#weirdest religion ever

[thisishowgalaxiescollide]

Imagine saying you can't wear a rainbow jersey and not everyone deserves respect and rights because of your religion.

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

I love Old English bc sometimes you get a new/better translation and like

Excuse you????

what

the fuck

this text is 1,000 years old.

[wednesdaythesecond]

i love how Gerard wrote a christmas comic where poor kids don't get presents but santa exists and that's because santa is funded by rich parents who don't want to have to think about what to get their kids for christmas.

[melangedmess]

Can't wait for Christmas fever to be over it's too exhausting

[wynsummers]

just thinking about how much more insane community would be if they were all (canonically) queer. the episode where annie is like "I've never seen a dick before" only it's because she's a lesbian. that episode where jeff runs to rich's house in the rain ends with the weirdest situationship anyone in the study group has ever seen. britta accusing everyone of biphobia every time something mildly inconveniences her. shirley as the token straight says something mildly homophobic and the others just share a look and we get a repeat of the comparative religion scene. the students of greendale are convinced that the study group is just a really dramatic polycule. troy's extremely queer coded arc about finding his identity ending with him realizing he's gay since it basically already did. troy and abed announcing they're in a relationship and people are like "you weren't already???" can anyone hear me

[vintagegeekculture]

"The Ayla Descent Theory" of Mary Sues

"Children of the Earth," Luis Royo.

After the success of Jean M. Auel's stone age novel Clan of the Cave Bear, there was a very lengthy trend in the publishing world of stone age adventure novels aimed at women that lasted for a decade and only really fizzled out in the early 2000s. After all, "Ayla," the name of the main character of these books, was one of the top baby names of 1987.

The target audience for these books were weird midwestern aunts....you know, the Mists of Avalon and the Mercedes Lackey/Valdemar audience. Therefore, the Clan of the Cave Bear imitators also featured things of interest to the weird aunt audience: Scotland, redhaired women with sharp tongues, commanding wolves, Ireland, Feminism, riding herds of wild horses bareback in scenic locations, Wicca, matriarchial religions, swimming with dolphins....but above all else, American Indians (a culture this audience finds interesting, as anyone who has seen the home decor of a typical weird midwestern aunt can attest), with many novels set in Ice Age America, like Children of the Dawn, Reindeer Moon and the First Americans. Decades later, this audience would form the core fandom for Game of Thrones, and the character of Khaleesi Targaryen in particular.

These books almost assuredly still have a place of honor on the book shelf of the weirdest woman at your job.

Nearly all of these imitators have two of Clan of the Cave Bear's defining traits: 1) a supremely beautiful, usually blonde athletic and statuesque main character over 5'11" who does not realize that she is so beautiful and desirable, who is good at a variety of different skills and is friendly with animals like hawks, dolphins, or horses, and 2) a love triangle between this aforementioned blond but innocent Venus and two bodybuilder muscular he-men cave hunks, one of whom is a blonde guy with long rock star hair (it was the 80s), and the other being a buff black guy with dreadlocks (or otherwise ethnic in some way).

The heroine usually picks the blonde guy in the end, but the audience usually picks the ethnic guy.

In the late 90s and early 2000s, in the broader culture of fandom, it was fashionable to dump on "Mary Sues" (indulgent wish-fulfillment author personas in fanfiction) and the people who wrote them. Accusations of creating a Mary Sue approached a kind of hysteria. Even at the time, when everyone else was getting swept up in this, I thought that getting mad about aunties writing fanfiction showed a loss of perspective, and was a bit silly. Thankfully, we've benefitted from moral evolution: the consensus in fandom now is that writing aspirational characters is a harmless activity that tests a young writer's creative muscles, like the half-Vulcan pretty new ensign on the Enterprise that Kirk and Spock both fall in love with, or a new archer girl who Legolas falls in love with joining the Fellowship. This hate walked hand in hand with insecurities, in the exact same way that people worried about their appearance or concerned with their weight are often cruel to fat people, and there were frequent tests if this or that character in your writing was a Mary Sue.

There was a running joke in this 2000s culture of anti-self insertion called the "Ayla Descent Theory of Mary Sues." The joke was that Mary Sues came into existence because Ayla, the beautiful, athletic heroine of the Clan of the Cave Bear novels, was the ancestor of their entire lineage, as the first known Mary Sue to ever exist in the historical record, described as being a statuesque blonde who did everything right and was always at the center of love triangles, and who changed human history.

According to the running joke, Mary Sues everywhere were descended from Ayla from Clan of the Cave Bear, and she was the first to exist, and Ayla was the explanation of where all the Enterprise's new ensigns main characters fall in love with come from.

[i-cant-sing]

im WRITING NOTES AGAIN!!!

ok so i had to reread the ending of TTAU pt 9 cos i was confused on why y/n was crying! but im refreshed, that’s just so sad to me. it must’ve felt very dehumanizing with how the royals (specifically Miriham ) treats y/n and to have her niqab ripped off of her. and her broach stolen too, but idk if she cares for that. i’m mostly focusing on the niqab being her coverage and her way to feel closer to her religion. idk maybe im reading too into it.

AGH BALDWIN MENTION!! RAHHHH RAHHHH RAHHHHH

Ibrahim PRAYING to have y/n fall in love with him too. I FEEL SO ROMANTICAL!! that’s just too cute , it’s not forcing y/n to be with him but hoping she comes to love him aswell , RAHHH I LOVE IT

also i feel like with him wanting her…idk if he’ll actually help her get Out. maybe get out of the royal area , or something. but idk about…letting her leave him?! it makes me suspicious but then he prayed for her and now idk…his intentions just seem 🫨 to me. it’s shaking me around

mustafa bringing more broaches for y/n to wear, i wonder if he realizes that mihirmah is taking them without asking yet. or if he fr thinks y/n is still giving them away cos she doesn’t care.

im so stupid for not finishing that paragraph before writing something.

“there's no way he doesnt know Mihirmah is the one taking them when she openly flaunts them in his face.” is deadass the next sentence

“Baris asked as he looked through your closet.” i bet, he’s judging so hard. his ass is the type to throw something out cos he thinks it’s ugly.

another baldwin flashback 😭 STAWP , i’m trying to hate him in peace

"Because... I have to look for a present for Mustafa." SHE PLAYING BARIS LIKE MONOPOLY “present for Mustafa ☺️” LIAR !!!

"Have you stolen it?" RAHHHH I FEEL SOMETHING WEIRD IN MY TUMMY! DOES SHE KNOW ? DOES SULTANA KNOW SOMETHKNG SHE SHOULDNT ?

“Have you stolen what you came for? What exactly were you looking for? Mustafa's gold? His jewels?" bruh nvm. i’m stupid for thinking she’s smart.

“Just like Isabella, he will betray you every chance he gets.” that’s gotta be rough. like y/n has no one. literally no one. she’s just by herself until she can get home to her family, to her brother. i mean, y/n is clearly capable of surviving on her own, but it must be incredibly lonely and sad ! RAHHHH Y/N ! GOVE Y/N A BREAK!

“But... where did the portrait go?”

1. one of the boys has it hanging up cos “oh it looks so similar to the loml” 🤮

2. someone took it as black mail and is going to accuse y/n of witchery

3. it’s getting fixed up from where bladwin made out with it and they’ll find out it looks so similar to y/n and think y/n is related to royalty cos “why did a king 400 years ago have this portrait painted IF NOT IT BEING THE LOVE OF HIS CRAZY ASS LIFE ! AND Y/N IS A DESCENDANT AND CLEARLY NEEDS TO MARRY ONE OF THE BOYS THIS INSTANT! “

4. someone burnt it for y/n already

“ "I may not know how to hunt, but you do. So... shall we?" You asked patting the horse. “ y/n just makes herself seem like the weirdest person ever in both time periods cos she just wants to get OUTTA THERE! she does Not care if they think she’s crazy, she’ll say whatever to get where she needs to go.

“You both stared at each other, heaving and trying to catch your breath before breaking out into a laughter.” this horseback riding/chase scene is giving Anthony & Kate love story in Bridgerton. next thing we know Mustafa is gonna be going 🥴😵‍💫🤯 for how y/n smells. (this joke is gonna be lame if u haven’t seen bridgerton, i apologize)

“And somehow, you would soon hit the bullseye in his heart.” this shit corny as hell.

do it again

“…looking off into the distance as you remembered the old couple who helped you.” RAHHH I FORGOT ABOUT THAT! thats so saaaaad,

“‘…Maybe I'll see them there, just from a distance?" Mustafa nodded at your request. How could he say no to such an innocent ask?” *5 Seconds of Summer’s song Wrapped Around Your Finger starts playing *

“Those words, that praise... isnt that what he's yearned for all his life?” oh damn. this dude fell in love with a time traveling scammer. get in liiiine buddy, GET IN LINE!!!

“Doesnt he ever deserve to even delude himself that he has a chance at being the next sultan?” this whole paragraph just opened this character to me in such a naked way, it makes me FEEL REAL EMOTIONS! STOP IT! 🤮😭 also #daddyissues

“ "Wherever it'll be the most prominent." He smiled gently. “ hey, i’m just gonna jump off this cliff rq, ok? but fr tho? THIS IS TOO CUTE!! idk y/n’s plan with this is cos she doesn’t NEED to get him a gift, maybe it’s to get closer with him so he’ll have more leeway with her walking off without him? i’m under the delusion that she might be falling in love tho 🤷🏽‍♀️

“…or the way his heart warmed when your pupils dilated and he was ready to give you the world if you asked for it.” her pupils dilated ? well, she’s definitely attracted to the man 😀 right ? RIGHT?

“ "crochet your anger away, Y/n." “ I LOVE LEARNING ABOUT Y/N’s FAMILY!! THEYRE TOO CUTE !!

“…you finally sighed exaggeratively, as if this wasnt exactly what you wanted.” awe damn, mother fucking bitch. I AM DELULU! I HATE IT! i should’ve known, y/n is a scammer girl 4 lyfe 😣

“ “I do. But unfortunately, I had given it away to a Roman diplomat as goodwill." “ liar. he’s got it. i’m calling it rn. he’s got IT ! HES HIDING IT SOMEWHERE!!!!!! RAHHHH U LIAR!!! I DONT TRUST ANYONE NOW!!!!

“By the time you two left Manisa, Mustafa had decided that he was going to marry you.” damn bruh. u quick asf with that, huh? u love y/n thaaat bad ? OOOOH u wanna kiss y/n soooo baaad! he’s a little simp! simp! simp! simp!

“Mustafa doesnt have Suleiman's respect. “ oh damn that spiral was a little crazy. i like that. that’s my type of spiral.

“…he could only hope you dont mind that he lied to you about the portrait.” …i knew it 😩 I KNEW IT 😣 YOU CANT TRUST BITCHES ANYMORE ! WHAT HAPPENED TO HONEST GODLY MEN WHO DIDNT LIE 👹 AND CHEAT 👹 AND BE MEN 👹 ! RAHHHHH

“For him to stare at, to clear his mind as he peered into those eyes above the paint smudges, that looked eerily similar to yours.” hey now. let’s all chill out and not look into that, ok! let’s just stare at the portrait that was made 400 years ago, and is missing the bottom half of its face cos of no reason what so ever. don’t ever try to make a artist try to replicate it. don’t do anything crazy.

“On returning to Constantinople (present day known as Istanbul),” instantly reminded me of that scene in Umbrella Academy w/ Five fighting all those agents in a doughnut parlor. (i keep referencing things and just hoping you know one of them 😎)

“…your eyes being trained on the sad man who was busy buying vegetables.” RAHHH STOP I FEEL SO SAD ! THESE TWISTS OF EMOTIONS ARE TORTURE (i’m jk, i love being melodramatic)

“…but deep down, he knows he only stepped in to impress you.” HEADASS! this dude a simp.

“Mustafa threw a pouch of gold coins and told him that the debt is paid. Period. “ period 💅🏽

him still thinking of y/n saying she’s proud of him? HES SO INFATUATED WITH HERRRRR RAHHHHHHH

“…not knowing about the shit storm that was about to come.”

1. mihirmah is mad

2. the other lover boy (Mehmed) is mad

3. the sultana (that ISNT mustafa’s mom) is mad cos her kids are mad

“…but it seems like sweet talking didnt make a dent on you” ok? bitch tf? SAVE MY GRANDFATHER FROM GETTING HARASSED AND PAY OFF HIS DEBT! then we can talk, tf? Y/n DOESNT OWE U ANYTHING BITCH

“ "You're clearly accusing me of something, so say it." “ oh man, i just love when a women doesn’t let bitchass men walk over them. PUT HIM IN HIS PLACE GIRL ! YES BITCH!!

