#like the only way i can describe the interactions and relationships between these teenagers is transcendent

[princesssarisa]

I decided to make this poll because I've been listening to the excellent Little Women videos from @littlewomenpodcast, whose opinions and arguments I nearly always find to be spot-on. (And who so generously quotes some of my analysis now and then.) But I'll admit I was taken aback by one remark she and others have occasionally made about Jo and Amy. Namely that as a teenager, Jo bullies Amy, and that Amy burning Jo's manuscript is just the moment when she finally snaps after having been picked on by her sister all her life.

After hearing this, I had to go back and reread all of Jo and Amy's interactions in Part I, because I had never thought of their conflict that way, and I'm still not sure if I do.

I always saw their sibling rivalry as mutual, with both at fault. They're both strong-willed, attention-seeking, quick-tempered girls, they arguably both have different forms of internalized misogyny (Jo by disdaining femininity, Amy by disdaining tomboyishness), and they get on each other's nerves. Jo mocks Amy's childish attempts to be ladylike (and even an only child like myself knows that between siblings, teasing is normal and doesn't equal bullying), while Amy annoys Jo by correcting her manners, and neither is generally better or worse than the other.

Now of course this is their relationship in general: I'm not talking about "Jo Meets Apollyon." In that specific case, Jo does provoke Amy by refusing to take her to the play just because she, Jo, doesn't want to babysit, leaving Amy in tears. And while Amy burning her manuscript is an inexcusable, out-of-proportion response, it's even more wrong of Jo to physically attack Amy when she learns what she did, and almost horrific that she doesn't warn her about the thin ice the next day. But even then, Alcott doesn't describe Jo as always insulting and excluding Amy, and she makes it clear that Amy has played other pranks on Jo before the manuscript-burning. She writes that they've always been prone to "lively skirmishes" because of their mutual tempers – she doesn't blame Jo alone.

Still, maybe it can't be mutual, because Jo is a teenager while Amy is a child. The fact that I have no siblings puts me at a disadvantage, because not only do I not personally know the difference between normal sibling rivalry and bullying, I don't know how much of a difference certain age gaps create. Maybe the fact that Jo is three years older than Amy makes her more of a bully than if they were only a year apart in age. (Still, three years isn't that big of a gap. I don't remember feeling much more mature at fifteen than I was at twelve, just more hormonal.) Also, Alcott does write that Jo had less self-control than Amy despite being older, and in their typical scenes of light bickering, when Jo laughs at Amy's malapropisms and Amy corrects Jo's manners, Jo does always laugh at Amy first, and then Amy scolds her in response. There's also the moment in "Experiments" when Jo hears Beth crying and thinks to herself that if Amy was the one who upset her (she wasn't – Beth's bird died), she'll shake her. We could argue that this just shows how protective Jo is of Beth, but at the same time, she's thinking about physically attacking her little sister again.

In the end, I'm tempted to think this issue is open to interpretation. We can either view the two sisters as having a mutual rivalry and mutually provoking each other (apart from isolated incidents when either one or the other is more to blame), or view Jo as more of a bully and Amy as more of the victim.

I'd like to see what other people think, though.

[the-derpy-duck]

2012 Donnie’s characterization bothers me so much because he could have been so much more interesting if more time was spent on aspects other than his crush on April.

Like yeah it’s not his only character trait but the way they both interact and how obnoxious and creepy it is brings both of their characters down. Donnie and Mikey both want to interact with humans more than Leo and Raph. Donnie understands more than Mikey that they can’t just go up and talk to humans. I’ll come back to this in a bit. There’s an entire episode about Donnie needing to learn to not over think everything. There are also some aspects of his relationship with April (the interaction map and him being extremely afraid of her not only rejecting him but hating him) that make me think he has some sort of anxiety disorder. Leo tells him to just ask her to hang out and Donnie insists that it isn’t that simple. He wants to plan out every possible situation. Leo also calls him special in one episode. He also refuses to eat in favor of doing more research into the monkey Rockwell thing. A lot of his interactions with April can be explained by him having a crush and being an awkward teenager but generally he gives off vibes. Donnie generally across media reads to me as being Neurodivergent.

In the episode where he has to learn to stop overthinking, April and Dr. Falco refer to mutants as monstrosities. Granted they weren’t talking specifically about the turtles and I think April was just trying using the same language Falco was using to describe specific experiments. Earlier in the episode she also expresses discomfort/disgust at the idea that they were experimenting on animals. Basically I don’t think April was intending to be hurtful or insulting towards her friends and Falco wasn’t but regardless this establishes how humans feel about mutants. Most if not every human also reacts to the turtles with fear or disgust the first time they see them as well. So it has been established that humans do not like mutants and have both an implicit and explicit bias against them.

So the turtles need to be extremely careful with who they reveal themselves to. Leo says that people tend to treat them better when they don’t know that they exist. Splinter definitely pushed this mindset on them but like… he’s not wrong. Donnie does want to interact with humans, it’s not a major aspect of him but it’s still there. All the turtles want to interact with humans to some extent, and they all want to go outside, but also Donnie is the first to really push talking to a human. I will come back to this in a moment.

One thing I think that 2012 did fairly well was establish the brothers dynamics. Raph and Mikey interact in a way that Donnie and Mikey wouldn’t and this can be said for every brother duo. Raph and Leo’s relationship has the most focus in the show but the other relationships are shown. However, I feel like the relationship between Donnie and Leo could have been further explored. Leo shows concern for Donnie and takes minor interest in what he does, but after season two they sort of begin to fall apart. They fought over strategy and eventually that led to Leo getting thrown through a window and the gang had to flee New York City. Leo is seriously injured and has to go through a whole recovery arc. To my knowledge, fight they had isn’t brought up. They mainly interact in group settings together or on missions and the most notable interactions they have are them fighting with each other. Leo puts pressure on Donnie to make an antimutigen and Donnie snaps at him. He always has to find a solution. Donnie wants to kill Vizioso and this causes a fight between him and Leo (Vizioso will be relevant later). They are in space, Fugatiod’s head has been chopped off and Leo is putting pressure on Donnie to fix the ship and Donnie snaps at him before backing down immediately. That wasn’t technically a fight and it was just generally a stressful situation. Leo definitely cares about Donnie and I don’t think he realized what he’s doing when he tells him to work harder. If Donnie wasn’t in most tmnt shows, they’d be fucked. His gadgets have saved their asses so many times across tmnt media. The idea of Donnie feeling overwhelmed or unappreciated is interesting to me. But Leo is unintentionally putting pressure on Donnie and their relationship is fairly tense. Leo also joins Kari and this snowballs into Donnie getting caught in an explosion Leo was partly responsible for. Which wasn’t purposeful but I think it’s important to mention. This is also what causes Leo to stop running with the foot clan if I’m not mistaken so that counts for something. Leo also asks Donnie why he wasn’t eating and then a lot later in the show Donnie asks Leo if he’s going to play dnd with them. Which is cute, I like that they both look out for each other at different points outside of battle. But they still have a very tense relationship that really could have been explored more.

Don Vizioso. So remember the anti-mutant thing from earlier? In season four(?) Donnie and Raph have a little fight and Raph quits the team again. Donnie and another mutant get captured by Vizioso’s mob and they almost vivisect Donnie. Vizioso has been developing anti mutant weapons and he thinks mutants are subhuman. Surprise surprise they don’t cut open one of the main characters on screen and he’s fine. But like. That’s an extremely traumatic event. I know they’ve watched their dad die like five times by now and have had a lot of near death experiences but they wanted to cut him open while he was completely lucid with no painkillers. That’s really fucked. Like a lot of messed up things happen in this show but that in particular just disturbs me. Donnie has been constantly exposed to humans hating mutants. His biggest fear in that one episode was April rejecting him, not just as a romantic partner but as a friend and person. If I remember correctly hallucination April calls him a freak. Donnie wants to kill Vizioso because of what he tried to do to him. And he would have used the information he gathered from Donnie to hurt him family. Vizioso directly puts the people Donnie cares about in danger. When Donnie is about to kill him, he sees his reflection in the knife on his bō staff and he can’t do it. Earlier in the episode he freezes when a guy with a hammer is about to attack him and Leo drops a chandelier on the guy. So he’s dead I guess. There’s also this whole thing about a heart and reviving shredder but it’s not really relevant to my point.

Leo’s arguments against killing Vizioso is ‘we need to get the heart not revenge’ and ‘this isn’t you’. I wish they had a conversation. Leo did something sort of similar and it only lead to more problems. I wish Leo attempted to relate his own experience back to Donnie’s current one. I wish they had a conversation just about everything. I wish it was shown that Donnie was impacted by what happened with Vizioso in other episodes outside of ‘heat of evil’. I wish Donnie and April’s relationship wasn’t written the way it was. Like he has a crush on her, fine. But why is it half his personality and why is he so fucking creepy? Most romantic relationships in tmnt 2012 suck ass and I wish they didn’t.

I think it would have been really cool if Donnie started out a lot more hopeful and positive towards humanity but over the course of the show he becomes more guarded because he doesn’t want his family to get hurt and they are constantly targeted by humans. Donnie feeling guilt over Mikey getting seriously injured at the end of ‘heart of evil’ would have been fun. I think it would have been interested if him and April were able to just be friends. If at the end of the big foot episode instead of kissing him when he said that he was ‘just a mutant’ and her saying he wasn’t ’just a mutant he was her mutant’ she said ‘you aren’t just a mutant your my friend’. Because that scene at least implies that Donnie views himself as lesser than because he is a mutant and he is worried about people rejecting him based on this perceived inferiority. Having that be a consistent part of his character that is actually addressed could make for an interesting character arc about accepting yourself and finding peace in a world that hates you for existing. Some people will hate you for things outside of your control and that is not your fault. They are in the wrong and they have no right to treat you poorly. April’s character would have also been a lot stronger if she didn’t kiss him. It could have been a really nice moment for both of them where they are able to acknowledge how much they mean to each other, even if it isn’t a romantic type of caring. But really the only way to fix ‘a foot too big’ is to never had written it in the first place. (The writers needed a gay best friend/ref)

Also let Donnie and Casey be friends. You wrote the relationship already why did you just abandon it? What was the point? April, Donnie, and Casey can all be friends and do stupid shit together. I think ‘chaos junky’ ‘fuck you I have a knife and super powers’ and ‘fuck you I built a nuclear missile because I was bored’ would be really funny. They’d burn down the goddamn world but nooooo.

And there’s other things about 2012 that I don’t like and that could have been great. The writers hyperfixate on Leo, which is most egregious in the second half of season 4. And I like 2012 Leo. He’s a good character. But there’s four to five other characters that are sidelined in favor of him and I wish it wasn’t like that. Raph and Leo both are well developed characters but they keep cycling through the same fucking argument. It’s been five fucking seasons of this why is Leo being the leader still a conflict? I wish Mikey was explored a bit more too. He doesn’t want to be leader and because everyone else does that makes him the most interesting turtle in the room. Hell he doesn’t have to really develop. He can be completely happy and fine with his position in life. Obviously he’d like human friends and he’s lonely, but he doesn’t mind where he currently is. He doesn’t want to be leader he doesn’t want to be someone different. He is content. Maybe the way his brothers act makes him feel sort of isolated. They watch shows together and play dnd and do a lot of activities together but the others also have other major interests. Raph and Leo both take training really seriously and Donnie spends a lot of time in his lab and just studying shit. Raph and Leo also fight a lot and Mikey spends a fair amount of time in Donnie’s lab because he likes spending time with his brother. Mikey spaces out a lot but he’s still observant. Maybe he gained a lot of secondary knowledge just by watching Donnie. He’s shown to have a lot of potential and is talented. He is good at fighting and improvising. Maybe he’s still really lonely despite being surrounded by family that loves him. Also he doesn’t need to be given love interests. It just feels like they are trying to fill a quota but Mikey seems completely ok with not being romantically involved with other people and out right stated that he wouldn’t ever have a crush on a girl. Which I guess is the writers trying to show his youth because the next scene is him falling in love with Renett. They can be friends, let them besties. Aromantic Mikey supremacy. His other romance with Shinigami goes nowhere and also she’s a lesbian and dating Kari. Leo also makes me happier when he is friends with Kari and Shinigami and not romantically involved with his sister >:(

And these things that i mentioned above for both Mikey and Donnie don’t need to be all encompassing. I think they could be potentially fun character arcs or just something to explore for the character. 2012 had five seasons they could have fleshed them out more. Mikey is constantly the butt of jokes and they constantly flip flop between him being incompetent (outside of dimension x) and him being just as capable as his brothers. Donnie has a fair amount of screen time but most of it is so hard to watch because of the whole crush thing. I hate it here.

I don’t know how to conclude my thoughts. It’s been a while since I actually watched all of tmnt 2012 so I don’t remember everything but I’ve been rewatching rise and I watched tottmnt so I’ve had turtles on my mind. 2012 writers are my worst enemies.

[daily-hanamura]

Do you ever think about how Chie (and Yukiko iirc?) have both previously called Yosuke a disappointment, meaning they were, albeit in part, one of the reasons for his low self esteem

Obviously they didn't do it on purpose, since Yosuke always tries to act like those words don't phase him, always acting like he's very confident

But I wonder, if he were to ever open up to them and start showing his more sensitive side in general, how would the girls react? Like would they feel a bit guilty or something?

Many thoughts... many very, very disorganized thoughts......

Oooooh yeah I do indeed think about this, and apart from Chie and Yukiko, Teddie has also described Yosuke as a "prince of disappointment"/"everyone's favourite disappointment"

Yosuke, of course, also being the one that calls himself a disappointment the most.

So this is just my perspective based on my life experience, but I think that to some extent, it very much reflects the kind of humour that was very pervasive around that time. As a millennial it's pretty typical for friends to rib into each other as banter (see also Yosuke to Kanji) and to employ self-deprecation as a joke, and it's kind of a mark of friendship -- you really only do that to people that you're very close friends with, because it's about in-group jokes (e.g. Chie can call Yosuke a disappointment, but that random classmate can't) and a reflection of just how well you know a person.

It's kind of complicated to talk about because I'm not saying that it was necessarily good, since it can be quite insensitive if you're not conscious of someone's personal issues. And some people definitely don't enjoy that sort of humour, because it's also highly, highly contextual and easy to misread. Some bullies also use that as a justification for why they're saying mean things, which is especially unpleasant in the workplace LOL. I feel like as I've gotten older this has become less common? Or maybe I'm just not as comfortable with the friends I've made in adulthood to want to readily rip into them? But then again I have maybe three friends I'm willing to banter like this with and we've been close friends for about a decade, which I think kind of drives home the point I'm making about how this is the kind of joke you only make with people that you've been through a lot with, which the IT are. I think it's humour that's meaningful in the narrative context because it's a signpost that indicates their shared experience in the TV world was no trivial thing, just like how Yosuke calling Yu "aibou" reflects the same sentiment.

But, as you said, because of how Yosuke puts on an act of confidence, I don't think most people pick up on it other than Yu, because Chie, Yukiko and Teddie probably just think it's part of the bit that Yosuke is doing (Yosuke also refuses to show his weaknesses to anyone other than Yu, but that's probably another conversation). One of the weaker spots of P4/G (and P5), I feel, is that it isn't as revealing about the interpersonal relationships between characters outside of the protag character. Which I don't really expect, but it was really nice to see in P3. So all we have to go on is the spin offs, and I think if we compare Chie and Yukiko's distanced friendliness with Yosuke in the Magician manga vs their expression of reliance and dependence on Yosuke in P4AU, for example, we can see that developed dynamic.

Would they feel guilty? Probably, but they're also teenagers who are still figuring out interpersonal interactions and personal boundaries (and this goes for Yosuke as well), and I think this friction is sometimes just part and parcel of growing up. I do think that if Chie and Yukiko realise that Yosuke does have a sore spot about it they'd change the way they speak with him because they genuinely care about him, especially as they mature into adulthood.

Going a little off tangent now and this is just my headcanon, but I also wonder if Yosuke initiated that sort of humour with Chie and Yukiko shortly after their rescue to help them relax. Yosuke likes to use humour to diffuse tension (which doesn't always work) but it's not hard to imagine him sensing awkwardness from the two of them (they really weren't close friends at all prior to the TV world), so he makes himself the butt of a joke to get them to laugh, and when they latch on to it he's actually kind of happy because it means he's done something useful. (ngl ever since I saw Tamami's clown motif stage in p4d I have not stopped thinking about her parallels with Yosuke)

[amphiptere-art]

I've been on vacation and I don't know if I've shared any of these ideas. I think they've mostly stuck to discord conversations. So I'm going to post them out here.

