#tw religious trauma

In a Universe Far, Far Away -  Part 14 (posted on AO3)
|Part 1|Part 13|

Pairing:Din Djarin x Earthling fem!reader
Warnings: Religion and our relationships with it are complicated, Mentions of war, loss, grief, and trauma, Referencing Order 66, feelings of abandonment, shame and “the greater good” religious coding, manipulation of a child, feelings of shame about betraying family, Luke is old friends with compartmentalization, everyone has their own traumas, broken promises, and Gogu’s burning desire to eat live animals
Words: 2.8K
Tags: No reader and no Din really in this chapter, does and doesn’t follow what we saw in BOBF, so much about frogs and the force, Prequel Easter Eggs
Recommended Listens:Never Love an Anchor by The Crane Wives and Bird Song by Juniper Vale

The wind rustled the blades of grass and the leaves on the trees on the calm, green planet. It was calm, so calm. A place where one could sit in silence and reflect. That is what Master Luke wanted Grogu to do anyways.

But Grogu’s mind had other plans.

He knew he should be concentrating, he was supposed to learn… but this all felt so familiar and boring. He could hear the frogs in the nearby ponds, so many frogs… nice and tasty frogs. But no! It was time to meditate! Be serious, like the adults. He needed to learn, wanted to learn to protect himself, protect others. He didn’t like being hidden away in his bassinet all the time, didn’t want to go back there unless it was naptime.

Meditation time felt like nap time… but it wasn’t sleeping time. How odd, it should be, Grogu thought.

He felt a thread of humor touch him, the part of Grogu that was and wasn’t him. That strange sort of bubble of energy that he was able to tap into with the

Force that Master Luke had been helping him see, to control.

Naptime later, came Master Luke’s unspoken guidance.

Grogu pouted even with his eyes closed.

Never nap time when he wanted, not snack time when he wanted… 

{Continued on AO3}

Note: written pre-hollow mind

Thinking about how we’ve seen the inner self projected in The Owl House, about how it’s a reflection of the host’s current emotional state, to some degree:

(cw: religious trauma, abuse mention)

Willow’s memories are burning and she is burning, but she still looks like herself at the heart of it

and in the end we see her younger and current self, reconciled:

So if the preview images we’ve seen of younger Belos is one of these inner projections, and not a specific memory…

Then I believe it is a reflection of both vulnerability,andchildishness, in the sense of trauma recursion within an adult

So abuse was really common in early colonial America, and Puritanism/the culture at the time didn’t really provide an outlet for children to process things like this; children in their moral development go through a phase where they base decisions on punishment vs reward (rather than an internal sense of morality, which comes a little later), and under religious dogma this is conceptualized as a sign of inherent sinfulness

so there’s a solid core of trauma, that would been “”“resolved”“” with a healthy application of scripture, prayer, and silence that’s being carried within him

and then the brothers literally wind up in the demon realm, which is basically several layers of trained religious fears rolled into one island

and I wonder how younger!Philip’s childish escapism would have been flavoured. The bible would have been the only real source of leisurely reading, so I imagine it might have resembled something along the lines of overcoming this Inherent Sinfulness ™ via righteousness–and maybe something saintly

the Boiling Isles, even being terrifying and alarming as it is, is also an opportunity in some ways

so when the worst comes to pass, that Philip/Belos himself is infected by the terpitude of the island, corrupted and rotting? that he let it get insidehim? to be diseased from the inside? and that disease acts a living, conscious curse? to be trapped with a beast inside yourself?

to feel like a victim, with compromised/limited agency, and constantly faced with your inherent vileness?

In the heart, you’re still that scared child. It never got properly reconciled with your older self. It’s always a hanger on, clinging to your beliefs like a safety net