“…they still stay here, only leaving when the sultan takes them along." “ you saying only a lady’s baby daddy or real daddy can take them out of the house ? get the FAWK out of my face , THIS DUDE GOT ME MAD!

“Is he- did he just say you tempt men?” barf. this man is the definition of “i trust You, i just don’t trust men around u,” BITCH SHUT UUUUUUUUPPP

“…but the moment these men know that you're a woman, you're meat for them.” this sounds like projection, mother fucker. get into some therapy. BARF

“This veil that you seem so proud of?…” why did this make me feel attacked? this made me even more upset for y/n, cos ??? y/n has every right to be proud of it even if “It only makes men to want to rip it off you more”, that isn’t Why y/n wears her veil. maybe i’m not using the right words or expressing my feelings right but it just made me really mad.

“but you're wrong if you think I'm using my veil, my covered body to invite men to stare at me." “ oh beautiful. she put it into words for me.

"I AM THE NEXT SULTAN! I AM UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO MAKE SENSE TO YOU!" the gasp that i just gusped!! HOW DARE YOU!!

“His hand reached up and grabbed your niqaab, threatening to yank it off you.” i’m feeling VERY VIOLENT THOUGHTS!

“Do you think you can stop me from making your worst nightmares come to life?"” 😮.

“he found it necessary to reprimand you.” 🤢

“He patted your cheek to make you nod, and he finally backed away and left you alone in the hall.” 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮

“how Mehmed had lifted up your veil and traced your skin.” that was a deadass traumatizing scene between the two and all the palace bitches got from that was “ohhhh they’re in loooooove” SHUT UUUUUUUP

“You want Mustafa to lose- you want Mahidevran to lose!” oh this bitch is crazy. her thots spirals just like her sons, apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

“..it doesnt register at first the hard smack she delivered to your face.” god damn. y/n never catches a break in this awful place. GET HER OUT ! GET HER OUT NOOOOW!!

“Hurrem turned to look at you, grimacing at your bloodied face.” oh god damn. i just hate everyone atp.

“…then that is what I will say- Mehmed did this to me.” y/n is too smart for her own good. FUCK THEM BITCHES UP WITH INTELLIGENCE GIRL!! GET THEM WITH UR UPDATED SCHOOL TEACHINGS!!

“But if you were to help me escape-" “ i hope to god this bitch helps y/n leave PLEASE GOD PLEASE

“Baris walked in with Mustafa, Mehmed and Mihirmah, all looking at the state of your injured face.” oh damn, my girl isn’t wearing her niqab 😩

“…it was Mehmed's eyes that pricked you and you quickly grabbed your veil, tying it around your face to cover it.” he’s cool for that, ig. i still hate him and want him to die and want him to fall on his face and break his nose and i want his dad to stop loving him.

“Suleiman's eyes widened at the state of your face- bruised, bloodied and swollen.” THIS ANGST IS CRAAAAAZY! DUDE ITS CRAAAAAZY !! I GET WHY Y/N WONT SNITCH BUT PLEASE ! PLEASE ! LET SOMEONE BE SMART ENOUGH TO FOGURE IT OUT ON THEIR OWN ! (i’m asking for too much ik) WHERE THEY CAN IGNORE Y/N TRYING TO LIE ABOUT HOW SHE DOESNT KNOW! PLEASE

“No. No, she couldnt have.” YES SHE COULDVE U DUMB BOY! PLEASE ! PLEASE ! JUST FIGURE OUT UR MOM IS A DUMB BITCH ‘ PLEASE

“ Suleiman's sixth sense was keeping him unsettled” NAUR BITCH ! ITS MORE LIKE A 5 1/4th OF A SENSE ! UR SO CLOSE BUT SO FAR ! PLEASE ! SOMEONE PLEASE !

“ Her hands hiding under her sleeves.” OH THANK GOD ITS A FR 6th SENSE ! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!!

“ "It’s okay, sultana. It was an accident." “ i did all this begging and for WHAT? whyyyy y/n ?! whyyyy do you have to care about the timeline and the fact that you’re literally controlling the future with what you doooo! whyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!

“ All this time, I thought she was cheating on you but Hurrem set her and me up. “ so CLOSE! YOURE SO CLOSE! Hurrem’s son is just a fucking crazy misogynistic that deserves the PLAGUE ! idk what plague, of if there is a plague at this time , but i hope he gets something bad!

“He now understands why his mother wanted him to marry you. You- you are the key to having the throne…” i like that he Just now got it! i like to think he truly likes y/n all on his own without the mission of the throne. it definitely helps his feelings, he gets the girl he likes and the throne. but he liked her fr, just for her.

“…had his blood boiling at the sight of your face uncovered as Baris applied healing balms to your wounds.” is this dude ever Not mad ? gtfo

“He corrected you before turning your face to him harshly” i just realized this dude is a real yandere. like an actual yandere. i forgot that this is what it’s all about. i’m all like “hes dehumanizing y/n!” “hes misogynistic !” like bitch look at wtf ur reading. ofc he is. he’s a yANDERE ! i’m sorry, dear author! i forgot where i was for a second!

"If you can do it yourself, then why let Baris do it? Do you enjoy his touch?" i still hate him.

“…because you dont want to stay in a place without the only sane person who had your back.” as far as we know….as far as we know.

“…besides giving him curt replies, which he doesnt notice because his head is so far up his-“ BARF BARF BARF! i hate him

“Mehmed has fucking lost it, and I need to get out of here right now.” PLEASE PLEASE GET OUT AS FAST AS YOU CAN! PLEASEEEE

"I'm saving your ass. Duh." i don’t trust ur Baris. someone def paid him to do it.

"He's having their eyes stitched up for staring at you." oh he’s CRAZY CRAZY! those poor people! y/n is going to feel so guiltyyyyy NAUUUR ! nawt more trauma ! leave my girl aloooooone!

“Keep a low profile and try not to seduce any more unhinged men.” little does Baris know…theyre in a story written by someone who will definitely have that happen :)! i’m sorry y/n ! i’m sorry for what the author with put u thru!!

“He had been paying me since the moment you set foot in the palace to keep you safe.” ibrahim! I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU IBRAHIM!!

“So thats what Suleiman wanted to discuss with you.” Y/n ! LOVE IBRAHIM! PLEASE LOVE HIM! (i’m jk, but fr, i’m glad y/n is getting out)

“They're in love with me. And when they heard I was leaving, they decided to come along. “ baris, you devil man. i knew you were good this whole time…

“Maybe you just lucked out-“ i don’t want to scroll down. i don’t WANT TO MNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN! I JUST WANT TO TURN OFF MY PHONE AND DELETE TUMBLR AND LET THAH BE IT!!!

“You were struck by lightening.” god damn. just god damn. just- ohmygod! OHMYGOD! HO ! MA ! GAWD ! CAN SHE HAVE ANYTHING ? CAN SHE JUST GET A BREAK FOR A SECOND?’ CAN SHE JUST FEEL HOPE AND JOY FOR A SECOND?!

“ "I know where she is." He stood up, Mehmed following behind him. “ NAUUUR! THE GRANDPARENTS!! THEYRE GONNA DIIIIIE ! PLEASE NO! PLEASE GAWD NOOOOOOO!!!

“She killed herself the next day. She had jumped off the roof, but she didnt die instantly. She died as Hurrem watched from her balcony, and she refused to alert anyone to help the poor woman.” the old couples daughter, nooooo! just nooooooo! at least they can meet with her when they die,,,hopefully from old age!!

"BY THE ORDER OF SEHZADE MUSTAFA! OPEN THE DOOR!" it’s not gonna be from old age, they are Not dying from old age.

“ "Do it. Save Y/n." He told her, but before anyone could react, Mehmed sliced off the man's head, “ IM ACTUALLY CRYING. LIKE FR ! this isn’t faiiiiir! i mean? i know they were gonna die and i kept joking but IT WAS TO COVER THE PAIN! PLEASE NOOOOOO

“Mehmed kicked her in the back and the old lady fell to the ground. “ she died just like her daughter…kinda ? that’s so sad. i’m so upset!

"Fine." He pulled out his sword. "May the better prince win." god damn. just god damn.

“Mehmed was going to win and she needed to be there to witness it.” she’s as crazy as her damn brother. why tf did i think she was a lesbian and in love with y/n. i should’ve known 😣 i was pushing my gay agenda , the republicans r right 🫨 IM JUST FUCKING AROJND! i’m KIDDING

“ "I am better than you. In every way." Mustafa raised his sword to drop it on Mehmed's neck, just as cruelly he had done to that old woman.” SCREAMING! IM SCREAMING!!

“But that will be for another day-“ nauuur bitch. ur brother is gonna kill you! TURN AROUND BITCH ! TURN AROUND’ RAHHH NOOOO RAHHHHH

“People who more than willingly began microdosing Mehmed with poison.” i didn’t Not expect this. ho em gee

“You slammed your fists as the room began catching on fire.” y/n and fire! god damn. you’d think fire is a yandere for this poor girl. ohmygodddd

“The next moment, Mustafa's head was chopped off.” THE. GASP. I. JUST. GUSPED. NAUUUUUR I LIKED HIM THE MOST! NAUUUUR NAUUUUR NAUUUUUR

“It’s on.” oh mygod. OH MYGDOD

“Whatever time you land in, it'll be better than the one where you almost burn to death. Right?” RIGHT ?! RIGHT?! god PLEASE SOMEONE! GET THAT DAMN SCREEN FIXED ! PLEASE !

i’m feeling so many emotions. everyone died. girl when u said “ no one gets hurt “ or something like that. i was like “oh some ONE will die” bitch i didn’t think EVERYONE! the old couple! mustafa ! fuck head! like god damn bruh. i wonder how badly this will fuck with the timeline in the future.

ibrahim is at war rn and waiting to get home to his soon to be wife! the sultanas have lost both of their eldest sons! hurrem has some leftovers, so i wonder who will be in charge next.

the old couple gets to see their daughter again, and i loved how they loved y/n. i wonder why the old lady was choking y/n tho? was it to kill her so she didn’t have to go with mehmed & mustafa?

mustafa dying really upset me too. he had a genuine connection with y/n i feel like (besides ibrahim ofc) and i really liked him. you fleshed out his character so well that it shocked me when he died! he must’ve been scared, surrounded by people who wanted him dead. his mom far away. the love of his life (y/n) meeting an uncertain fate in that random castle. his brother just dying infront of him. i thot he had his army with him too, so im surprised Mehmed’s men were surrounding him. it’s just sad!

BUT SO GOOD! i’m so excited to see how this goes! how far it goes! i’ve really enjoyed annotating while i read as well, i feel like im more immersed in the story! thank you for chapter 10! it was delicious 😩

11/10 review, amazing, showstopping fabulous <3333

and yes, the old couple was killing y/n to save her from being taken advantage of by the ottomans, as their daughter was. in a way, they had good intentions for y/n.

[rhysdarbinizedarby]

Couch surfer in his 30s. Oscar winner in his 40s. Why the whole world wants Taika

**Notes: This is very long post!**

Good Weekend

In his 30s, he was sleeping on couches. By his 40s, he’d directed a Kiwi classic, taken a Marvel movie to billion-dollar success, and won an Oscar. Meet Taika Waititi, king of the oddball – and one of New Zealand’s most original creative exports.

Taika Waititi: “Be a nice person and live a good life. And just don’t be an arsehole.”

The good news? Taika Waititi is still alive. I wasn’t sure. The screen we were speaking through jolted savagely a few minutes ago, with a cacophonous bang and a confused yelp, then radio silence. Now the Kiwi ­ filmmaker is back, grinning like a loon: “I just broke the f---ing table, bro!”

Come again? “I just smashed this f---ing table and glass flew everywhere. It’s one of those old annoying colonial tables. It goes like this – see that?” Waititi says, holding up a folding furniture leg. “I hit the mechanism and it wasn’t locked. Anyway …”

I’m glad he’s fine. The stuff he’s been saying from his London hotel room could incur biblical wrath. We’re talking about his latest project, Next Goal Wins, a movie about the American Samoa soccer team’s quest to score a solitary goal, 10 years after suffering the worst loss in the game’s international history – a 31-0 ­ignominy to Australia – but our chat strays into ­spirituality, then faith, then religion.