Number one thing. Blue Moon will exist in arcade in a more... Standard fashion. Arcade Eclipse. While technically looking exactly like Blue Moon and supposed to be blue moon. Isn't really Blue Moon. They are blue moons origin. They are what Blue Moon was supposed to be. Blue Moon evolved far past that. So I'm going to be making a new Blue Moon in Arcade! As cannibalistic and teenager/child-esk as possible. Now of course dimensional travel does not exist in arcade. Magic does though. And so can shitty parents. I'm still working on this version. So I'm not sure what the new sporadic danger will be. But this is going to be based on after story Blue Moon a little bit. Where they are totally with crimple, and old lunar is a much bigger force.

Onward to objective number two. Which is something I've actually been holding on to for the Stardust arcade storyline. But vapor will be existing. Vapor still has a tragic ass backstory and suffers from abandonment issues. But they will exist. Hopefully I will get to the part where I explain their story at some point. As they will be fading out of Stardust arcade once I introduced them. But the basic is. Vapors smoke still does stuff. But it's more out of a magic-y panic. Vapor wasn't forgotten because of some star juice magic. But instead just because the company was being an ass and told everybody he was dead when he wasn't. Wondering around thinking is abandoned until the Stardust storyline catches up to him.

Another thing! Again to be introduced in Stardust. Sundown, Sköll, Leiðr, code Moon, are all existing. They will be introduced in Sundown for a small scene. Sundowns entire little town is also coming with. And also. For those of you who were really confused about that one post where I talked about how relationships are going by my own arcade rules now. Sundown and Sköll are a thing.

Also! The sulky star cluster. They are also being moved over because I fucking love them. Stories are remaining mostly the same except doled down, and singular worlds are just establishments. I still haven't quite settled on the biker gang concept. But they are leaning that direction. Where they are basically a gang of delinquents that wander around and just kind of do shit. They have a Hangout spot at Sundowns. Also to be introduced in Stardust.

Another thing. I have been calling this thing the Neptune pack. But it is essentially a pack of blood moons run by a leader. They are going to be a bunch of hyenas. Might play a part with vapor. But either way they are going to be a group of aggressive fighting robots. Only held together by what I can only describe as a gang leader. It's an interesting concept and it will be coming soon.

Another thing. I have been thinking of honey and cider. I'm currently caught between doing a similar thing that happened in sulky star cluster. Or trying to figure out what happened to their singular establishment that would lead to the same results as cannon. Might do a bit of both. But they will be coming. Although I think they will also be separated like it's tough to be a god AU. As their interactions have been quite sparse.

Last thing that is not related to arcade. I have come up with this concept of a clockwork sun, and shipwrecked moon. I have been listing off little scenarios in a discord. And I will definitely make a separate post for them. I'm just not going to post the whole idea here because this is mostly around arcade. But this little silly scenario is currently in the works.

Anyways I think that's everything I thought about over the vacation. Have a nice fun time reading this because I'm not actually going to write a shortened version until I have these figured out all the way. Toodles.

[daimyosprincess]

PART II: INTRODUCTION

—PAIRING: Professor!Boba Fett x F!Librarian!Reader

—SERIES RATING: Explicit, 18+ only — MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

—SUMMARY: Professor Fett helps you learn a few new things about yourself through some old-school discipline.

—WORD COUNT: 7.9k

—TAGS & WARNINGS: second person narration, no use of y/n, explicit sexual content, alternate universe, professor!Boba, age gap relationship between an older man and younger woman (reader is mid-twenties and Boba is late forties), reader described as having enough hair to grab, dom/sub power dynamics (Dom!Boba and sub!reader), BDSM elements, reader is a BRAT and I love her, some self-discovery, some pinches of soft Boba for good measure, spanking, praise (so so much praise), use of pet names, making out, dirty talk

As always, let me know if I missed anything that needs to be tagged!

—AUTHOR'S NOTES: Ok so this ended up being wayyyy longer than I thought so I broke up this scene into two parts (don't be mad at me 😭). Also I like to think that life has been a little bit kinder to Professor Boba and thus he's a little softer around the edges when it comes to expressing emotion.

Read on AO3 — Series Masterlist — Taglist

<Part I — Part III>

The two of you don't even make it through his door before you're on each other like a couple of teenagers, groping and gasping, grabbing whatever parts of the other you can get your hands on. Your purse and his keys are flung carelessly to the side—anything that wasn't the warmth of his or your body entirely unimportant. 

“Fuck,” he hisses in your ear, his breath hot and seductive against your heated skin, “this is what you wanted all along, isn’t it, princess?” The raw, molten want makes Boba’s voice even deeper—its rumble shakes your very core and it makes you gush as its ridges ripple over you. Bunching the slick material of your dress in his hands, Boba pulls the garment over your hips so you can straddle him properly when the pair of you collapse onto the couch.

Now freed to follow your desire, you slot your knees around his hips, a smart-mouthed reply ready on your lips. Before it can make it to his ears, however, Boba grinds his impossibly hard bulge into your aching center, pulling you against him roughly. Electric pleasure skitters up your nerves and he feels so damn good pressed tight between your thighs. All those nights you dreamed of this, all those self-indulgent daydreams, couldn’t come close to the tectonic gratification of Boba sliding against your throbbing cunt. 

The mewl that tumbles from your lips when he ruts into you again is positively pathetic, the sound of your desperation on full display despite your pretense of self-control. Your cheeks and ears burn with embarrassment, and you try to hide in the crook of his neck to pull yourself together—you don’t want to give him the upper hand, not just yet; you’ve still got some fight in you and you want him to earn it. His body under yours is more than you could ever imagine and still woefully not enough, you want him, you need him in the way a drowning man needs air. The struggle to get it would make your reward all the sweeter.

A laugh rumbles dark and heavy from the depths of his broad chest. “Don’t hide now, little princess, not when you were so eager just a few moments ago.” One of his large hands leaves your hips and skims up your side to cup your jaw, angling your face to back up to his. The hungry look in his umber eyes recalls images of gnashing teeth and hard-bitten pleasure, of sin itself in all its tantalizing glory.

You do your best to glare at the handsome man before you, but you know the battle is already lost, the cracks of your resolve echoing in your ears. “Wasn’t hiding,” you insist, your eyes rolling back behind fluttering lashes when the seam of his pants scraps along your center with luscious friction. Your hands slide up his chest to latch on to his lapels in an attempt to ground yourself against the unrelenting tide of him.

“No need to lie, not when I can feel that needy little pus-”

Your courage rallies at his taunting and you yank him forward by his collar to crash your lips into his, nipping at his lower lip in defiance. “You sure do like to talk,” you pant between the hot press of his mouth, “must be why you became a professor.”

Boba drops his hand down to your neck, wrapping his fingers around your throat and squeezing. You squeal, your hips grinding down on his lap on their own accord. Fuck, I want him to do that while he’s balls deep in my guts. His large hand wrapped around your airway sets off an urgent, primal need that has been locked away in the mantle of your being, hidden and unanswered. It’s going to burn you alive, char you over until you’re nothing but a pile of ashes; it’s terrifying and exhilarating. Boba Fett is the answer to a question you didn’t even know you had, and by the fire in eyes and the set of his jaw he knows it.    

“You talk to everybody that way?” he grunts, tutting as he releases the pressure on your throat to just firm enough to be a reminder of its presence. The words stick to your tongue, so you answer with a disparaging expression that makes his eyes flash and your heart race. “Looks like you’re going to have to learn some manners then, little one, because I am not everyone.”

The obsidian gravel in his tone is tearing your sanity to shreds and by all the gods in the heavens you can’t find it in yourself to care—being whole never felt as good as this. Boba tugs you towards him by your neck, his lips brushing the shell of your ear. “But that’s what you like, isn’t it?” he taunts, pure confidence dripping thick from his words, “You want someone who knows just what to do with a mouthy little brat like you, don’t you?”

The magma of his words melts your bones. Your composure is a shard away from shattering under the enormous pressure of your desire for everything Boba Fett has to offer. All you have to do is throw the final stone. “And I suppose you’re just the one to teach me some, then?” you retort with all the derision you can pull together.

“Oh, little princess,” he growls, deep and throaty, the vibrations of his desire magnifying your own, “I’m going to teach you a lesson you’ll never forget.” He sears his assurance into your very soul with a white-hot kiss that’s all sharp teeth and fire, leaving you nothing more than a molten, gasping thing when he pulls back. “And you’re going to beg me to do it.”

You moan a curse, the sound long and heady. The rush of sensation, pleasure, anticipation, and pure carnal hunger fills your lungs, displacing any oxygen left in your chest. Rather than feeling fear, however, all that burns through you is craving, a perverse longing for predatory violence. You cant your hips over his straining erection like a creature in heat, chasing the relief that only he could ever provide.

As soon as the coil of pleasure in your belly begins to splinter, Boba tightens his fingers around your throat and presses you still against him. You writhe in his grasp, desperate for more friction and more of him. Blood is in the water and it’s overwhelming everything else in you.

“Easy now, you’ll get what’s coming to you, don’t worry, princess,” he assures calmly. “Now I’m going to let you go and you’re going to sit still.” There’s not even an inch of space left for disobedience in his tone. He releases your throat, massaging the delicate skin lightly before removing his hand completely to fall back to your hip.

It takes all your willpower not to wriggle and grind your soaked panties on his crotch. Biting down hard on your bottom lip, you suck in a deep breath to try and settle your screaming nerves, your eyes sliding shut. Rather than fighting him for control, you’re fighting yourself—and you don’t have much left in you.

Boba’s thumbs rub soothing circles into the softness of your sides. “There you go, that’s a good girl,” he coos in his smoldering timbre, a smile dancing on his words.

A bolt of pure lightning strikes down your spine straight to your slick core, splitting you in half and fusing you back together ragged and sharp all over again. Good girl good girl good girl. You’re on his lips in an instant, moaning and fervid. Fuck, that’s the hottest thing I’ve ever heard, I’ve never wanted anything so bad, I’ve never been this turned on in my whole fucking life-

When Boba tears you away from his lips with a hand around the back of your neck, you whine high and pitchy at being denied once more. “Hush,” he orders sternly, his handsome bronze features lined with seriousness. “Behave or this ends now.” 

The heat of the electricity pumping in your veins runs cold and you freeze, staring at Boba with wide, anxious eyes—you might just die if this stops. And dying without knowing him and what all this man is promising you is a fate even worse than death, so you do your best to swallow back the desperation in your gut.

“You going to be good?”

You nod fervently, eager to show your remorse so he doesn’t completely deny you. How in the hell is he keeping it together? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man with a harder cock in my life.

“Answer me,” he prompts, then adds more gently when your brows crease in confusion, “Use your words, little one.”

“Y-yes.” Your voice comes out tentative but sure. “I promise I’ll behave.” 

Who is this and what have they done with the girl who thought you were? Since when were you one to promise a man such a thing? And since when did you want to? Boba was right about one thing: he is certainly not like everyone else. If anyone else asked such a thing of you, even called you a single one of the little names he did, you would bite their head off. You never were one for bossy men in the bedroom—or life, for that matter—so why are you positively aching for it now?

“Good.” Boba rubs the back of your neck with a warm hand. “Good behavior gets rewarded,” he instructs, placing a chaste kiss on your lips. You do your best to stay still in his lap. “Tell me, princess, have you ever done something like this before? Let somebody else be in control?”

“Why, what does it matter to you?” You prickle at the thought that he would care about such a thing. 

“Easy,” he repeats patiently, “I’m asking because we need to make sure we’re both comfortable and on the same page if that’s what you want.”

Oh. That’s not what you were expecting. “Oh, um, no, not really. I’ve only really had, you know… regular sex?” You bat back the anxiety of disappointing him that gnaws at your ribs.

Boba hands settle at the small of your back, his calloused fingertips brushing light shapes over your satin dress. “So what makes you want something else with me?”

“You,” you blurt out before shame can stop you, only to feel the heat rising up your neck a second later. Scrunching your nose, you wince at your answer. 

Boba’s eyes sparkle with mirth, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth that staves off some of your embarrassment. “Don’t be ashamed, little one, honesty is vital. What about me?”

Chewing your lip, you consider his question, fiddling with one of the shiny buttons of his dress shirt. “I don’t know… no one has ever made me feel this way. I didn’t know I could feel this way.” Boba doesn’t rush you, his fingers continuing their soothing designs. “I never thought I would want a man to tell me what to do or treat me like… like what you’re saying. But ever since I met you, you’re all I want… you make me think and want all these crazy things…” The burning desire in your belly has quelled to embers, but they still burn hot.

Peeking through your lashes at him, you turn the question around. “Do you want… what do you feel about me?” Obviously, you both want to fuck each other’s brains out—there’s no doubt in your mind about that—but Boba’s query has you wondering about his own feelings now.

Reaching up slowly, Boba brushes a scarred knuckle over your cheek to under your chin, holding you in place while he studies you. The sudden softness amongst his thunderous desire and being so plainly seen is a little unnerving, but you can’t bring yourself to look away. 

“You've got more nerve and a bigger mouth than any person I’ve met. You push buttons just to see what happens and you’ve got a fire in you that can't be put out. You’re stubborn and confident and have a wit that can cut a man to pieces,” he lists out. 

You gulp, dropping your gaze, unsure of what direction this is going to take. Boba swipes the pad of this thumb over the petal of your lip and you flick your eyes back up to his. They’re warm and excited, making you brighten. “You’re everything I crave, princess, and it all drives me fucking crazy.”

A warmth—a different, happy warmth—glows in your chest. You’re sure you have a big dopey smile stretched across your face but you couldn’t care less. Boba wants me just as much as I want him and he likes me. “I have that effect on people,” you giggle, nipping at his thumb below your lip playfully.

Boba arches a meaningful brow—behave—but the smile stays on his lips. “I bet that’s why you want someone to put you in your place so bad, isn’t it, little one?” He rolls his hips up into you, stealing all your focus with the promise of pleasure. “You’ve never had someone who could reign you in and give you what you really want, have you?”

You bite down around the moan bubbling up from your chest, clawing your way back to controlled composure, Boba’s efforts to the contrary be damned. Hell, how does he have such an effect on me?

“And just what exactly do I want so bad, hmm? Since you apparently have me so figured out,” you fire back, eyeing him up and down. All his talk is fanning the coals glowing in your core, making it harder and harder to stay still.

Boba leans back into the cushions, shifting his hips forward and bringing you with him by the hand splayed across the small of your back. You catch yourself with your palms pressed into the thick muscle of his chest, the heat of him sinking through the crisp material of his shirt into your waiting skin. 

“What you want,” he begins, his voice low and certain and his eyes dancing with dark fire, “is someone to take charge. Someone to make the rules and punish you when you break them, and reward you when you're good. Someone you can trust to shut that smart mouth up when no one else can.”

His thumb drags down your bottom lip and you clench to keep whimpering, your mind scrabbling for the last dregs of control as simmering arousal begins to pool hot and torrid in your belly. “Someone who knows your body better than even you do, someone to explore the limits and boundaries of your pleasure. Someone to take care of you, treat you like you deserve, worship that gorgeous body and send you back out into the world with more than just a memory of who that pussy belongs to.”

Boba leans into your neck, tilting his lips up to your ear and you tremble when the warm puff of his breath hits your damp skin. “But most of all, princess,” he whispers, a glinting lilt to his syllables, “you want someone who can make you beg for it.”

You’re unable to stifle the moan that tears from your chest this time, it scrapes up your throat and hangs heavy in the heated air between you. Your nails dig into his shirt’s fabric and you pitch into him, caught in the magnetic field of his words and promises. “Please, Boba,” you gasp, desire swelling in your throat, “please can I kiss you? I want-want to kiss you… please!” 

Your words shake, quivering with the last of your resolve—you want this, you want everything he said so fucking much and he knew it before even you did. Boba Fett did, in fact, know exactly what you want and it’s going to be the end of you.

“Look at my smart girl already learning some manners,” he praises, an air of teasing enveloping his statement. He feathers light kisses down your jaw and up to your lips, pressing a final kiss there before pulling back. Your lips follow his and he smirks at your neediness, clearly pleased with his effect on you. 

Lava creeps through your veins, melting you into the mold you never knew you wanted so desperately to fill. You’re burning to death in your own skin and you can’t wait for the sweet release of the reaper if it means he’ll give you everything he said.

