esteem feels unworthy, incapable, and incompetent.

narcissism: is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one’s own attributes. narcissistic personality disorder ( npd ) is a personality disorder in which there is a long term pattern of abnormal behavior characterized by exaggerated feelings of self importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of understanding of other’s feelings.

night terrors: also known as a sleep terror, is a sleep disorder, causing feelings of terror or dread, and typically occurs during the first hours of stage three to four rapid eye movement ( nrem ) sleep.

obsessive compulsion: obsessive-compulsive disorder ( ocd ) is a common, chromic, and long — lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts ( obsessions ) and behaviors ( compulsions ) that they feel the urge to repeat over and over.

panic attacks: a sudden overwhelming feeling of acute and debilitating anxiety.

passive aggression: a tendency to engage in indirect expression of hostility through acts such as subtle insults, sullen behavior, stubbornness, or a deliberate failure to accomplish a required task.

paranoia: the irrational and persistent feeling that people are “ out to get you. ” the three main types of paranoia include paranoid personality disorder, delusional disorder, and paranoid schizophrenia.

phobias: an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something.

projection: psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. it involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings.

psychosis: a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.

rationalization: a defense mechanism in which controversial behaviors or feelings are justified and explained in a seemingly rational or logical manner to avoid the true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable — or even admirable and superior — by plausible means.

regression: a psychological defense mechanism in which a person abandons age — appropriate coping strategies in favor of earlier, more childlike patterns of behavior. this regression is a form of retreat, bringing back a time when the person feels safe and taken care of.

risky sex: risky sexual behavior is commonly defined as behavior that increases the probability of contracting sexually transmitted infections, diseases, becoming pregnant, or making a partner pregnant. drug use is associated with risky sexual behavior.

somatization: the manifestation of psychological distress by the presentation of bodily symptoms.

splitting: ( also called black — and — white thinking or all — or — nothing thinking ) is the failure in a person’s thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a cohesive, realistic whole.

sublimation: is a mature type of defense mechanism, in which socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are unconsciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior, possibly resulting in a long — term conversion of the initial impulse.

suicidal ideation: ( also known as suicidal thoughts ) is thinking about or an unusual preoccupation with suicide. the range of suicidal ideation varies from fleeting thoughts, to extensive thoughts, to detailed planning, roleplaying, and incomplete attempts.

sleepwalking: formally known as somnambulism, is a behavior disorder that originates during deep sleep and results in walking or performing other complex behaviors while asleep. it is more common in children than adults and is more likely to occur if a person is sleep deprived.

suppression: the act of stopping oneself from thinking or feeling something. it is generally assumed ineffective because even if you suppress or hold back an emotion, like anger, that feeling returns with a vengeance.

thousand yard stare: a phrase often used to describe the blank, unfocused gaze of soldiers who have become emotionally detached from the horrors around them. it is also sometimes used more generally to describe the look of dissociation among victims of other types of trauma.

triggers: something that sets of a memory tape or flashback transporting the person back to the event of their emotional trauma. triggers are very personal ; different things can trigger different people. the survivor may begin to avoid situations and stimuli that they think triggered the flashback.

trust issues: a person with these kinds of thoughts may construct social barriers as a defense mechanism to ensure that trust is not lost again. these barriers are often a person’s way of avoid the pain, rejection, or guilt associated with mistrust.

violence: the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.

temper: a reflection of irritation or rage, a propensity to be angered rapidly.

Tagged by: No one, I just like these memes ww Tagging: You, obviously!

[enygma]

COGNITIVE  ASSESSMENT.

bold all that apply to your muse’s current mental state; italicise any that apply to your muse’s past mental state — repost don’t reblog !

alcoholism: or alcohol use disorder ( aud ), is a broad term for any drinking of alcohol that results in mental or physical health problems.

amnesia: a deficit in memory caused by brain damage, disease, or psychological trauma.

anxiety: a mental health disorder characterised by feelings of worry, anxiety, or fear that are strong enough to interfere with one’s daily activities.

appetite loss: a reduced desire to eat.

binge eating: a psychological illness characterised by frequently eating excessive amounts of food, often when not hungry.

co-dependence: dysfunctional and maladaptive relationship reliant on another person’s dependence on the affected individual.

cynicism: an inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self interest ( scepticism ), or to question whether something will happen or whether it is worthwhile ( pessimism ).

defensiveness: the tendency to be sensitive to comments and criticism and to deny them. to constantly protect oneself from criticism, exposure of one’s shortcomings, or other real or perceived threats to the go.

depersonalisation: a state in which one’s thoughts and feelings seem unreal or not belonging to oneself.

depression: a mental health disorder characterised by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life.

derealisation: alteration in the perception or experience of the external world so that it seems unreal.

devaluation: defense mechanism used when a person attributes themselves, an object, or another person as completely flawed, worthless, or as having exaggerated negative qualities.

displacement: an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind substitutes either a new aim or a new object or goals felt in their original form to be dangerous or unacceptable.

dissociation: is any state of a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from physical and emotional experiences, such as a disconnect from reality.

drug abuse: the extreme desire to obtain, and use, increasing amounts of one or more substances.

dysphoria: a state of unease, or generalised dissatisfaction with life.