“I don’t personally believe in a big guy sitting on a cloud judging everyone, but that’s just me,” Waititi says, deadpan. “Because I’m a grown-up.”

This is the way his interview answers often unfold. Waititi addresses your topic – dogma turns good people bad, he says, yet belief itself is worth lauding – but bookends every response with a conspiratorial nudge, wink, joke or poke. “Regardless of whether it’s some guy living on a cloud, or some other deity that you’ve made up – and they’re all made up – the message across the board is the same, and it’s important: Be a nice person, and live a good life. And just don’t be an arsehole!”

Not being an arsehole seems to have served Waititi, 48, well. Once a national treasure and indie darling (through the quirky tenderness of his breakout New Zealand films Boy in 2010 and Hunt for the Wilderpeople in 2016), Waititi then became a star of both the global box office (through his 2017 entry into the Marvel Universe, Thor: Ragnarok, which grossed more than $1.3 billion worldwide) and then the Academy Awards (winning the 2020 best adapted screenplay Oscar for his subversive Holocaust dramedy JoJo Rabbit, in which he played an imaginary Hitler).

Waititi playing Adolf Hitler in the 2019 movie JoJo Rabbit. (Alamy)

A handsome devil with undeniable roguish charm, Waititi also slid seamlessly into style-icon status (attending this year’s Met Gala shirtless, in a floor-length gunmetal-grey Atelier Prabal Gurung wrap coat, with pendulous pearl necklaces), as well as becoming his own brand (releasing an eponymous line of canned ­coffee drinks) and bona fide Hollywood A-lister (he was introduced to his second wife, British singer Rita Ora, by actor Robert Pattinson at a barbecue).

Putting that platform to use, Waititi is an Indigenous pioneer and mentor, too, co-creating the critically acclaimed TV series Reservation Dogs, while co-founding the Piki Films production company, committed to promoting the next generation of storytellers – a mission that might sound all weighty and worthy, yet Waititi’s new wave of First Nations work is never earnest, always mixing hurt with heart and howling humour.

Waititi with wife Rita Ora at the 2023 Met Gala in May. (Getty Images)

Makes sense. Waititi is a byproduct of “the weirdest coupling ever” – his late Maori father from the Te Whanau-a-Apanui tribe was an artist, farmer and “Satan’s Slaves” bikie gang founder, while his Wellington schoolteacher mum descended from Russian Jews, although he’s not devout about her faith. (“No, I don’t practise,” he confirms. “I’m just good at everything, straight away.”)

He’s remained loyally tethered to his ­origin story, too – and to a cadre of creative Kiwi mates, including actors Jemaine Clement and Rhys Darby – never forgetting that not long before the actor/writer/producer/director was an industry maven, he was a penniless painter/photographer/ musician/comedian.

With no set title and no fixed address, he’s seemingly happy to be everything, everywhere (to everyone) all at once. “‘The universe’ is bandied around a lot these days, but I do believe in the kind of connective tissue of the universe, and the energy that – scientifically – we are made up of a bunch of atoms that are bouncing around off each other, and some of the atoms are just squished together a bit tighter than others,” he says, smiling. “We’re all made of the same stardust, and that’s pretty special.”

-----------------------------------------------

We’ve caught Waititi in a somewhat relaxed moment, right before the screen actors’ and media artists’ strike ends. He’s ­sensitive to the struggle but doesn’t deny enjoying the break. “I spent a lot of time thinking about writing, and not writing, and having a nice ­holiday,” he tells Good Weekend. “Honestly, it was a good chance just to recombobulate.”

Waititi, at right, with Hunt for the Wilderpeople actors, from left, Sam Neill, Rhys Darby and Julian Dennison. (Getty Images)

It’s mid-October, and he’s just headed to Paris to watch his beloved All Blacks in the Rugby World Cup. He’s deeply obsessed with the game, and sport in general. “Humans spend all of our time knowing what’s going to happen with our day. There’s no surprises ­any more. We’ve become quite stagnant. And I think that’s why people love sport, because of the air of unpredictability,” he says. “It’s the last great arena entertainment.”

The main filmic touchstone for Next Goal Wins (which premieres in Australian cinemas on New Year’s Day) would be Cool Runnings (1993), the unlikely true story of a Jamaican bobsled team, but Waititi also draws from genre classics such as Any Given Sunday and Rocky, sampling trusted tropes like the musical training montage. (His best one is set to Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears.)

Filming in Hawaii was an uplifting experience for the self-­described Polynesian Jew. “It wasn’t about death, or people being cruel to each other. Thematically, it was this simple idea, of getting a small win, and winning the game wasn’t even their goal – their goal was to get a goal,” he says. “It was a really sweet backbone.”

Waititi understands this because, growing up, he was as much an athlete as a nerd, fooling around with softball and soccer before discovering rugby league, then union. “There’s something about doing exercise when you don’t know you’re doing exercise,” he enthuses. “It’s all about the fun of throwing a ball around and trying to achieve something together.” (Whenever Waititi is in Auckland he joins his mates in a long-running weekend game of touch rugby. “And then throughout the week I work out every day. Obviously. I mean, look at me.”)

Auckland is where his kids live, too, so he spends as much time there as possible. Waititi met his first wife, producer Chelsea Winstanley, on the set of Boy in 2010, and they had two daughters, Matewa Kiritapu, 8, and his firstborn, Te Kainga O’Te Hinekahu, 11. (The latter is a derivative of his grandmother’s name, but he jokes with American friends that it means “Resurrection of Tupac” or “Mazda RX7″) Waititi and Winstanley split in about 2018, and he married the pop star Ora in 2022.

He offers a novel method for balancing work with parenthood … “Look, you just abandon them, and know that the experience will make them harder individuals later on in life. And it’s their problem,” he says. “I’m going to give them all of the things that they need, and I’m going to leave behind a decent bank ­account for their therapy, and they will be just like me, and the cycle will continue.”

Jokes aside – I think he’s joking – school holidays are always his, and he brings the girls onto the set of every movie he makes. “They know enough not to get in the way or touch anything that looks like it could kill you, and they know to be respectful and quiet when they need to. But they’re just very comfortable around filmmakers, which I’m really happy about, because eventually I hope they will get into the ­industry. One more year,” he laughs, “then they can leave school and come work for Dad.”

Theirs is certainly a different childhood than his. Growing up, he was a product of two worlds. His given names, for instance, were based on his appearance at birth: “Taika David” if he looked Maori (after his Maori grandfather) and “David Taika” if he looked Pakeha (after his white grandfather). His parents split when he was five, so he bounced between his dad’s place in Waihau Bay, where he went by the surname Waititi, and his mum, eight hours drive away in Wellington, where he went by Cohen (the last name on his birth ­certificate and passport).

Waititi was precocious, even charismatic. His mother Robin once told Radio New Zealand that people always wanted to know him, even as an infant: “I’d be on a bus with him, and he was that kind of baby who smiled at people, and next thing you know they’re saying, ‘Can I hold your baby?’ He’s always been a charmer to the public eye.”

He describes himself as a cool, sporty, good-looking nerd, raised on whatever pop culture screened on the two TV channels New Zealand offered in the early 1980s, from M*A*S*H and Taxi to Eddie Murphy and Michael Jackson. He was well-read, too. When punished by his mum, he would likely be forced to analyse a set of William Blake poems.

He puts on a whimpering voice to describe their finances – “We didn’t have much monneeey” – explaining how his mum spent her days in the classroom but also worked in pubs, where he would sit sipping a raspberry lemonade, doodling drawings and writing stories. She took in ­ironing and cleaned houses; he would help out, learning valuable lessons he imparts to his kids. “And to random people who come to my house,” he says. “I’ll say, ‘Here’s a novel idea, wash this dish,’ but people don’t know how to do anything these days.”

“Every single character I’ve ever written has been based on someone I’ve known or met or a story I’ve stolen from someone.” - Taika Waititi

He loved entertaining others, clearly, but also himself, recording little improvised radio plays on a tape deck – his own offbeat versions of ET and Indiana Jones and Star Wars. “Great free stuff where you don’t have any idea what the story is as you’re doing it,” he says. “You’re just sort of making it up and enjoying the ­freedom of playing god in this world where you can make people and characters do whatever you want.”

His other sphere of influence lay in Raukokore, the tiny town where his father lived. Although Boy is not autobiographical, it’s deeply personal insofar as it’s filmed in the house where he grew up, and where he lived a life similar to that portrayed in the story, surrounded by his recurring archetypes: warm grandmothers and worldly kids; staunch, stoic mums; and silly, stunted men. “Every single character I’ve ever written has been based on someone I’ve known or met,” he says, “or a story I’ve stolen from someone.”

He grew to love drawing and painting, obsessed early on with reproducing the Sistine Chapel. During a 2011 TED Talk on creativity, Waititi describes his odd subject matter, from swastikas and fawns to a picture of an old lady going for a walk … upon a sword … with Robocop. “My father was an outsider artist, even though he wouldn’t know what that meant,” Waititi told the audience in Doha. “I love the naive. I love people who can see things through an innocent viewpoint. It’s inspiring.”

After winning Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award for JoJo Rabbit in 2020. (Getty Images)

It was an interesting time in New Zealand, too – a coming-of-age decade in which the Maori were rediscovering their culture. His area was poor, “but only ­financially,” he says. “It’s very rich in terms of the ­people and the culture.” He learned kapa haka – the songs, dances and chants performed by competing tribes at cultural events, or to honour people at funerals and graduations – weddings, parties, ­anything. “Man, any excuse,” he explains. “A big part of doing them is to uplift your spirits.”

Photography was a passion, so I ask what he shot. “Just my penis. I sent them to people, but we didn’t have phones, so I would print them out, post them. One of the first dick pics,” he says. Actually, his lens was trained on regular people. He watches us still – in airports, ­restaurants. “Other times late at night, from a tree. Whatever it takes to get the story. You know that.”

He went to the Wellington state school Onslow College and did plays like Androcles and the Lion, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Crucible. His crew of arty students eventually ended up on stage at Bats Theatre in the city, where they would perform haphazard comedy shows for years.

“Taika was always rebellious and wild in his comedy, which I loved,” says his high school mate Jackie van Beek, who became a longtime collaborator, including working with Waititi on a Tourism New Zealand campaign this year. “I remember he went through a phase of turning up in bars around town wearing wigs, and you’d try and sit down and have a drink with him but he’d be doing some weird character that would invariably turn up in some show down the track.”

He met more like-minded peers at Victoria University, including Jemaine Clement (who’d later become co-creator of Flight of the Conchords). During a 2019 chat with actor Elijah Wood, Waititi ­describes he and Clement clocking one another from opposite sides of the library one day: a pair of Maoris experiencing hate at first sight, based on a mutual suspicion of cultural appropriation. (Clement was wearing a traditional tapa cloth Samoan shirt, and Waititi was like: “This motherf---er’s not Samoan.” Meanwhile, Waititi was wearing a Rastafarian beanie, and Clement was like, “This ­motherf---er’s not Jamaican.”)

With Jemaine Clement in 2014. (Getty Images)

But they eventually bonded over Blackadder and Fawlty Towers, and especially Kenny Everett, and did comedy shows together everywhere from Edinburgh to Melbourne. Waititi was almost itinerant, spending months at a time busking, or living in a commune in Berlin. He acted in a few small films, and then – while playing a stripper on a bad TV show – realised he wanted to try life behind the camera. “I became tired of being told what to do and ordered around,” he told Wellington’s Dominion Post in 2004. “I remember sitting around in the green room in my G-string ­thinking, ‘Why am I doing this? Just helping someone else to realise their dream.’ ”

He did two strong short films, then directed his first feature – Eagle vs Shark (2007) – when he was 32. He brought his mates along (Clement, starring with Waititi’s then-girlfriend Loren Horsley), setting something of a pattern in his career: hiring friends instead of constantly navigating new working relationships. “If you look at things I’m doing,” he tells me, “there’s ­always a few common denominators.”

Sam Neill says Waititi is the exemplar of a new New Zealand humour. “The basis of it is this: we’re just a little bit crap at things.”

This gang of collaborators shares a common Kiwi vibe, too, which his longtime friend, actor Rhys Darby, once coined “the comedy of the mundane”. Their new TV show, Our Flag Means Death, for example, leans heavily into the mundanity of pirate life – what happens on those long days at sea when the crew aren’t unsheathing swords from scabbards or burying treasure.