“Let me hear you say it, little one, tell me what you want and it’s yours,” he prompts softly, his fingers tracing the soft outline of your clavicle.

The last of the fight bleeds from your body, sealing your demise—the old you is now dead and buried. The new you forms itself from the minerals of your bones, the iron in the soil, and the heat of his burning sun. Your forehead falls against his and your hips bump together, making you both shiver into one another.

“I want it, Boba,” you breathe into him, “Want everything you said, want it all so fucking much. Want you to show me. Want to be all yours.” The simple act of admission unlocks the cage you weren’t aware you were trapped in—all the choppy energy roiling inside you finally finding an outlet in Boba’s strong, able hands. 

His lips find yours this time, avid and keen on stealing the little air left in your heaving chest. You cross your wrists behind his neck, pressing every inch of you into every inch of him in an offering of desire. You confessed your sin and you’re ready to be blessed with his atonement.   

“It’s all yours,” he promises in urgent honesty against your lips, “I’m all yours, princess.”

You kiss in a hazy bliss for who knows how long, relishing in the confirmation of shared attraction and devotion, affirmations sealed into skin with the press of a lover’s lips. When the rhythm of your hips starts to speed up once again, Boba breaks away, much to your dismay. He’s set on ruining all my fun, you gripe internally, knowing that complaining aloud wouldn’t do any good on the man underneath you. The concentration set in his brow gives you some solace, however; you can see the restraint cording the muscles in his neck. 

“We need to set some rules first, princess, that’s how this works,” he explains. “Rules make sure no one gets hurt, they keep us safe, and they're what builds our trust.”

You tilt your head to the side. “But I do trust you.”

Boba smiles a warm, soft smile and chucks up your chin. “And that means more to me than you’ll ever know, little one. But, we still need to agree on a few things, negotiate what we’re comfortable with so when things get heavy we don’t accidentally cross each other’s boundaries.”

“So you don’t make all the rules, even though you’re in charge?”

He nods in confirmation. “That’s right. We’re equals in this exchange.”

“Oh.” Boba gives you time to ponder over everything he’s told you, rubbing his palms up and down your thighs slowly. “And can we add to the rules if we find out we don’t like something?” you ask after a moment.

“Of course,” he acknowledges, giving your legs a soft squeeze, “our rules grow and change with us.” 

You bite down on your lip, turning over his words in your mind. It all made sense now that you think about it; Boba didn’t seem like the kind of person who would want anything else, he is sure of his power and doesn’t need to steal it from others. That’s what makes him so damn attractive, it’s what made you trust him.

“So what are your rules? I don’t really know what mine would be,” you admit. You hope your uncertainty doesn’t stop him from tearing into your panties tonight. Judging from the hard press of him between your thighs, it doesn’t seem like it will, but you’re soaked and desperate for him. All the vibrators in the world wouldn’t make up for his touch if he denies you tonight, even if it’s for the best.

Boba smiles, pleased with your openness. “First is honesty. When I ask you a question, you need to tell me the truth and vice versa. If something hurts too much, tell me. If something makes you uncomfortable, say so.” His tone is firm enough to set a boundary, but soft enough to invite clarification if needed. “I will only ever give and accept honesty when we’re like this.” 

That’s nothing I can’t handle. You nod. “I can do that.”

“Good. Second is respect, for yourself and for me. Respecting yourself means listening to what your body tells you, making sure your needs are met, and asking questions when you’re unsure of something. Respecting me means using your manners and trusting me when I say enough. Even if that sweet little pussy tells you otherwise.” He taps his fingers on your back for emphasis.

You duck your head, heat rising in your cheeks at the thought of him finding out just how sweet you can be. “O-okay,” you stutter, the warring desire to give up control and snatch it back is nearly giving you whiplash. You wriggle a little around Boba’s thighs, itching for an outlet for your energy building in your core.

He soothes his hands down your ribs, their callouses catching on the satin of your dress. “You’re doing so good for me, princess, being so patient when you’re all worked up. Look at me,” he commands softly, and you peek back up at him, warm with his praise. “We’re almost done but I need to know that you’re listening.”

Sucking in a steadying breath, you shift your weight back against his legs, sitting up straighter. You want to please him, earn more of his approval any way you can.

Satisfied, Boba nods and continues, “My third rule is a little different, but I think it will help since this,” he gestures at the space between you, “is new to you. I want you to try whatever I ask of you at least once. If you don’t like it, you can tell me and we won’t do it again.”

You can’t imagine he could do anything to you wouldn’t at least like a little bit but you nod in agreement. That voice of his could get you to try anything he asked.

“Which brings me to my next point.” Boba tilts his head in curiosity. “Have you heard of a safeword before?”

“Like the thing a person says when they want to stop?” you answer tentatively, your fingers loosely looping in the bunched material of his shirt.

“Exactly,” he beams, “Knew you were my smart girl.”

His praise makes it feel like the sun itself is shining through your ribs, dazzling and quenching a thirst you didn’t know your soul had—it’s utterly addicting. Just another way he’s going to absolutely ruin me.

“When one of us says the word, everything stops immediately, no questions and no consequences. We’ll talk about what went wrong, maybe not right then if it’s too overwhelming, and we can work through it together. Does that make sense?” he asks, searching your face for understanding.

“Yes, it does.” As you stare into his brown eyes, a sudden, overwhelming wave of fondness for the man before washes over you, dragging you under the weight of the bone-deep feeling. You lurch forward, wrapping your arms around his neck and tucking your face into the dip of his shoulder.

“Hey… hey,” Boba murmurs softly into your temple, running reassuring hands over your back, “I know it’s a lot to take in all at once, babygirl. It’s alright, nothing has to happen tonight. All this can end right now. Forever, if you want it to.”

Babygirl. Of all the pretty names he’s called you, it's the softest, most endearing. A promise of his tenderness and protection.

“No, ‘s not that,” you mumble into his shirt after a moment. He’s so warm, so perfect, so strong and patient… hell, he even smells like everything you’ve always wanted, cool earth, warm wood, and balmy spices. And the sound of his voice… oh, the sound of his voice when he calls you princess and babygirl, it's the most delicious music to ever grace your ears. Is it possible to love someone after just four weeks?

“Take your time, I’m right here,” his voice rumbles from his chest into your own. You let yourself melt into him, all your muscles going loose. He traces nonsense patterns over your shoulders and spine as you ride out the staggering emotion rolling through your body. Everything about him is so new, so unlike anything you’ve ever experienced, and yet he settles into your soul like a long lost piece. It’s overwhelming.

Eventually the tide of it all pulls back and is replaced by a renewed fire flickering to life in between your thighs. Now that your body has caught up with your mind, your desire is bright and sharp. Easing up from your cradled position, you place a quick kiss on Boba’s soft lips. “Thank you… I’m good now.” You brush your palms over the broad expanse of his chest as if you can sweep away what just happened, skirt the magnitude of it all to get to the pleasure. “Where were we? Safewords?”

“Not so fast, little one. Remember the first rule, honesty? I need to know what’s going on up here,” he taps a finger against head, “before we can continue.”

You groan, letting your head fall back against your shoulders. Feelings are hard and… embarrassing.

“Do I need to remind you about the second rule?” he asks more firmly this time. 

You huff and bob your head back to the front. “No, ‘respect for me and you,’ I remember.” Exhaling a long breath, you force your eyes to meet his. “It’s just that… that…” His gaze is too hard to hold while you try to get your sentiments to coalesce into actual words, so you scrunch your eyes closed. “It’s just that you’re so fucking hot and perfect and patient that it’s like you walked out of a dream and I don’t want to wake up if this is a dream and I’m so wet I think I’m going to lose my mind and-” 

The feeling of Boba shaking beneath you makes you stop mid-sentence and crack open an eye. You’re met with an amused grin and sparkling brown eyes. “What’s so funny?” you demand, folding your arms over your chest defiantly.

“You really are something else, princess,” he chuckles, his mirth intertwined with affection. “But I didn’t mean to interrupt, go on.”

“No, not if you’re going to laugh at me,” you pout, turning your chin up dramatically.

“Hey, come on now,” Boba coaxes, pressing a kiss to the corner of your mouth, “I can’t help what you do to me either.”

What I do to him. The idea that you do to him anything like what he does to you is an alluring one. Humming in consideration, you let yourself be led back into him like a flower turning back to the sun. “Fine. Let’s just say that I really, really like you, professor.”

Holding your face steady with his fingers on the swell on your cheek, he brushes his lips over yours. “That’s good to hear, pretty girl, because I really, really like you, too.” Boba lets you capture him for a languid kiss, his hands finding their way back to your hips to pull them flush against his own, his half-hard cock swelling as it grinds it against the lace of your panties. 

This time, you’re the one who breaks the kiss. “Now hurry up and tell me what else I need to know to get you inside of me,” you demand, dragging slow circles against him with your hips. You can only be expected to be so patient, after all.

“Needy little thing, aren’t you?” Boba teases, raking his eyes over your rumpled appearance. “You’re lucky I don’t have it in me to make you really wait. Now, rule number four is important, are you listening?”

You still in his lap, looking up at him with rapt attention, eager to hear what else he has to tell you. You nod, then remember he likes to hear your affirmation out loud. “Yes, I’m listening.”

“Good.” Affixing you with a libertine stare, his fingers dig into your hips. “The fourth rule, little princess, is no coming without permission.”

The skittering beat of your heart skips in your chest and the rushing sound of hot blood fills your ears. Your nails dig into his pectorals and your mouth goes dry as the bass of his words reverberates in your ears with their salacious implications. When you try to swallow the weight of it down your throat, it sticks to your tongue like sand; he would hold your everything in the palm of his hand, you would be at his complete mercy.

Your legs shudder at the fresh arousal slicking your folds and Boba smirks, his eyes dark and electric, the embers of his irises sparking with things promised. His gaze falls to the futile bob of your throat before crawling back up to your face. “That’s all for my rules, anything you want to add?” 

“N-not that I can think of right now… sir.” The epithet drips from your parched lips thick and sweet, dribbling down your chin like the dark juice of some exotic fruit. Paired with your hungry, sabled eyes, the sight makes Boba’s straining cock twitch against the heat of your inner thigh. Your tongue swipes over your lips and his eyes follow its movement with total attention.

“What do you want the safeword to be?” he asks after a tense couple of heartbeats, the heat of his desire curling up the edges of his words.

You think for a moment, then answer, “Kamino.”

“Looks like you really do hang on my every word.”

“Looks like you’re stalling.”

“Hmm, you look so pretty though,” he hums, “sitting in my lap all hot and bothered.”

Slitting your eyes in a siren stare, you lick your lips. “Bet I’d look even prettier underneath you naked and stuffed full of your cock.”

Boba groans, a strained huff puffing from his barrel chest. “Oh, I’m definitely going to have to teach you a lesson about patience after this one, little brat.”

“Can’t wait to attend that class, professor,” your murmur, swaying forward to steal a kiss from his soft lips.

Your joke earns you a quick chuckle from him before his face falls into something more serious. “So do all the rules sound good? Do we agree to them?”

You force yourself to actually sit back and consider all that he said instead of blindly agreeing to get to the part you want—him fucking you into whatever surface he throws you over. You’ve definitely jumped into bed with less forethought in the past, but those times weren’t this, they weren’t him. Your heart wasn’t on the line, and for once you truly care that your partner’s is too. “Yes, Boba, I agree,” you answer after a minute.

A smile like the sun shines forth from him at your acceptance. “Then these are our rules until we decide to revisit them. And it's ‘sir’ when we’re doing this. Repeat everything back for me, princess,” Boba directs. The glowing affection in his face and voice show his genuine appreciation for your cooperation as well as hint at his desire for what is to come.

The combination of his restraint and respect only heightens your intense need to have this man so deep inside you that you feel him in your very soul. “Honesty, respect, try things once, and n-no coming without permission. Kamino is our safe word. And I call you ‘sir,’” you list off obediently, doing your best to show him you took it all as seriously as him despite the arousal slicking up your thighs. 

“Good job, my smart girl! Now, I’m going to make you feel so, so good, sweetheart. So good, that when I’m through with you, I'm going to be the only thing left in that pretty little head of yours.” His purred promises and the unholy tint of his dark eyes have you clenching and squirming in his lap, the burning ache between your legs almost painful.

 Sliding his hands over the curve of your ass, Boba grips the back of your thighs and stands, hoisting your legs over his hip bones. You yelp, slinging your arms around his neck for balance and his chuckle buzzes in your ears and rumbles through the space in your chest. Carrying you down the hall, he nudges a door open, revealing the cozy interior of his bedroom. “You’re all mine now, princess, all mine to do whatever I like with,” he announces scornfully, “that’s what got you all riled up, isn’t it? Bet you’re so desperate you’d thank me for whatever scraps I give you.”

You know he’s baiting you, testing to see if you can keep your mouth shut and manners in place. Although it’s been barely two seconds since you rattled off the rules, you’re already sure you’re going to break the second one—probably often, if you’re being honest. But, if he wanted a docile, governable woman in his bed he certainly wouldn’t have picked you in the first place. “You gonna talk all night or are you gonna fuck me?” you challenge, biting down on his earlobe and tugging.

Boba claps an open palm against the plush of your ass and you cry out in surprise. It stings.

“Best show me some respect, pretty girl,” he hisses, “because punishment for breaking the rules is whatever I think you deserve, and I have plenty of ideas that’ll make you sorry.”

“Oh, what? Like you’re going to put me over your knee and spank me? I’m not a child,” you retort, rolling your eyes, your heart thundering in your chest. There’s no decorum to save you from his wrath now. But I’m not here for salvation.

Boba lets out a sharp, acidic laugh. “You’re right, sweetheart, you are all grown up. That means I don’t have to hold back… or stop when you beg me to.” With that, he sinks down to sit on the mattress and slings you face down across his lap like a rag doll. 

Blood is pooling in your brain, your muscles burning with tense adrenaline and your hands scrambling to cling to his leg at your sudden change in position. The thought of Boba doing just exactly as he promised has you clenching around nothing, much to your horror. Using his ankle as leverage, you crane your neck back to glower at the smug man. “You wouldn’t fucking dare,” you warn, though the lurid gleam in his eye tells you he absolutely would. 

Boba grins like the damn devil, his scarred hands shoving your dress up to reveal the bare skin of your cheeks in response to your threat. He lets out a low groan at the sight of your lacy crimson panties and traces a finger over the delicate material, sending a shiver rattling through you. 

“Oh, my pretty little princess,” he purrs, the dim light glinting off his canines, “you want this so karking bad, don’t you? You want someone to shut you up so damn much you’ll throw yourself right into the lion’s den to get it. Don’t worry, I know just what to do with brats like you.”

It feels like every last drop of moisture evaporates from your throat while your heart howls in your ears. You’re about to be burned at the stake and all you can think about is handing him the fucking match. “Do it then,” you spit out, digging your nails into his leg.

“You remember your word?” he confirms, his voice rough with authority.

Am I really going to let his man spank me? You swallow, your cunt burning against your panties. Both of your questions end up being answered by your mouth a second later. “Y-yes, sir.”

He smooths his broad palms over the globes of your ass, warming the skin up. “Good girl,” he praises, “Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”

Your face flashes with the dual heat of mortification and desire. The pool of arousal in your lower belly begins to scald your insides as his flames lick up your legs.

“Now, I was going to give you just five. But since you wanted to run that big mouth of yours so much, you’re going to get ten to make sure you learn your lesson,” Boba taunts, harshly palming the flesh in his hands. “And you’re going to count each one out loud for me, understand?”

Your brain is boiling with the opposing urges to try to twist out of his grasp or kowtow to his every demand. Boba runs his thumb under the waistband of your lingerie and snaps it against your skin. You squeak and shuffle in his lap, your answer spilling from your lips. “Yes, sir!” Evidently, your mouth had a mind of its own. 

Or do I actually want all of this as bad as he says I do? Before you can ponder that revelation any further, however, a crack splits through the room and stinging pain erupts across your right cheek. “Shit!” you cry out, your back arching up off his thighs at the searing blow.

“What, you thought I was going to go easy on you?” Boba barks out a laugh and shoves you back down, rubbing a soothing hand over the prickling skin. “You little brats always think you can just do whatever you want and get away with it, that’s why you need someone to mark you up and remind you who’s in charge. Now remember to count or you get more.”

The number comes out as a croak. What had you gotten yourself into? Why is this making you even wetter? And why do you want him to do it again?

