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disgruntledspacedad · 3 years

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in defense of Din’s subdued reaction to losing the kid...

gif by @quantam-widow

I know we were all thinking it. We got a 2 second reaction shot to the destruction of the Razor Crest (may she forever rest in peace), but then, Grogu gets taken, and... nothing?

What the fuck, Din? we all protest. That’s your baby on that ship! Don’t you care? Scream, curse, kick a rock, cry, make a fist, something!!

I will acknowledge that so far, the show has been excellent with giving us emotional payoff, am I right? I mean, just today we got Din laughing, twice. Twice in a row. I honestly never thought we’d see that. There have been so many excellent, precious soft!Din moments this season, and they all feel deliciously earned.

So, from a meta POV, I guess I’m saying that I have faith in the writers to get it right, and in Pedro to deliver. Duh.

In universe, though, I think it’s fair to point out the obvious - that Din is a pretty reserved guy. He’s much more of a thinker than a feeler. He’s used to keeping things bottled up, and I would even argue that his life often depends on his ability to dissociate from his emotions. Din’s entire journey so far has been about how one little baby yodito shakes his worldview to its very foundations. He’s getting there, but it’s a slow process.

And also, consider this - we haven’t seen Din alone yet, not since Grogu was taken. For a guy who lives a guarded life literally encased in fucking armor, any display of emotion is going to be carefully protected until he’s in private.

But anyway, Din is detached, rational, a little emotionally constipated, and definitely comfortable in a stressful situation. A true ISTP if you ask me (yeah, I know you didn’t, but whatever). Often, it seems that these cool headed, logical types who have never ruffled a feather over anything in their lives are the least adept at handling genuine fear. In other words, when panic does strike, it strikes them hard.

And guys, Din was definitely panicking during this episode.

He’s clearly unsettled from the jump - that outburst of “dank farrik!” in the cockpit sells it, and his distress only becomes more obvious from there. Talking out loud, trying to convince himself that the best thing for Grogu is for him to be trained as a Jedi. Reminding himself of the creed. His overt caution as they approach the seeing stone. His impatience, “Are you seeing anything??”

Then there’s the effects of long term stress. Sure, a bounty hunter in the outer rim doesn’t exactly live an easy life, but Din is definitely used to the drama being on his terms. Compare Din’s body language in the opening scene of season one to when Boba confronts him in chapter fourteen. You can just feel the anxiety, the weariness, the frustration. Din has been on the run for months now, constantly looking over his shoulder, sleeping with one eye open. Notice how he even startles at Fennec’s voice? Season one Din would never have given that much away, regardless of the situation. Long term stress has clearly taken a toll on him.

So we have unsettled, stressed out Din in an emotionally charged situation. He’s exhausted, he’s scared, he’s desperate. This scenario is a recipe for even the most level-headed of adrenaline junkies to loose their cool, and that’s exactly what happens to Din. He panics, and he makes some pretty big fuckups because of it. Leaving Grogu unprotected, twice. Trying three different times to break through that “force field,” even when he knew he couldn’t. Dropping that jetpack and then just forgetting about it (I know we were all screaming about that one, or at least, I was).

So, fear is a positive feedback loop. Those neurotransmitters that do us good in a bad situation - raising heart rate, narrowing focus, shunting blood to the muscles - can also be detrimental if we get too high of a dose - tachypnea and tachycardia, inability to think critically and see the big picture, lack of blood and oxygen to the brain. Epinephrine, in particular, even inhibits the laying down of new memory pathways. In other words, stress leads to poor performance, and poor performance leads to more stress, which leads to... you get the idea.

Then, in the middle of all this chaos, they fucking blast the Razor Crest.

More epinephrine, more cortisol, more stress.

By the end of it all, Din is a fucking shitstorm of stress hormones and pent up emotions. Notice how he seems to be on autopilot in the immediate aftermath, robotically scanning the ashes of the Crest for anything that might be left intact. Notice how empty his voice is when he says, “the child is gone.” This is a dead man walking. Din has nothing left. His whole life has just gone up in smoke, and he can do nothing about it.

Guys, Din is holding onto his sanity by a fucking thread in this scene. “The child is gone,” he says, like he’s reminding himself, grounding himself in his shitty reality. He’s stunned.

And helpless. There’s literally nothing he can do for Grogu. He has no ship, no credits, no resources, nothing to bargain with, nothing to offer. Din literally cannot allow himself the luxury of feelings right now. He’s just got to focus on surviving this very shitty day.

Then, Boba Fett upholds his end of the deal, and suddenly, Din has something to hold onto. An ally, a badass friend, some hope. I don’t think Boba shows Din that chain code in order to verify his claim on the armor - he’s already wearing it, for godssake. I think Boba shows him the code in order to catch Din’s attention - hey friend, I know you’re hurting, but I’m a man of my word. When I make a vow, I keep it. Let’s regroup and go find your kid.