Waititi plays pirate captain Blackbeard, centre, in Our Flag Means Death, with Rhys Darby, left, and Rory Kinnear. (Google Images)

Sam Neill, who first met Waititi when starring in Hunt for the Wilderpeople, says Waititi is the exemplar of a new New Zealand humour. “And I think the basis of it is this,” says Neill. “We’re just a little bit crap at things, and that in itself is funny.” After all, Neill asks, what is What We Do in The Shadows (2014) if not a film (then later a TV show) about a bunch of vampires who are pretty crap at being vampires, ­living in a pretty crappy house, not quite getting busted by crappy local cops? “New Zealand often gets named as the least corrupt country in the world, and I think it’s just that we would be pretty crap at being corrupt,” Neill says. “We don’t have the capacity for it.”

Waititi’s whimsy also spurns the dominant on-screen oeuvre of his homeland – the so-called “cinema of ­unease” exemplified by the brutality of Once Were Warriors (1994) and the emotional peril of The Piano (1993). Waititi still explores pathos and pain, but through laughter and weirdness. “Taika feels to me like an ­antidote to that dark aspect, and a gift somehow,” Neill says. “And I’m grateful for that.”

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Something happened to Taika Waititi when he was about 11 – something he doesn’t go into with Good Weekend, but which he considered a betrayal by the adults in his life. He ­mentioned it only recently – not the ­moment itself, but the lesson he learnt: “That you cannot and must not rely on grown-ups to help you – you’re basically in the world alone, and you’re gonna die alone, and you’ve just gotta make it all for yourself,” he told Irish podcast host James Brown. “I basically never forgave people in positions of responsibility.”

What does that mean in his work? First, his finest films tend to reflect the clarity of mind possessed by children, and the unseen worlds they create – fantasies conjured up as a way to understand or overcome. (His mum once summed up the main ­message of Boy: “The ­unconditional love you get from your children, and how many of us waste that, and don’t know what we’ve got.”)

Second, he’s suited to movie-making – “Russian roulette with art” – because he’s drawn to disruptive force and chaos. And that in turn produces creative defiance: allowing him to reinvigorate the Marvel Universe by making superheroes fallible, or tell a Holocaust story by making fun of Hitler. “Whenever I have to deal with someone who’s a boss, or in charge, I challenge them,” he told Brown, “and I really do take whatever they say with a pinch of salt.”

It’s no surprise then that Waititi was comfortable leaping from independent films to the vast complexity of Hollywood blockbusters. He loves the challenge of coordinating a thousand interlocking parts, requiring an army of experts in vocations as diverse as construction, sound, art, performance and logistics. “I delegate a lot,” he says, “and share the load with a lot of people.”

“This is a cool concept, being able to ­afford whatever I want, as opposed to sleeping on couches until I was 35.” - Taika Waititi

But the buck stops with him. Time magazine named Waititi one of its Most Influential 100 People of 2022. “You can tell that a film was made by Taika Waititi the same way you can tell a piece was painted by Picasso,” wrote Sacha Baron Cohen. Compassionate but comic. Satirical but watchable. Rockstar but auteur. “Actually, sorry, but this guy’s really starting to piss me off,” Cohen concluded. “Can someone else write this piece?”

Directing Chris Hemsworth in 2017 in Thor: Ragnarok, which grossed more than $1.3 billion at the box office. (Alamy)

I’m curious to know how he stays grounded amid such adulation. Coming into the game late, he says, helped immensely. After all, Waititi was 40 by the time he left New Zealand to do Thor: Ragnarok. “If you let things go to your head, then it means you’ve struggled to find out who you are,” he says. “But I’ve always felt very comfortable with who I am.” Hollywood access and acclaim – and the pay cheques – don’t erase memories of poverty, either. “It’s more like, ‘Oh, this is a cool concept, being able to ­afford whatever I want, as opposed to sleeping on couches until I was 35.’ ” Small towns and strong tribes keep him in check, too. “You know you can’t piss around and be a fool, because you’re going to embarrass your family,” he says. “Hasn’t stopped me, though.”

Sam Neill says there was never any doubt Waititi would be able to steer a major movie with energy and imagination. “It’s no accident that the whole world wants Taika,” he says. “But his seductiveness comes with its own dangers. You can spread yourself a bit thin. The temptation will be to do more, more, more. That’ll be interesting to watch.”

Indeed, I find myself vicariously stressed out over the list of potential projects in Waititi’s future. A Roald Dahl animated series for Netflix. An Apple TV show based on the 1981 film Time Bandits. A sequel to What We Do In The Shadows. A reboot of Flash Gordon. A gonzo horror comedy, The Auteur, starring Jude Law. Adapting a cult graphic novel, The Incal, as a feature. A streaming series based on the novel Interior Chinatown. A film based on a Kazuo Ishiguro bestseller. Plus bringing to life the wildly popular Akira comic books. Oh, and for good measure, a new instalment of Star Wars, which he’s already warned the world will be … different.

“It’s going to change things,” he told Good Morning America. “It’s going to change what you guys know and expect.”

Did I say I was stressed for Waititi? I meant physically sick.

“Well…” he qualifies, “some of those things I’m just producing, so I come up with an idea or someone comes to me with an idea, and I shape how ‘it’s this kind of show’ and ‘here’s how we can get it made.’ It’s easier for me to have a part in those things and feel like I’ve had a meaningful role in the creative process, but also not having to do what I’ve always done, which is trying to control everything.”

In the 2014 mockumentary horror film What We Do in the Shadows, which he co-directed with Jemaine Clement. (Alamy)

What about moving away from the niche New Zealand settings he represented so well in his early work? How does he stay connected to his roots? “I think you just need to know where you’re from,” he says, “and just don’t forget that.”

They certainly haven’t forgotten him.

Jasmin McSweeney sits in her office at the New Zealand Film Commission in Wellington, surrounded by promotional posters Waititi signed for her two decades ago, when she was tasked with promoting his nascent talent. Now the organisation’s marketing chief, she talks to me after visiting the heart of thriving “Wellywood”, overseeing the traditional karakia prayer on the set of a new movie starring Geoffrey Rush.

Waititi isn’t the first great Kiwi filmmaker – dual Oscar-winner Jane Campion and blockbuster king Peter Jackson come to mind – yet his particular ascendance, she says, has spurred unparalleled enthusiasm. “Taika gave everyone here confidence. He always says, ‘Don’t sit around waiting for people to say, you can do this.’ Just do it, because he just did it. That’s the Taika effect.”

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Taika David Waititi is known for wearing everything from technicolour dreamcoats to pineapple print rompers, and today he’s wearing a roomy teal and white Isabel Marant jumper. The mohair garment has the same wispy frizz as his hair, which curls like a wave of grey steel wool, and connects with a shorn salty beard.

A stylish silver fox, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if he suddenly announced he was launching a fashion label. He’s definitely a commercial animal, to the point of directing television commercials for Coke and Amazon, along with a fabulous 2023 spot for Belvedere vodka starring Daniel Craig. He also joined forces with a beverage company in Finland (where “taika” means “magic”) to release his coffee drinks. Announcing the partnership on social media, he flagged that he would be doing more of this kind of stuff, too (“Soz not soz”).

Waititi has long been sick of reverent portrayals of Indigenous people talking to spirits.

There’s substance behind the swank. Fashion is a creative outlet but he’s also bought sewing machines in the past with the intention of designing and making clothes, and comes from a family of tailors. “I learnt how to sew a button on when I was very young,” he says. “I learnt how to fix holes or patches in your clothes, and darn things.”

And while he gallivants around the globe watching Wimbledon or modelling for Hermès at New York Fashion Week, all that glamour belies a depth of purpose, particularly when it comes to Indigenous representation.

There’s a moment in his new movie where a Samoan player realises that their Dutch coach, played by Michael Fassbender, is emotionally struggling, and he offers a lament for white people: “They need us.” I can’t help but think Waititi meant something more by that line – maybe that First Nations people have ­wisdom to offer if others will just listen?

“Weeelllll, a little bit …” he says – but from his intonation, and what he says next, I’m dead wrong. Waititi has long been sick of reverent ­portrayals of Indigenous people talking to kehua (spirits), or riding a ghost waka (phantom canoe), or playing a flute on a mountain. “Always the boring characters,” he says. “They’ve got no real contemporary relationship with the world, because they’re always living in the past in their spiritual ways.”

A scene from Next Goal Wins, filmed earlier this year. (Alamy)

He’s part of a vanguard consciously poking fun at those stereotypes. Another is the Navajo writer and director Billy Luther, who met Waititi at Sundance Film Festival back in 2003, along with Reservation Dogs co-creator Sterlin Harjo. “We were this group of outsiders trying to make films, when nobody was really biting,” says Luther. “It was a different time. The really cool thing about it now is we’re all working. We persevered. We didn’t give up. We slept on each other’s couches and hung out. It’s like family.”

Waititi has power now, and is known for using Indigenous interns wherever possible (“because there weren’t those opportunities when I was growing up”), making important introductions, offering feedback on scripts, and lending his name to projects through executive producer credits, too, which he did for Luther’s new feature film, Frybread Face and Me (2023).

He called Luther back from the set of Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) to offer advice on working with child actors – “Don’t box them into the characters you’ve ­created,” he said, “let them naturally figure it out on their own” – but it’s definitely harder to get Waititi on the phone these days. “He’s a little bitch,” Luther says, laughing. “Nah, there’s nothing like him. He’s a genius. You just knew he was going to be something. I just knew it. He’s my brother.“

I’ve been asked to explicitly avoid political questions in this interview, probably because Waititi tends to back so many causes, from child poverty and teenage suicide to a campaign protesting offshore gas and oil exploration near his tribal lands. But it’s hard to ignore his recent Instagram post, sharing a viral video about the Voice to Parliament referendum starring Indigenous Aussie rapper Adam Briggs. After all, we speak only two days after the proposal is defeated. “Yeah, sad to say but, Australia, you really shat the bed on that one,” Waititi says, pausing. “But go see my movie!”

About that movie – the early reviews aren’t great. IndieWire called it a misfire, too wrapped in its quirks to develop its arcs, with Waititi’s directorial voice drowning out his characters, while The Guardian called it “a shoddily made and strikingly unfunny attempt to tell an interesting story in an uninteresting way”. I want to know how he moves past that kind of criticism. “For a start, I never read reviews,” he says, concerned only with the opinion of people who paid for admission, never professional appraisals. “It’s not important to me. I know I’m good at what I do.”

Criticism that Indigenous concepts weren’t sufficiently explained in Next Goal Wins gets his back up a little, though. The film’s protagonist, Jaiyah Saelua, the first transgender football player in a FIFA World Cup qualifying match, is fa’afafine – an American Samoan identifier for someone with fluid genders – but there wasn’t much exposition of this concept in the film. “That’s not my job,” Waititi says. “It’s not a movie where I have to explain every facet of Samoan culture to an audience. Our job is to retain our culture, and present a story that’s inherently Polynesian, and if you don’t like it, you can go and watch any number of those other movies out there, 99 per cent of which are terrible.”

*notes: (there is video clip in the article)

Waititi sounds momentarily cranky, but he’s mostly unflappable and hilarious. He’s the kind of guy who prefers “Correctumundo bro!” to “Yes”. When our video connection is too laggy, he plays up to it by periodically pretending to be frozen, sitting perfectly still, mouth open, his big shifting eyeballs the only giveaway.

He’s at his best on set. Saelua sat next to him in Honolulu while filming the joyous soccer sequences. “He’s so chill. He just let the actors do their thing, giving them creative freedom, barely interjecting unless it was something important. His style matches the vibe of the Pacific people. We’re a very funny people. We like to laugh. He just fit perfectly.”

People do seem to love working alongside him, citing his ability to make productions fresh and unpredictable and funny. Chris Hemsworth once said that Waititi’s favourite gag is to “forget” that his microphone is switched on, so he can go on a pantomime rant for all to hear – usually about his disastrous Australian lead actor – only to “remember” that he’s wired and the whole crew is listening.

“I wouldn’t know about that, because I don’t listen to what other people say about anything – I’ve told you this,” Waititi says. “I just try to have fun when there’s time to have fun. And when you do that, and you bring people together, they’re more willing to go the extra mile for you, and they’re more willing to believe in the thing that you’re trying to do.”