All those questions scatter as the next four strikes land in quick succession, sharp and precise across the expanse of your backside. Each one sends you sprawling across his lap and Boba rubs a comforting hand over your abused flesh as you squirm back into position. Your voice sounds utterly wrecked when you stammer out the number five.

Tucking an arm around your waist, Boba leans down to gently scratch his fingers against your scalp. The juxtaposition of his pain and pleasure is dizzying in the best way, like the golden buzz of sweet wine mixed with the harsh burn of honied whiskey. “You’re doing so good for me,” he hums, deep and warm, “taking your punishment so well. Knew you could do it, my strong girl.” 

The satisfaction of pleasing him burns bright in your chest. More dangerously, however, it makes you want to do whatever it takes to hear it again.

He retracts his hand a few moments later and you groan at the loss of the pleasant scratching, your head following in its wake. Boba chuckles and rearranges your weight over his thighs. “You’re almost done, you can do five more, can’t you, princess?”

Screwing your eyes closed, you press your face into his calf. “Yes, sir,” you grumble into the fabric of his pants. 

“Can’t hear you,” he taunts, kneading the heated flesh of your ass.

You repeat your answer louder. How is this so hot and embarrassing at the same time?

“Atta girl.” 

His next smack collides with the outside of your left cheek and you can’t decide if it hurts more or less when his hand comes into contact with new skin. Number seven and eight make you make you reconsider each time, and nine sends a plea rushing from your lips.

“Aw, is it too much for you? Too much for my little princess?” he mocks, his voice flush with false sympathy. “Maybe next time you’ll actually think before you open that disrespectful mouth.” His worn hands massage the pain into your rear as he continues on, his voice dropping to almost a groan, “You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to do this, sweetheart, waiting to teach you some goddamn respect. That’s why you act out, isn’t it? You’re desperate for someone to put you in your place, filthy brat.”

“Please!” you moan, your head swimming with want. You hear Boba’s breath catch and a curse hiss from his lips. Shit, did I say that out loud?! The final blow lands directly over the damp fabric stretched over your slit and you cry out in a mangled moan, jagged thrills of pleasure spiking through your core. “Ten!” you wail, relief swelling in your chest. It feels like your ass is on fire, pin pricks of pain needling your abused flesh.

Boba scoops you up, his powerful arms tossing your knees around his hips and he seals his lips over your own. “Fuck,” he pants into you, his cock twitching against your thigh, “you did so good for me, taking it all like the good little girl you are.” When you break for air, his hands come up to cup your face. “How’re you feeling, everything okay?” he asks, brushing his thumbs over the tops of your cheeks, “You can talk to me regularly, princess.”

You wince as your tender skin comes into contact with his thighs, but the pain is quickly dissolving into a warm, corrupted pleasure—like rubbing away the pain of a bruise. Your eyelids drift close, your cheek coming to rest on Boba’s own, seeking the comfort of his skin on yours. You don’t know just what you feel, not exactly and not yet. There’s so many feelings and thoughts flicking through your head, of desire and emotion and revelation, that it’s all a blur like a swirling sea. Boba stands as the one island in the vastness of this churning ocean, strong and steady—a refuge to weather the storm in. 

Rule one, be honest. Rule two, respect myself, listen to what my body tells me.

“Can… can you just hold me for a moment?” you whisper against him, leaning into his inviting warmth.

“Of course, babygirl, come here,” he murmurs, the domineering edge to voice gone. He eases you forward into his chest where you immediately find your favorite spot in the crook of his neck. “Is it too much?” he questions softly. “We can stop, I won’t be upset. This is about you enjoying yourself.”

“No…” you sigh into his neck, inhaling the comforting scent of him. “It’s… it’s just that I am enjoying myself. But I’ve never felt all these things and I’m not sure if I should be embarrassed or ashamed that getting spanked and talked down to makes me so fucking turned on. What does that say about me?”

An affectionate, comforting sound rumbles from his chest as he strokes the nape of your neck with light fingers. “Thank you for being honest, I know it can be hard.” He lets you snuggle up against him and continues once he feels the muscles in your shoulders relax. “There’s nothing wrong with enjoying these types of things, it doesn’t mean you’re weak or any less of the confident, assertive woman you are.”

“So why do people enjoy it, then? Giving up control?” you press, hoping his experience would tell you something about your own. He always seemed to have all the answers. 

“Lots of reasons. Some say they like to give all the decisions to someone else, to clear their mind and just be told what to do. It lets them let go of everything and explore parts of themselves they don’t usually get to or don’t feel comfortable doing in the ‘real world.’ For others, they like pleasing their partner and the act of ‘being good.’ Some even find it empowering, letting their partner know exactly what they need them to do in order to experience intense pleasure. It can be a mix of these reasons or none of them at all, it’s different for every person,” he explains, resting his chin on top of your head.

While you see the appeal of those reasons, you’re not totally sure if any of them are what you’re looking for. It makes you wonder what Boba seeks in all this. “What about you, why do you like being in control?”

His chest rises and falls with a couple breaths, carrying you with him, before he answers. “It… it feels good to me, almost natural. It calms my mind and lets me focus, really and truly focus. Knowing that I decide the when, where, and how of someone else’s pain and pleasure… it’s powerful. The trust that my partner has in me is another facet of it, I enjoy making my partner feel safe and looked after.”

“You make me feel safe,” you sigh contentedly. “But I never… I’m not supposed to need looking after. I can take care of myself, I always have.”

“As you should. But everyone needs someone to care for them once in a while, princess, that’s why people like to do it in the bedroom. I like taking care of my partner, spoiling and rewarding them as much as I do punishing or denying them.”

Realization snaps into focus in your mind and you sit up, staring into the dark depths of Boba’s eyes. You can almost feel your pupils dilate as your thighs tense around his broad frame. Your mouth falls open but no words come out, your eyes pleading for his understanding instead. While the cage of your true desire had already been unlocked, it’s only now that you understand why.

“Oh,” he breathes, his chest shuddering with a sharp intake of air, “that’s it, isn’t it, little one? You want to be taken care of, spoiled… to have someone give you everything you’re too scared to ask for. You need permission to give it all up, don’t you? You need to know it’s okay to let go?” His eyes burn with the fires of your rebirth and you’re ready to be thrown on the pyre.

You nod hastily, earnest and eager, your teeth biting down on your lip. You need to know it’s okay to give up control of the blaze in your chest, that it would be fed and tended to carefully and with good intentions—that it wouldn’t be doused or tamped down to crushed coals. And maybe, if you were so lucky, it would even be funneled and fanned by expert hands that knew how to harness its power. 

“Oh, sweet girl,” Boba croons, the gravel of his rasping voice smoothed over with adoration, “precious thing, I’m going to take such good care of you. You can let go, my pretty little princess, I’ve got you, it’s okay. I’m going to treat you like you deserve, babygirl, don’t you worry anymore. Just let go.”

And just like that, your entire universe erupts into full color, your stars aligning with his planets to unlock your deepest desires. All it took was letting go.

<Part I — Part III>

[reluctantjoe]

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder - author Holly Jackson and the cast on staying true to the books and the big scenes fans will recognise

Filmed in and around Somerset, the series for BBC iPlayer and BBC Three is based on the smash-hit novels

It’s the Summer holidays, but teenager Pip Fitz-Amobi is focused on an unusual school research project. In Little Kilton five years ago, schoolgirl Andie Bell went missing. Her boyfriend Sal Singh sent a text confessing to the murder before being found dead, seemingly taking his own life. Andie’s body was never found. Case closed. However, Pip isn’t so sure and is determined to prove Sal’s innocence.

The six-part series is based on Holly Jackson’s smash hit novels and stars Emma Myers (Wednesday), Anna Maxwell Martin (Motherland, A Spy Among Friends), Gary Beadle (Rye Lane, Small Axe), Mathew Baynton (Ghosts, Wonka) and newcomer Zain Iqbal.

A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder was filmed in and around Somerset, England. Commissioned by the BBC, the series is produced by Moonage Pictures (The Pursuit of Love, The Gentlemen, Bodies) in co-production with ZDFneo and Netflix.

All episodes will be available on BBC iPlayer from Monday 1 July.

Interview with Mathew Baynton

Playing Elliot Ward

Who is Elliot Ward?

Elliot Ward is Pip's English teacher and Cara and Naomi's father. He believes in Pip and wants to help her do well, and he's attempting to be everything to his girls after they lost their mother. He is trying to hold things together for their sake. It is that complexity that drew me to the role.

What is A Good Girls Guide To Murder about?

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder is about an ambitious and curious young student, Pip, who decides to re-open an old case in which Andie Bell was murdered by her boyfriend Sal Singh, who then killed himself. She suspects the police might have got it wrong. In doing so Pip re-opens old wounds in the community and puts herself in danger in the process. What's cool about it and what really sets it apart is that it's as much a coming of age story as it is a murder investigation. There's this procedural element, but the protagonist is not a professional detective and not even fully an adult yet, she’s someone emerging into adulthood and going through all of the things that you go through at that age. This young woman, Pip, is facing adulthood and all the excitement and terror that comes with it. New relationships, new experiences, both thrilling and scary. It's as much about the realisation that people can hurt you, and that as you go out into the world, you need to be careful who you trust.

How would you describe the dynamic between Elliot and his children, particularly Cara?

You get the feeling that he's really genuinely trying to keep a happy house. He's conscious of the loss that they've all been through, that he loves his daughters and that he wants them to be happy. It doesn't fully delve into how open they are with each other about discussing that grief and so maybe there's more than meets the eye. I feel like he tries to be light with them and there's a bit of humour in the way that they interact with each other.

Had you read the book before you got the role of Elliot?

I hadn’t but as soon as I was on board I started seeing it everywhere and everyone I spoke to who had teenage kids had read it so I quickly realised what a big deal it was. Once I got the part I read the book in order to find out how it ends, because when I was offered the role, there were only scripts for the first few episodes and I was desperate to find out what happened. Does Pip find the truth? Where does my character end up, and where do his daughters end up? I wanted to know more. It was exciting as Holly had written a character with real depth and shades, which Poppy, Dolly and the team translated perfectly to the script and then to screen.

What can we expect from the other casting?

For me I am most interested in Pip, Cara and their group of friends because I think groups of characters can often end up mirroring that. I was watching this bunch of people all become and behave like a really tight group of friends.

What was it like working with Dolly Wells (Director)?

I had worked with Dolly Wells years ago as an actor in Spy and was very excited to work with her as a director. It was a privilege to see her supporting this young cast, and fostering a really positive atmosphere in front of camera, one that ensured we could all do our best work.

What are you most excited for the fans to see?

With a book, it's your own imaginative world, you picture everything in your head and you get really close relationships with those characters. There can be a bit of a process when you get a TV or film version of something where you have to let go of your imagination and then take on the idea, oh, that's what that character looks like. I didn't picture them that way, or whatever. So hopefully there's added dimension to this and people can still go away and enjoy the books and their images in their head, too.

[filmmakerdreamst]

Lyra and Will is the best YA romance I've ever read. Not joking when I say I felt hollow for months when I read the part where they had to be separated at the end of 'The Amber Spyglass'.

Amir and Dafne did a fantastic job. I loved how they gave them more soft moments without cheapening their bond. Throughout the books, their relationship is incredibly delicate and subtly written (they're young after all) and they could have easily made it more obvious and over exaggerated for a Mainstream Audience. You'd think that wouldn't be possible but thats what Moira Walley Beckett did with Anne and Gilbert in 'Anne with an E' (that relationship basically consisted of staring at each other from a distance in that show rather than having a consistent build up)

I read an interview of Amir saying “We never really looked at it as a romantic thing. It was more important that we [Will and Lyra] were two friends that get along, and something might happen if it does happen. When playing the scenes it was never in the back of my mind.”

Edit: I wrote this analysis ^^ before my re-read and after re-reading the books I realised that was a bad approach to Lyra and Will's relationship. Even from the start, Lyra and Will's interactions are charged in the books and playing platonic until the finale at the end, is kind of a weird decision.

I personally always saw it as a deep bond between two teenagers, that became physical during the end because of everything they went through. It went beyond the typical romantic duality.

However, If I had to choose which version of their relationship I prefer (the book or the TV Show) I would have to choose the book. Because I felt during the last third, in the finale, that their relationship was a bit compacted like kiss -- you have to choose worlds -- separation. In the book, that part is so dragged out and emotional. Lyra and Will spend ages trying to find loopholes, find that there are none, then both of them get angry and upset. And it’s described that the angel felt their 'sorrows in the air'. In the tv show, I didn't really feel all that because everything was so 'get to the point' - when this is supposed to be a drawn out climax.

Unlike some others, I simultaneously believe that Lyra and Will are each others other half/soulmates. They are the only people in 'His Dark Materials' that can touch each others daemons without it being a violation and they will never love anyone else the way they loved each other. That's basically confirmed in 'The Secret of Commonwealth' (the spin off to 'His Dark Materials) where Lyra states that she still thinks of him every hour and that he’s the centre of her life.

And that their separation made sense.

Even though it was the most heartbreaking thing I ever read and left me hollow inside - its not realistic for them to have a solid relationship at 14 or how ever young they were at that point, especially on top of all their trauma. Also, it’s suggested in the books that everything must go back to the way that it was (closing all the windows) almost saying to the reader, you can't live in a fantasy world forever, you have to go back to the real world and live a full life. It’s like at the end of 'The Lord of the Rings' where Frodo destroys the ring, yet still dies at the end because of everything he went through.

It’s not fair. It’s not right. But thats just how life goes sometimes. Plus it made their ending a lot more memorable and iconic. I've actually gone to their real bench in Oxford and cried.

Although saying that, Philip Pullman has to let them see each other again when they're adults, in the last 'Book of Dust' - at least one last time come on now. But I have a feeling he won't reunite them until they die because he’s a cruel, cruel man.

[mymistakewriting]

Eddie & Shannon Diaz

This post is going to ruffle some feathers, I'm sure. I would like to state that any comments I make here are based off observations surrounding the interactions we do see between the two from the show. I am not bashing any characters, as always, and if you don't like my content or opinions, there's a block button available to you, please use it.

That said, this one comes with some content warnings. Please proceed with caution. The relationship between Eddie and Shannon is a toxic one. If you don't think you can handle reading about something like that, maybe skip this post.

First things first: their relationship was toxic, but it was toxic both ways. Neither of them are in the clear for their behaviors by far. It was not a healthy relationship in the slightest.

Eddie and Shannon are described by the show as high school sweethearts. It's heavily implied by behavior that Eddie's family DOES NOT like Shannon. And I do think that plays a major role in things. I don't think it was a 'they dislike her because they had a kid too young', I think it was that he started seeing her in high school BECAUSE he knew his parents would hate her. His relationship with his parents is an abusive one, of course he'd do something to upset them and get a kick out of it. That man's demi-romantic ass didn't know what he was doing, he was just in it to bother his folks and have some sex like any normal, Catholic teenage boy would want.

Obviously, it's confirmed that they didn't plan for Chris. Eddie said himself that he wasn't ready to marry Shannon when they did get married even though he loved her - and yeah, that tracks. I'd put good money on his parents forcing them to get married as soon as they found out Shannon was pregnant, it's an unfortunately common practice here in the Southern United States even to this day (I have immediate family that can vouch for this because it happened to them).

Which leads me to this: Yes, Eddie definitely signed up for a second tour in part because he wasn't ready to face what it meant to be a father. But I do think that part of him signed up for a second tour because he knew that the money would help. It took three jobs to replace the income from being an active-duty combat medic and he was still barely holding it together, it wasn't a decision made just because of fear. He really was trying to provide, but the only way he'd ever seen it done was by all but abandoning the family thanks to his father.

Which brings me to the fights. It's no secret that Eddie and Shannon fought a lot. And neither of them are saints, by far, not where those fights are concerned. Eddie definitely said some shit that he shouldn't have in those fights to hurt her (a la "you're exhausting" in lawsuit arc level shouldn't have said shit). That said, what caught my attention initially is how Eddie reacts to things in those fights. Because every time they're fighting and Shannon whirls around to face him or moves just a little too fast, he sinks in on himself like he's trying to guard himself, suggesting that he'd taken a few hits.

I don't think it was a full on battered boyfriend situation, but I do think Shannon got handsy in her high emotions a few times - and a kid who grew up abused in any way holds onto those instances, making them react more. But nothing else I could think of explains the way he sinks down and folds in. It's a habit that carries over even after Shannon's death.