And Din would totally latch onto that. A fighting chance? Din fucking leaps at it. There’s a job to do. A kid to save. All of those stress hormones are going to keep on stewing, because Din has never really come down from his adrenaline high.

It’s like this in real life, too. There isn’t time to be afraid. There isn’t time to be sad, or second-guess, or say, oh how terrible, or wonder what if it doesn’t work? There’s just you and the job, and if you are the only thing standing between life and death, you will put everything else aside and do what you have to do, for as long as you have to do it.

And that’s where Din is at this moment. He’s running on the fumes of his adrenaline, all tempered focus, all strategy and no bullshit.

Emotional shock, my therapist buddy calls it. Apparently, it’s normal. Expected, even.

But guys, the fallout of this kind of crazy ass adrenaline high is insanely intense. I’m talking collapse to the floor, legs won't hold you, trembling, crying so hard you sling snot, shuddering breaths, stare dead-eyed and spent at the ceiling because you’re just too wiped out to even sleep kind of intense.

And then, after the breakdown comes the angst. The detailed thinking. The oh god, what if this had happened, or, should I have done that instead? It seems like every emotion that gets put on the back burner in the moment comes back to bite you with twofold intensity when all is said and done.

In other words, Din is definitely going to feels some things .A lot of very intense things. A reckoning is coming, my dudes. Trust me. It’s just not quite here yet.

That being said, here’s what I can expect from Din going forward:

Just like he’s is slow to acknowledge his growing parental feelings for Grogu, I think Din’s going to be slow at processing his grief at Grogu’s loss. In the next episode, he’s got plenty to distract him - getting together his hit team to take back the kid and coordinating an attack on the empire.

However, I do think we’ll get a slow moment with Din, probably sometime at the beginning of next week’s episode if the pattern holds. I doubt it’s the full-blown breakdown that we’re all needing, but I’m willing to bet money that we’ll see Din grappling with the fact that his kid is gone. I also think that badass beskar murder machine Din from chapter three will resurface. Stress and desperation make us do irrational things, and anger is one of the stages of grief that Din will inevitably have to work through (I think he’s flickering between denial and bargaining for now).

But then, after Din gets Grogu back? I think that’s we’ll have our big, dearly earned emotional payoff.

For one thing, Din won’t be able to deny his feelings anymore. He wants to keep this kid, it’s so very obvious. Losing him just forces it all to the forefront.

And then the relief/joy/regret/guilt that Din is going to feel once he’s got Grogu back? Not to mention the physical exhaustion? All of the fear/terror/angst/grief that he ignored in favor of just going pedal to the metal, guns blazing, get the kid or die trying? That shit’s going to crash into him with all the subtly of a fucking tsunami. I guarantee you, we’re going to get some sort of confession, or adoption vow, or face revel, or other sort of profound softness from Dad!Din in the falling action of this season (At least, I hope we get it at the end this season but I wouldn’t put it past them to kick it into the premier of season three, just for pacing reasons, but then again, I obviously have trust issues).

Personally, I would love to see Din grappling with the long-term fallout of losing Grogu - night terrors, guilt, paranoia, etc. That’s probably the stuff of fanfiction - mandalorians don't have nightmares on screen, surely - but still, some lingering effects Grogu’s kidnapping would be realistic, and I would absolutely live for it.

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freshkookies97 · 7 years

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Schedule

Alright, guys! So, I figure it’s about time I posted an update on what I’m working on. I feel odd for not posting a fan-fiction in so long, and for the lack of activity on this blog. So, please allow me to explain. 🙏🏻☺️ (this is going to be very long, and there are trigger warnings, so read at your own discretion)

I have a bolded headline for those of you that would like to skip my emotional and trigger sensitive spiel.

I don’t expect any of you to actually read what’s been going on in my life, but at least I had the opportunity to release everything I’ve been holding in.

Not only have I started another blog (my third active blog total), but I’m going through immense emotional problems right now. My mom and step-dad have been fighting lately, and it honestly feels like I’m walking on glass shards for most of the day. I know they won’t get divorced because they still love each other at the end of the day, but something needs to change. Things need to be amended.

Also, school has really been stressing me out. I’m only taking two classes right now, Composition 2 and General Chemistry, and as easy as they are for me, given my education and knowledge beforehand, I’m struggling thanks to ... ... good ‘ole procrastination, one of my most difficult demons to deal with.