Yes, he plays music between takes, and dances out of his director’s chair, but it’s really all about relaxing amid the immense pressure and intense privilege of making movies. “Do you know how hard it is just to get anything financed or green-lit, then getting a crew, ­getting producers to put all the pieces together, and then making it to set?” Waititi asks. “It’s a real gift, even to be working, and I feel like I have to remind ­people of that: enjoy this moment.”

Source: The Age

By: Konrad Marshall (December 1, 2023)

[millersdjarin]

I Only See Daylight

Chapter Nine

Pairing: Din Djarin x F!Reader

Rating: E

Chapter Warnings/tags: past arranged/forced marriage, cults, religious trauma, religion disillusionment, bonding, THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED, panic attacks

Chapter length: 4.8k

Previous Chapter | Series Masterlist/Info | Full Masterlist

notes: enjoy, friends!

maybe you ran with the wolves and refused to settle down; maybe i stormed out of every single room in this town

“Do you ever just pull faces at people under there?” You ask from your place on the edge of the bed as you run a brush through your wet hair. 

Mando is standing at the bedroom window, leaning his arm against the frame, brushing against the velvet curtains. The morning Corscant sun is glinting off of his armour. He turns to you. “Why would I do that?” 

“Because they can’t see you, and it’s funny. Like a little joke to yourself.” 

The helmet tilts, amused. “No, I don’t.” 

“You should. Just pull the weirdest face you can think of. No one would know.” 

He doesn’t respond. Just stands there, still as a wall, staring at you.

A grin spreads across your mouth, showing your teeth. “Are you doing it now?” 

“…Maybe.” 

You laugh, lightness bubbling in your chest, and shake your head. “You’re going to start doing that now, aren’t you? Just to mess with me without me knowing?” 

He hooks his thumb over the belt around his hips, props his weight onto one leg. Kriff, he looks good. If you could, you’d jump onto his body and climb him like a fucking tree. “I might.” 

Still smiling, you put down the hairbrush and turn around to grab your socks from the bed beside you. The covers are folded back, pillows in disarray. 

You had shared the bed last night. 

Not at first. Mando still needed to eat dinner, so you went to sleep first, sunk into the soft bed and burrowed yourself in the sheets. It was so comfortable, so soft, like nothing you’ve ever felt before. The mattress hugged your body just right, didn’t press on any sore points. Your shoulder hurt, of course, but you managed to drift off despite that, just focusing on the warmth and comfort of this fancy bed. 

When you’d stirred a while later, the lights were all off, just a little pillar of it shining through a gap in the curtains. The door was shut; you’d left it open. You turned, and Mando was there, lying on his side facing you, wearing just his flight suit and helmet. His blaster was tucked under the pillow behind his head, and you couldn’t tell if he was awake or asleep. 

No covers were on him, since you had bundled yourself up into a little cocoon; you started to unwrap yourself, then draped the duvet over the lower half of Mando’s body, gently letting your hand run over the fabric of his suit over his waist as you pulled away. 

“You okay?” He’d asked into the quiet. 

You almost startled at his voice. “Yes,” you said. There were several feet between you—the bed is big—and every inch of you wanted to close that space, shuffle closer to him and put your arm around his waist. “Are you? Did I wake you?” 

He reached out his hand then, untucking it from his chest, and laid it on the mattress between you with his palm facing the ceiling. His bare palm, ready for you to take hold of. 

You did, of course. Rolled over onto your good shoulder, then softly threaded your fingers together, breathless at the feeling of his bare skin on yours. You could even feel the warmth of his wrist, his flight suit sleeve pushed up just a little, giving you access to his pulse point. You leaned in, craning your neck because you weren’t sure if he’d mind if you shuffled closer, and pressed a kiss there. Maybe he wouldn’t remember this in the morning; maybe that’d be for the best. 

“Go back to sleep, Mesh’la,” he’d said softly, almost a whisper. “I’m here.” 

And when you woke up, he was already out of bed, and you could hear the shower running in the bathroom. 

Now you’re both up, both showered and dressed, and the kid is waddling in from the living quarters where you’d plopped him in front of a HoloNet show for kids. He runs over to Mando, who scoops him up and holds him in the crook of his arm, both of them now looking out of the window.

You smile at the sight. Honestly, you could look at them for hours, the way they quietly communicate with each other, Mando pointing at things out there that Grogu might want to see. Your heart warms, that contented heat flooding your chest. 

Mando orders food for you for breakfast, and it’s delivered to the suite in ten minutes. Hot pastries and stewed fruits, and a huge pitcher of caf. There’s a round dining table in the suite’s living room where the two of you sit while you eat, Grogu opting to sit on the floor by the coffee table instead. 

You watch him, then look back to Mando, who always sits with you when you’re eating, even though he doesn’t eat at the same time. 

“Can I ask you something?” You ask into the comfortable quiet, tearing off a piece of pastry before putting it in your mouth. It’s flaky and sweet. 

“Always.” 

“How did the two of you meet?”

He doesn’t tense like you’d almost expected him to. Instead, he leans his arms on the table, tilts his helmet back to look at the kid. “He was a bounty.” 

“A bounty? The kid?” 

“Yeah. His powers were…unprecedented. Special to…” 

You raise an eyebrow. “To everyone, I guess? I can see why a kid who can heal poisoned wounds would be sought after…” 

“It wasn’t just everyone,” Mando says, then turns back to you. “It was…the Empire.” He lowers his voice, like he doesn't want the kid to hear him say it. 

You frown deeply, dread hitting your stomach. “The…the Empire.” 

“Yes. What was left of them. They wanted…” he turns around again. The kid isn’t listening, too busy munching on pieces of pastry. But Mando still stands up and flicks on the HoloNet. “Hey, kid, you wanna watch that show you like?” He asks, flicking through the channels until he finds Grogu’s favourite. Grogu coos happily and turns so he’s leaning against the coffee table leg and gazing up at the moving pictures in front of him. (While still eating his breakfast, of course. Nothing could distract him from his food.)

Mando comes back, but doesn’t sit opposite you at the table, instead coming to sit in the seat beside yours. You turn to him, crossing one leg over the other. 

“I just don’t want the kid to have to hear it all again,” Mando explains quietly. 

You glance to Grogu, who hasn’t even twitched an ear at hearing ‘the kid’, like he normally does. One of Mando’s gloved hands is on the table, the other fiddling in his lap, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together. 

He sighs heavily. “They wanted his blood. Thought that they could get the Force out of it, or something, and use it to rebuild the Empire.” 

“…The Force.” 

“Yeah. His powers are…he’s a Jedi,” he says, like he’s only just realised he’s never said those exact words to you. 

“Holy shit.” 

“Sorry, I…I thought you knew.” 

“I…had considered it. But you never told me outright, and I didn’t want to pry. Figured you didn’t talk about it to keep him safe.” 

Mando nods. His hand on the table moves towards you, but stops after a beat. “When I found him, I didn’t know who’d set the bounty. I took him to them, and that’s when I found out. I left him there, even though I knew he was a kid, and I knew who I’d left him with.” His voice is heavy with shame, and he hangs his head, not looking at you anymore. Like he can’t. 

“But you’re together now,” you say, soft, “so…” 

“I broke the Guild code. I went back for him, I killed every Imp in that place, and took him away. After that, we were wanted by every bounty hunter, Guild member, and Imp in the Galaxy.” 

Your eyebrows raise a little. You look at his hand, wondering if he’d want you to hold it, or if he just needs his space. The emotion in his voice is clear, even through the modulator. “You ever get caught?” You ask, unsure if you want to hear the answer. 

“Yes. I almost died with an injury to my head; I got Dune to take the kid away. I was ready to die to keep my helmet on.” 

A huge stab of both pain and fear strike through your chest. You knew the helmet meant a lot to him, knew that it was his Creed. But to prefer to die than let someone see his face…and for him to have kissed you yesterday…what has he been through that changed him so much?

“How’d you survive?” You ask, unsure you want to hear any more about how he almost died. The thought of him not being here is unbearable. 

“I was with a droid. Technically, him removing my helmet still meant no living thing had seen my face. That was the first time I bent the rules.” 

Your heart leaps. With what, you’re not sure. 

“We’ve been through a lot. They took the kid from me, once. I thought I’d never see him again.” He’s still not looking at you, just gazing at the floor between you, fingers still fidgeting. You’ve never seen him like this; never seen him not willing to look at you or the person he’s talking to. His voice is heavy, and you can almost see the weight on his shoulders, pulling him down to the ground more than any of that armour ever has. 

They took the kid.

You can’t help it. You reach out, grasp his hand on the table. A part of you expects him to pull away, to tense up at your touch. But he doesn’t. He turns his hand over so he can hold yours in return. 

“You got him back,” you whisper. 

“I did. But I lost him again soon after.”

“What—what happened?” 

He sighs again. Pauses, letting tense quiet linger on, only the sound of Grogu’s show filling the room. “My quest was to take him to his own people. After a long time of searching we found Jedi, and one of them came to take him to be trained, to teach him how to use his powers.” 

Your heart lurches. “You let him go?” 

“Yes.” His voice shakes.

“Oh, Mando,” you squeeze his hand, wanting to reach out and hold the back of his neck. “That must have been so hard. I don’t think I could have done the same thing if I were you. I mean, look at him.” You jerk your head in the direction of the kid, then do exactly that: look at him, feeling tears well in your eyes at the possibility of him ever being separated from Mando. And, surprisingly, at the possibility of him being separated from you. 

That’s a lot, but you don’t let yourself dwell on that thought right now. It’s not the time. 

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” Mando says, and it’s so genuine, so soft and quiet, that it sounds like a confession. His voice shakes, his breathing trembling through his helmet. “That was when I took my helmet off for him. He wanted to see my face before we parted ways.” 

“Oh,” you breathe. “That was the second time you…?” 

“No,” he admits, quiet. “There was another time. It was…for him, when I was trying to save him. I was hacking a data portal to find where they were holding him, and it had to scan my face. Then I got near-interrogated by some Imps with it off, and…the guy I was with saw my face, too.” 

You nod. You want to ask him more about that, about what he said last night: that things are changing. That he isn’t believing the things he used to believe. That he is starting to think he could take his helmet off in front of you. 

You want to ask so badly, but you bite your tongue. He’ll tell you when he’s ready. He already promised you that. And he sounds so ashamed by this, like he can’t shake the weight of it.

“So how’d you find your way back to each other?” You ask, giving his hand a squeeze as you look across to the kid again, smiling softly. 

Mando’s shoulder’s shake once, a huff of laughter coming through his modulator. He shakes his head, almost in disbelief. “He found his way to me. I’m still not sure what went down, but all I know is he had the choice between his Jedi training and me. And…” 

A smile creeps on to your lips. “He chose you,” you say, a breath. 

He nods. You wonder what expression graces his face. By the shakiness of his breath, he might even be a little teary. 

You slide your hand up his arm, your fingers lifting to trace the cool beskar on his forearm, dipping again into the flight suit at his elbow. Then back down again. “That’s amazing,” you say, because you can’t think of any other way to put it.

“I was on Tatooine. The Jedi’s droid flew him back, and my friend brought the kid to me. Bad timing, I was in a pretty big fight, then I look down and Grogu’s just there in the middle of it all. All he wanted was a hug.” 

“I think that might be the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.” 

He lifts his hand a little, catches yours again and threads your fingers together. 

“So it’s been you and him since then?” 

Smoothing his gloved thumb over your knuckles, he nods. “I just want to give him the life he deserves. I don’t want to run anymore.” 

You nod, understanding that more than anyone. 

Quiet settles for a minute, and you look back over to Grogu, who’s staring up at his show with great interest, his breakfast plate now empty. There are crumbs on the floor around him and all down the front of his little robe. 

Mando’s eyes stay on you. You can see him staring in your peripheral, but mostly, you can feel his gaze. Even through the helmet, it’s hot, intoxicating. 

“Thank you,” he says, surprising you.

You look at him with a curious frown. “For what?” 

He shuffles his chair closer, squeezes your hand. “Despite my Creed’s emphasis on companionship and loyalty, I’ve never really opened up to anyone before.” 

If your shoulder wasn’t hurting, you’d lift your other hand up to stroke it down the cheek of his helmet. Your heart blooms with warmth, lurches with yearning. 

“It’s always been safer to stay…hidden, I guess,” he says, and you understand that—kriff, do you understand that—so you nod, squeeze his hand, wanting more than anything to just touch him and tell him how much this moment of vulnerability means to you. “So, thank you.” 