I'd like to repeat: they're both in the wrong. Their relationship was toxic on both fronts. I don't think anyone ever found out how bad those fights could get. And I don't think Eddie will ever talk about it now that she's dead.

[metalandmagi]

Hi again....Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks....

I'm going to split them up between my favorite male and female characters, because there's just too many!

I'll start with the boys:

Laurent from Captive Prince- Laurent is my favorite character of all time. Everything about him just comes together in a perfect storm. His humor. His cast iron bitch attitude. The way he puts up armor to protect himself but lowers it when he's surrounded by people who actually care about him. The way his trauma is handled. And I'm fully aware the reason I love him so much is because we see him through Damen's eyes. We start out seeing a spoiled brat, and we learn the truth of him slowly. I can't even find the words to describe how much I love him and why.

The rest aren't in any particular order:

L from Death Note- The first anime character I was obsessed with, because he was one of the weirdest characters I'd ever encountered but somehow he shared all my habits. He sits like I do. He eats tons of sugar, like me. He's bad at social interaction, like me. And (spoilers!) he was one of the first characters with a death that truly impacted me emotionally. I'm totally showing my age, but I will always love this ridiculous trash panda.

Xie Lian from Heaven Official's Blessing- It might be recency bias, but he has skyrocketed to my top favorite characters list. I have a weakness for characters who have gone through hardship and come out smiling no matter what, and damn if that isn't Xie Lian. He really shows the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows in humanity, but he still believes everyone deserves to be cared for. He's also absolutely hilarious, and I love the dichotomy of having this (formerly) insanely strong martial god be so mild mannered and polite (most times).

Izaya Orihara from Durarara- And so begins my love of absolute shitheads. I don't have an explanation for this. I just love the idea of an information broker in a big city who knows everything about everyone and uses it to stir up trouble. And of course I love his flippant attitude that can change on a dime (and his extremely homoerotic relationship with Shizuo). I appreciate characters who always have something up their sleeves.

Wylan Van Eck from Six of Crows- Similarly to Xie Lian, I love Wylan because of the dichotomy of his character. He can be so mild mannered and shy one moment, and the next he's making bombs and threatening to drown his romantic rival in a river. He's also the only YA character I can think of with dyslexia (aside from Percy Jackson characters, who are technically middle grade), and I'm glad that it never gets associated with him being "stupid." Wylan is smart as hell while also being sensitive and creative.

Magnus Bane from the Shadowhunters series- Probably the funniest character I've ever encountered. A chaotic bisexual warlock who insists he doesn't want to help but ends up helping anyway while complaining the whole time? Sign me up. He's fashionable. He's powerful. He's a father of two and a crazy uncle to everyone else. He's everything. Alec is just Ken 😆.

Jim Hawkins from Treasure Planet- My forever boy. The protagonist that aided in my asexual awakening. I loved having a main character in a children's movie that was dealing with his angsty teenage years in a realistic way AND DIDN'T END UP WITH A ROMANTIC INTEREST WHO SOLVED ALL HIS PROBLEMS. He's reckless, but he's also very smart and cares about doing things right.

Fushi from To Your Eternity- (technically more like nonbinary or even gender fluid, but he mostly identifies as male so I use he/him a lot). Another take on an immortal character that I love! I love that we see him learn how to become human from scratch and how he forges relationships with people throughout hundreds of years. I was debating about whether to put Bon or Kohaku on here instead, but I think Fushi and his journey will stick with me longer.

Nico di Angelo from the Percy Jackson series- This is a character I feel like I've grown up with. He was one of the first canonically gay book characters I'd ever seen (this was back when queer characters in YA were almost unheard of, let alone in middle grade books). But Nico was one of my favorites even before the reveal. I loved seeing how he went from a nerdy, hyperactive kid to a brooding pre-teen to mellowing out the way he is now. I'm a sucker for the mysterious side characters that show up every now and then to make the audience wonder if they're really on our side (especially ones with really dry humor).

Now the girls!

(Uh...spoiler alert I guess) Akito Sohma from Fruits Basket- My favorite anime villain of all time. Part of why I love her is because of the build up. For a long time, we only hear about Akito, and we don't know what to think about her. Then we meet her, and she seems...off, but the characters all have different reactions to her. And then we learn how fucked up she is. She's a great example of a character who does awful things, gets a tragic backstory and a slight hint of a redemption arc, but it doesn't change how the audience views her. Her backstory helps you understand her, but you never really forgive her for the shit she's done. She's manipulative, abusive (in every way you can think of), creepy as hell, and yet I still love her because she's insanely entertaining whenever she's around.

Daria Morgendorffer from Daria- This character was basically me in high school, in both looks and mannerisms. I molded my entire personality after her. I love characters with dry humor and I still quote this show relentlessly to this day. Daria was for all the girls who felt like total outcasts because they spent their time reading instead of making friends, but she also showed that you kind of need other people to...well...not be depressed. Also, it might not be explicitly canon that she's asexual, but there is an entire episode revolving around how she's doesn't want to have sex with her boyfriend...so do with that what you will.

Emma from The Promised Neverland- READ THE MANGA I'M BEGGING YOU! My insanely smart, redheaded mastermind of a daughter is such a great main character. I love having a young girl who is cheerful and optimistic while also kicking ass the same way shounen protagonists do. She's so friendly and hopeful that even though the story is super grim, we want to believe she can find a solution to every problem even when it seems impossible. Such a shame we never got a season two...wonder what that would have been like....ha...ha...ha................

Inej Ghafa from Six of Crows- I was trying to keep myself from using characters in the same series, but I couldn't help it. She's just so well written. She's badass. She's vulnerable. She's smart. She puts so much stock in faith but it doesn't make her weak or evil. She ties the group together so well, and she and Kaz are so ace coded it hurts!

Yona from Akatsuki no Yona- I haven't finished the manga yet, but she's another great example of a perfect character arc. Yona starts out as a typical teenage princess. She was never mean or a bad person, but she was selfish in the way most spoiled teenagers are selfish in that she didn't think about the world outside her palace walls or anyone besides the guy she liked. But when she's forced to run for her life, she sobers up and sees the world for what it is very quickly. And instead of relying on others to do things for her, she learns to fight and helps the people of her country the best she can. She's a character who we learn with and grow to love over time.

Kino from Kino's Journey- Definitely one of the most interesting characters I've ever seen, and I mean that in the sense that we don't know much about her at all (until the end of the 2017 anime at least). She is a great example of a solitary character who still loves interacting with people. She's not insanely smart. She's not a badass bitch (she can defend herself and fight because she has to, but she's not a fighter). She's not magical or the chosen one. She's just an average person who wants to experience as much of the world as possible.

Yuuko from xxxHolic- idk what to say about her, she's just the best. She's got chaotic wine aunt energy for days, but she's also got this hidden Dumbledore-esque wisdom and tragedy under her fabulous outfits. I feel like her and Magnus Bane would be best friends.

Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games- People who've only watched the movies will never understand. Her dry humor and rough around the edges personality are just so well written, but so many people relegate her as a stereotypical "girlboss" YA protagonist in a love triangle. She's brave. She's funny in subtle ways. She's kind of an asshole but not in an off-putting way. I like Katniss because everything about her feels so genuine. Her love for her family and the way she deals with the world around her are so...real. And I think that's why so many people connected to the series. READ THE BOOKS!

Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter- I don't care if it's cringe, I was fucking obsessed with her in middle school. Again, I'm drawn to characters that have experienced trauma but still come out smiling. I think Luna helped a lot of people who didn't fit in feel more at home in the world. She's fun, she's kind to the people who need it the most, and she's a great friend who helped save the world!

Linda Belcher from Bob's Burgers- This might seem like a silly pick, but I just love her spirit! She's the ultimate mother figure and supportive wife who also has a distinct personality with wants and dreams of her own. So often, moms in cartoons (or anything really) are relegated to being support or a background character for their husbands or kids, but Linda demands a starring role. She loves her kids and her husband and will go to the ends of the earth for them, but they also frustrate her in a very human way. Episode 1 of the new season shows her breaking down in tears because she just doesn't know how to manage the kids, and I think that's something a lot of parents probably go through. I'm not a parent or a spouse, but her struggles and general mom energy feel so real.

There you have it. I really wanted to put a Vinland Saga character on the list, but Thorfinn, Canute, and Askeladd are all so well written I couldn't decide on one, so I had to leave them out 😅

[youthculture2b]

The benefits of generational trauma

Ana Temer Bay

In the last decades the relationship between parents and teenagers has been described in many different ways. Varying from more negative or positive dinâmica depending on individual experiences and cultural influences. Some of the most common positive representations on those relationships emphasize a more supportive and nurturing behavior by the parents, in which they provide guidance and understanding, also depending a lot on open communication, for example emphasizing the importance of open and honest conversations between parents and teenagers. This may involve discussing personal problems, feelings and experiences more openly than before, both on the teenagers and parents part. Our society is increasingly recognizing different family structures and dynamics, including single-parent households, blended families, and LGBTQ parents. But what so positively changed the relationship between parents and teenagers? In part, the answer may be generational trauma, the transmission of unresolved psychological and emotional wounds from one generation to the next, and its impact on parent-teen interactions in today's society is increasingly recognized. This phenomenon can completely change the dynamics of these relationships in several important ways. And personally, I believe it is actually one of the most important factors in changing parent-teen relationships. Many know that their family history may contain unresolved traumas that affect their behavior, attitudes and communication style. A relationship where parents are open to talking about the experiences and difficulties of their adolescence and the relationship they had with their parents allows not only a greater capacity for adults to remember the difficulties that teenagers go through, but also generates empathy in teenagers, who begin to understand that your parents are sometimes trying their best to do the best they can. In some cases, discussing generational trauma fostered more open and honest communication between parents and teens, since sharing their experiences and feelings can really help to break down communication barriers. Families who have experienced generational trauma are more likely to seek professional help depending on the severity of the problem, both individual therapy and family therapy. Doing everything possible to avoid repeating the same mistakes and heal from old ones. Generational trauma and the positive effects it can end up having on certain families has been increasingly recognized. By understanding past suffering and mistakes, families gain the possibility of greater empathy, space for healthy discussions and more honest relationships between parents and teenagers.

[specialability]

Andor Ep 5: The axe forgets but the tree remembers

I wrote *this* thousand word meta essay when I could barely keep my eyes open and then when I gave up and went to bed I couldn't fall asleep. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A theme of "The axe forgets but the tree remembers" seems to be: how the personal becomes political.

You are meant to be uncomfortable with Syril's overbearing control freak mother because it clearly shows their relationship and why he has grown into an adult incapable of making adult decisions. They are always framed at the kitchen table, encircled by the walls, stuck together in this toxic relationship. He could leave but he doesn't. He could go somewhere else, do anything else, but he doesn't. He is like the teenager who says they want to be treated like an adult but then sulks and acts childish when things don't work out. That is what the space cereal is about. She is infantilizing him throughout their scenes together.

At the same time, she is positioning herself as subordinate to whoever Uncle Harlo is. She prides herself on her understanding of the hierarchies of the world. And it seems to me she has dedicated her life to teaching her son how to navigate being subordinate. She wants him to be absolutely perfect because that's what you have to do to integrate yourself with the powerful. Nagging him about his posture. The way she describes to him how she asked for the favour, the words she used, the attitude she held, is all very intentional. "This is the Correct way to behave because this is how powerful people behave" and "This is how you make powerful people like you". It's about having the appearance of being the 'right kind of person' so you fit in and hide your shameful weak real self.

By the way, this isn't just fascism, it is absolutely classic white supremacy.

It would not be shocking to me if the mother grew up in poverty and bootstrapped her way up to this little apartment that briefly gets sunlight every day. The way she dresses and wears tall heels even when just sitting around the house. The pristine clean kitchen. When you've been taught that you have to be perfect above all others to be worth something you can't possibly ever even admit to yourself that you failed. It has to be someone else's fault.

I would not be shocked if Uncle Harlo turns out to the kind of person who "makes things happen" for Imperial higher-ups, a kind of tacitly accepted mobster, or even a leader of a radical militant wing of Imperialism who act under orders but with plausible deniability. The fact that it is a "family" favour and not a favour owed to the mother herself is also interesting but I don't know where it will lead. It implies the family member in question is dead or gone.

The other awkward family dynamic comes from Mon Mothma's family. Sniping at each other over the breakfast table is very familiar to me and I'm thankfully far enough away from it now to find the similarity funny. The child learns by watching their parents that you don't just have conversations, you have to win every interaction. You have to pick people apart and find their weak points so you can stick the knife in them before they do it to you. You also see how the daughter has probably in the past been forced to choose between her parents. This time, she has chosen her father. Mon Mothma clearly does not understand where he daughter is coming from, only sees the betrayal. The child seems selfish, but she is allowed to be. She is a child. It is the adults in her life who should be acting more maturely.

Putting it simply, Mon Mothma's work as a career politician and revolutionary may be done with an end goal of making the world a better place for many people, but she is making life miserable for her own daughter. How is that righteous? And is it worth it? The mother forgets the damage she has done, but the daughter remembers.

And it's possible that down the line this very personal issue of familial relationships will have an impact on the Rebellion itself. Because as much as everyone wants to believe they chose their political beliefs through reasoning, a lot of it simply comes down to our own secret wounds. Why would the daughter choose to oppose the Empire when it seems quite clear to her that it is the liberal members of the Senate and the Rebellion – in the shape of her mother – that have wronged her? (This question may have already been answered in the lore, but I'm not going to look it up.)

The final reference to family and personal connections is from Skeen. Since we are automatically on Cassian's side Skeen seems irrationally threatened by Cassian. His actions seem overblown and paranoid. But we learn that he was a (probably conscripted) soldier, possibly in the kind of war where he fought against other anti-Empire people. And we learn that his brother was cruelly driven to suicide by a petty official who destroyed his ancestral farm. He is used to mistrusting people as a method of survival and especially outsiders. It's not an excuse, but it's an explanation. Cassian admits he is being motivated by money, and seems quite uncomfortable with the concept of fighting for a cause. He is skeptical of the whole group because of that. But once he learns that someone else is there for a "petty" reason like revenge, he understands better his own relationship to this fight. It doesn't really matter what has brought him here, only that he is here. (Of course by having this emotional reveal Skeen has raised a huge death flag, so good luck Skeen!)

So we arrive at the final theme of the story: the weak and wounded remember what was done to them and that is what motivates them to fight. What side they fight on can really just depend on who they think wielded the axe. But at the end of the day, the the Empire is hurting everyone. It seems extremely likely that no matter how hard Syril tries to redeem himself he will never win a position in the sun. Even those who seem to have more power are struggling in a trap. No one is free.

[areyouafraid]

ughhhh where do i begin on this. first of all i more or less agree with everything adam says here. i already kinda mentioned this situation in passing; this is a really weird case and the public speculation is not helping. the thing that this really hinges on is i have no way of knowing whether or not the messages are even real. the idea that the origin of these messages is like some fucking 4chan thread and not the victim or someone close to them is first off incredibly dodgy to me. the fact that the victim in this case is also maintaining that the messages were taking out of context and that they don't want to be seen as a "victim" is also troubling.

i will say first and foremost if the messages ARE real, which neither party has denied that they are, then it's fucking wrong full stop like it's textbook grooming. at best it's still a wildly inappropriate interaction to have with a minor. like this is a crime. this is probably going to sound a little harsh but as someone who experienced very similar shit when i was around their age you really, genuinely don't realize how fucked up it is until you're your groomer's age and you realize that you would never have done shit like that yourself and what they were doing is objectively wrong. lots of teenagers conceptualize themselves as being at an adult level but looking back it's just not fucking true. you do not have the same cumulative knowledge and social awareness to consent to these kinds of interactions when you're 14 as you do when you're 21. i want to respect lavags' point of view but i also don't feel like it's... applicable do you know what i mean? to give some of my perspective, when i was a 12 - 14 year old girl i had an older "friend" who was like, somewhere between 17 and 20 i dont really remember. he would talk to me in private about his kinks and the hentai he liked to read and shit like that. in the moment you believe that you are peers, but the fact is that you are not. im 20 now i can barely comprehend even maintaining a serious friendship with someone who hasn't even graduated high school yet. in my honest opinion to have a sexual relationship with someone that much younger is completely unthinkable unless you're a pedophile. i said that i think that even a relationship between someone who's like 19 and someone who's 16 is inappropriate. and my reasoning for that is yeah a lot of people will make the argument that the chronological age difference isnt that much and yeah sure i guess but you're also in completely different stages of your life. one of you drives, has a job, and goes partying and one of you is in high school and, studying for their algebra final and still has to ask their mom permission to go to the grocery store. you're not even in the same space regularly. like what do you have in common? (ntm that only one of you is a legal adult) i've joked that people aged 18 - 21 are basically glorified teenagers but still what i said applies. i wouldnt have dated a 16 year old when i was 19 and i wouldnt have done whatever the fuck this is at ava's age. i'm still hesitant to call myself a grooming victim because i was never like pressured into sending nudes and i never got raped, it's definitely a heavy term with heavy connotations so i can understand why lavags doesn't want to be described that way but to be honest again if all of this is true then i really think it's a matter of time until he puts together how fucked up this is.