emotional detachment: an inability to connect with others on an emotional level, as well as coping with anxiety by avoiding certain situations that trigger it; it is often described as “ emotional numbing ” or dissociation.

flashbacks: an involuntary recurrent memory, is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual has sudden, usually powerful, re-experiencing of a past experience or elements of said experience.

flat affect: a severe reduction in emotional expressiveness. they may not show the signs of normal emotion, perhaps may speak in a monotonous voice, have diminished facial expressions, and appear extremely apathetic.

guilt: a cognitive or emotional experience that occurs when a person believes or realises — accurately or not — that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated a universal moral standard and bear significant responsibility for it.

hallucinations: an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present.

hypersomnia: or excessive sleepiness, is a condition in which a person has trouble staying awake during the day.

hypervigilance: an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect activity.

hypochondria: ( also known as illness anxiety disorder ) is a condition in which a person is inordinately worried about having a serious illness.

idealization: the action of regarding or representing something as perfect or better than reality.

insomnia: a sleep disorder where people have trouble sleeping. they may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep as long as desired. insomnia is usually followed by daytime sleepiness, low energy, and a depressed mood.

intellectualization: a defense mechanism by which reasoning is used to block confrontation with an unconscious conflict and its associated emotional stress — where thinking is used to avoid feeling. it involves removing one’s self, emotionally, from a stressful event.

introjection: regarded as the process where the subject replicates in themselves behaviours, attributes, or other fragments of the surrounding world, especially of other subjects. cognate concepts include identification, incorporation, and internalisation.

isolation: a defense mechanism in psychoanalytic theory characterized by individuals defending themselves from possible threats by mentally and physically isolating themselves. by minimizing associative connections with other thoughts, the threatening cognition is remembered less often and is less likely to affect self-esteem or the self concept.

low self esteem: a person with low self esteem feels unworthy, incapable, and incompetent.

narcissism: is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one’s own attributes. narcissistic personality disorder ( npd ) is a personality disorder in which there is a long term pattern of abnormal behaviour characterised by exaggerated feelings of self importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of understanding of other’s feelings.

night terrors: also known as a sleep terror, is a sleep disorder, causing feelings of terror or dread, and typically occurs during the first hours of stage three to four rapid eye movement ( nrem ) sleep.

obsessive compulsion: obsessive-compulsive disorder ( ocd ) is a common, chromic, and long — lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts ( obsessions ) and behaviours ( compulsions ) that they feel the urge to repeat over and over.

panic attacks: a sudden overwhelming feeling of acute and debilitating anxiety.

passive aggression: a tendency to engage in indirect expression of hostility through acts such as subtle insults, sullen behavior, stubbornness, or a deliberate failure to accomplish a required task.

paranoia: the irrational and persistent feeling that people are “ out to get you. ” the three main types of paranoia include paranoid personality disorder, delusional disorder, and paranoid schizophrenia.

phobias: an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something.

projection: psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. it involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings.

psychosis: a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.

rationalization: a defense mechanism in which controversial behaviors or feelings are justified and explained in a seemingly rational or logical manner to avoid the true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable — or even admirable and superior — by plausible means.

regression: a psychological defense mechanism in which a person abandons age — appropriate coping strategies in favor of earlier, more childlike patterns of behavior. this regression is a form of retreat, bringing back a time when the person feels safe and taken care of.

risky sex: risky sexual behavior is commonly defined as behavior that increases the probability of contracting sexually transmitted infections, diseases, becoming pregnant, or making a partner pregnant. drug use is associated with risky sexual behavior.

somatisation: the manifestation of psychological distress by the presentation of bodily symptoms.

splitting: ( also called black — and — white thinking or all — or — nothing thinking ) is the failure in a person’s thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a cohesive, realistic whole.

sublimation: is a mature type of defence mechanism, in which socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are unconsciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior, possibly resulting in a long — term conversion of the initial impulse.

suicidal ideation: ( also known as suicidal thoughts ) is thinking about or an unusual preoccupation with suicide. the range of suicidal ideation varies from fleeting thoughts, to extensive thoughts, to detailed planning, roleplaying, and incomplete attempts.

sleepwalking: formally known as somnambulism, is a behaviour disorder that originates during deep sleep and results in walking or performing other complex behaviours while asleep. it is more common in children than adults and is more likely to occur if a person is sleep deprived.

suppression: the act of stopping oneself from thinking or feeling something. it is generally assumed ineffective because even if you suppress or hold back an emotion, like anger, that feeling returns with a vengeance.

thousand yard stare: a phrase often used to describe the blank, unfocused gaze of soldiers who have become emotionally detached from the horrors around them. it is also sometimes used more generally to describe the look of dissociation among victims of other types of trauma.

triggers: something that sets of a memory tape or flashback transporting the person back to the event of their emotional trauma. triggers are very personal ; different things can trigger different people. the survivor may begin to avoid situations and stimuli that they think triggered the flashback.

trust issues: a person with these kinds of thoughts may construct social barriers as a defense mechanism to ensure that trust is not lost again. these barriers are often a person’s way of avoid the pain, rejection, or guilt associated with mistrust.

violence: the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.

temper: a reflection of irritation or rage, a propensity to be angered rapidly.

tagged : @gothamblack​ // tagging: ??? you since u took the time to read it ???