“I didn’t do anything.” 

“You make me feel safe. Seen,” slowly, he lets go of your hand, instead tracing the tips of his fingers up your bare arm, all the way to the crook of your elbow. You barely hold back a shiver at his touch. “Even through the armour, I feel seen when you look at me.” 

You swallow down a heavy lump of emotion, staring at him with wide eyes that sting like they want to release tears. You don’t let them, instead just nodding softly, wishing he’d tell you to close your eyes, take his helmet off, and kiss you. “You make me feel seen, too. And that used to terrify me.” 

He cradles the underside of your elbow, his thumb brushing over your bicep. “It doesn’t anymore?” 

“Oh, no, it does. But…less so, with you.” 

He nods like he understands. He probably does. Then he lifts his hand again, instead bringing it to your face, gently pressing against your lip with the pad of his thumb. You purse your lips, kiss his glove. You imagine he’s smiling under there. The feeling of his smile beneath your hands is still there if you think of it hard enough. 

“Mesh’la,” he breathes, so quietly it’s like he’s saying it to himself; or like he didn’t mean to say it aloud at all.

You tense under the compliment, wishing you wouldn’t. Wishing you could just take it, could believe him, could think anything other than If you saw the rest of me, you wouldn’t think so. “Why do you call me that?” 

“Because you are,” he says, then as if he thinks you’ve forgotten what it means, “beautiful.” 

“You’ve not seen all of me.” 

He leans in closer. “I won’t change my mind.” 

Nervous, you swallow. Phantom pain twinges over your scars. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” 

“Cyar’ika…” his voice is concerned, like maybe he’s frowning, but he’s cut off from saying anything else when the HoloNet show suddenly shuts off and the kid starts walking over to you again. As you both turn to look at him, you smile, grateful for the distraction. 

“Hey, kiddo,” you say, discreetly wiping at your watery eyes before reaching down to pick him up. Mando stays quiet, watching you. “What’s up? How’d you sleep in that fancy bed?” 

-

“Do you draw attention like this everywhere you go?” 

“Always.” 

“Don’t get me wrong, I like to look at you, too, but I don’t think it’s for the same reasons as them.” 

He tilts his head towards you, and you hear the smirk in his voice. “And what are your reasons?” 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” 

“I would.” 

“Not out here on the street, Mando. I have some decency.”

He chuckles softly. You turn to glance at him as if you’d be able to see his smile in the bright sunlight shining down on him. Instead, all you see is the light glinting from his armour. It’s beautiful. He’s beautiful. 

As much as you’ve been enjoying your time here, you must admit that it’s a relief to see the ship come into view at the docks. The streets are so busy, people are constantly pressed up against each other, and you’re looking forward to being out in open space again, just the three of you, not a chance of someone picking your pockets or brushing too close against you in an alleyway. 

It should maybe be concerning, how quickly this ship has started to feel like home. As soon as you step inside, something inside you settles, like you’d been missing it the whole time. Or maybe it’s the sight of Mando, taking his rifle off his back and putting it in its rack, the kid rushing to the bed chamber to climb up into his hammock, like he’s glad to have it back. Mando brushing his hand over the small of your back as he passes you and locks the door, then the sight of his cape swinging a little as he heads over to the ladder. 

“I need to use the 'fresher. Where to next?” You ask. 

“Wherever you want to go.” 

You’re about to tell him that the Galaxy is your oyster, that you’ll be happy going anywhere, so long as the three of you are together. But as you reach the 'fresher door, fully intent on following him up into the cockpit once you're done, you feel something in the pocket of your jacket. Frowning, you reach in there, finding a thick piece of folded paper, ripped at the edges, with writing on it in ink that’s bleeding on the edges. 

I KNOW WHO YOU ARE. CORRELIA STREET DINER BACK ALLEY 24 HOURS OR I TAKE THE CHILD FOR THE BOUNTY, AND THE MANDALORIAN FOR THE FUN TELL NO ONE. COME ALONE. I'M TAKING YOU HOME. - A FAMILY FRIEND

Your heart drops into your stomach. 

Shit. 

Shit, shit, shit. 

You knew that if someone was going to make you anywhere, it was going to be on Coruscant. You knew that it was a risk, coming out of your safe place. You knew that you were always going to be in some kind of danger, knew that they’d always be looking for you, that “family friends” would take you back to them to gain favour—

You also knew that someone could pick your fucking pocket in those streets without you noticing—you just never thought that they’d put something in there instead of taking something out. 

Despite the risks, when you left your safety, the quiet life you’d built for yourself where no one would ever find you, you didn’t anticipate anyone becoming collateral. You didn’t ever think that you’d have someone you cared about, two people you cared about, who someone could use, hold over you as leverage. 

Your mind races. Anxiety stabs your stomach, twisting like a knife, nausea rolling over your body.

Someone saw you. Someone knows who you’re with, knows what ship you’re in. They know about the kid. They’re going to make you choose between your life, or theirs. 

You can’t breathe. 

The kid makes a concerned noise behind you. He’s probably sensed that something’s wrong. Turning to look at him, you find him gazing up at you with a tilted head, asking you if you’re alright, asking what’s wrong. 

Your eyes, filled to the brim with tears, stare at him in disbelief. 

You can’t let anything happen to him. 

You can’t hide from him. You can’t hide from Mando. They’re going to know—they’re going to—you’re going to—

Unable to do anything now that you’re in the sky again, flying away from Coruscant’s atmosphere, you rush into the refresher on shaking legs as tears spill over your cheeks. You shut and lock the door before the kid can follow you, only just spotting his concerned little face come into view before the door slides shut. 

Shit. 

You can’t breathe. 

Every laboured, too-deep breath stings.

Shit, shit, shit. 

Your first instinct is to tell Mando. He’ll know what to do. He’ll keep you safe. He’s been on the run from the Empire, for kriff’s sake; he knows how to outrun someone.

But then you realise: if you run, after twenty four hours, this person will tell your family where you are. Who you’re with. How to find you. You’ll never be able to hide from them again and, most importantly, neither will Mando.

There’s no doubt in your mind that he can handle it, that he can shake off any tail he might pick up, that he can fight off your family if they ever do come for you. They’re not an army, after all, and even though you’ve never doubted that they’d hire one to get to you if they knew where you were, you also know that Mando has fought worse.

But he’s only just stopped running. He’s finally, finally managed to find the kid at least some semblance of peace. Yes, there are still stragglers after him. And, yes, the Galaxy is a dangerous place, especially for a little Jedi kid and a Mandalorian. 

But they’re free. They have a life to build. 

A life that crashed into yours, and yet you still managed to be the one who invaded it.

You can’t let them go back to that. 

I just want to give him a life he deserves, Mando’s words echo in your head. From just this morning. Just this morning, before it all went to shit, when you felt peace in your chest and hope for the future. 

Now, that’s all gone. 

All that’s left is dread. Cold, all-consuming dread, seeping into your very core, running thick and hopeless through your veins. 

You hear the little claws of Grogu’s hand tapping against the door. 

Dank fucking farrik. 

You can’t drag them back into a life of running. Of fighting. You’re just one person. You’re not worth all that.

You never thought you’d find a price that you weren’t willing to pay for your freedom. 

Turns out, you have. 

-

Mando agrees to go to Correlia as soon as you suggest it. “That’s not far,” he says approvingly, setting the coordinates. “Anything in particular you wanted to see?” 

You swallow down your nerves, clamping your shaking hands together on your lap. “Just heard a lot about it, is all. I think it’s one of those planets you have to see, if you’re travelling.” The only thing making you such a good liar and keeping your voice from trembling is the kid sitting in Mando’s lap, gazing out at the stars in wonder. 

“I think you’ll like it.” 

“Is it as busy as Coruscant?” 

“In a different way, but yes.” 

You nod, unable to find any other words. You just stare at the back of his head, feeling your chest tight and heavy. This is the last time you’re going to see this. Mando sitting in front of you, setting coordinates, leisurely flicking switches as the kid watches in earnest. It’s become something that you take for granted. Something so simple, so mundane. And yet, sitting here watching it for the final time before you’re dragged back to the hell of your past, it feels like the most important thing you’ve ever witnessed. 

You don’t even notice that you’ve jumped to hyperspace. 

After a while, Mando turns to you, swivelling his whole chair. “Are you alright?” He asks. 

His concern hurts your chest. Your eyes snap to him, stinging so badly with tears that the pain itself almost makes you want to cry. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

“I thought you slept well,” he says. 

“I did.” 

“Was it because I was there, too? If you weren’t okay with that…” 

“No,” you’re quick to say, because, kriff, this is bad enough, you can’t have him thinking that you’re not happy he slept beside you holding your hand—“No, it’s not that. I promise, I did sleep well. I’m just…still tired.” 

He studies you for a moment. His helmet is tilted, concerned. Those gloved hands are splayed on the beskar over his thighs. Normally, your brain would flood with sinful thoughts, imagining yourself running your hands over him, sitting in his lap, feeling his heat between your legs. But now, all you feel is sadness. “Are you sick?” He asks it like he’s sure the answer is no, but he knows that there’s something wrong, so he’s just guessing. 

“I’m fine,” you tell him. “I’m just going to go to the ’fresher. Be right back.” You brush your hand over his shoulder before you leave the cockpit, and feel his eyes on you until you’re out of sight. 

You do go to the fresher, but only to splash your face with water. It helps. Calms the flush in your cheeks, washes away the tears that haven’t quite started to fall but still sting on your eyelids. 

For a while, you just hover over the sink, hunched over it with your hands on either side of it. You stare at the faucet, watching it drip. This is your home. This has become your home, more than the place you grew up ever could be, more than your hut was, despite your best efforts. 

But it can’t be that anymore. 

Your heart is breaking. You can feel it in your chest, cracking away, the shards settling into your lungs, suffocating you. 

But the very thing that’s making you so upset, the two people who have made you feel like a person, are also the reason you know you have to do this. You have to do this for them. Maybe one day, once you’re back in that hell and married to someone you don’t love, following some shitty religion that you never believed in, being punished for every tiny mistake—maybe you’ll escape again. Maybe you’ll get another chance. Maybe you’ll find Mando one day in the future, the kid will be all grown up, and you’ll get a chance to say you’re sorry. 

Until then, this is how it has to be.

Everything has flipped on its head in such a short time. 

You take a deep breath. Close your eyes, centre yourself. 

Then, when you open the refresher door, you jump out of your skin when you see Mando standing there at the bottom of the ladder, facing you. 

In his gloved hand, there’s a piece of paper.

The piece of paper.

He holds it out in the large space between you. “What is this?”

notes: I KNOW I KNOW i'm sorry for the cliffhanger, i had literally nowhere else to stop this chapter tho otherwise it would've been WORSE.

thank you for reading as always!

requests are open, more info here ❤️

taglist: @toobsessedsstuff @granillx @keepingitlokiii @shoe1412 @kiruoris @quentinor @yourunstablegf @moonknight-s-cumdump @senassn @samanthacookieone @local-fanfic-addict @your-slutty-gf @brilliantopposite187 @whenpugzfly @elsasshole @moony-toasts @julesjewelss36 @jbcalway @mxlsmith @indec1sive @lordhavemurthy @booktvmoviefangirl @brokenghostgirl1 @competitivedust @lostinsideourminds 

[whereserpentswalk]

You've died and gone to the afterlife. Nobody knows if it's hell or heaven, though some people are very insistent that it's one or the other or neither. There's probably another afterlife, only about forty percent of souls end up where you are.

It's not so bad. You have a new human body down here, or it's sort of human, it's this slender sexless thing, agelessly trapped as a young adult forever. It doesn't look like you, people's afterlife bodies all have diffrent faces just like their earth bodies, but they aren't the faces they had on earth. It's weird, you don't look like you, don't feel like you, you're not sure who you are down here away from everything. You had just reached your thirties in your old body, and somehow you moss the marks of age this body will never have. You somehow miss the ability to gain weight, the scars you used to have, that you'd have to mutilate yourself to have again. It's strange to call yourself a millennial in an ageless body, strange to wear a dress over a flat chest, strange to wonder what you even count as now in so many categories.