(there's rumors she was into like shadman and lolicon which even if that's true i think she should be separated from minors period. i could say something worse but i dont think now is the time)

in any case again if it's true i'm glad this has come out but still like adam mentions the anti-trans brigade is having a field day with this. i think back to like sunnyv2 and whoever the fuck speculating on how Dangerous ava was to have around on the basis of "trans bad". in the moment even though i really do not fuckinglike jimmy at all i was glad at least that he stood up for her in the face of at the time baseless transmisogynistic accusations. obviously now i'm kinda anticipating that that entire crowd feels vindicated now but still it's like. they care more about what ava is than what she did. a lot of these same people even are the ones who were quick to shit on tana mongeau when she accused cody ko, with ample evidence, of statutory rape. and especially like given that real minors have been hurt here it's beyond frustrating to see people brush past that to instead jump to "i was right about trans women". the space is obviously teeming with anti-trans vitriol rn which is not only the wrong fucking reaction to have it's also just like a wildly inappropriate response to have. a child was groomed. can we focus on that? how about the fact that this seems to be a recurring theme with youtubers? like i said i really cant help but feel frustrated and hopeless whenever someone who happens to be gay / transgender does something fucked up and then it's the rest of us who are normal fucking people who are caught in the crossfire and are placed in a position where we have to basically defend our honor from something that someone else did. and again just for the record you're not going to make any progress trying to convince someone who believes all transgender people are satanic pedophiles that you're a normal decent human being, trying to "debate" these "people" is a waste of time, it's just fucking exhausting seeing again and again i think i kind of hoped we'd be past this stage by now when i was a kid

sorry abt the fucking essay it's just. terrible fucking situation this is & i hope lavags is doing well.

[seandaltonerotic]

Happy Little Family

Assessment

“So, why are we here?” Michael asked with a friendly smile, as he observed the family of four in front of him. The husband, Anthony, and wife, Wendy, were sitting next to each other on the two-seater sofa. To the left of Anthony was a teenage girl, Sara, with a scowl sitting on an office chair with her arms crossed looking like she wished she wasn’t there and to the right of Wendy was a boy, Oscar, who looked like he hadn’t quite reached his teenage years, he sat looking down at the floor with his hands between his legs. Like Sara, he looked like he didn’t want to be there.

The husband and wife looked at each other pensively, holding each other’s hand before Wendy spoke, “We have recently got married and we need some help bringing our two families together.”

“We are having a few adjustment issues,” Anthony added.

Michael raised his eyebrows and made a note in his notebook, “Ok, I take it this isn’t your first marriage for either of you.”

“No,” Wendy admitted. “It’s both our second marriage.”

Michael knew the situation before they even walked in the door. Meeting them only confirmed it.

“So, what do want to achieve from your sessions?” Michael asked, deliberately using the plural because it was clear they were going to need them.

“Well, Oscar, already has a wonderful relationship with Anthony. They do many father and son things together and he already calls Anthony Dad,” Wendy said with a proud smile. Oscar looked away from Wendy and refused to take her outstretched hand which made Wendy’s smile disappear with a hurt expression.

“The problem is Sara,” Anthony, said with a flash of anger, Sara snorted in response. “Whenever she is at home, she just sits in her room and refuses to leave until she returns to my first wife unless she is made to for meals or family activities.”

First wife? Interesting way to describe Sara’s mother.

“So, what do you want to achieve from your sessions?” Michael repeated.

“We want, Sara, to accept the new reality that she is part of a new family and all that comes with it,” Anthony replied with an unbending resolve.

Sara’s face reacted with disdain.

“Are you saying Sara is what is stopping you all from being a happy family?” Michael suggested.

“No,” Wendy, quickly answered, “we just want her to accept me, and us as a couple. I know we can all be a happy family if we all just try,” she said giving Sara a hopeful smile.

Sara just sat there shaking her head with a look of disgust.

“Sara,” Anthony snapped, “don’t disrespect your mother!”

“She isn’t my mother!” Sara retorted.

Here we are, the first step to the root of the problem.

“Ok, ok,” Michael said, jovially raising his voice. “I think what we should do is, firstly I will speak you, Anthony and Wendy alone, then I will speak to Sara before I speak to you and Sara together, Anthony. Afterwards, I will speak to Oscar alone, then together with you and Oscar, Wendy. Lastly, I would like to talk with you Anthony and Wendy again to go over what we have learnt. I won’t lie to you it will be a difficult journey and you will likely arrive at somewhere you will probably not like. Are you willing to do this, no matter where it leads you?”

“Whatever, it takes,” Anthony said with certainty.

“Whatever, it takes,” Wendy repeated, smiling.

The couple lovingly smiled at each other.

“I doubt you will be smiling at the end,” Michael thought before saying out loud, “Good! Sara, Oscar, do you mind if you wait in the waiting room while I talk to your parents? There are snacks and drinks in there, help yourselves to whatever you want and you can also watch the tv in there.”

“They’re not my parents,” Sara muttered insolently as she walked out which brought another flash of anger to Anthony’s face. There appeared to be no interaction between Sara and Oscar.

“Don’t spoil your dinner, Oscar,” Wendy called after him.

When the children had left the room, Michael turned back to Anthony and Wendy and smiled.

Anthony and Wendy

“Ok,” Michael began with an upbeat voice. “Shall we begin?”

Anthony and Wendy smiled back.

“Let’s start and the beginning,” Michael said. “You both say this is your second marriage, correct?”

“That is right,” they both answered in unison.

“So, how did the pair of you meet?”

“Well,” Wendy began excitedly, “we were at a BBQ at a mutual friend’s house. I couldn’t help but notice who this dishy man was.” Anthony laughed at being called dishy.

“All I remember was seeing this beautiful and glamourous woman in a yellow sundress,” this earnt Anthony a playful slap from Wendy on his thigh. “I was instantly drawn to her and I had to talk to her.”

“After the BBQ you started dating?”

“No, that didn’t happen for a few months. We kept bumping into each other at events, turned out that our children went to the same school. Oscar was in year seven and Harry was in year 10. Sara must have been year 9, isn’t that right Anthony?” Anthony nodded happily.

“Harry?” Michael asked quizzically, his brow furrowed in confusion.

The first crack appeared in their happy veneer making their smiles slip.

“He is my eldest son,” Wendy admitted uneasily. Michael made another note in his notebook.

“Ok, let’s go back to how you became a couple. You met at various events and your children went to the same school?”

“Yes,” Wendy continued. “We then went to the same Halloween party with our children.”

“We spent the whole evening talking and we swapped numbers and agreed to meet for coffee,” Anthony continued, “and the rest, as they say, is history.”

“How long ago was this?”

“About two years ago,” Anthony replied.

“And how long ago was your wedding?”

“Six months ago,” Wendy replied happily. Her hand unconsciously turned to show off her engagement and wedding rings.

“How was the wedding? Was it a big wedding?”

Their smiles dropped again.

“No, it was a small wedding. Just our parents and a few friends,” Wendy replied with a hint of sadness. Michael could tell that their happiness was shared by only a few.

“Your children didn’t attend?” Michael asked.

“Oscar did and so did Sara,” Anthony added looking embarrassed, like he didn’t want to talk about it in too much detail.

“How about your mutual friend? The one who introduced you, was he one of your friends at your wedding?”

“No,” Wendy admitted again, looking embarrassed too. “Jack hasn’t been a friend for a while now.”

“I have to ask, were the both of you married when you began to date?” Michael asked pointedly.

“Yes, we were,” Anthony answered and they both shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. “In our defence, both our marriages were already in trouble.”

“Because of your infidelity?”

Anthony and Wendy didn’t answer.

“Tell me about your children’s living arrangements?”

“Oscar lives with us full-time and Sara visits us every other weekend,” Wendy replied with a weak smile.

“What about Harry, he doesn’t live with you?”

“No, we decided it would be best if he lived with my first husband,” there was a sadness in her voice.

Again, interesting way to call his dad.

“Why was that?”

“There was a misunderstanding because Harry and Anthony got into an argument.”

“He punched me,” Anthony added unnecessarily.

“It was a misunderstanding, Anthony,” Wendy insisted.

“Enough of a misunderstanding for your ex to attack me too,” Anthony said irritably.

“The cracks are appearing already in their marriage,” Michael thought. “Oscar chose to live with you?” he asked.

“No, the courts ordered that I should have full custody of Oscar and Harry,” Wendy said with a lot of discomfort at the memory. “It was a very messy divorce.”

“But your sons now live in separate houses at your choice?” Wendy nodded, and for the first time, a tear rolled down her cheek. She took a tissue from the box on the coffee table in front of the sofa. “And, Sara, chose to live with her mother?” Anthony nodded uneasily.

“So, how long was it between your divorce from your previous spouse and your wedding?”

“I’m not sure I like your questions, we’re not going to justify our marriage,” Anthony retorted defensively.

“Anthony, we need to do this,” Wendy told her husband firmly. “We were married three months after the divorce. Anthony just couldn’t wait.”

Michael remained silent and impassive at Anthony’s outburst and just made some notes.

“How many times did you meet each other’s children before moving in together?”

“Anthony moved in with me and the boys as soon as he left his first wife. I met Sara two or three times during that time.”

“Were all your children at each meeting?”

“It was hard to get them all together. We couldn’t get the visitation dates to match,” Anthony replied irritably.

“Ok, I think I have a good idea of your situation. I think the next step would be if I talked to Sara then Oscar the following day. I think also it would be a good idea if Harry joined myself and Oscar. Could you arrange that, Wendy?”

“Is it really necessary?” Wendy objected worriedly.

“I think so,” Michael insisted.

“I’ll talk to my ex-husband but I can’t promise Harry will come.”

“As they are children, I will ask an experienced female colleague to sit in with us.”

“We won’t be in the room?” Anthony said sounding concerned.

“No, you will have your opportunity with Sara as will Wendy with Oscar and hopefully Harry,” Michael assured him. “If you sit with us, I don’t think any of the children will open up to me. Shall we say I will meet Sara at 4pm on Tuesday and Oscar and Harry on Wednesday at 4pm. I don’t think we should interrupt their school day do you?”

Anthony and Wendy left and Michael simply said “Wow!” in disbelief.

Sara

“Hello, Sara, how are you,” Michael greeted her warmly. His colleague Helen sat to the side. Sara sat on the sofa with her arms crossed scowling dressed in black grungy clothes like a typical rebellious teenager. When Michael got no answer, he continued gently, “The next hour is dedicated to you. If you want to sit there and say nothing then that is fine. If you want to shout and scream then that is good too. If you want to cry, feel free to cry. If you want to swear, I won’t tell,” that brought a small smile from Sara. “If you want to talk, I am all ears.”

At the mention of talking, Sara returned to scowling.

“I have an idea, why don’t we play a game?” and Michael pulled out a tin of Dobble. Sara looked at Michael quizzically through her scowl. “Helen, would you like to join us?”

“Of course,” Helen smiled moving closer.

Sara thought for a moment before kneeling at the coffee table. Michael dished out the cards before Sara muttered, “Dobble,” and took all the cards. They played several hands with Sara winning most of them.

“I never realised I was so bad at this game,” Michael said irritably which made Sara laugh. Helen smiled; she could see what Michael was doing. “I bet you have had a lot of adults tell you what to do with your life recently and no one has asked what you wanted,” Michael said with sympathy.

Sara nodded and she wiped away the tears from her eyes. Helen gave the girl a tissue which Sara gratefully accepted, “It’s not fair,” Sara said quietly.

“No, it isn’t,” Michael agreed. “But this is your opportunity to say what you want. What is it you want, Sara?”

“I don’t want to be with my dad, and I don’t want to know that bitch,” Sara said equally quietly but there was anger in her voice.

“By bitch, you mean Wendy?” Sara nodded.

“They act like we’re one big happy family. They want me to call her mum but she isn’t my mum! I hate her!”

“Could you see yourself at any time accepting her?”

Sara shook her head vehemently, “I want nothing to do with her. Because of her, my mum and dad split up. My mum cries all the time, she never has any money and is having to sell our home because she can’t afford it. We were happy until that evil bitch came along.”

“Have you talked about this to your dad?”

“He doesn’t want to hear it. He just expects me to be part of their stupid happy family and keep quiet.”

“What about your dad, do you still want to see him?”

“Sara shrugged, “Maybe.”

“Do you feel like Wendy has taken your dad away from you?” Michael asked sympathetically. “If it was just, you and your dad, would you still want to see him?”

Sara nodded sadly, “But he won’t do that, he always has to have her with us all the time.”

“You don’t trust your dad any more, do you?” Sara shook her head. “Did he hurt you by leaving your mum?” Sara nodded. “How do you feel about Oscar?”

Sara shrugged, “He is all right I suppose but I barely know him. I know his parents split up because of my dad but I can’t be friends with him, can I? Because I hate his mum, I mean.”

“You have a point,” Michael agreed. “If I called in your dad, would you be prepared to tell him all this?” Sara shrugged. “Sara,” Michael began to talk seriously, “I know you are upset but you won’t be able to build a new relationship with your father if you don’t talk to him. I know he has hurt you but you won’t get what you want if you don’t communicate with him. Will you talk to him? This room is special, believe me, he will listen.”

“Ok,” Sara agreed.

Anthony and Sara

“Anthony, would you like to join myself and Sara?” Michael asked from the door.

Anthony nodded warily and entered the room and sat next to Sara who looked at him with eyes filled with daggers. Anthony felt each one of the daggers pierce him.

“Now, Anthony would you like to talk to Sara and then Sara you can reply,” Michael offered.

Anthony looked at his daughter with a mixture of sadness and frustration, “Sara, what’s wrong with you? You were such a polite and happy girl, now you can’t be civil to anyone. Wendy just wants to be your friend and your mother. You need to stop being childish and accept that Wendy and I are together, we are married and that’s not going to change.”

“It changed for you and Mum!” Sara snapped.

“That couldn’t be helped, I fell in love with Wendy. You can’t help who you fall in love with. Let’s stop this stupid behaviour. You, me, Wendy and Oscar are a family now.”

“Well, I don’t want to be!” Sara screamed at her dad who visibly flinched at his daughter’s rejection and fury. “I hate her, because of her, Mum is never happy, Wendy’s a home wrecker, a stupid bitch and I want nothing to do with her or your crappy happy little family!” Sara then began to sob, pushing away her father when he tried to console her.

“Sara, please, we can work this out, if you would just open up to us. Wendy loves you.”

“Are you listening to yourself? How can she love me when she doesn’t even know me, I can never love someone like her. She’s a slut and an evil bitch. Mum is going to have to sell our home because of you and her. How can I ever be happy if Mum is so miserable? You lied to her, you lied to me. I loved you but you betrayed me like you did with Mum.”

Anthony was stunned, not knowing what to do or say as Sara unleashed many months of pent-up emotion upon him all at once, sobbing uncontrollably as she did so. Eventually, Anthony got control of himself,

“Sara, that is enough!” he told his daughter angrily. “You will be part of our family and you will be happy.” Anthony turned to Michael, “This is what we told you about, do you understand what we are dealing with now?”

“I think I do,” Michael replied trying to control his own anger.

Oscar

“Hello, Oscar, come in, have a seat,” Michael greeted him with a smile, shaking his small hand. “This is Helen, she will be keeping me honest.”

Oscar sat down on the sofa looking nervous.

“Oscar, how old are you?” Michael began.

“Twelve,” the boy answered.

“That puts you in what year at school?”

“Year 8.”

“Of course, it does!” Michael laughed at his own stupidity which made Oscar laugh too. Helen marvelled at how good Michael was at putting children at ease. That was what made him such a good family therapist. “Now, Oscar,” Michael became serious, “can we talk about your Mum and Dad?”

“Which dad, my real one or Anthony?” Oscar asked innocently.

“Which one do you prefer?”