I’m about 6+ assignments behind in Composition 2, not only thanks to absence, but procrastination as well. Most of them are in-class assignments, some I didn’t know existed and some from absence, and the others are things like the pre-writing, outline, and rough draft of the essay that is due next Tuesday (the final draft)! I’m just having a wonderful time! (Note the sarcasm. 🙃😂)

Not to mention General Chemistry! I missed one quiz. One, and now I’m missing a whopping 50 points! Did I mention my take-home midterm is due this Saturday? I haven’t even started it, and it is now Friday. Not to worry, I’m fairly confident I can complete it efficiently. 👍🏻

I haven’t told any of this to anyone. At all. I’ve been internalizing all of this for nearly the past month. So, now, surely you can realize how stressed and overwhelmed I am, and why I haven’t been active lately. Well, let me tell you, my tale of misery doesn’t end there!

On Tuesday night, merely 30 minutes before I was supposed to be attending my 6:30pm-9:00pm Composition 2 class, my bird, the African Grey, Zeus, pulled a can, a metal can... full of food onto his foot. Now, surely, you’ve dropped a can of soup onto your foot at least once in your lifetime, right? Imagine the effect it would have on a bird that’s toes are thinner than your pinky finger.

He started bleeding. Everywhere. My mom’s arm was covered.

So, I had the fortunate opportunity of missing class to rush to the animal hospital with my mom hysterically crying in the passenger seat, arguing with me on the way I decided to take to the animal hospital. Thankfully, we had called beforehand, and the routine animal hospital we usually frequent for whatever our birds need, was able to attend to Zeus, and we, as in I, didn’t have to drive us 45 minutes away with Zeus still bleeding out. See, the danger when a bird his size starts bleeding so much is that he’s very small, which means he can lose all of the blood in his body very quickly, and well, die.

Now, you can understand my mom’s hysterics. Not only due to the risks, but it was her beloved pet! Understandable circumstances for the reaction.

So, the doctor bandaged his foot, dressed him in a plastic cone with a fleece covering over it that encircled 1/4 of his wings to prevent him from picking at the bandage, and sent us home with antibiotics and pain meds. Unfortunately, my mom had work, which meant either I or my step-dad would have to watch him in case he fell over and couldn’t get up, to calm him, etc. I was tasked with the observation first.

My mom had him wrapped in a towel (something perfectly safe, and is done in the vet’s office to handle birds), and I was to watch him and calm him. Well, not even 5 minutes later, he bit me (surely out of stress and/or frustration with the contraption encasing his body), and that’s all it took for me to have a complete mental/emotional breakdown!

It was a lovely night.

So, yeah. I’ve been having a very hard time. I won’t even begin to describe my personal feelings on these matters, and the depression that’s been plaguing me for the past 1-2 weeks. I’ll just say that it’s been rough, and get onto what I’m sure everyone is anticipating: a schedule!

Or the shell of a schedule, anyways, because nothing has a set date. 🙃

*** NO MORE TRIGGER WARNINGS FROM HERE ON ***

Schedule/Update:

First off, I would like to state that I’m considering a sequel to “White Lilies,” featuring Taehyung and reader, should anyone be interested, message me or comment on this post if you would like me to write it!

Now, to begin with what I’m working on!

An unnamed Jimin and fem!reader, and Hobi and fem!reader fan-fiction in which Jimin and Hobi are reader’s dance teachers, and both of them are in love with her, unbeknownest to reader, of course. This was inspired by the Highlight Reel that BigHit released. I have to thank one of my real life best friends, @kpopworldposts, for providing me the idea, and aiding in the construction of the plot. Also for her continuous support of my works, including being the first person to read any fan-fiction I write that I think I might actually complete. 😂 /// Genre: Romance, Angst. Expected completion: — ? It’s honestly nowhere near completion. I haven’t even named it! 😞 However, if anybody would like a teaser of what I’ve written so far, I will gladly provide! I was already contemplating it to be honest.

Other than that, I don’t really have anything planned. I have a few other fan-fictions that I’m heavily working on, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever post them, mostly because they’re heavily filled with angst and personal insecurities.

I’m sorry that there are so few things to look forward to regarding fan-fictions I’m writing. Feel free to message me if there’s anything you’d like me to write! My inbox will always be open. ☺️

Thank you to those of you who took the time to read my spiel. I appreciate it. I know it was lengthy, and probably not very interesting, but it means a lot to me that you took time out of your day to read what’s been going on in my life. I’ve been having difficulties with recognizing my worth in other people’s lives, so I’m really grateful if you decided to read it. Thank you. 💙

I will try to post more as often as I can, but those of you that read my rant know that I have a lot going on. So, I won’t bore you with even more details, just know that I’m doing what I can when I can.

My blog mostly runs on queue now, and I think that’s how it’ll be for a while until I fix myself and my problems. Not an easy task, but I know I can do it. It will just take time. So, forgive me for the lack of activity. I’m trying my best.

I look forward to posting my next fan-fiction, starring Jimin, Hobi, and reader in their angst and romance filled love triangle.

Thank you again. 💜

Stay strong.

~ Alexis ~

🌸

#schedule #personal #update #trigger warning #tw: Blood #tw: mental illness #tw: negativity

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