It's strange how this world mirrors the last. People still have to use currency, still have to go to work, and still have to eat and drink and sleep. Nobody really runs this place outside of the governments the humans here have set up, so that's the best you can do. Wealth doesn't transfer over but skills and prestige do. You sang for a living on earth so you ended up doing the same here. You're able to afford an apartment in one of the big cities, it's safer there than out in the plains with their strange unearthlike grass, or the deserts of white sand, or marshlands of pale liquid. At least the cities have actual societies, outside of them there are bandits and warlords, and nobody knows what happens when you die in the afterlife.

But then there are those strangely alien parts of this world. The entities here, some feral like animals or plants, that are your only food source. But others are as smart as humans, yet far stranger and alien in their appearance and behavior, some think they're angels or demons, or something else. Sometimes you'll see one and it'll be scary, or it'll be so alien to interact with them. But other times they seem just like another type of person here. You also realize it's always night here, sometimes it feels like it's almost morning or like the sun just set, but it's always dark, and always a bit cold. There aren't even things in the sky, no moon, and no stars.

You know why the people who think it's heaven think it's heaven. There are neighborhoods nicer than yourse, and this world isn't free of soldiers or politicians or businesses owners no more than it's free of laborers or starving artists. Its especially weird how it works with time, the current president of your city used to be a king of Sparta, you're pretty sure your boss was born before agriculture was invented. People don't even know what the right religion is, even though the dead are supposed to find that out. All of the faiths have to work differently here of course, but they still work. There's a college a few blocks downtown from you where the original Buddha is one of the professors of philosophy, you wonder sometimes what someone like that can think of this place.

What's weirdest is just that life goes on. There are people who died as children who basically had their entire lives here. And people who have just done more things here than they ever did on earth. There are writers here still publishing new work, like Dante and Mary Shelly, there are people here who regret their pasts, people here whose regret doesn't matter, people here whose past doesn't matter.

Your new roommate took here own life about ten years before you were born, even though you died when you were older than she ever got to be on earth. You're considered to be part of the same community just for having died within a hundred years of eachother. You always expected people to kill themselves to be punished wherever they go, but she's not, you think she's trying to appreciate her life down here, it's all she'll ever have. And people are always so nice to her when they find out how she died. You're not sure what that means for you, you died in a pretty boring way. But it doesn't feel over though yet, you don't want to resign yourself to only knowing your past.

You sometimes think this is purgatory. Perhaps the people who didn't go here don't have an afterlife at all. If there is a hell, you can at least appreciate that you aren't there. But if there is a heaven, like the heavens they talk about, where all everyone does is sing, and look back down at earth, and remember who they were, than perhaps it is a worse place to be than where you are now.

[fairuzfan]

Can you help me break down my family's arguments? It's just that they're on Israel's side

And they say that Palestine deserves what is happening

Their arguments are:

"But Hamas started, taking people hostage, raping women and killing children. Israel is just fighting back. If someone did the same to you I would kill their family."

"But the hospitals on Palestine are Hamas' bases"

"But cutting off energy and telecommunications in Palestine is just to prevent Hamas from communicating"

"But Gaza is a place promised by God to the Israelites, Israel is taking what is rightfully theirs"

"But Hamas was trying to make an exchange between the lives of the hostages and Gaza with Israel and Israel did not accept it because Gaza is theirs, and Hamas should have released the hostages instead of exchanging their lives"

Hello, thanks for asking. I'm going to generalize these arguments a little more just to make it more widely applicable.

"Well Israel is just taking revenge/defending itself"

Well a couple things. Taking revenge is not an actual reason for people to attack other people. Just naturally, it's not a good ideology we should ever live by.

About claims that it's defending itself: Israel is a military powerhouse dropping TONS of bombs, I mean literal TONS. To say that anyone is defending someone with that level of ammunition and pure destruction, is just cruel. No one should experience that even in an equal footing type of war. Shouldn't we strive to protect people? Isn't it right to help others?

Now for your specific case, if they're arguing that they would "kill their family" as revenge, I'm not gonna lie, I think you're going to have to delve into that with them and dismantle that idea by emphasizing revenge is never justified.

You should center the humanity of Palestinians and emphasize that they should never experience such horror in their life.

"The hospitals are Hamas bases"

There is absolutely no evidence provided of this other than Israeli propaganda. I'd show them this video, which is a testimony from a European doctor.

There's also this pamphlet they released saying that they "know that Hamas is safe" and still willingly bombs the people of gaza anyways.

You should center the humanity of Palestinians and emphasize that they should never experience such horror in their life.

"Gaza is promised by God to the Israelites"

Why is it necessary to enforce one's religious beliefs on someone else? Why must the Palestinians experience violence in order for Israel to exist? Besides, if it was "promised" to them, does that mean God is allowing them to kill people indiscriminately? Does God, the most loving Being in the Universe, ever condone such acts of horrific violence on people? I speak as a Muslim that grew up being taught that Judiasm, Christianity, and Islam are quite similar religions, so I doubt that any of these religions would condone such large scale violence.

I'm not an expert of actual religious scripture of different faiths, so I can't provide quotes or anything like that, but I'd argue that God's main purpose in our lives is to remind us to love each other.

You should center the humanity of Palestinians and emphasize that they should never experience such horror in their life.

"Hostages—"

I'm not sure what the argument in your specific case is, but I think any argument having to do with hostages does not make any logical sense. Wouldn't Israel want to protect the hostages? Isn't bombing indiscriminately dangerous for everyone, but especially the Hostages?

But even hostages aside, Palestinians shouldn't have to suffer en masse! They've been sectioned off into the largest open-air prison for 20 years! It's just plain cruel to blame them for the genocide they face when they've been victims for 75+ years!

I'd recommend introducing them to this resource that explains the history of Palestinians from around 1948 to now:

There is also this that has scholarly research for and by Palestinians:

Let me know if any of this is useful. Good luck, and thank you for sending this in.

[forgottenrian]

OOC | Rían & Aria

cousin!!!!! awkward meeting this way...jk jk but only bc they met years ago at the ~queensmoot~ where it was even MORE awkward to meet bc he was a ~25 year old getting his ass handed to him by his ~16 year old lil cousin, and getting all his life's hopes crushed under her lil heel in the process alskdjflkdsfj ;DDDDD

no, but this is all v complicated!!!!! i feel like rian is, in theory, an astairan EXPERT!!!!! he's studied every single detail of their culture, history, beliefs his entire life!!!!!! he lives and breathes this stuff!!!! but he's also never, EVER lived here until now and while he may be able to recite every astairan verse ever written, he says it with a varmont accent, and when he dances astairan dances, he does it with the structure and rigidity of instilled by a varmont dancing master, like...he really is in the weirdest position! he's like a scholar of an ancient religion -- you can ask him anything and he knows all the theory!!!!!!!! but he's never experienced any of it and, as a result, he gets a loT of it wrong -- lotsa book smarts, zero street smarts!

anyway, as a result, rian truly believes he'd be great for astaira and that he knows her backwards and forwards but!!! the truth is quite different!!!! and he doesn't really belong here, he doesn't belong in varmont, he doesn't belong ~anyway and he's only just finding that out

anyway, his feelings about the stafford girls are VERY complex!!!!!! on one hand, he was brought up w the ideals of chivalry and such and like!!!!! this is not how you treat ppl!!!!!! and also its a family embarrassment that his kin were declared bastards and he doesn't like that!!!!!! but he also resents them (esp eilia!!!!) for the whole ~queenship thing! he truly believes that he was astaira's best bet and look what happened!!!!!! ~he never would've lost astaira (but then again eilia never would've fed vital info to roderick!!!!!!)

but alsooooooo he threw in w roderick bc he believed what roderick was saying about strength and stability (and bc he wanted revenge shhhh) but then roderick started quite literally burning ppl!!!! and without trials too!!!!!! and so rian's just sat here quite literally going 'my god what have i done' but he sees no way to fix it save to just...keep going and alkjsdkljf SCREAM

[grailfinders]

Grailfinders Viewers' Choice #25: Suzuka Gozen (Santa)

today on Grailfinders we’re finally striking back against arcade by building one of their unique servants! sure they finished their story and stopped releasing new servants almost a year ago, but it’s better late than never!

today we’re building Suzuka Gozen Santa, who is to date the only evil santa servant, afaik. she’s a Peace Cleric to inspire love in those around her, as well as a Divine Soul Sorcerer to get her demon fox magicks. there’s precious little arcade info available outside of official trailers and machine translations, so forgive us if we speculate.

check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here!

Ancestry & Background

once again, since we’re building an existing servant in a new outfit, her race and background are pretty much unchanged from the original. mostly because WotC still hasn’t returned our calls about adding a fox race to D&D, but I digress. Suzuka’s a Swiftstride Shifter, giving her Darkvision and free proficiency in the Acrobatics skill. she can also fox it up with some Shifting, giving her faux ears for up to a minute as a bonus action. while be-eared, she gains temporary HP equal to her level + her constitution modifier, and gains an extra 10’ of movement speed. on top of that, you can react to someone moving within melee range to run away from them without provoking opportunity attacks. she also gets +2 Dexterity and +1 Charisma.

as Santa Suzuka’s probably more of an acolyte than before, but it still gives her proficiency in Insight and Performance.

Ability Scores

her stats, on the other hand, have changed rather dramatically. this time her Charisma is as high as possible, with her Wisdom in a close second. everyone loves Santa, and you probably have four ears so you’re great at hearing things. spears are still Strength weapons, so that has to be decent, and I’m not going to be cruel enough to give you a +0 in Constitution, so those are third and fourth, respectively. that means your Dexterity isn’t great, but we’re dumping Intelligence. I don’t think Suzuka’s actually that dumb, but I do think she’d act that dumb to play the part of a high school girl better.

Class Levels

1. Cleric 1: if we want to be a lancer, we need to start as a cleric. that means we get proficiency in Wisdom and Charisma saves, as well as Religion and History. Saint Nick’s old as balls, and since you’re a Santa Cleric, I guess that means Santa’s a god now. not the weirdest basis for a religion I’ve ever seen. as a Peace Cleric, you are an Implement of Peace, giving you proficiency in Persuasion. Santas publicly admit that they watch children while they sleep and nobody’s creeped out by that, that’s some god-tier persuasion right there.

you can also give your party an Emboldening Bond as an action Proficiency times a day, choosing up to Proficiency number of creatures to bond with for up to ten minutes. as long as any two of those creatures are within 30’ of each other, they can add 1d4 per turn to an attack, check, or save. kind of like guidance, but through the power of love.

you also learn some Spells, which you prep and cast using Wisdom. since you can change spells to match the occasion, the exact ones you pick each day don’t matter, but I’ll give you some highlights. that being said, Clerics have one of the strongest spell lists in the game, so you’re definitely spoiled for choice.

that being said your cantrips are pretty stuck on, so let’s go over them, Light lets you make your spear all shiny, and since it doesn’t specify the light has to be a static color you can totally make your spear say something if you spin it around fast enough. Thaumaturgy will help your ho-ho-hos carry through the night, and Resistance will help you not die. nobody likes dying, so don’t do it, lest whatever killed you becomes the new Santa.

as a peace Cleric you’ll always have Heroism and Sanctuary prepped- the former gives a teammate extra HP and immunity to fear, while the latter gives a creature protection from attack for up to a minute, or until they attack first. honestly, who would punch santa? anyone who succeeds on their wisdom saves. you also get spells like Ceremony, which isn’t in character but it does mean you can marry people, which feels like a natural endpoint for the “make everyone fall in love” character. you can also Cure Wounds now. think of it as a little christmas gift to whoever has the lowest HP.

2. Cleric 2: second level Clerics can Channel Divinity as an action, either Turning Undead and making them run away, or delivering a Balm of Peace to your allies. with this, you can move up to your speed without getting attacked, giving every friend you pass a little pick-me-up as you go. and that’s how you deliver presents to everyone in the party in a single turn.

3. Cleric 3: third level Clerics get second level spells, like Aid and Warding Bond. aid makes extra HP for everyone, and warding bond lets you take hits for someone else. but you barely have positive constitution, so. don’t. you can also Calm Emotions now, which sounds like the opposite of what we’re trying to do, but it’s hard to let love into your heart when anger’s in there too, y’know? you could also Enhance Ability to make someone more charismatic, or make a Prayer of Healing for a group heal when you have the downtime.

4. cleric 4: at fourth level you become a dual wielder thanks to ur first ability score improvement! this one doesn’t improve your ability scores which makes the name kind of pointless but it does let you carry two spears at once! while doin that u get a +1 bonus to ac which you rlly need and you can draw both spears at the same time!

this is actually a pretty bad feat but we need it for lore reasons!