“I prefer my real dad but he has been unhappy ever since me and Mum left.”

“How do you feel about Anthony?”

Oscar shrugged, “He tries to be my dad, but he isn’t. He always tries to tell me what to do and punishes me if I don’t do it or if I mess up. That is why Harry left.”

“Harry is your brother, isn’t he?”

Oscar nodded and his eyes lit up, “Harry’s the best brother. I wish I could live with him but Mum and Anthony told him he had to live with Dad.”

“Why was that?”

“Anthony got really angry with us when we wouldn’t tidy up. Anthony hit me around the head so Harry punched him. It was so cool.”

Michael’s brow furrowed in confusion, “Your Mum tells me that you and Anthony do lots of father and son activities together.”

“He tries, he takes me to watch football.”

“That sounds cool, what’s wrong with that?” Michael asked.

“It is his team. Me, Dad and Harry support someone else but Anthony insists I support his team and he even put his team’s bedsheets on my bed. I don’t even like his team.”

“What else does Anthony do with you?”

“He takes me to play football at the park for my team.”

“That sounds fun, isn’t it?”

“I like watching football but I don’t like playing it. Anthony keeps getting told off for shouting. It’s embarrassing.”

“What do you like instead?”

“Karate, my Dad teaches it in his own dojo and he taught me and Harry. I wish I could go back to doing that.”

There was a commotion outside and a large lad of around sixteen years old barged in with a nasty bruise on his face.

“Harry!” Oscar exclaimed with an excited smile and ran into his brother’s arms.

“Oscar!” Harry exclaimed back. Both boys laughed as they wrestled each other on their feet.

“Harry, welcome! I am so glad you came,” Michael said warmly. “Have a seat with your brother.” With them all sat down, Michael commented, “That is a nasty bruise.”

“Yeah, got it in a Karate competition. I got to the semi-final,” Harry bragged.

“Did your Mum explain why you are here?”

“Yeah, about how she wants Oscar and that asshole to be one happy little family?” Harry answered rolling his eyes in disgust.

“I take it you don’t like Anthony, then?”

“He is a controlling dick. He behaves like he’s our dad and he thinks it gives him the right to treat us like shit. It really is doing my head in knowing Oscar is still living with him.”

“You were asked to leave?”

“Yeah, that asshole hit Oscar but when I stood up to him, I got kicked out. Anthony was really nasty about it too and Mum took his side.”

“Anthony says you punched him?”

“Yeah, I did. I’m a black belt in Karate, he didn’t stand a chance. Anthony hates anything he can’t control. He stopped Oscar from doing Karate because he’s afraid Oscar would do the same as me.”

“It was so cool!” Oscar beamed and Harry put his arm around his little brother and brought him in for a hug.

“You two are very close, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, we’re best buds,” Harry replied happily.

“Definitely!” Oscar agreed.

“What do you both think about Sara?” Michael asked tentatively.

Harry looked confused.

“Anthony’s daughter,” Oscar whispered to his brother.

“Oh, yeah. I think she is all right. We see her at school sometimes but she likes to avoid us. She hates Mum, which is fair, I suppose.”

“We hate Anthony too,” Oscar added.

Michael suspected that there was a bit of an attraction toward Sara on Harry’s part.

“Would you be prepared to say all this to your Mum?” Michael asked gently.

“For fuck sake,” Harry said irritably. “So that’s why I’m here. I only came to see Oscar. Fine! But I’m only doing it for Oscar, no one else.”

“Thank you, Harry,” Michael said gratefully. “How about you Oscar?”

“Ok, but only if Harry is here,” Oscar agreed.

Wendy, Oscar and Harry

Wendy nervously entered. She would have heard what happened between Anthony and Sara and what Sara thought of her so she probably was worried she was going to get the same treatment.

“Wendy, why don’t you talk to Oscar and Harry.”

Wendy sat and thought for a moment, unsure what to say before she began, “Harry, Oscar, I love you both so much.”

“Love us so much that you kicked me out and took the word of that asshole over your own sons?” Harry retorted.

“Harry, it was just a misunderstanding, if you would just apologise, you can come back home.”

“I am home with Dad and Oscar should be with us too! He would be if you hadn’t made up those lies in court. The only misunderstanding is why you chose that control freak over Dad.”

Wendy wrung her hands in her lap, “Anthony is a good man. He cares for Oscar. You love him, don’t you?” Oscar shook his head vigorously and Wendy looked at her youngest son in horrified disbelief, “That’s not true Oscar! Tell Harry the truth,” she demanded.

“I don’t like him, Mum. He hates Harry and I can’t like any who hates Harry. I don’t like how he always makes me do what he wants. I hate his football team. I want to go back to live with Dad and Harry and do Karate again like we used to.”

Wendy began to sob and took several tissues, “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me, doing this to Anthony! I love you both, I need you with me!”

She tried to embrace both boys but Harry pushed her away. For the first time, this angry young man became emotional,

“No, Mum. While you’re with that asshole, I don’t have a Mum,” Harry told her cruelly.

Wendy looked like she had been stabbed in the heart by not only Harry’s rejection and her son’s us or him ultimatum but also how Oscar resolutely stood by him by confessing he disliked her husband as much as his brother. Wendy broke down completely.

Michael once again felt his anger rise.

Anthony and Wendy

Michael looked at Anthony and Wendy with his hand over his mouth in silence. The newly married couple sat in front of him looked ashen-faced.

After what felt like an eternity, Michael began to speak with a hint of hostility in his voice, “I assume you both have read my report and you agree it isn’t pleasant reading for either of you.” Anthony and Wendy slowly nodded their heads. “I will verbally go through the report then you can have your say. Firstly, your children are healthy and well-rounded individuals. I was particular impressed by Harry and Oscar’s love for each other. But that is not thanks to either you. In my over twenty years as a family therapist where I have dealt with just about every family issue you can think of, I have never met two such narcissistic people. I don’t know if you two deserve each other or are toxic for each other.” Both Anthony and Wendy recoiled from Michael’s fierce criticism.

“You came to me asking for help to get Sara to adjust to the new family situation. After a little digging, I opened a whole can of worms. The root cause of your problems is that both of you are still living in an affair mode, putting your own wants and needs above everyone else. When I heard you speak, all I heard was what you wanted and what you needed. I had hoped in these sessions you would begin to ask your children what they wanted and needed but to my disappointment you never did.”

“When you have a marriage born from infidelity then, as far as your children are concerned, you have made a rod for your own back. Sara has an intense dislike of you, Wendy, she won’t even say your name. She sees you as a homewrecker, the source of her mother’s unhappiness and financial insecurities and someone trying to take over as her mother. I think I agree with her. Anthony, you are fully aware that Harry hates you but you probably aren’t aware how much Oscar dislikes you too. I also have real concerns with your controlling and bullying behaviour. You force Oscar only to do activities that you deem appropriate, not what he wants. I can recommend both of you a good therapist for your narcissistic and controlling behaviour, if you would like me to.”

“Wendy, you are not Sara’s mother, so stop trying to be. Anthony, you are not Oscar’s father, you also need to stop trying to be. If there was a worse way to bring two families together as one then you found it. You essentially forced complete strangers together and expected them to be one big happy family. You are living an illusion and a fantasy, fed by your own wants and needs and that fantasy has now been ripped to pieces. Both of you are oblivious to the feelings of your children. I have no idea how you possibly thought that it would work.”

“What neither of you realise is that when you betrayed your former spouses, you also betrayed your children. Betrayal and divorce have a profound effect on children. I’ve seen some parents lose their children because of their infidelity and those that don’t, never have the same relationship again. The pair of you are very close to that scenario. I am also seeing cracks in your own relationship, probably because you were forced together by the consequences of your infidelity.”

“Worst of all, Wendy, you threw out your own son because of his argument with Anthony and I am in no doubt that you pressured Wendy in doing that, Anthony.”

“It was a misunderstanding,” Wendy insisted, wiping away a tear.

“It was no misunderstanding, Harry struck Anthony defending Oscar. Striking a child is excusable in itself but you took Anthony’s side resulting in your own sons living separately. Your sons are very close and it was not in their interest for that to happen. That is unforgivable. I take no pleasure in doing this but I have sent my report to the judges in the family courts which handled your divorces recommending that your former spouses should get full custody of your children. I’m sorry, I have to take a hardline when children’s safety is concerned.”

“No, you can’t do that!” Wendy said horrified, tears streaming down her face.

“Don’t you dare send that report!” Anthony said threateningly.

“I already have,” Michael said impassively.

“What can I do to get my boys back,” Wendy asked, barely holding herself together.

“Go to therapy for your narcissism and spend time alone with them without Anthony. Rebuild your relationship with them and be a mother, not Anthony’s mistress. I’m sorry but you will never have a relationship with Sara. Anthony, you will never have a relationship with Oscar and Harry either but you do need to rebuild your relationship with Sara on her terms, not yours.”

“Do you have anything you would like to say or have any questions?”

The broken and exposed couple shook their heads and walked out knowing that they were finally being forced to take responsibility and face the consequences of their infidelity and betrayals.

[yuuseasidesunset]

an aspec goes to a bookshop 

I recently had my first encounter with an aroace Sci-Fi in Japanese and just had to write about it.

I enter a bookshop and feel like crying. I don’t know which book to pick up and I end up spending more time walking around than reading. This has been typical of me in a bookshop over the past few years, since I started to identify as aspec. 

Growing up, I’ve always been a bookworm. As soon as I learned to read, I started devouring all the books I could get my hands on. Recently I found a reading diary we were made to keep in primary school, and the small notebook contained the titles of many more books than I had remembered. Fantasy had already become my favourite genre. I probably read so many books during that time that I didn’t remember what happened in each story. 

Looking back, I can’t pinpoint when that started to change. As I got older my reading skills developed and I came to digest each story more slowly and carefully so I could enjoy the reading experience. That explains why I became so bad at deciding what to read; when you want to take time for it, you would want to choose what you enjoy reading. 

But that wasn’t the only reason, though I couldn’t figure it out at first, and maybe it already started in the fifth or sixth grade. As I grew older, the books recommended for my age group started to contain elements of romance, a certain kind of interaction between a girl and a boy (it was always a girl and a boy - which I didn’t care that much at that time because being anything other than straight simply wasn’t given as an option anyway). I still enjoyed the books and got excited about all the adventures and characters and emotions and all that was there, and I read the romance plots just as any other kind of b-plots. But then, romance and sex became more and more dominant with time, both in books I read and in conversations I had with my friends. I started to feel as if I were much younger than them, too “innocent” and childish for those topics. It might also have had something to do with the fact that Asians are often perceived as younger than their age in Western/European contexts, which was often the case where I spent the latter half of my teenage years, but that definitely wasn’t the only reason. When I came across the terms asexual and aromantic, things started to make so much sense. 

But as it might be the case for many, figuring out at least part of my sexuality wasn't necessarily the most difficult part, unlike many of the YA books I had previously read about queer experiences. Just as much as I was relieved to have a way to describe myself and to find others whose experiences and feelings I share, I also came to notice small and big things built upon the premise of heteronormativity and amatonormativity, and how other people seem to smoothly navigate through them, and be hurt by those little things like advertisements on the metro and anecdotes in daily conversations. It might sound like an exaggeration, but it did feel that way. Little things like that often build up. 

For me, one of the ways in which the impact manifested was that I started to sometimes feel like crying in bookshops and libraries, my favourite places of all. I felt like I was out of place in those storyworlds. I became scared of picking them up. 

I don’t mean to say that all (hetero) alloromantic allosexual people enjoy all the books in the world. But there are simply more options to choose from to relate to in any genre. Of course, there are a vast number of stories and books and every person can like or dislike them, relate to or not relate to them; it’s not unique to queer, aspec, or aroace people. But objectively speaking, there are many more books built upon the premise that romantic and sexual relationships and interactions are an essential and natural part of anyone’s course of life. At least the stories I’ve encountered have been that way, especially those supposedly for “grown-ups” that I found in bookshops in Japan. And when the sheer existence of that premise in a book felt like rejection and exclusion, just the idea that none of the books in the bookshelves went directly against or weren't based on that premise made me want to cry. I started to avoid stopping by the fiction shelves. And that’s been the default for the past few years since the very striking discovery that not everyone feels the way I do and that I was rather the odd one out that the descriptor aroace can be applied to. I got used to feeling as if there were no books for me to read without feeling like an imposter, or read always only as audience and never a participant.

So, reading The Nowhere Garden for the Innocent (無垢なる花たちのためのユートピア) just blew my mind. As a collection of SF short stories by an openly aroace author, it was what I had always wanted without realising. Science fiction and more broadly speculative fiction reimagines the world and enables the understanding of the world and people in ways otherwise impossible, which is one of the reasons I love the genre. But (though the number of books I’ve read so far isn’t large) it was the first work of speculative fiction that spoke to my experience and feelings specifically related to my aroace-ness in a way this book did. 

The book contains six short stories, all science/speculative fiction. The rule-bending nature of speculative fiction enables us to imagine what ifs, but it also makes visible the author’s assumptions about the limitation to those imaginations, what they regard as essential or minimum for the story to be real in their worlds. Of course, books written by alloromantic and allosexual authors also often explore possibilities of relationships and sexualities, I know that. But it just feels different when it reflects the aroace experience. I didn’t know how liberating it feels to read stories where I’m not told I’m in the wrong for the lack of certain experiences or feelings, implicitly or explicitly. 

I hadn’t understood the true importance of representation in media, especially that of aro people, until I read Loveless by Alice Oseman (whose protagonist is aroace) and watched Little Women (2019) (whose protagonist Joe who I interpreted as an aro icon, largely thanks to Sounds Fake But Okay podcast. My fave pod btw). Recently, I have also been rediscovering the power of fanfiction. And now, I have an even deeper understanding of what it means to have a piece of work in your favourite genre that you can see yourself in, and whose author clearly states their wish to create works in which they battle against amatonormativity, and in a language you grew up reading books in, which for me is Japanese. I’m now more jealous than before of the majority of the people who I suppose have plenty of books they can relate to in this particular sense (which is a fresh surprise to me every single day, what do you mean sexual attraction and games of romance are real and not fake?) (I am joking, respectfully). 

I don’t want to spoil the book so won’t write too much about it here, but what I found to be one of the undercurrents in the book is the power of writing itself. It’s about how much writing stories and letters and diaries and memoirs and names might mean to somebody who might be looking for something or somebody. And, reading the book, I realised a special impact that fiction has on me. Works of fiction enable a kind of empathy different from the kind that nonfiction offers, like interviews, scientific books or even tweets, though they have also helped me. Fictional stories enable the reader to immerse themselves entirely in the world and identify with the characters. That is how I feel reading fiction, especially speculative fiction. And when identities often invisible are represented there, it can act like a special kind of affirmation that yes, a person can feel like that, and yes, it is a way to exist in the world and to interact with other people. 

So I’m glad this book exists, and that I had the chance to encounter and read it. Stories save people. I hope people keep believing in the power of writing and storytelling, because now that I know books like this one can and do exist, I don’t feel as much like crying in a bookshop.

--------

無垢なる花たちのためのユートピア (The Nowhere Garden for the Innocent), Megumi Kawano - in Japanese 

Loveless, Alice Oseman

SFBO Little Women episode 

(This post was originally posted on my previous account @seasidesunset on 09/08/2022)

[six-of-cringe]

I can't be the only one that gets overwhelmed by thinking about pieces of media I enjoy?? Like, I started getting pretty stressed out about soc, not even because I was feeling bad emotions, but because if I thought about it too hard I would feel too much. There's just a lot to unpack in this story and a lot that was still left unaddressed but it all makes my heart ache and thinking about it started driving me a little bonkers so I peaced out. Anyway back to my regularly scheduled dogshit posting

[ghooostbaby]

deeeep dive into why and how wei wuxian and lan wangji love each other, complete each other, are the inverse reflection of each other’s deeply hidden internal selves mirrored through the other’s external self, lan wangji’s inner wildness that he has to conceal and protect recognizing and loving wei wuxian’s outer wildness, wei wuxian’s deep, fuddy-duddy morality and values that he conceals with an elaborate subterfuge of jokes, mischief, and bravado, seeing and loving in lan wangji the ability to say no that it was never safe for him to express directly, “between you and me there is no need for thank you and sorry”

oh and a slight diversion midway through into a manifesto on WEI WUXIAN IS NOT INSECURE the whole story is about a society where being liked is ESSENTIAL for survival and it is actually completely perilous not to be liked, and his “people pleasing” is a skill and tool for his survival especially as an orphan and proven to be a necessary one when he stops doing it and STOPS SURVIVING

after the cut discussing the very interesting dynamics of consent in general in the novel, but not going into the consensual non-consent kink stuff till the last paragraph if you need to avoid for any reason.

I've been thinking about how Lan WangJi sees in Wei WuXian the exterior, unfettered expression of the wildness Lan WangJi holds in him and protects with rigid codes of conduct, propriety and outward dignity.

I have had this sense that these two are mirrors, either one reflecting the hidden, interior (and unallowed) self of the other. but it seemed more clear from Lan WangJi's side, especially knowing about his history with his mother and the spicy side that emerges when he drinks and in the extras.

I also - just... the way this whole story shows how romantic love is truly this longing for your self, to become yourself, to become the thing you're not allowed to be, seeing in that person the expression of whatever it is you can't become and longing for it, protecting it, joining with it as closely as you can without ever being able to let it live inside your own body.

On the surface it seems a lot more difficult for Wei WuXian to find a piece of his soul in Lan Wangji. I think its a bit too simplistic to see whatever draws Wei WuXian to Lan Wangji as a reverse-psychology sort of craving of acceptance from the only one who won't give it, pushing and pushing against this impenetrable boundary that he needs to break to feel assurance that no matter what he can make anyone accept him.

And he is SO drawn - in a mind boggling way, in the teenage flashbacks Lan WangJi rudely and aggressively throws him off over and over and Wei WuXian cannot keep away! Even when he talks about how boring Lan WangJi is, he never stops trying to be around him and talk to him.

I've seen discussions of the way Wei WuXian has always relied on the goodwill of others to survive, and that his placating of others to survive is a character flaw. Although that seems only halfway true. 

As a young child he didn't have anyone's goodwill for a while and he survived, and it seems like he can always find a way to survive from whatever means and sometimes very limited resources he has at his disposal. Doing what he has to do to become powerful enough to survive losing his core and being thrown into the burial mounds slowly costs him the goodwill of everyone around him - and what happens to him as a result shows how much placation was a truly necessary for someone without the protection of biological/hereditary family bonds.

(Don’t get me started on how his loss of his golden core and his development of demonic cultivation to give himself power by ‘unnatural methods’ through the use of a musical instrument is a metaphor for disability and the way ableist society sees the use of accessibility devices and tools. Actually please DO get my started haha.)

Wei WuXian is so charismatic and seems very used to getting what he wants and needs on the strength of that. He pushes a lot of boundaries and seems pretty confident and flexibly prepared to handle the consequences, whether beatings or harsh words. But he does work so hard to make others feel good, good with him, good with themselves.

When he is in the cave with Lan WangJi, Wei WuXian is described as "like one who forgets all past pain as soon as the wound heals". He can't resist coming up beside Lan WangJi and talking to him again and again after every time Lan WangJi pushes him off, only finally staying away when Lan WangJi bites him (and he still keeps trying to talk to him after a little bit!) and then calls him an awful person (!!! Bad Wangji! :(((( ). In the end, when Lan WangJi (very minimally) discloses what happened to his sect and his father, and even cries, because of all the defences/assaults Lan WangJi has put up Wei WuXian can't do anything or say anything to help and feels miserable.

Lan WangJi just absolutely refuses to allow Wei WuXian to take care of him - and I began to wonder maybe that’s what Wei WuXian actually really likes about him? Why he is unable to resist coming up to Lan WangJi again and again? Maybe because Lan WangJi refuses to let Wei WuXian appease him. He’s not trying to crack Lan WangJi to get to this impenetrable place of approval and acceptance. In a way he can’t quite understand, Lan WangJi is a respite for Wei WuXian from the constant work to be the one who pleases.

And  how different this is to how Wei WuXian is (or has to be) with Jiang Cheng when he wakes up in Lotus Pier after the cave. Jiang Cheng gets so down and really really needs Wei WuXian to do what he does so well (and wasn’t allowed to do with Lan WangJi) - chasing Jiang Cheng down while being injured and reassuring him about all his insecurities about his father's acceptance and becoming a sect leader and Wei WuXian's own abilities excelling his - and at first Jiang Cheng is pushing him away, but he really does need Wei WuXian to do all this to feel better.

Wei WuXian is described as not wanting to be lonely, and not wanting to see other people unhappy, and he keeps trying to push and pull with whatever he has to not be lonely and lift the mood for those around him. I don't think it's a kind of codependency or insecurity. It’s not that Wei WuXian is afraid to say no, in fact I would say he doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do, but he must always do it creatively, with humour. Similarly to Nie Huaisang, he uses a persona of foolishness to give himself a covert agency.

I also think I'm writing this because I don't like seeing this discussed as a sad bean character flaw for him to always need to be liked - its a strategy, its a tool, its how he survives and excels. Doesn’t the whole story prove how essential being liked is to a human’s survival? And he is so so good at being liked, in making others happy, even when he is refusing to do what others want from him that he doesn't want to do, he does it in a way that deflects criticism, with a smiling bravado that never says what it truly means and has people writing him off as shameless or foolish or just endearing himself toward them despite themselves.

He is always at work really, with jokes and flattery or mischief and teasing, to get the resources he wants and needs. Case and point, when he makes a big coquettish show for mianmian, definitely not being "people pleasing" for her, but the group of girls around them all find it funny and cute and in the end she gives him a perfume sachet which ends up being a valuable resource for later. Or the time he outright tells Jiang Cheng that if you give the girls some lotus seeds they'll remember you and return the favour in the future. (Also notice how his interactions with girls seen as flirtatious are actually strategic resource-gathering acts.) These are the skills he has developed to meet his own needs. (THIS IS NOT A CHARACTER FLAW. I REPEAT.) He takes what he needs and steals from the Lotus Pier markets knowing it'll be paid for, he lives like he never know when his next windfall will come from so he'll take what he can when he can find it. Like Jiang Fengmian said, if there is no guarantee of a meal in the future then today's meal should still be enjoyed. It’s how Wei WuXian said to Nie Huaisang at Cloud Recesses, you have to find ways to make your own fun out of whatever you have. So he gets kicked out of class, goes fishing, gets alcohol, he pursues his own pleasure. He actually is quite insistent of his own agency and right to choose, he just can never directly say no.

And that little detail that Wei WuXian always tucks coins into his clothes just in case, that makes him able to buy food when he and Jiang Cheng are on the run... breaks my heart and reveals so much about the way Wei WuXian is constantly at work on ensuring his own survival and never takes for granted whether he is safe (he knows he never is). 

I've seen some people talking about Wei WuXian sacrificing so much for his brother and sister out of a need to be accepted out of a chronic sense of insecurity. But isn’t this just true? Doesn't he live in a world where being accepted is absolutely essential for survival? Doesn’t this whole story show the cruelty of a social system based on networks of hereditary/biological family that closes out and scapegoats any outsiders, and that without biological family connections that can enclose around you, you can never truly be safe if not constantly working to earn acceptance? (And then beautifully ends with the way a gay romantic relationship that queers marriage/family/etc disrupts all this and creates safety and inclusion for Wei WuXian without needing a normative family.) (AKA romantic love does not resolve some internal personal problem in Wei WuXian but disrupts and refuses and rebels against the problem of SOCIETY.) (*breathes heavily*)

And that’s why Lan WangJi is magnetizing to Wei WuXian. Lan WangJi is always saying no. Although what Lan WangJi sees in Wei WuXian is an exterior wildness, Wei WuXian is not really out of control so much as he is playing and caring and supplicating and showing off and pleasing people to get the resources and the acceptance he needs to live his life. He has firm values and desires that he can never outwardly state, only creatively spinning plates to distract and deflect while he refuses what goes against his values, protects who he cares for, or takes what he needs to in order to survive/thrive. Lan WangJi embodies an exterior of resoluteness and direct agency that Wei WuXian doesn't have the luxury of. And he's so drawn to him for his ability to repeatedly say no, to refuse to get along, or make others laugh, make other people happy, but just simply follow what he thinks is right.

Wei WuXian’s outward wild movement protects an inward stillness. He is an exterior of people-pleasing around an interior of refusal. He is an exterior of youthful rebellion around an interior of unflinching morality. He sees in Lan WangJi the outward expression of his stillness, his morality, his resistance that he can't express, that he's had to protect.

FYI after the cut gets more into the dynamics of consent in the story, and the last paragraph directly talks about consensual non-consent kink play in wangxian’s relationship.

When Wei WuXian is with Lan WangJi, there is no work to be done. Lan WangJi cannot be swayed by him, and so there's no point vying for resources or favors. Lan WangJi will either give him everything or refuse him everything based on who he is, it does not matter what Wei WuXian does and he can't do anything that will change Lan WangJi’s mind. Someone he literally can't win over. After the resurrection, they are often in an adorable tug of war, where Wei WuXian tries to take care of Lan WangJi, while Lan WangJi won't allow him to but demands to care of Wei WuXian right back. Actually, Lan WangJi insists that Wei WuXian take everything he wants or needs from him and is even angry when he doesn't take or when Wei WuXian tries to offer a gesture in return, even something as simple as a thank you Lan WangJi won't accept. It’s kind of adorable how frustrated Wei WuXian is in doing this thing he's learned that he needs to do, and just... so confused by Lan WangJi, and has to find a way to please this person who aggressively refuses to be pleased and is ONLY pleased by Wei WuXian being pleased.

(Not to mention the way Wei WuXian delights in finding that Lan WangJi can’t say what he wants, and they have sort of these chaotic cohesive both-being-so-pleased-by-working-hard-to-please each-other moments where Wei WuXian is letting Lan WangJi please him by finding out what pleases Lan WangJi and giving it to him.)

The wildness Lan WangJi had always hidden within himself is something he sees as just as dangerous as Wei WuXian thinks of his desire to refuse. He saw his mother be socially alienated, shunned, and eventually die because of her wildness. His ability to survive in the world, aka to be accepted by his family, is contingent on him being able to control this inner wildness. From a young age (re: Phoenix Mountain kiss) he could only understand his sexual desires for Wei WuXian as something repulsive or dangerous that had to be repressed and controlled, and that the only way he could imagine his desires as possible was as non-consensual. His secret gay desires were never available to him as anything but something monstrous.

Importantly, it’s not like everyone else other than Lan WangJi are all vampires cruelly demanding Wei WuXian’s constant sacrifice. Wei WuXian is always vibrantly, charismatically offering so much, before anyone has asked. It’s Wei WuXian who creates this kind of relationship for himself again and again. It’s Lan WangJi who simply refuses - he refuses to charmed, to be cared for. And so in the end Lan WangJi becomes the one person who Wei WuXian feels doesn't need anything from him. When he says he's eating the corpse's fruit to save Lan WangJi money and Lan WangJi says that will never be necessary. Or when Wei WuXian asks what toy he should win for Lan WangJi at the market game, and Lan WangJi says anything Wei WuXian gets will be the one he wants. (XD stahhhhp it’s too sweet !!!) He really just wants Wei WuXian to be, to exist, to spend his life discovering his own desires and allow Lan WangJi to help satisfy them, he doesn't want anything from Wei WuXian other than him living - happy and safe.

It takes someone like Lan WangJi to refuse Wei WuXian’s aggressive generosity, it’s definitely not an easy thing to say no to Wei WuXian, dazzling or annoying people so chaotically before they even realize there’s something to say no to. The sacrifice he gives to Jiang Cheng, he never even offers a choice - and perhaps it would have been too much for Jiang Cheng to accept if he had the chance.

Lan WangJi’s statement "Between us there is no need for thank you and sorry" seems like one of the most important sentences in the novel, and you can’t help but noticed the way “sorry” and “thank you” is littered meaningfully through the book. What is owed, what the characters owe to each other, the give and take, touches every part of the story (down to wangxian's erotic explorations!).

When Jiang Cheng talks to Wei WuXian at the Guanyin temple he makes a lot of contradictory statements about what Wei WuXian owes, what he was given, what he took, what he (Wei WuXian still) is owed in return. Wei WuXian, according to Jiang Cheng, took everything from the Jiang clan, and paid them back with their deaths. The Jiang clan give him his life when they took him in, and he owed Jiang Cheng service for the rest of his life as the right hand to the sect leader, that’s what Wei WuXian had promised anyway. At the same time, Wei WuXian sacrificed everything (his golden core) to Jiang Cheng, by giving everything he was taking one more thing - Jiang Cheng’s right to even be angry at him. Jiang Cheng had taken everything from Wei WuXian. Everything that happened around Wei WuXian after could be said to be because of the loss of his golden core, which Jiang Cheng might be said to be responsible for. But he never asked for it, maybe he never would have wanted it. He wishes Wei WuXian told him, but Jiang Cheng never told Wei WuXian his golden core was melted while he was sacrificing himself to save Wei WuXian. He wants Wei wuxian to say sorry, but that makes him feel pathetic. And Jiang Cheng says sorry too. It’s a mess of paradoxes, and in the end somehow it seems like the scales are balanced in the most hollow, dismal way.

What is owed, what is given, what is taken ... Wei WuXian has never been part of a family. He has always had to say thank you and sorry for everything he's taken. Wei WuXian himself admits that he used "thank you" as a way to enforce distance between himself and Lan WangJi. Lan WangJi's point i think is that they belong to each other, Wei WuXian is his, and he is Wei WuXian's, unconditionally. The way that Jiang Cheng speaks of him in the Guanyin temple (admittedly I read a fan translation and this is very nuanced, related to slight variations of grammar), even when Jiang Cheng clearly is so broken by the loss of Wei WuXian from his life, he talks about Wei WuXian as an outsider. It is what MY family gave to YOU, never what you took from our family. But at one point Wei WuXian was part of their family - but he takes too much, and becomes an ex-disciple, not a brother. Wei WuXian’s inclusion as a Jiang was always conditional. 

Even when Wen Qing and Wen Ning leave him to go take the blame for qiongqing path they tell him "thank you and sorry", drawing a line between them and him, so he doesn’t even belong to these people who he sacrificed everything for. The way Wei WuXian acted when he was younger, he was always keenly aware of this - he always knew that he didn’t belong to anyone, no one is going to protect him unconditionally. And after first escaping the Burial Mounds, he is done pretending. When Lan WangJi warns him about what a demonic cultivation path will do to his heart, Wei WuXian replies: “After all, on the topic of how my heart is, what could other people know about it? Why should other people care about it?” He is done pleasing. Nothing has changed really, he still belongs to no one and is alone, but now he is angry about it, and instead of saying thank you and sorry he is going to become too powerful to be at anyone's mercy. And then we see in the story afterward what happens to people who don't say thank you and sorry.

The whole point I think is the impossibility of choice, the impossibility of consent in this society. If he didn't forgo the behaviour his social acceptance was conditional on, he wouldn't have survived the burial mounds. But once he becomes powerful enough to survive and get revenge on the Wens, he is socially outcast. Except he was already outcast from the beginning.

And so how do Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi find a way through all that to a life together where all their desires are possible, where Wei WuXian can say no while also being pleasing (safe) to others, and Lan WangJi can indulge in his wild desires while still being good? The answer is kinky sex!

It is kind of miraculous and beautiful how Wei WuXian finds a way to say no, while simultaneously pleasing Lan WangJi, giving pleasure, while taking it, saying no, and knowing his refusal is not just tolerated, but gives Lan WangJi pleasure, knowing Lan wangji and knowing the painful belief Lan WangJi holds within that his desires are unacceptable and unspeakable, and that Wei WuXian can take care of Lan Wangji in a secret little way and please him and give everything to him by craving this wildness in Lan WangJi while at the same time he gets to say no again and again , and it won't push Lan WangJi away, he can refuse everything while at the same time be totally pleasing and thus safe, and also for Lan WangJi, Wei WuXian's pleasure at saying "no" while still being held onto, that he genuinely wants to be fucked even while begging Lan WangJi to stop (and the many ways he does give his consent for this throughout, especially their first time), allows Lan WangJi the ecstatic feeling that this idea that his sexual desires are only possible through force are not just something his lover forgives him for but something his lover is SO turned on by, and that he has consent for his fantasies of non-consent, Wei WuXian has the same fantasies from the other side, he is doing what he is supposed to while doing what he shouldn't, and actually these monstrous feelings in him allow him to take care of Wei WuXian in a way that he needs - that they both need - and all these impulses that are so wrong with Wei WuXian become very right and a way to do good. And they are just both so perfect and perfect for each other and I love them and I am so happy for them to have a long kinky life together.