5. cleric 5: fifth level clerics get to Destroy Undead instead of turning it, instantly killing any undead monster of CR ½ or lower whomst fails their wisdom save. they also get third level spells or whatever.

Sending lets you direct tweet anyone 25 words or less and they can send a message back, though if you try to target someone on another plane, there’s a 5% chance the spell fails. Beacon of Hope gives as many creatures as you wish within 30’ of you advantage on wisdom and death saves, as well as maxed-out healing.

as for your chosen spells, Bestow Curse and Remove Curse are kind of like single-person versions of your NP, weakening obstacles to love, or freeing someone to find love, respectively. if you just want an AoE attack, get Spirit Guardians.

6. Cleric 6: at sixth level Clerics can channel divinity twice as often, and your bond is now a Protective Bond, so if any bonded creature takes damage while another one is nearby, the latter can teleport next to the former and take the damage for them. given that you currently have less than 30 HP and an AC of 11, you’ll probably get a lot of use out of this.

7. Cleric 7: seventh level Clerics get fourth level spells! you get Aura of Purity and Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere for free, and to be honest there’s not much else we need for the build here so let’s just enjoy the mercifully short level for a change.

8. Sorcerer 1: okay enough of that time to pile it back on. as a Divine Soul sorcerer, you’re Favored by the Gods, letting you add 2d4 to any failed save or attack roll once a short rest.  foxes are just cooler, it’s a fact.

you also get Divine Magic, which is like normal sorcerer magic, (cast with charisma, mixes with cleric magic so check the phb to see how many spell slots you have, spells only change on level-up,) but you can also pick from Cleric spells too! you could already pick from Cleric spells by being a Cleric, and with more freedom due to the preparation system, but it’s there.

in more useful news, you get Inflict Wounds for free, so now you can deal a lot of damage in a short amount of time. you also get another cavalcade of cantrips, like Friends to make friends, Mending to keep your unrealistic battle outfit in one piece, Message for more texting, and Sword Burst to spin around and poke stuff.

on top of that, you get first level spells like Charm Person to again make friends, and Fog Cloud to set the scene. I imagine reflavoring the fog to be a bunch of falling snow wouldn’t be too big a stretch.

9. Sorcerer 2: second level sorcerers are a Font of Magic, letting you turn spell slots into sorcery points and vice-versa. right now, this just means you have an extra 1st level spell slot every day you remember it exists.

you can use that spell slot to cast Mage Armor, so your AC is no longer terrible! now it’s just kind of bad!

10. Sorcerer 3: third level sorcerers can spend their sorcery points on Metamagic! it’s magic, but meeeetaa! you can make a spell Heightened to force whatever you’re hitting to have disadvantage on the save or Subtle so nobody can notice you cast the spell.

you can also turn one of your spears into a Magic Weapon, dealing +1 damage and gaining a +1 on all attack rolls. ideally your legendary spears would be given by the DM at some point, but if you need a magic spear, now its here.

11. Sorcerer 4: fourth level sorcerers get another ASI, and with Piercer your Strength can finally get evened out while also making all your spears better! now you can reroll one piercing attack’s damage die once per turn to avoid 1’s, and your critical piercing hits get an extra die of damage slapped on! I wouldn’t call suzuka a melee powerhouse, but she’s got more mightocondria now.

you can also cast Blade Ward now to not die on impact with an actual fighter, and Snilloc’s Snowball Swarm. Suzuka probably can’t summon snowballs at will, but it feels Santa-ish and nobody can say otherwise.

12. Sorcerer 5: fifth level sorcerers can spend their SP on Magical Guidance, letting you re-roll a failed check.  you also get magical magic like Slow, our real NP for the build. I’m sure the part in Suzuka’s bio that talks about hindering obstacles to love isn’t quite so literal, but for a third level spell it can seriously mess people up- up to six creatures can be affected, and if they fail their wisdom save they’ll have half speed, -2 AC and dex saves, can’t use reactions, and have to choose between their action or bonus action. on top of that, spells have a 50/50 chance to take two turns to cast. the big downside is they keep making wisdom saves every turn, but particularly unwise individuals can get slowed down for up to a minute.

13. Sorcerer 6: sixth level holy soulies have Empowered Healing- whenever you or someone next to you casts a healing spell, you can spend 1 SP to re-roll any number of dice you wish. dying is a pretty big obstacle to love. so are fireballs, now that I think of it, so grab Protection from Energy as well.

14. Sorcerer 7: our last level of sorcerer is just to pick up the fourth level spell Dimension Door. you gotta be able to take all your selfies at the best angle, after all.

15. Cleric 8: now that we’re back in our original class, you get a long-awaited ASI to spend on Wisdom. plus, you get a stronger Destroy Undead that kills anything CR 1 or lower, and Blessed Strikes! once per turn, you can add an extra die of radiant damage to any damaging cantrip you cast or attack you make. turns out jamming a glo-stick into someone’s ribs hurts!

16. Cleric 9: ninth level Clerics get fifth level spells, and again there’s not really much to talk about- though that’s because the one I really wanted you get for free. Greater Restoration can cure an ally of tons of different kinds of impairments to love, like exhaustion, petrification, or paradoxically enough, charming. true love doesn’t come from the magic of magic, it comes from the magic of christmas! you also get Rary’s Telepathic Bond if you want to put everyone on your cell plan.

17. Cleric 10: tenth level Clerics get one of the most powerful features in the game when it works, Divine Intervention. basically, once a day (with a week’s cooldown upon working) you have a 1/10 chance of calling up your dad and having him solve whatever problem you’re dealing with. given that he’s a demon king, that might end badly.

or you can use your last cantrip Guidance for a 1d4 bonus to an ability check for a bit after you cast it. if guidance could help I’d hold off on summoning a god.

18. Cleric 11: Destroy Undead hits CR 2 creatures now, and you get 6th level spells like Heroes’ Feast, one of the better party-wide buffs you can use. you spend a short rest chowing down with friends to cure all diseases and poisons, gain immunity to the poisoned and frightened conditions, gain advantage on all wisdom saves, and their HP maximum goes up for 24 hours. (also you could argue that combining this with Beacon of Hope’s healing feature you can max out the HP buff for a couple people, but that’s pretty close to rules lawyering)

19. Cleric 12: we get one last ASI, so bump up that Wisdom once more for stronger spells and harder to make saves.

20. Cleric 13: our final level of the build gives us access to Suzuka’s reality marble, letting her make a Temple of the Gods, or in Santa terms, a shopping mall. this spell takes an hour to cast, but lets you set up a 120 square foot complex of your choosing, and your temple can block out certain types of creatures, forcing them out if they fail a charisma save and reducing all their rolls while inside. it also blocks divination, and improves your healing to boot!

Pros & Cons

Pros:

this santa does a little bit of everything, with offensive spells for damage, weapon skills to fall back on if magic fails, healing, buffing, debuffing, and even social spells, you’ll never be a fish out of water. because you’re a fox, and a fox out of water is pretty standard all things considered.

while a lot of buffers tend to focus on making one character powerful, you have access to a suite of party-wide buffs to make everyone a bit better! love doesn’t play favorites, after all! (also you never know who the necromancer’s going to try and charm, even if it probably will be the barbarian again)

thanks to being a swiftstride shifter, you move a lil faster than most casters, and that means it’s easier for you to stay out of danger. you’ve also got access to plenty of ways to escape from melee range without provoking attacks, which can really come in handy when you resort to throwing spears around.

Cons:

you need all that speed, because if you do get caught unawares you’re going to go down easily. you have barely over 100 HP at level 20, and your AC is atrocious right up until you get mage armor at level 9. don’t get killed, we can’t take another santa clause reboot.

we didn’t have enough ASIs to max out your casting features, so your heightened spells are a godsend. unfortunately, you don’t have a lot of sorcerer points, so you can’t actually use them too much without burning spell slots.

on a related note, this build lacks focus. that’s not inherently a bad thing, but it means you’ll have to get creative to stand on par with more specialized builds.

[beigetiger]

Thinking about the Darquesse prophecy and how it was kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy

She didn’t really begin her existence as violent, just…a curious baby god figuring out what she could do.

But she had been told throughout pretty much the entirety of her existence that she was going to end up destroying the world, even if she didn’t know why she would want to do that (hence her conversation with Argeddion in KotW).

And she eventually started to see people less as people and more as energy, and decided that turning everyone back into “pure energy” was what she should do, likely directly because of the prophecy. Because really, she was a tad obsessed with that prophecy. Girl told Skulduggery she was going to kill him because of the prophecy multiple times and in DotL, when the prophecy was actually coming true, she kept on checking what was going in accordance with the visions and seemed kind of upset when it wasn’t. It had defined so much of her existence and she didn’t want that idea or her to be wasted.

And then she got to go to the Faceless Dimension and ended up getting some more life experience before being brought back by Sebastian, with the weirdest plot line ever about learning to love being human ever.

And she did learn to love humanity and people as being more than just energy, so much so that she decided to learn about every single thing in the entirety of the universe so that she could perfectly recreate it when Obsidian decided to end it.

There’s an entire religion dedicated to her love of everything, and the only reason that she actually learned how to love people was because she was taught how, just like how she was taught that she was going to destroy the world one day and that she was a terrible violent sociopath.

Darquesse was never fully evil, she just accepted what she’d been told her fate was and that fate was that of an evil god. All it took was someone showing her legitimate love instead of fear and hatred for her to learn to care about the world beyond just magic-energy.

Maybe one day I’ll make a post about all the versions of Valkyrie and how their arcs intertwine, because arghhh I’m thinking about them.

[deathdetermineslife]

1 for the f/ovember

what's the weirdest petname s/i has ever called you? what's the weirdest petname you've ever called them?

Kehehe... he has a certain inclination to call me names that one would consider to be rather "gushy", such "pumpkin" or "baby doll", although, those aren't so culturally uncommon in the area he comes from.

As for me, I suppose that I don't have the tendency to call him names that one would consider to be weird... I simply call him what he enjoys, like "my darling" or "my love". In that way, you could assume me to be plain.

I suppose another strange name he refers to me as would be "angel". He enjoys studies of religion, which is where I could deduce the nickname comes from.

[rivangel]

𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐧!𝐚𝐮 𝐄𝐫𝐰𝐢𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬

- Erwin has the weirdest taste in music ever. he enjoys (1) classical music and (2) sabaton. Erwin WOULD BE IN LOVE WITH sabaton. majorly because he’s a massive history nerd and it’s like roleplay for him.

literally he’s the most patriotic guy yet not at all depending on what point in history you’re hyper-specifically talking about. because Erwin is wise beyond his years, intelligent and understands time is a flat circle, so he’s mostly jaded - especially about politics. wants badly a flag or type of people to whole-heartedly (hehe get it?) believe in, but there just isn’t.

-"through the fire and the flames" is unironically his favorite song.

- on that topic, he’d be the type of guy to go to disaster or wartorn areas and risk his fucking life by reporting everything as he sees it on tiktok or something. unsurprisingly he highly values truth.

smart and resourceful enough to never get in danger though. it’s honestly a little scary…

- his calling is to be a professor. would prefer working with more mature students on complicated nuanced topics so would avoid high school, middle, etc

- but Erwin will always be a bit of a risk taker or adrenaline junkie. probably gambles or goes sky diving. has climbed mount everest

- can’t cook in any au. hopeless. makes cereal with too much milk every time.

- actually reads standardized history books.

- one casual fleeting relationship with a woman (Marie) made him realize he was gay.

- super charasmatic and sociable yet NEVER dates. no one in his personal life aside from Levi, Hange, etc, know the inner depths of his personality and way of thinking.

- chronic conspiracy theoriest and he's right about every single one. probably runs an outdated-looking website that posts pictures or classified documents with no context

- literally sleeps like a corpse on his back, snores like crazy.

- likes cats and dogs equally as long as the dog in question isn't too untrained/rowdy. but honestly his favorite pet is a fish, but that’s pretty widely unpopular so he always lies.

- wherever he's going for whatever reason trust that Erwin will overdress. at the grocery store you could swear he's the ceo who's shown up by surprise.

- weighted blankets give him anxiety

- has a lot of money for a professor, and his family isnt that affluent. turns out it's tax fraud (he will never get caught though)

- has a MAJOR sweet tooth. starbucks is his religion.

- but will sniffle and tear up if he eats anything with a dash of black pepper.

Erwin masterlist | main masterlist